SoxBlanco

His injury history might scare some teams away, but it shouldn't scare us as much. With Kopech and Rodon waiting in the wings, we have a solution should he miss time.

I feel the exact same way.

Agreed. Although I’m guessing that would take Grandal off the table.

Haha, I thought the same thing. I was 99% sure he was kidding.

@Look at Ray Ray Run, thanks for doing that. It's pretty interesting stuff.

His point was that there is no chance the Cubs don't pick up his option.

If we can land any two of the top 7 guys (Cole, Strasburg, Bumgarner, Keuchel, Ryu, Odorizzi, Wheeler), I will be extremely happy. If we land one of the top 7 guys and then land one of the lower-tier options (Hamels, Wacha, Wood, Miley, etc.), I will be content.

Yeah, I figured it would be confusing because of that reason, but I wanted to get the point across that Gonzalez and Walker had pretty similar seasons in A-ball (one year apart). I think Gonzalez is underrated around here because of his down year, but AA is a huge adjustment, and he got better as the year went on. His BB rate stayed the same from A to AA, and his K rate actually improved after moving to Birmingham. His knock this year was a lack of power, but he slugged .504 at Winston Salem compared to Walker slugging .426 at the same level and at the same age.

Luis Gonzalez in his age 22 A-ball season.

Correct

Yes...same age, same level.

Player A: .307 BA, .866 OPS, 19.0 K %, 8.9 BB % Player B: .284 BA, .811 OPS, 14.8 K %, 9.5 BB % Simply going by these stats, which player do you like more?

I’m admittedly bias because he’s always been one of my favorite prospects, but I think Luis Gonzalez will have a nice bounce back year to get back on the map and be in the mix for a big league spot in 2021.

I agree. If Cole is unrealistic, I want Wheeler, Keuchel, a bullpen arm, Grandal, and a one-year RF.

I stopped reading when I got to the "Trade Moncada" part. Was the rest of the post decent?

With all of our upcoming outfield prospects (you would hope one of them pans out) and the quality OF free agents next year, I think a stopgap RF is exactly what we should be looking at for this year. This would allow us to fill a hole with minimal cost while we throw more money at pitching, which is the greater need at this point. I want two starting pitchers, one bullpen piece, Grandal or a DH, and a stopgap RF. If there were better RF free agents available, then I would want to look at a long term signing. But all of the RF free agents have flaws.

This would not be true if we signed Grandal first.

You forgot three important steps: 1. Increase payroll to $170M in 2021 by signing Betts. 2. Win the World Series. 3. Celebrate.

He's talking about Holt and Dickerson. He thinks either of those two guys can be signed for a max of $10 million per year.

Huh? We were 72-89. That's literally 17 games under .500. Yes, if we were 9 games better, we would have won 81 games, but it's pretty obvious where the 17 games came from.

Fox Sports Chicago. Their usual channel.

I’m ok with that as long as we add a legit DH, like JDM.

I wish we would have lost our DH on multiple occasions this year. We'd probably have a better output from that spot in the lineup.

I'm starting to think that Grandal should be the first target because whether or not we sign him will affect who else we go after. If we can't sign Grandal, that means McCann and Collins will be the catchers, and somebody like JDM would make sense at DH. But if we do sign Grandal, then there is no need for an additional DH because Grandal, McCann, Collins, and Abreu will just rotate between 1B, DH, and C. Overpay Grandal right away. Last year, he turned down a contract of 4 years, 60 million. If we offer him 3 for $65 right off the bat, will that be good enough to get him to sign immediately?

This. Why would somebody fall on the sword for a shitty record in a rebuilding year when many core pieces played well?