bmags

The lesson of the 2000s white sox is also that you can't stop drafting and being a player in INTL and sustain success.

Would you rather be the Indians or the Twins? Because the Indians have made many more "all-in" moves. The same year that Chapman was traded, the Indians traded for Miller and gave up an outfielder that would have certainly helped their anemic offense (esp in outfield) the last few years. He was instrumental in getting them to a WS. Would you rather at least make it to a World Series or lose in the first round every year? People can obssess over the Chapman/Q trades all they want, but to me the reason the cubs are where they are is because they drafted for shit after 2014, and got zero production from INTL after their incredible 2013. There's also just luck, who knows what is different if Cubs get Shohei for that paltry amount. I'd argue he gets them out of that wild card game against the Rox and who knows what changes. Maybe they still don't hit in the playoffs, but every year can be different. Hendricks / Lester / Hamels would have been pretty good and that was a better bullpen than 17. If you take a lesson from the cubs, it's that we can't stop acquiring talent even though our big league roster is full of long-term talent. Having a Verdugo and Lux in your pocket is incredibly helpful in navigating a bad free agency period or supplementing suddenly underperforming players.

I mean we gave 8 mil per year to an injured Herrera 2 years ago so I’d still consider this a discount.

Had I would have known Ozuna could be had for a 1 year deal I’d have been ok with it. But I think you see the long term issues we were worried about, as he is now pretty firmly in a JD Martinez esque right fielder

God Rogers is so fucking dumb

I was the one that started complaining about Duncan getting the role. I was merely pointing out that even though you searched for mlb analytics coordinator, what you were pulling from was a director of analytics role, which is why it required all that. The sox would have a similar posting for a role like that.

That's a director of analytics role. This is not that, and it is common for these to go to former players. Pretty sure this was Gabe Kapler's role once, and is Sam Fuld's role with phillies (who was mentioned as a possible white sox manager). This is a teaching role for someone who can process the information and communicate it to the players effectively, and also communicate needs from the players to the analytics group.

There are only 32 of these jobs. The cap space is basically a one year issue. I'm sure things won't be great next year but it's terrible now anyway.

don't forget about debt load.

Glad to see him off twins, but, lots of options in bullpen for them to recover. Notice: Mets signed someone with no GM.

And they finished in 3rd place in their division.

He was a minor league manager and that actually is good experience for teaching analytics since the PD team is more hands on then. My worry is he was the manager at AZ when La Russa was there, then he leaves for the Blue Jays where he didn't have a connection and is dismissed mid season. Fegan mentioned his brother was really sick that year and eventually passed away, and it could have been due to that unfortunate circumstance.

Like he asked nicely?

You can absolutely be worse than nothing.

I really worry about projects like that when we have no room for error. I think about the Reds in a "competitive" year going with Akiyama as their leadoff hitter and he was terrible.

Sounds like Duncan did great in a similar role!

hooray nepotism

That's a really small price to pay for what would be in that bill, especially when faced with the much higher possibility of nothing passing. Legal action for "negligence" was a really large hoop to jump through and offered very little relief, whereas the other stuff on here provides huge relief to many.

The bigger headache tends to be the currency exchange.

Endless infighting among who? Their top execs were all cleared out, Alderson is in place. When he was installed he initially said he was going to interview for a prez of baseball ops and then went back and said that would be him. So clearly they have a decision maker.

Alderson's recent comments have indicated he is not there just to build it out, he is in charge and going to be active as a baseball prez and that's why they are closer to moving on players than people think.

I think hiring a football connected president will do good to ease concerns that bears are in a death spiral the browns were in of cleaning house every few years with no stability. George and Ted will not be stability because they aren't running the football operations. DBB mentioned Eliot Wolf today, who is available. I still say Bears need to raid the Steelers or Ravens of some very high up people and promise them they get the org. New facilities. Flush with cash. Long-term deal. Do what they want with it.

Every year since 2015 we’ve done this dance where there was no prominent connections to a big free agent to the white Sox but soxtalk still gets hyped due to some insider gossip. The Sox being interested in someone means very little. They will never sign an A free agent even if their front office tries very hard. Even if they are optimistic. The problem will always be other teams exist and also want top free agents.

I doubt it. Timelines don’t match up.

I like Joel Sherman a lot but this screams more just looking at fits and making a guess. By fit - Bauer is perfect here or in NY. But that doesn’t get you much farther