nrockway

I'm going with $115 mil max. subtract Cease's ~$10mil (can you retain the salary if he's traded before arbitration hearings? I don't think so), add about $2mil in pre-arb contracts from that deal, puts the projected payroll at about ~$110m. I tend to think we'll roll with Perez/Lee at catcher and that there's enough infield depth to avoid re-signing Elvis or a similar player. I don't see any point in spending on pitching, there are 13+ guys who are at least AAAA quality without Cease, unless you really want to spend 8 or 9 mil on a guy like Hyun-Jin Ryu or Carrasco. I wouldn't. Could possibly add someone in the Rule 5 draft too. Probably just need some outfield depth. Haseley was DFA'd today to add DeJong, could see Remillard being DFA'd for that purpose. But who to add? I wouldn't mind adding Kiermaier as a super-sub or to even start in RF but that seems very unlikely. Who else is really available? Someone of Trayce Thompson's caliber at $1-5mil. Or add someone in the Rule 5 draft. I bet they'd really love to get under $100mil. But will any team be willing to take on the majority of Moncada's salary?

You're right, the division is up for grabs, the Brewers will certainly be worse and I had a dream (prophecy) that Bellinger will go home and sign with the DBacks on a giant deal (or I read it 'rumored' somewhere but can't where. I'm going with vision). Their position players are running out of time to do anything. Might as well go all in the next two years. Still, I don't think they'd want to part with Winn who is probably starting at short next season. He's the main guy I'd want back, fits perfectly at 2B on the Sox or realistically at SS with Montgomery moving to 3B. depends on Ramos I guess.

looks like a fair deal. too bad, was still hoping we could get Winn and Hence out of them

I'd be looking at the guys the Dodgers couldn't protect. Joel Ibarra comes to mind, great stuff but no control. Which other teams have loaded 40 man rosters, ie no space to protect guys?

Overpay for lee jung-hoo and I’ll be happy. Offer him at least $100m/5, well higher than benintendi or yoshida. Risk worth taking for a 25-year-old whose game may or may not translate (great contact, dubious pop). Is this the free agency discussion thread?

IDK it depends what lEaDeRsHiP costs but vet leadership shouldn't be ignored, especially a guy that gives the boss legitimacy (Grifol). depends if Quero joins the MLB roster this season, which I kind of doubt. there's a point to be made that "team chemistry" is derived from team performance, but this team will be a loser next season and there's still young guys that need to stay focused for 162 games.

Sorry for the delay, I am traveling and sort of forgot about this post. Very much appreciate your knowledge and specific insight into this issue. I lived in Berkeley for a bit and thought the Howard Terminal site was a perfect place for a ballpark and fit perfectly within the comprehensive redevelopment of that area; and despite some of those concessions you mention, I thought Oakland was getting fucked over just "giving away" the land to the A's. I hope they can find a better use for it, but my (biased) opinion is that a ballpark fit perfectly there. I was under the impression that the A's were too cheap to pay for environmental remediation or otherwise deal with California's regulatory environment (which, in some ways, is absurd and unwarranted and only the biggest corporations can comply with it...such as the A's). It doesn't surprise me that a California corporation would want to move its operations to Nevada. I assume Fisher is a logical person and stands to make more money from the move than if he stayed in Oakland. The East Bay is a giant market but the team did very little to ingratiate itself to its residents. My dad is from the East Bay and is a Giants fan because he was a teenager when the A's arrived, but his loyalty didn't change and I don't think the team did anything to actually foster a fanbase beyond having "Oakland" in their name. They could have and they still could, why not market the team like "hard hat and lunch pail", it's a similar ethos to Chicago and I think the two cities are very comparable, especially when you compare 'south side/north side' to 'Oakland/San Francisco'. There are two giant demographics in Chicago that live predominantly on the south (and west) side that the team could actually try to appeal to. Winning in the 70s is one thing, but a baseball team is a civic institution that should fill a larger role in the community. There's a lot that a baseball team could do for a city like Oakland to, not only ingratiate itself and develop a fanbase, but actually do something good in the city and region. I worry about the Sox for a similar reason. Although we have a longer history, the Sox do nothing on the south side and never addressed the demographic shift and so there's a giant market of potential baseball fans if they tried to do something about it. The diamond near my house was built by the Cubs and have their logos all over it. Why didn't the Sox do that? The street has numbers in the name. It seems like the perfect storm to move from Illinois to Tennessee if the city doesn't give them a sweetheart deal to redevelop that entire swathe of land around 35th/Shields or take over Soldier Field and develop Northerly Island or the former US steel site (a great location for a ballpark IMO).

Seby's defensive prowess (which is good) doesn't balance out his useless bat imo. 47 OPS+ is fucking terrible. seems like Seattle just wanted to save a couple bucks, swapping out Saurez for Urias. That franchise is as hopeless as the Sox in a similar market, larger in the context that they aren't playing second fiddle to a different team.

Hey guys, I'm in Arizona for a couple of weeks and wondering if there's any winter ball to watch. Unfortunately just missed the fall league, but is there any baseball going on in any of these complexes in the Phoenix metro? Thanks!

his FIP was as god awful as his ERA, ostensibly because he gave up so many home runs. Is 2.2 HR/9 the worst ever for a guy who pitched at least 150 innings? Lance almost broke Blyleven's record and Burt pitched 90 more innings. but yes, TA is not a very good defender relative to other shortstops...apparently that was up for debate.

Ohtani isn't going to the Cubs, there are just 10 million people in the metro area and sizeable percentage of them will read an article that makes their team and city look good...or bad. TBH I don't appreciate how these articles that are essentially forum posts get published. It's basically just a summary of some teams in big markets rosters followed by "Shohei Ohtani is a good player who can both pitch and hit and will help a team." thrilling analysis.

This is my point. Every team will do this from here on out because real estate development is more profitable than owning a baseball team is. I'd like to do more research into this, but I'm sure the Las Vegas A's are planning the same thing. Off hand, the area surrounding their planned suburban site in Paradise, NV looks primed for redevelopment. I wish city and state governments were less lazy and developed the sites themselves If the Sox stay in town, I suspect they will do the same thing to 35th/Shields, Soldier Field, the US Steel South Works site, around the United Center. That will be the reason the Sox stay in town and not move to any other city, that they will be given carte blanche to develop an area because, logically, this is the only way cities can sustain themselves nowadays; property taxes from businesses that serve exclusively yuppies. I personally think it's a poor example of urban planning and I've met some of the bozos who make decisions at DPD and they're definitely on the side of the billionaires and not the constituents that the mayor vests power in them to serve. Not related to this topic, but maybe the city could incentivize high-skilled manufacturing jobs like Germany and Japan do. It's a different mode of tax revenue that actually creates something. I think I could also make the point that this sort of development correlates with increased crime as well. New York was able to effectively neoliberalize the 5 boroughs and push criminal activity to the fringes, to Yonkers, to Newark. Thanks, Rudy. I think there could be a great balance struck between the city and the Sox to develop a site beyond "incentivizing" private interests to do whatever they want just so they can produce tax revenue. I really think a city like Chicago could strongarm these losers to stay in an incredible city, we'll see what the environment looks like in 20 years or whenever Jerry dies and we "need" a new ballpark. I actually am optimistic that the development environment will change by then, insofar as politicians and un-elected administrators might get over the Ronald Reagan brainwashing. I wrote a similarly long response to your post but accidentally closed out of the tab and PHPBBB restored the post I was writing to caulfield and not to you. I want to go to bed so will rewrite it tomorrow; but the gist was more of my perspective on the Ricketts and Lakeview (and how that family didn't kick off the gentrification project but probably should not be allowed to own a historic landmark and develop the neighborhood). and Tom Tunney and zoning laws and how I should probably do a bit more specific research on Bridgeport or "Bronzeville"'s relation to the park. bummer.

In hindsight, it's probably for the best for that area that they didn't create Camden Yards Midwest even if it derives from Reinsdorf being a moron and stuck in the past. I'm very skeptical of this ballpark development model in which they never just build or refurbish a park, they have to derive maximum profit by building an entire district of hotels, bars, restaurants, luxury housing. Is that fun? I guess so. Is it a good thing that urban tax revenue is entirely predicated on yuppy consumption habits and so cities encourage exclusively that sort of development? I don't think so. Personally don't think you can blame Jerry for not gentrifying that area effectively enough. Would local residents have actually desired that accompanying development that would have certainly priced people out of their homes? Is the site at 35th/Shields comparable to Baltimore's Inner Harbor to justify a "work-live-play" district? Perhaps if the team moves to Soldier Field, that makes sense, build all that garbage on Northerly Island. Easier I think to blame M. Daley and Bill Clinton and CHA's "Plan for Transformation" for the state of that area. It demolished thousands of people's homes around there and replaced them with nothing, leaving permanent scars on the landscape and doing untold damage to the city's residents. 30 years later and the gentrification project in Bronzeville is in full swing however, so maybe that sort of development makes sense for the next park (if there will be one). I'd rather there still be an opportunity for the city to coerce the next ownership group to build something actually useful on the Stateway Gardens site, like low-income housing or perhaps a sports complex or otherwise something community facing. I do not lament the fact that Reinsdorf did not use his baseball team to speed up the gentrification process like Ricketts did. That family has a much larger negative impact on the city and on national politics than Reinsdorf.

Tom's father, Joe, founded Ameritrade and is the source of the Ricketts family wealth and is also a pretty massive piece of s%*#. "Destroying" Lakeview is dramatic but it's concerning how much property they have bought up, how they're developing it and frankly that a single family basically owns the entire commercial corridor along Clark. It's basically become a theme park for well-paid young people and businesspeople entertaining their clients. Very little character, lots of drunks, more crime, fewer and fewer families. However, if you like Starbucks there are 6 within walking distance (only 3 Chipotles). The new residential construction facilitates this change because it's more profitable to divide your building into studios and 1-beds than it is to have 3 and 4 bed units. The neighborhood is doomed. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-cubs-wrigleyville-redevelopment-met-20161023-story.html This article is a pretty good summary. The park itself is more valuable to the owners than the actual team is.

I went to three games this past season, bought two hats, bought an unquantifiable number of beers. I regret not going to more games. The team sux, the owner is an idiot, but it's still a fun day out and very affordable compared to the Cubs or Bulls or Bears. That's one reason I hate the Cubs, the prices are extortionate because they play in a world famous historic landmark, have a national fanbase and are surrounded by yup neighborhoods. it's an elitist team and Ricketts seems more cartoonishly evil than Reinsdorf, Senior is a massive racist and you can watch in real time how that family is destroying Lakeview.

Noelvi Marte (#23), Edwin Arroyo (#57), Levi Stoudt and a fourth guy I've never heard of who probably isn't making the majors. I'd be thrilled with this kind of return for Cease I think. I wouldn't mind STL as a trading partner and a deal centered around Masyn Winn and Tink Hence.

I like Jason but he seems a little bit like a diva and I don’t love that he seemed to prioritize the national gigs over his Sox job. I bet this rubbed the team the wrong way too. Chicago to Detroit seems like a downward move, I doubt he wanted to do this Sad to see him go, I’m mostly entertained by his antics and he has an actually good rapport with Stone. He’s also great filling in for the Bulls, way better than Amin, another “national” non-homer. The next person should be more of a homer, not concerned with pissing off the opponent’s fans or his bosses at Fox. I think from a Sox/Bulls perspective, replacing Hawk and Funk with Benetti and Amin was a mistake. Swapped out two guys who actually liked the team for millennials who treat it like a side job.

this is a dishonest evaluation of how Major League Baseball has been structured for most of its history. it doesn't make your point. personally, I don't want to root for a treadmill team. There's something to be said about watching 100+ Sox games a year and wanting to see your team win in each game, but a championship is the ultimate goal. I still think about 2005. also, it wasn't "slowly expanded", you should reframe your post to be after 1968; a watershed year for many reasons.

I wrote a long post and you picked one offhand remark out of it to reply to instead of the actual post. I'm not going to reply to your post, make a better one next time. I sure as hell didn't read past your second sentence, discuss in good faith if you have something to say. edit 1: I read it. An executive with one Wild Card berth doesn't particularly impress me. You ask who has done better? Rick Hahn has. You want him? Realistically, it's a foolish way to evaluate individuals and baseball teams. The truth is you have no fucking clue how these people will perform in the job. Or maybe you know them personally or worked for them, I dunno. I'd rather just think that the organization has deficiencies that a middle manager can't fix. You've worked for a living, right? Does a brand new C-level executive have the power to transform an organization? Perhaps, but they're limited by their boss. The boss in question is Jerry Reinsdorf. Go Sox! edit 2: you know, I didn't actually read your post.. but now I did. particularly that snide little remark at the end. you make this analogy that I'm a sexist or something, the reality is that you're being a chauvinist by having different standards by which to evaluate men and women on for doing the same job. the reality is, the many many professional women I know would not expect a handout from the likes of you but they might expect equal treatment.

I don't think that person exists, male or female; you also moved the goalposts, Ng did not win two pennants or even get close. and I would stop worshipping Ivy League executives, personally. I think if this team is ever good again in Reinsdorf's lifetime, it's because of good luck. Good luck happens all the time in baseball, thus I'll keep watching. It happens less in basketball and so I've basically tuned out, the Bulls are doomed even though they hired a wunderkind as head executive, the exact kind of guy that Sox fans are clamoring for...he scouted Jokic!! I do think any executive can strike gold, but can they sustain it? Rick Hahn has technically achieved more baseball success. I sort of think you should judge people on their merits, not on their gender or other things they can't control. We should judge the organizations, not the singular person in charge...and that falls on Reinsdorf. Kim Ng deserves to be judged as fairly as any other baseball mind, and her resume is fine, but it doesn't warrant a 10 page thread except that she went to school at UChicago. Honestly, I'd rather take a flyer on a no-name like Getz, the last time Reinsdorf did that he found the best coach a Chicago team has seen in 30 years. That's not a sustainable hiring strategy though, striking gold, but it seems to me that that there are bigger issues than who the middle manager is. Why do you, or anyone else, think that a new middle manager will be able to create entirely new organizational practices? By the way, Mark Cuban is a moron and a meddling loser and lucked into Dirk and Doncic and appears to be spoiling Doncic's career. Mark Cuban is akin to a very dumb forum poster who got very lucky by getting into the dotcom bubble at the right time. I have an uncle who is very wealthy because he realized that asbestos removal was a good business opportunity slightly before the time that University of California was contracting people to remove it from all their campuses. He's the dumbest fucking guy I ever met, I wouldn't trust him to make decisions beyond taking asbestos out of a house and maybe scratching off a lotto ticket. I'm sure he could buy a business he knows nothing about and give orders to competent people he pays, but he's still a dumbass at the end of the day. Back to sports, if you give Cuban credit for 2011, you better give Reinsdorf credit for 2005...dumb fuckin luck and good players overcoming organizational incompetence. It's kinda funny because I've never heard of more sexual harassment/workplace abuse complaints in sports than I have about the Dallas Mavericks. That's what you want for this team? Cuban lucked out again because Doncic was far and away the best player in the draft, scouts thought so, fans knew it, and two even more incompetent organizations picked Ayton and Badley instead of him. No hindsight, Doncic was far and away the best player in that class, certainly not two big men with no skills beyond athleticism. Is that Mark Cuban's legacy? I do believe that the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings are more incompetent organizations than the Mavs or the Chicago White Sox but that's just me.

I don't think that's totally fair. I definitely like the non-chauvinistic atmosphere of this board that doesn't unfairly diminish a woman's accomplishments; at the same time I think fans are exaggerating about how "she's the one that got away." Being more qualified than Getz and having a longer resume isn't in and of itself an accomplishment. The Marlins also barely snuck into a Wild Card spot and were quickly eliminated, that was the only winning season under her leadership. Of course, it's a major step forward for the sport that she earned that job and performed it well, and I really hope it inspires teams to consider more women for executive roles and inspires girls to realize their potential; but again, those Marlins teams kinda sucked. They pretty much sucked this year too, it's just that anything looks better than the dumpster fire that was the 2023 White Sox. All this is to say, I don't actually think it matters that much who the 'top dog' is, what matters is the quality of the support staff. You can hire all these brilliant middle managers, but what's the point if they have no employees to manage? Is Reinsdorf going to pay salaries and benefits to 100 more scouts, coaches and analysts? Those people might unionize, that's the "risk" of hiring staff. I'd also speculate at Ng's academic background for the same reason as Hahn, these eggheads have been brainwashed into the mantra that "lean" organizations are the best option, that you only need 1 or 2 Ivy League types and the few technicians are just yokels who carry out orders. My belief is that these execs actually agree with Jerry about how to run a business and their ego is stroked by having outsized success on a shoestring budget that they can credit entirely to themselves. The only people who actually care about winning is fans.

I tend to think if it there's some evidence that cricket fans will actually enjoy baseball and pay to watch it (why wouldn't they), why wouldn't MBS's sports driven economy extend to something "disruptive" and "innovative" like baseball? Maybe it's America's pastime, but it's a fun sport that anyone could like. And cricket is arguably South Asia's pastime despite colonialism... maybe baseball has a better reputation because it wasn't created by the British? There's some evidence to suggest that colonized countries appreciate American ideas because we weren't their conquerors, for right or for wrong. I agree, but personally I don't like the idea of paying 16-year-olds $5million on the expectation that "investing" in a child will pay dividends one day for an American corporation. I don't like the idea of getting into bidding wars with countries over prospects with even worse labor standards than us, I'd like for the sport to be publicly owned personally, but maybe this is proof that that's not possible unless you're relying on an entirely domestic player base. That saddens me. Maybe that only exists in the NFL. Frankly, I see no reason why a public good like sports should be profit-oriented, except that there might be competition with leagues that will make it profit-oriented. What a world.

well, better corner outfielders were available than Benny last offseason. Canha and Pham were acquired fairly cheaply too during the season. I wouldn't say 2b is easier to fill than a DH though, there aren't a ton of good options. Wasn't Marcus Semien on this team? As far as Muncy, I sort of assume any athlete wants money and a role more than they want to play for a contender. They might even be egotistical enough to believe they'll turn a team into a contender. I'd rather work for a business treading water that will pay me a bunch of money and let me do what I want rather than work for some juggernaut corporation. Feels like a logical human instinct. The Texas Rangers feel like a very good example of "money + role + bottomfeeding team". I keep mentioning Muncy because I'd love to see him on the team, personally.

Jury is still out on Vaughn imo. He takes good at bats, I bet that warning track power could turn into homers eventually. I think he actually wants to get better. I think his defense is underrated too, he's turned plenty of wild throws into outs that I don't think other first basemen make. I don't believe that's counted in WAR or typical defensive metrics. UZR seems to be the one most people like, which I would agree with, but the first baseman has completely different duties, more like a catcher than other position players. Mostly unrelated, anyone else surprised how few MLB stars UC Berkeley actually produces? Looks like Marcus Semien, Mike Epstein, Sam Chapman, Mark Canha, Jeff Kent are the best players that school produced...maybe more, but those are the ones I've ever heard of. I guess Sox "legend" Geoff Blum. All of them were raised in California too. Don't really follow college ball, but I always assumed they had a really good program.

what was Lowe doing there? or Bochy? infield not in but throw home?