WestEddy

"Miguel Vargas is who we thought he was".

If that was the offer (4/40), I could see Boras taking it with player opt-outs after every year. That does nothing for the team. If he's opting in after the first year, something has gone horribly wrong.

I see Robert's value as one year at somewhere between $5 and $10 because his career has fallen off the table, and he has to rebuild his value. Were he to hit the market after a healthy 3+ bWAR 2026 season, he could certainly get Anthony Santander's 5/92.5 (Santander had a QO penalty attached).

I thought there have been multiple reports that the Sox would be willing to eat money on Robert and Benny.

It actually does. Credibility is a commodity. If you walked into a new car dealership and offered $10k for that $55k list price pickup truck, you'd have a hard time getting a salesperson's attention after that.

4/40 isn't a reasonable offer for either party and multiple people here have explained why.

There's also about 8 teams in playoff contention for whom Sosa would be a definite offensive upgrade at 2nd, if that's a thing being bandied about.

Oh. I read the wrong line in Baseball-Reference.com. Drinking after 60, and all. But my main point still stands. Well beyond the situation of the TDL coming up next week, 4/40 is a strange, in-between number that doesn't hit anything that Robert might be. And Robert would have no reason to tear up the existing contract and replace it with something worse, especially with a team that seemingly has him drained and pressing. Robert taking 4/40 would tell me that he knows he's not worth 10/300 anymore, in which case, you can just keep signing M.A.T.'s and Austin Hays to 1-year deals the next 4 years and get better value.

I find this confusing. Who's offering this 4/40? The White Sox or another team? If it's the White Sox, Scott Boras would say, "We already have a contract. Let us know if you're picking up the $20M option, or buying it out." If the White Sox buy him out, then he hits the free agent market. Robert falls into one of 3 boxes: A) He's "that dude", and everybody knows it B) He's "that dude", he just needs to prove it for a full season C) He's not "that dude", but he's a great platoon CF, or a below average bat, above average glove If he's A, the Sox are picking up his next 2 option years. If they don't, he hits the market and gets 4/150, or 10/300. If he's B or C, he hits the market and signs a one year deal to prove himself. Probably for $10-15M. That 4/40 number you keep trotting out is just a weird, in between offer. It's too cheap for too many years. Or too expensive for too many years. If Robert were to jump at your 4/40, that would mean that Robert thinks he's C, and wants to grab whatever's being offered. Austin Hays was a productive (2.5+ bWAR) OF who was non-tendered after a down year due to injury. He signed a 1 year deal for $12M to rebuild his value.

And even calling it a "problem" feeds into the game here. My guess is that veterans take a rookie when they see a slump developing and go talk to them. It's not a clubhouse problem. It's the normal course of life. Coming out of the All-Star break, a couple of vets stepped up and decided to focus the team on some feedback Venable talked about recently. There's no problem, it's not bad, and to frame it as such is silly.

The picture looks like the cover of their 3rd album, Moon Rage Candy, an electronica departure from their previous work.

And Kopech probably could have been thrown in with a minimum of whining on their part.

Veteran leadership is no joke:

That, and moving the schedule of the rookie leagues up. There's also the elimination of the short season leagues that would be the catch-all for the college draftees.

They say that drinking over the age of 60 is even more deleterious. Go figure. fixed. Thanks

The White Sox would have to go 47-15 just to finish above .500, and they just knocked off their 3 easiest games of the third hardest schedule of the 2nd half.

We're looking at Baz, Rassmussen and Bradley. A step up from Falter, Heaney and Burrows.

Looks like the Rays just turned the O's into deadline sellers. A 4-2 road trip would be nice. 5-1 great, and 6-0 will make me insufferable.

Winnah!! First road sweep since 2022.

And our record in 1 run games remains unchanged.

Slater and Taylor definitely have value, too. Tyler Alexander could be a guy that a team who has missed out on every bullpen lefty gets with some DSL arm. And I really don't know if the Sox see Eisert as a dude going forward, or just a fix and flip candidate.

Is Connor McCullough a thing?

Dare I say it, Cruz looks as goofy as Eloy playing outfield.

1) I guess I meant that of the guys who will be available to play 2nd base next spring, Sosa would be the worst, defensively. 2) That was probably a gross over-ask by the Mets, just to move a convo along. It does say to me that Sosa is on other teams' radar, now.