CaliSoxFanViaSWside

Nope . Why give him a $1M when a minor league deal is for a lot less ? What has he done to deserve $1M ?

I like how this thread is going on like it will be business as usual next year. Y'all are in for a huge shock. McCann gone, Colome gone, Mazara, Rodon, Leury , Sanchez and anyone I'm missing who is questionable for non tendering will be m non tendered and it will pretty much be that way for every team. Free Agent signings ? Good luck with that. Owners are going to flood the market with players and let them sit there a long long time.

I think you are in for a rude awakening with not just Rodon but at the rude awakening every FA and every guy there is a question about non tendering on every team. The market is going to be flooded with players . Teams will be looking to cut expenses everywhere. Everyone on the Sox that can be non tendered will be non tendered. I used to think Leury would survive it but not any more. The more players on the market the cheaper you can sign them for . I wouldn't expect much to happen til February. It's going to be a long ,long, long off season for those expecting moves. Baseball and the owners have lost a lot of money. You can believe that or not because it won't matter. They are going to act like they lost a ton of money. It won't be collusion though I'm sure that word will be tossed around a lot. That's just what Covid created and could and probably will create again in 2021. There's going to be a lot of minor league deals and 1 year contracts and for a lot less than we or the players suspect . Unless there is a miracle cure coming soon we may be looking at another abbreviated season which means even more losses for owners.

Stamp of approval for this thread. Hawk loves baseball and the Sox and he showed it. Can any of you who love the Sox imagine having to stifle your real thoughts and feelings because you can't say certain things ? Try it in future game threads next year. Hawk was an ex ballplayer turned fan behind the mic.

What you bolded is insane. I have no idea how pulling Dunning lost the game and those saying it can't explain why . In order to think that you would need a crystal ball. Apparently if Dunning was left in Crochet doesn't get taken out ? If Dunning was left in the guys after Bummer don't walk 7 guys and give up 5 hits and 6 runs in 3.2 innings ? If Dunning was left in do the Sox get key hits in 2 bases loaded 2 out situations in the 2nd and 7th innings or do better than 3 for 14 with RISP ? In the 2 losses the Sox were 3 for 22 with RISP . We missed Eloy. Also 2 postseason roster moves backfired. Leury and Rodon gave the Sox nothing. Would Lopez or Detwiler have been any better ? Mendick ? McRae ? Flores ?

I gave you fire because you said "fire".

You win with pitching. I'm all for trading to make the team better but you don't give up years unless you get years in return. Just because the ultra rich, always in contention, alway in perpetual sunshine Dodgers can sign a guy they traded for doesn't mean the Sox can duplicate that because they can't. Trades have to be smart. Chicago is not bathed in sunshine year round. The payroll isn't $250M and we aren't in contention year in and year out. Dodgers are an elite franchise. The Sox can't even beat out Cleveland, Minnesota, KC, or Detroit for division titles. Giving up players when they are still cheap unless you get back other players who are still cheap is pretty much the only way the Sox can operate. It's a lovely fantasy though. If you want to talk about Yelich I prefer to look , not at the extension, but at the trade that landed him in Milwaukee . The Brewers didn't trade for a guy with one year left. They traded for a guy with 5 years left. They gave up a bunch of prospects for a guy on the rise who then became one of the best in baseball. That's how you do it. I can accept comparing the Sox to the Brewers not to the Dodgers.

yea oh wait we aint the Dodgers and Chicago isn't LA who every year has a chance to win the World Series. Every year we go through the same thing . Let's trade for a dude and extend him. There was a lot of that talk round these parts when we traded for Samardzija and we paid for it against the A's with Semien and Bassitt doing some damage.

So you expect a Top !0 RF in baseball to just forego Free Agency ? Not likely. You just can't give up Cease (+) for a guy with 1 year left with just a hope and a prayer of locking him up.

Why couldn't he stretch out with the Sox ? If he's healthy we don't know how long that will last. He showed ability to get MLB hitters out. Use him as an opener. I don't know how other teams do that on a consistent basis but might as well use him now before his arm explodes. Start him once a week until he hits his innings limit if he lasts that long.

I wanted Brantley 2 years ago. He didn't get much play around here 2 years ago when everyone was so sure one of Adolfo, Gonzalez or Rutherford might be ready. Now he would just be another DH. He got 19 starts in the OF this year. He's no good to the Sox if he can't competently play the field anymore. Astros don't seem to think he can. Sox might keep Mazara . Funny thing was no one wanted him for what he was, a consistently good hitter against RHP. That Mazara would've been super on the Sox. That's why I always stuck up for Mazara . Consistent hitter vs. RHP with a chance to break out . He would've been a vast improvement over 2019 RF but instead he turned into an exact copy of them. Get the old DH I expect a decline . Get the young RF in the prime of his career and he gets sick and plays like crap too ? That hurt. I can understand how this year sucked for him . But him sucking for the Sox just continued our strange ability lately to pick exactly the wrong guy.

So what do you think happens with Crochet next year ? Assume he doesn't need major surgery. They did draft him as a starter so when does he start starting ?

I remember something on here that had video clips of him looking in great shape as compared to earlier clips of him looking roundish. You might have to do some digging using search here. I think Colas is a long shot to be ready by 2022 . Try this thread in Future Sox : July 2nd Latest from Futuresox & our James

So you are saying that its possible all teams make cuts and therefore where the Sox rank in payroll will be in the same area meaning it's very possible that payroll is less than it was in 2020 which is what everyone is afraid of. Precisely my point.

I was just speculating. There were reports he was in a seedy bar in Indiana prior to coming to camp by a person on this board . If you wear a mask chances of catching Covid are extremely small.

Does a team like the Sox care about estimated excess value ? If our payroll is beyond a point that Jerry wants to pay how do you pay a whole team with one guy making that much for that long ? Stars and scrubs and not a lot of winning. Cheap youth, supplemented with short term veteran contracts with a payroll perhaps maxing out slightly above mid league level is the only way Reinsdorf wants to win a Championship. I fear Covid and looming labor dispute can sabotage the rebuild quickly. Give Jerry a reason to cut the budget and it's going to happen. I was planning to have the team payroll up near $175M but it's not feasible with the losses we have incurred. Not that it will ever come as direct as that.

Yes should have been "what teams are the most likely sellers this winter?" Instead it read like , "We (the Sox) are most likely sellers this winter", (rather than being buyers).

The most likely answer is no based on his speed or lack of it. Speed makes up for a lot of issues in the OF .It's hard enough to play OF getting good reads, taking good routes, being able to come in just as good as you can go back, being communicative and avoiding collisions with INF and OF's, how to think ahead of time when RHH and LHH are at the plate and how the ball slices from each one, how to set up for a throw and other details that I haven't mentioned.

The kid has got the world at his feet right now. I hope if he needed humbling that the late season slump did that. It always helps for a young player to have his head on straight. This is where I worry about Moncada. Was he being irresponsible in his life which could be why he got Covid ? Does he neglect the fact that his talent alone will not benefit him unless he also works hard and lives a smart structured life ? If there was a lesson to be learned I hope he learned it and doesn't forget it.

It all just depends on the talent pool available. If teams including the Sox end up non-tendering a lot of players there will be a large pool of semi talented players to sign for cheap. There will always be a certain amount that end up being well worth signing. The question always is can you find the right ones , that maybe 10 % of all supposedly underachieving, too expensive to tender contracts who resurrect their careers. Then it's about who is owed raises vs. how much salary if off loaded vs who you really intend to spend money on. Top guys like Bauer seem highly unlikely just based on how high the payroll went this year vs. how high we all thought it should or could go. Like you ,I wouldn't bet on the Sox taking advantage of teams dumping salary. More than likely the Sox could be the team to lead the dumping brigade.

Dumbest comment I ever saw from you and that's saying something.

You can find so many great pitchers who couldn't figure it out in the 1st few years. I always said how fast the young pitching develop would be the key to how the rebuild shakes out. The problem is and always will be if you have greatness in you how long does it take to appear? Same can be said even if you have a few good years. How long will it take ? Will injuries slow you down? Will they ruin you ? Look at Bassitt. He's 29 now and while always showing potential much like Rodon, injuries have been his curse. Unlike Rodon he always had nice peripherals . But there have been great pitchers who also struggled with command like Randy Johnson or Sandy Koufax. Koufax, in his MLB debut ,got in a jam and ended up striking Bobby Thomson on a fastball to end the threat. He said it was "probably the worst thing that could have happened to me," leading, as it did, to five seasons spent "trying to get out of trouble by throwing harder and harder and harder."Wiki It's so much more rare that young pitchers can excel immediately. The problem was the pitching ,theoretically, should have been here in the earlier years of the rebuild to let them take their knocks such as Giolito and Lopez. Giolito worked out great. Lopez may never find it. After that it was too many injuries leading to the young pitchers falling behind the young hitters . That's why I always said get as MLB quality starters as you can find in FA and trades. Everyone thought just Wheeler last year would have been fine but as we found out it wasn't. Even with the great year Keuchel had it wasn't enough. An injury to just 1 of your top pitchers can ruin a season. Now we can only hope Jerry has it in him to splurge a little on starting pitching. This is whats needed, not waiting and waiting to see if pitchers have greatness or even a few years of peak performance that coincides with the hitters. You can't fall in love with pitching prospects when you need guys who can go 6 innings right now. If you look too far ahead all the young guys on the team right now get more and more expensive while you are waiting for pitchers to develop or to lead the next great phase of the rebuild. I'd like to be able to win a Championship in the next few years or we may never get to the proposed 5+ years of making the playoffs.

Not sure what is worse ? Of course him being hurt is way worse. There's no other way to look at it.

Luis Robert being a high profile, potential once in a lifetime player helps as does a winning team after years of losing. Hope both Robert and the team get the support from management that allows them both to flourish.

Excuse me don't you manage every game not to lose ? I've never heard of a manager managing to purposely lose , have you ? If you actually mean something different like perhaps managing to win, how is that any different in a do or die game you must not lose , you must win. The do or die nature of the game means your best possible guys on the field and if they don't do the job then you lose. Too many of the Sox best guys either on the mound or in the lineup failed to perform. Blame the players . I have never seen so many blame the manager for lack of player performance . 9 walks ! How many teams win giving up 7 walks from their best pitchers ? Not counting the 2 Rodon gave up.