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Yup

He’s made his share of both cheap and dumb baseball decisions.

Or maybe Getzy is planning to use that big new Japanese scout to pursue some big Japanese free agents…

I just wonder if maybe the dope has learned his lesson from jumping out in front to sign Austin Slater before anyone else could get him... only to realize the rest of the market has made veterans who don't warrant big guarantees wait until later in the off-season to even be considered.

Don't you think Jerry is saving up for a big splash?

I’m hoping Jerry might be more inclined to sign some decent sized contracts knowing Ishbia is on the hook for the back half.

Yeah making the playoffs in any way is house money for this team this year. Seeding and getting a bye would be great things to worry about, but you gotta get in first.

I think the Sox are legitimately trying to compete by 2027. For that they need a CF. We have some goodwill built up with Robert and Boras (giving him this $20). Boras is only an obstacle as he wants his client to make the most money. Sox will have money to spend. JR is not as cheap as people make out on here...he's just a businessman. Low payrolls with low attendance, high payroll with high attendance.

I would trade him for a comp pick centered deal in a heartbeat. One of those picks with our bonus pool would be awesome. But who knows, we’ll have to wait and see.

then you just keep him and hope he puts up 250/300/470 at which point he would coming July. If he doesn't oh well C'est la vie,

You have to be realistic, Robert isn't bringing back a top 100 guy.

Well if that's what he's getting Robert def still has some value as fellow bounceback.

It will have been 22 years since they had a payroll as low as they're about to have. League revenues have tripled since then. Adjusting for inflation and revenue growth, this will be the lowest White Sox payroll since I have a record.

Teams are still going to try out new vendors and compile data from them on the down low. This will only stop the teams who are not creative enough to hide their unapproved tech.

Right, Robert is in his prime playing years and the only players in the system who could potentially play CF are 12th rounder Ely Brown and 19-year-old Marcelo Alcala. Dumping him without a realistic replacement in place would be negligence. At his absolute worst, he's still a useful player, one of the best defensive players in the league, and he's probably more so the offensive player he showed to be after returning from the IL (293/.349/.459, 124 wRC+) than what he's shown over the last 2 seasons. Although, if the Sox could trade Robert and get Jake Meyers in a different deal, I'd be pretty happy with that. Still, I'd wait to trade him and see if he can rebound to 5.0 WAR form. I'd rather gamble and get nothing than trade him for less than what Gregory Santos netted as another poster suggested.

Robert has played about 120 games a year on average the last three years. He's only 28. We have no legit centerfielders in the system. He is an elite defender with some power. Increased his walk rate to 10%. Stole 33 bases at an 80% success rate. I know he's not the super star we all hoped...but isn't that a useful player as your #9 hitter? What about extending him 3 years for $45.

They're two of the other major sport examples we have in the US, so feel free to find ones you think are more applicable. Baseball does not have a significant parity problem compared to the other sports. Of the three sports I referenced: The NBA has had 13 different teams win the championship since their soft cap began in 1985 (32.5%). There are seven teams with more than 2 championships during that time (Lakers 9, Bulls 6, Spurs 5, Warriors 4, Celtics 3, Pistons 3, Heat 3), which account for 82.5% of the total championships. The NFL has had 15 teams win the Super Bowl since the salary cap began in 1994 (48.4%). There are three teams with more than 2 championships during that time (Patriots 6, Chiefs 3, Broncos 3), which account for 38.7% of the total championships. MLB has had 14 different teams win the World Series since the luxury tax began in 1997 (50%). There are four teams with more than 2 championships during that time (Red Sox 4, Yankees 3, Giants 3, Dodgers 3), accounting for 46.4% of the total championships. MLB has the the largest % of different teams win, and is in the middle of the three for 3+ championships won by a team. If anything it seems like more restrictive salary caps are harmful to parity, or at best don't make a difference.

Yes, no one is doing anything against the bylaws of MLB going into an under-the-table agreement for analytics because those bylaws don't exist yet, so the only examples we have are in other areas, like sign stealing. Sign stealing is ubiquitous in MLB, and there were two big scandals about it that were particularly egregious. If teams are bending MLB's rules with this then they're for sure going to try to bend them in other areas. Also, you brought up enterprises treating governance as sacrosanct, not me. You're flat out wrong about that, and there's no reason to assume baseball teams would act any differently. If you don't think someone with interesting data or a new way of measuring things is going to take a bunch of money to provide that info or tool to an MLB team under the table as a "trial" or whatever nonsense phrasing they invent to justify it then BOY do I have a crypto deal that's perfect for you!

Look no further than hiring buddies and yesmen.

How much excess value though in a trade?

Kim re-ups with the Braves at 1/20M

Sports with a salary cap still have a collection of consistently hopeless teams and a collection of consistently good teams. You don't solve for parity by restricting spending. Teams hire cap wizards and test all sorts of other tactics to navigate those restrictions. The salary cap is seldom an issue for good NFL teams if they want to keep a player or sign one. The NBA has been a super team league for most of the years since the mid 80s when they instituted a soft cap - if teams want to sign or trade for someone, they will. I think only one trade was ever vetoed by the commissioner's office. Baseball has the luxury tax, but smart teams are deferring money to work around that. All a hard cap would do is change how the Dodgers structure contracts to sign or trade for whoever they want.

I'd rather sign nobody than waste 20 million on two bums that will just take up roster spots while producing 1 WAR.

Teams cheat with organizational backing all the time - we saw two huge scandals with the Astros and Red Sox in the last 7-8 years, and there have been rumors about a bunch of others. You've also said it yourself - advantages are often small and very difficult to come by, so there's a ton of pressure to seek them wherever you can, even if it's in an area that's technically "cheating" (like relatively sophisticated sign stealing). If someone out there is doing something interesting with data or analytics but they're not approved by MLB, I guarantee a team is still going to talk to them and figure out a way to leverage that data to see if it's useful. I'm sure they're doing it in other sports, too, though we don't ever hear about it - you can't wear unapproved wearables during a game in the NBA, for example, but who knows what they're doing at practice during simulated games. That data over the course of a full season's worth of practices is going to have some value. This is well beyond the scope of this discussion, but governance and controls for "back alley deals" and other similar violations fail ALL THE TIME in enterprise organizations. It's so common that questions about what to do if you find yourself in this situation are part of every security and compliance training.

Jerry is cheap...not dumb. I presume, at the end of the day, it depends on what the deal is.

I don’t know how you could have Vargas, Sosa, and Vientos on the same team. They are all basically variations of the same player.

Please. These guys aren't solving climate change or building AI models. They are funding baseball teams. I am not interested in excuses for Jerry.

The Ishbia’s are the majority owners of the White Sox right now. They may not have a controlling interest, but they have gained significant influence with their recent buy-outs and the future deal that’s in place to take over the franchise. While I certainly don’t think any major moves happen this offseason (think A tier free agents), I don’t think anyone can say with a level of certainty that we won’t see any operating changes until 2029. I believe we start seeing the Ishbia impact, even if moderate, as soon as this offseason.

This is so going to be you this Christmas

I'm not sure what the obsession is with this free-market philosophy in baseball. Of course technology and data should be normalized, and teams should be forced to compete on the same grounds. That is how it is in every other major sport in the world. This idea that money should buy infinite edge is bad for competitive balance in athletics. Pretending that Reinsdorf has the same resources as Guggenheim is laughable, and I love to hate on Jerry as much as the next guy. The fact is that some brands will always have greater value and market share (Yankees, Dodgers) and that brand equity shouldn't generate a competitive advantage for their clubs. It's bad enough the sport has no salary cap or floor, but add in all those other little edges and you see competitive balance deteriorate.

Honestly, the Sox aren't spending any real amount until both the team is a lot better and the 2027 labor problems are settled and behind us. I am not sure why people are getting their hopes up for no good reason, but knowing Jerry's 45 year history and the current state of this franchise, it doesn't even make sense.

Garcia will slot into RF for the Phillies per their beat writer. Despite citing the OF as a possible need for the Sox, Garcia was never going to be a realistic option for us given his free swinging ways. IMO, this only helps the value of Robert as mediocre corner OFs are getting decent sized salaries.

I think there was one play yesterday where I was pissed at Caleb. It was the 4th and 3 around the Cleveland 45 and he had Kmet wide open in the flat for a first down. I don't even think he looked his way in the 4 seconds he had before he took a sack. Those are the drive sustaining plays he has to hit to take his game to the next level.

Not sure if this helps or hurts Robert’s value. They’ve been about the same hitter the past two seasons, but Robert brings more to the table and will start the season 5 years younger. Is that worth the difference? Who knows. If anything maybe it’ll put some pressure on the Mets.

The cost for internal team performance personnel goes up now - if the only advantage you can wring out of the same sets of data is the quality of people working with it, those people can command more $ for their expertise. Same thing if they ever eventually set a max on number of analytics people per-team. Constraining supply doesn't constrain demand, it just makes the supply more expensive.

5.5 mil with a 1.25 mutual buyout.....not bad. Would've been fine with that here.

Prior to the agreement with Ishbia I believe his son was going to take over the team, which might have been a deterrent for kicking the can down the road. Now that it’s not his son, maybe? I’m expecting him to pull the football away like he’s always seemingly done, but circumstances are a little different. I don’t think this is the off-season they go for it, regardless.

The Bears have gone miles above how far they should have reasonably progressed this year. What this really tells us is exactly how bad the coaching was before Ben Johnson got here, that there is THIS much extra winning in the roster vs last year with minimal changes.

Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle is tragic. That guy was a narrator of my childhood and teenage years, he made and was involved in some of the best movies I have seen

The entire fortune of the organization just changed drastically. The 2025 Sox just had one of the best possible years for a rebuilding team. They found a manager with exciting potential, they identified the foundation of an exciting core of guys, and they landed the first overall pick, in a draft with two elite talents at the top in the best draft class in several years. Rebuilds mean nothing if ownership doesn’t spend the money to augment the roster, but the is rebuild is super promising.

Ah ok, so it's better the Lions lost, I was being greedy and looking for the #1 NFC spot but just making the playoffs would be huge for our favorite franchise going forward. Gotta reel in my mouth breathing Bears fan inside me haha. Love the progress, more improvement needed with Caleb and the defense.

No, that is stupid. The Bears have 10 wins with three games to go. If they lose on Saturday, but won the next two, they aren’t missing the playoffs with 12 wins.

I mean, what a day in the NFL, this league never fails to create story after story. Bears have basically a perfect day with the Packers and Lions losing, Pack suffer injuries to Watson and Parsons, Chiefs dynasty may have officially ended today, Rivers comes back…

massive game on Saturday

This is missing an arrow from SS to C. It’s called the TA line. im sorry but that will never stop being funny (to me)

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Did Bellinger turn 35? Cuz that’s when the Sox will have a chance at signing him.

I figure if I keep saying it, it’s bound to eventually come to true right? That money we’ll save in a Robert trade has to be redeployed elsewhere.

Twitter is full of it. Even dinguses saying they will trade the pick like that’s a real thing.