Chisoxfn

TO this day - I don't think it is a bad move not to pay a wideout top dollar. I think from a pure roster construction move - it can be the right thing to do. The problem was - they didn't communciate with their star QB and the bigger issue was they got pennies on the dollar in terms of the value. When I look at the Bears - I know their WR corps is going to be brutal without Arob - that said - If they could franchise him but let him play the market and eventually flip him for a 2nd (or even a future 2nd round pick) - I would make that move because for the long haul I think it is the best play. Reality Watson's best play is Miami. THey have a good young defense and are probably the team that would be least decimated by trading up the assets. I don't know if Houston wants Tua - but if they didn't (and I really didn't like what I saw from Tua) - if I were the Bears I'd probably see if I could get Tua for pennies on the dollar and take a shot. With the COVID off-season and him recovering from his serious injury at Bama, maybe he just needs a bit more time. And if it doesn't work out - no harm / no foul.

Yeah - the gov wasn't doing a bunch of hedge fund bailouts that I recall. Nor do I see them getting bailed out in this scenario.

Southsider can correct me if I am wrong - but both are legitimate - while one has more downside risk then the other. The first scenario - where you are borrowing stock - you actually are at risk of having to put up more capital - to cover your losses, while on the option trade is a synthetic way - you are just at risk for what you investmed. My overly simplistic views of the first scenario (someone can correct me if I'm simplifying too much), which is presume is the bigger driver of this as I think most hedge fund in a short position are using this version vs. the synthetic version - although I'm sure the reddit day traders may be doing a lot more of both. Scenario 1 - you borrow $100 worth of stock and pay a price for it - great - you borrow it on margin and don't pay full price....but you are going to owe the stock back to who you borrowed it from at full price. If stock goes down, I borrowed $100 worth of stock and give it back to them at $90 and make $10. Depending your margin limit - you still need to put up collateral to short the stock (meaning you don't jus get the $100 for free - you need to put up real cash / collateral to borrow it). If the stock instead goes up - than you are going to have to continue to increase your collateral to cover the short position (thus you are putting more and more money in). There are limits to how much you can borrow (since ultimately you are getting credit). History lesson - but 1929's stock market crash that fueled the great depression was heavily driven by excess margins (and governors and limits were implemented post the 1929 crash).

I kind of take the other view of put them all in (Raffy is an exception - he was always very good - but in my opinion was never the top / elite guy at his respective position). All the other names you mentioned were and they did it in an era where all the results are questionable. So with that in mind - I get making them sweat it out - but they were some of the most memorable players for a 10+ year era and all were elite in an era that has a lot of question marks - but no one can deny their eliteness in that era so to me - they are HOFers. Schilling is super borderline so I get the argument there - won't get into the politics of it because I don't think repub or democrat should matter - but lets all be honest here - his views are not mainstream...so lets not pretend this is a right vs. left thing.

I don't find that guy inspiring at all - he is going to stick it to a ton of people who are going to get bit when it all comes crashing down (which it will).

I don’t remember anymore whether Jeff Kent was every actually hit by steroids, but as a player he was one of, if not the greatest offensive 2nd basemen of all time. Nearly 400 hrs, 50 plus WAR. Top at his position in the league for a long time - seems like a sure fire HOF to me.

Considering that Robert, Moncada, and Eloy should all get better and Tim should stay at or near his levels for a while - I'm not that worried about the drop off of the above guys. I have hope that a combination of Vaughn, Madrigal, Kopech, Croquet, and Cease can also elevate their games to levels that will make us not that worried about Abreu, Lynn, Grandal, and Keuchel's eventual drop-off or shifts out of the organization. Beyond that - there are probably people I am not thinking about as well, who might surprise in their development and while I'm sure there will be other less positive surprises - the org should still be capable - if they win as much as I think they will - to continue to invest in some moderate level of free agent moves and/or use assets not named to the left (or ones to the left) to enhance the team. So long story short - while I could gripe - I fall into the camp that on paper this team is so good I'm not super worried and am just excited to watch what should be another fun season of White Sox baseball and hopefully a rare opportunity for the club to have back to back playoff appearances (and hopefully even more).

The one big difference is - those teams didn't have well above average lineups and Michael Kopech / Crochet types waiting in the wings. But your point still remains solid. I mean - they aren't any thinner in the rotation this year than they were a year ago when they were one of the better teams in baseball...in fact they are deeper. So do they need a Wainright...one could argue no....that isn't to say I'm not in your camp where I'd much much prefer to have one. By the way - well played on the obscure Latos reference. Forgot all about his tenure with the Sox.

Once Vaughn is up - you have Leury and Eaton, one of which gets more AB's and the other can fill in for others in a pinch. I like Leury, other than fact he gets hurt. Add in Mazara and others and I'm not too worried. Moncada / Abreu's reversion to mean/respected regression should normalize and I suspect arrow only shooting up for Jimenez and Robert. Grandall, Anderson are solid bats to be around where they were (I recognize Timmy has been amazing so maybe some downside...but if he was a little worse than last year - that is still pretty awesome). Just in this mini paragraph that is 6 good to above average bats. Round it out with Vaughn, Eaton, Madrigal, Collins, and Leury and that is nothing to sneeze at. If Madrigal is just solid and Vaughn is anywhere close to as good as people say - that is an absurdly strong lineup. In the past I had to hope like 7 guys would have career years for the Sox to contend - now I'm just asking people to be somewhere in the barometer (up or down) of what they can be and/or have been - as long as they do that - this is going to be a good to great offense.

He was bad - but he never started. As much as I'd like to knock Gar Pax, drafting players over their tenure was pretty low on the list of reasons to dislike them. And missing on the 29th overall draft pick is not such a big deal, especially when you think of the Butler/Taj picks. Obviously the fact that they ignored Thibs who wanted Draymond - that hurts.

I agree with you here - I was shocked they didn't go that route. Seemed like the perfect depth move for the team. I'd much rather have spent money on Q and completely ignored RF.

This.

The lineup has quite a bit of depth and you have Vaughn, Crochet, and Kopech waiting in the wings. I'd say there are teams with a lot less depth than the Sox - but I'd also say odds of the Sox having Dodger depth is just crazy talk given the payroll constraints they would always be under.

I'll correct you slightly - I think there were 2 needs - filling the closer spot (since Colome was a free agent) and rotational depth. RF was never a key need and much more of a nice to have. No team is going to have 9 studs in the lineup - so any resource spent on RF was a premium need in my mind vs. going dumpster diving, which is what they did in Eaton. And to be honest - if Mazara is coming in as well, with a full spring, I wouldn't be shocked at a bounce back campaign from Nomar either. But I'll live with the two of them and if it truly becomes a need - go acquire someone at the deadline. Rotational depth is critical though - and they certainly bolstered the top of the rotation and the depth by acquiring Lynn - they still have a ton of uncertainty in the backend of the rotation. Still - I'd be surprised if they don't add someone on a 1 year deal. I'm just really shocked it wasn't Q, but at this point I'll assume Wainright and to be honest - while I might have prefered one of Q/Richards/Wainright - the reality is which of the three will be better is probably a total crapshoot next year anyway. Although I tend to think Q has the highest floor of the group - when it comes to liklihood of being durable.

My assumption still is they look to extend Gio and Lynn. In which case - I get more on board with the off-season. Reality is the biggest acquisition of the off-season was Lynn. Hendricks was nice and the bigger price - but overall production wise (relative to 2020) he was pretty close to a wash vs. Colome (not saying Colome is better - just that last year there was a neglible difference between the 2 relative to White Sox W/L, etc). But Lance Lynn - the playoffs look a lot different if you got Lynn's production out of one of the spots in the rotation. Personally - I'm happy. My bigger worry is if they went all-in and dealt a ton of the future away. I like the squad currently constructed and appreciate that the team maintained flexibility and maintained projectable high upside assets who can help extend this teams window. But I'm more of a - build a team for an extended window of sustained winning vs. focus on a 2-3 year period where you go entirely all-in kind of guy.

I know where you are going - but he's pretty much been a .275+ hitter the last few years. He hasn't been that .220 guy since he went to the Angels. It is empty but he's been within a stone throw of .300 most of the past few years.

Is Spencer still in the organization?

Exactly - as long as they have someone to eat innings...if in June the team is rolling but we recognize we need a more elite arm for the final push...no reason at that point Rick can't go out and make a trade at that point in time to push the club over the top. No reason the team has to push all their chips in over the off-season vs. letting certain things play out over course of the season. Add a solid vet starter who can eat some innings, provide depth and buy time to evaluate internal options (Kopech, Crochet, etc) or determine we have a bigger need and have to leverage some prospects to get another front line arm.

I personally wouldn't really care if they brought in Mazara. Doesn't matter that much to me. I'm not that worried about the lineup. I want a depth starting pitcher - more than anything (or at least a depth piece). Better if it was an ace or a really good pitcher - but at the bare minimum - a solid depth guy would be huge. If Sox miss playoffs - I'd put a high end on the reason they missed being tied to not enough starting pitching. This team is going to score runs - I have no doubt about that (barring a mass injury / regression - and I just see that offense as having way too much talent for that steep of a regression).

Has to be Yadier (if there is any truth to the comment) and presume the blowback is more because of TLR / Yadier vs. anything else.

I like this move a lot for the Twins. They have the thump in the lineup - and Simmons is a whiz defensively. I also tend to think his bat is underrated - but I'm still a bit old school in that I have a higher appreciation for no power solid average hitters.

I feel bad for all the people who are going to get cut catching the falling knives. The principles behind what the reddit people did were sound (in terms of their theory to drive the market up and catch the PE firm shorting it) - but I'm also guessing those reddit ringleaders are going to be regretting this when they face fines and worse for manipulating the market.

Somehow I blocked out the MCW and Jerian Grant era. Although MCW had like 1 week right at the start of his tenure with the Bulls where for a nanosecond I said - maybe he has rekindled that ROY form. It quickly dissipated. On topic of Bulls - despite a rough past 2 games - they are still 7-10 despite I think the 3rd toughest SOS through the first 17 games of the season. This includes a number of last minute losses. When you consider youngest avg. starting lineup in the league, new coach, and greatly shortened preseason - all of those are good things (from a glass half full perspective). The downside is - this team has won a lot of games because of guys like Temple and the bench vs. because of stellar play from White or Lauri, but it is still early and in general I've enjoyed most of the games (sans the 1st two games of the season and these past 2 games and even yesterday's game - take away that blitz to start the 3rd quarter and overall despite being down, the Bulls were hanging in there...if they could have gotten anything out of Gafford, White, Sato - it would have been a bit interesting. Gafford is quickly showing he is a high energy bench guy and not a starter (at least not yet). Defensively he's gotten exposed trying to defend the perimeter on more dynamic bigs who can space the court too.

What was his injury? I know he missed the last 2 games. If he misses another extended streak, there goes any trade value he still had. And I was really counting on packaging him with other high picks to another team for a better player. Edit: Severe quad construsion. Man that has to be a heck of a bruise to miss 4 weeks. Hope he gets better quicker and mentally can hang in there. I got to think all these various injuries are taking a toll on him mentally.

The inverse is - with the Bulls pace - it would seem Ball would be a pretty good fit. Specifically his ability to pass and play D would both be valuable and I think they could cover his lack of a high volume shot given Lauri, Lavine, OPJ, Williams and others can provide spacing.