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The most inexcusable (vs. just bang head on the wall infuriating) on the list right now are Machado, Harper and Rodon. Tatis was the lottery ticket from a stupid trade that struck gold. They offered Wheeler more money, so nothing they could have done. But they tried to friends and family Machado, didn't court Harper as hard, and the Rodon situation is just fucking stupid. I keep picturing this year's team with Harper in right and Rodon as the #2. That was perfectly realistic, but Jerry has to "win" every contract.

You just did more research and put in more time than the actual front office of this team will put into signing this guy. Kudos.

And those like Ozzie who don't fear they will sound dumb, but often do.

This just isn't true. When he first came up, every ball he hit was crushed, and he teamed that with a solidly patient approach at the plate. He definitely needed coaching on that as he got himself in trouble with strikeouts at first, but he looked like an absolutely dynamic player.

After their Super Bowl win, the Bears drafted a running back. They knew Walter Payton didn't have much time left, and they thought ahead. The Abreau is almost the same. Jose doesn't have many years left and the Sox have to act. This is nothing against Abreau. It is just the normal cycle of a team turning to a younger player.

TA's bat epic bat flip in April put the Sox up 2-0 in the fourth inning. While they weren't behind, there was still plenty of game left and many including the Royal's thought it was uncalled for. Not sticking up for Naylor but at least his actions took place in a playoff game where every play is a big moment. Certainly a HR to bring your team within 1 run is cause to celebrate, but put your head down and round the bases and celebrate with your team. The main difference I see is TA was trying to fire up his team, where Naylor's actions were directed at a player.

I’m really surprised at how hard I am rooting against Cleveland this series. F Cleveland.

For once it would nice if the White Sox hired someone that doesn't put them at an in-game tactical disadvantage. 10 years of managerial incompetence is enough already.

I sure hope Rick Hahn's seat at the table keeps him warm while at home watching the stars he couldn't sign lead their teams to post season success.

The long-awaited SoftBank Hawks ace, Kodai Senga, is finally free. There's a TL;DR at the end. After begging his team to post him for at least five years to no avail, he used his domestic free agent leverage last offseason to get him an extension with opts outs every season, and after one year -- to absolutely no one's surprise -- he announced his intent to exercise promptly after the Hawks were eliminated from the playoffs. Senga is NOT the typical NPB import starter -- he's had the best raw stuff in Japan for most of the last decade, rivalled only by Ohtani and just recently by the 20-year old phenom Roki Sasaki. By contrast, his control is not strong. I've had a pleasure of watching a TON of his innings over the last five years, here's my personal breakdown: Summary: He's a 30-year old, mid-sized, true three-quarter right hander who bends the bill of his hat at nearly a 90-degree angle. Arsenal/Stuff: 4-Seam Fastball -- sits 96 - 100, has topped out at 102, and holds the velo well into the late innings. Legit MLB plus Slider -- very bendy, usually relatively hard, high-spin rate, two-plane slider. Gets strikes by locking guys up rather than by deceiving them, also likes to backdoor lefties with it. Think more like a Chris Sale-style slurvy thing rather than a Carlos Rodon-style late-breaker that drops out of the zone but looks like a fastball for the first half of it's trajectory. It's not as good of a pitch as either of those aforementioned comps, but I think it's a pitch that will be plus at times but often play down when he's not locating it. (NOTE: Sometimes he seems to try to throw it soft, maybe this counts as a cutter as I've seen people write that he has one over the years, but whatever it is he shouldn't do it because the slows his arm way down and it just doesn't move a ton, which I've always imagined should telegraph the pitch.) Splitter -- This is his best pitch, it even has a nickname: "The Ghost Fork." This is, effectively, your Rodon slider: goes straight until it gets like 50-60% there and then just abruptly shifts 30 degrees down with a bit of fade. Incredibly effective in conjunction with his hard fastball. MLB plus pitch. Curve -- It's a hard, tight breaking 12-6 that doesn't drop quite far enough to be a consistent swing-and-miss offering. This is effective as a show-me pitch, good for grabbing strike one and for the element of surprise 5-6 times a start, but it's not going to carry any of his appearances. Command/Control: Not good. It's not Nuke LaLoosh or anything, but he misses the glove as often as he hits it, and often by quite a bit. Early in his career he would meltdown occasionally with walks, but it's more "wild in the zone" these days. I'm am nothing even remotely close to qualified to diagnose mechanical issues, but if I was a betting man, I'd wager that a lot of his challenges stem from his pretty extreme "head whack." Notice how violently his head jerks as he starts his follow-through, especially on fastballs: He's crushed the NPB because his stuff has been overwhelming, and even though it's good even for MLB, it's a real question as to whether it'll be dominant enough to make up for the location issues, particularly if he's going to continue to be a starter. I will say, from what I've seen he very rarely HANGS anything, but his pitches frequently end up in places they should not. Health/Durability: He's been nicked up a bit the past few years, but the injuries have been scattered and the serious ones haven't been arm-related (though a couple have been shoulder-related, mostly earlier in his career). The most notable was a freak accident of years ago, he had started the year on the DL for some vague reason, and in what I want to say was his FIRST start back, he got drilled by a comebacker and landed awkwardly on his ankle, resulting in some kind of sprain or fracture that cost him like half the season. Doesn't seem to have had any long-term effect on his stuff. He holds his velo very deep in starts. I've seen him hit 100 in the 8th inning multiple times. Interestingly enough, he was somehow not drafted as an actual prospect (he was picked up as a "development squad player," which is essentially the MLB equivalent of an undrafted free agent) and began his career as a reliever, so he's got relatively fewer innings on his arm than the typical 30-year old NPB ace. Other Notes: For whatever it's worth: A couple years ago, Hawks broadcasts used to show spin rate on every pitch along with velo. It was amazing, and I hate that they stopped. But I used to compare his rates with what Statcast showed, and every pitch was comfortably above MLB average. I am legitimately worried about his control, but I can't help but think that if he fails as a starter, he could be a very safe bet as a high-leverage reliever because you so rarely see a starter's arsenal in that role these days Unlike a lot of NPB pitchers, he does NOT like to f*** around with breaking balls high in the zone. I think this is one of the things that helps him get away with the poor control. If he would have been posted at 26 or whatever when he originally started asking, he'd have been a $100-200m arm with no doubt. At 30 with a touch of injury-history, I think he's looking at a shorter deal but still with some real money because the spin and velo are legit. The arsenal isn't nearly as deep, but the stuff is every bit as good as Darvish/Ohtani when they came over. You never know, but I tend to doubt that there's much that can be done to substantially improve to location stuff, just given his age and the head-whack thing. If you only watch one video, watch this next one -- real good look at the splitter and a close-up of the head-whack at 1:22: TL;DR -- MLB #2 starter-level stuff/arsenal, 7th-inning reliever-style control. I think a LOT of teams will be in at 3 years/$45-60m because he's a very safe bet to be a contributor -- even if he can't start, he can almost certainly set-up or close -- but if some sees something they think they can fix that would improve his control, I wouldn't be shocked if they gave him up to 5 years. The White Sox will, unsurprisingly, not even kick the tires.

I feel like if that guy did have real sources and decided to start a podcast talking about behind the scenes rumors...he's gonna lose those sources real fast.

Personally I'm waiting for chili dog to say it. If it comes from the chili himself - I know it is true.

Not sure, but I'm confident that there are plenty of Yonder Alonsos available in trade.

Not to mention, there are a lot of players who do understand English, and can speak it a bit, but choose not to, because they fear they will sound dumb.

No but Mercedes is.

Great fit on the southside! Are you f'ing kidding me? Hell no Kelly! Washington will be 71 yrs old next season. I'm sorry, but we don't need anymore 70 plus manager retreads.

I think most Sox fans would wish him good luck, but shocked why Jose didn't choose a better team closer to winning a world series. I'm not sure the Cubs fans would be so ecstatic as Jose is going to be 36 years old on the back end of his career. As far as Contreras being signed, I would do that in a New York minute. Sox fans would be thrilled and Cubs fans would be pissed and jealous, but that's how I like it to be.

Don't be so fast to discount this theory.... GONE Soon to be gone??

I would argue they aren't really preventable, maybe the non contact type, but a large majority of knee injuries in professional sports is because of contact that you just cant protect against. Obviously, this is overwhelmingly tilted towards football.

There is zero good reason to just DFA Grandal. If someone would actually pick up 50%+ of his deal, or we could swap him for another overpaid vet on a 1 year deal that solves a hole, perhaps. But just cutting him doesn't make much sense when you're paying him $18M.25 regardless. May as well bring him into spring training and see how the knees look, and try to glean some value out of him in a part time role. Sox have 2 in house options that should be at least league average in tandem as backstops, so just eating Grandal's $18.25M doesn't really make any sense at all.

I'm sure there are some really good coaches working for bad teams and bad managers and xice versa. Even if the Sox plan to hire one of the older more expensive guys, these types are going to be mentioned that the Sox really like if nothing else but to try to lower the price on the main target.

Yeah I don't understand why teams are all interviewing this guy. The Royals have sucked for years. Being Matheny's bench coach doesn't really expose you to smart baseball decisions. Espada has at least been with Houston for a long time and is exposed to winning baseball.

I disagree there. Strength and flexibility of the supporting muscles around the knee, along with preventing excess strain on the knee through (in his case as a pitcher) proper landing mechanics, can prevent knee injuries. Sure you can't account for everything, but knee injuries are preventable, at least the "wear-and-tear" types of ones, and also meniscus tears (typically caused by excessive torqueing / twisting).

This was exactly the problem. They finished 60 games over .500 and were #1 or #2 in almost all hitting and pitching stats. They were 9-3 against the Padres during the season. A good manager gets his players to that next level or gear in the playoffs. This is the second year in a row they were the favorites to win the World Series both before and after both regulars seasons. They were 106-58 in 2021 and 111-51 in 2022 with home field advantage in both years and could not make it to the World Series with arguably the best team in baseball. When Andrew Friedman spends the most money in baseball to get the top star free agents and has one of the top ranked farm systems to bring up talent, I'm sorry, but it's not the fault of the FO that this team is chocking in the playoffs. Maybe this is an example of Robert can only get the Dodgers from point A to point B and Friedman needs a manager to get them to point C.

If Pedro Grifol is so good why wouldn't the Royals just hire him? I had never heard of the guy before the Sox interviewed him.

If Moncada didn't have all of his offensive talent stolen by Covid, we might not even be pining for Machado right now either. Harper and Rodon though could have carried this team to the top of the AL Central and have them fighting for a spot in the ALCS. The stupid and shortsighted White Sox Way haunts them yet again.

Not sure what the benefit is apart for playoff game eligibility (if we make it). I was a bleacher holder for I think like $~25ish a ticket. I couldve gotten bleachers and brews for the same ticket but with 2 beers for $27.

Yup. There's celebrating and then there's plain old disrespect. Naylor was trying to disrespect Cole to get into his head.

Eminor should be in the Sox FO.

This! I love Jose, but unfortunately the roster construction doesn't allow him to be here. If they trade Vaughn for some mlb talent, that could work too, but then Abreu is going to be 37 next year.

Nah, they didn’t do much after they went to the World Series, they went up like 15m and next year 30m and then dropped right back down 50m. They just keep counting on the milb pipeline and savvy trades which honestly has worked pretty well for them

Cribbage is my favorite card game. Let’s trade for Francona. 🎲(I couldn’t find a deck of cards so I defaulted to a die)

The knee and shoulder are both joints that consist of bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, bursa, etc. To claim that the shoulder or knee are just bones is inaccurate at best.

I've never seen a guy celebrate like he hit a walk off homer when his team was still down 1 in the middle of the game.

He seems like a guy who is great at keeping his team motivated and ready during the season and then never pushes the right buttons in the postseason.

The difference between winner's and loser's. Tatis > Shields Machado > Jon Jay and Yonder Alonso Harper > Dallas Keuchel and Yasmani Grandal Wheeler > Lance Lynn Rodon > Velasquez, Kelly, Diekman, and Graveman Cleveland's defense > White Sox playing first baseman in the outfield

I think Washington would be an improvement over Tony, but we desperately need someone who will bring a more modern approach to the role. Ron would be great to fill out a staff, but we should strive higher for our manager spot.

The people saying to let him go are not “tired of Jose.” Has nothing to do with his personality or attitude or anything like that.

Word on the street is that they are planning on signing Brandon Nimmo’s brother in law and best friend.

Any Manny Machados available this winter?

Bruce Levine is the TLR of journalism, out of touch and barely cognitive.

The group that owns the Dodgers now comes to mind that franchise was a joke under Fox as I recall.

You know Jason is a play by play guy right? I don't even like him but to say your play by play guy has to be a former player, you may be looking awhile

One wonders how one would find a schtick up one's backside, but that's just one.

Smart teams out there will see a lot of underachievers as well as the potential that a guy like Yoan Moncada has. If they believe in their player development enough there is a superstar in there if you can figure out how to get it out of him. Obvious Tony and Frank weren't those guys.

Lol I wasn’t really saying I think it’s likely or realistic. Just thinking out loud for fun. I forgot the name of this site is called “Budgettalk” for a minute.

I get trying to make each season profitable but, let's be honest, with few exceptions we see the biggest gains in franchise value through simple asset appreciation. Reinsdorf and company bought this team for $20M....it's now worth (conservatively) $2billion. And they want to stick it to the fans after a b.s. season? They want to whine about payroll? Here's a helpful hint to ol' Jerr...you're about to die soon. If you want this team to climb in value on your way out the door, get to spending and improve your product. Build the fanbase, increase the TV deals, sell more STs. Dicking over fans while your initial investment has grown nearly 10,000% over the past 40 years is just disgusting, especially given the lack of competitive seasons this franchise has mustered over the decades under Reinsdorf.

Cleveland front office good … … we have Rick Hahn

Here's a Tribune headline when GR took over White Sox get no new money from naming rights deal with Guaranteed Rate By Peter Matuszak