bmags

Who knows what will be available but I like the BA writeups on prep SS Marcelo Mayer and OF James Wood and OF Ethan Wilson and Sal Frelick. Lots of prep LHP to attack in rounds 2/3.

I'm starting to lean this way. I am not sure I like paying Bauer as our #1 as chance of him souring out on deal at some point is high. Stroman would fit right in with this group, have had success with groundball pitchers recently, and leaves us in a position to still have flexibility in future FAs where an unexpected player becomes available (trade or FA). Plus pair them with a high upside vet.

If I was KW/Hahn and was told by JR we could expand payroll, I'd go after the number one guy they wanted first, be aggressive and try to get them to sign early in free agency. Then I'd let the market play out. There are guys now that we have place holders of >$10 mill that may very well be under. A guy like Joc might really just be paid as a platoon guy on a tough market.

I'd be a fan. Not sure that could lure Fedder away, who has been a pretty popular candidate with his background in majors and success of college pitching coaches moving over to mlb. But you could also bump zaleski up to pitching coordinator, fedder as pitching coach and keep Hasler as bullpen coach.

Yes haha, michigan, but Fedder would be a great pick.

Then we should try to use FA for quality depth and wait for the right time for a high quality pitcher to be dangled rather than thinning out our assets without even building upon them.

While I agree, I don't know what it means that brad hand under a 1 year / $10 mill deal just got rejected by every team in the league.

The brewers, who have done an amazing job putting together a winning roster with paper clip transactions, are going to trade their marquee star at his lowest possible point, when he is paid market value AND off a down year. And to get him, we are subtracting value from our team to “balance it out” more effectively. No thanks.

Watches Ted lasso once

I agree. I didn’t want Odorizzi last year as our main SP signing. As our #3 or #4? Sign me up.

I respect Joel Sherman but feels like agent side pontification

Part of this is just usage. Snell and Kershaw were fantastic last year but their teams don’t have them go CGSO like Bieber/Giolito had. But I’m not particularly in love with any of this crop, so I’d rather take advantage of the quality depth and wait until a big SP becomes available.

Though lacking star power this FA really has a lot of quality depth, which is exactly what Sox need.

And his age means he is not under the typical INTL restrictions?

Enjoying that Cleveland based to pay the $1 mill buyout now.

By game you are only referring to him at the plate right.

I started to wonder if they would pick up Leury, I'm sure 3.5 could have got someone comparable and he really has to stay on the field.

Who was the sox best re-acquired player ever? Everett? edit: I shouldn't have said ever. Was probably Baines I guess.

I didn't like it because he could suck, but thought he would be good, but he ended up suckng and not in a way that made me feel good about being right. OTOH a lot of players i wanted were absolute GARBAGE this year.

There goes Yolmer's pension

the board wanted abreu re-signed, didn't want 3 years.

Not many are in position to, though. I guess boston is the one I'm most confused about.

https://www.heraldnet.com/sports/cardinals-had-exit-strategy-for-mcgwire/ So yeah, they did. I was wrong about the executives bit, but this was what I remembered. I'm not saying this is awesome by Larussa, but he brought in a former player to a competitive team knowing it could be a media storm and distraction and did it because he thought it would help him. HE took the heat and asked him to trust him. So yeah, he defends his players and former players even when he benefitted from them but it isn't helpful t him at the time. Hence it being an example of his relationships with players. OTOH, he hated scott rolen.

I'm going to be fascinated to see where Hand goes on waivers, but way more fascinated if no team picks up the $10 mill as that is going to be a pretty big insight into what kind of winter we're looking at