bmags

They have one of the smallest front offices in the league. They didn't pay a fee to attend a predraft international scouting combine. They are still apparently traumatized from having to amnesty boozer and sold off a second round pick to get back in JRs good graces. They were scared to go over luxury tax with a contending team and sold off korver for nothing.

I don't understand why people let them off the hook with this stuff. THey should hope every player they actively signs performs as well as they can. Especially when they have not shown they can sign productive free agents consistently and will need to soon. The twins spent the same amount as us last offseason and got triple the production. the Rays spent less than half as much 18.5 and over doubled our production. We weren't looking to compete so we didn't spend more, but there's no reason we should be signing players that fail so often.

Have thought so little about the bulls. Am actually somewhat excited to have the competent vets this year.

I'm just glad he's going to be back. Kwit was fantastic but if you know it's him back there it's easier to game plan around exploiting hte middle of the field in passing. That said, glad pagano recognized his excellent blitzing ability and maybe takes advantage.

10 games, which is only down slightly considering they had an all-star catcher and their heir apparent catcher up for september call-ups (and is an actual platoon). Just don't act shocked when they bring him back.

Why not? They were playing him a lot in september. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Re-sign welington castillo 1year/8mill

that was made when I was in 7th grade.

This is fine with me. I'd rather just not prioritize what's available this offseason to be our long-term solutions just because they are "just money" now. Now, the sox are obviously not going to try to sign Betts in any serious way. But I do think it is at least helpful that Trout very likely has set the ceiling market for probably a few years. Betts has a much easier framework to take to the market than Machado/Harper did, who with their age and production were unprecedented in the new CBA and league flush with tv money. Betts will enter able to point to trout and arenado to create this window of 270 mill to 450 mill that teams will need to play in to be considered. Sox won't be able to act like they can get a deal. However, they very much should have someone in their organization trying to convince everyone that there will be a player that rarely comes available on the market soon and the sox can make that work. Say we do just pay money for betts, a lineup that would consist of Anderson, Moncada, Jimenez, Betts, Robert, Vaughn and Madrigal is very promising and still largely cost controlled for several years.

Really want to change this title so no one accidentally starts referring to benetti this way.

Tbt to when balta was fine with spending $400 mill on machado but horrified at the thought of committing it now to a better player.

I do love that he wasn’t technically fired, bringing the tally of coaching and management positions who were fired after a lost decade to 0.

Oh I would take a front office overhaul over any player addition, but absence that I definitely still prefer going after elite talent sooner through trades/free agency. I worry about putting so much emphasis on 2025 if it means 2020-2021 are still only marginally contending years.

Philosophy hasn’t really changed so it won’t really matter. Ricky should have been allowed to bring his own staff though.

That's an AND trade. Cease AND dunning.

This is a nice summary of how I feel. In a vacuum, acquiring betts while he is available to get another year of his production because you are willing to pay what it takes to sign him makes sense. That the sox are not paying what it takes to sign him is the issue. Not paying talent to make sure you have the best shot to acquire him long term.

I mean they can value him like a 5-6 WAR player, but he's only actually done it once and the team acquiring him is getting a player off of a wrist injury which typically saps production for a time. But yes, I'd be open to trading madrigal for him. Rangers are said to be souring on athletic/risk profiles, sox have a match of these "polished" college players. Madrigal a good starting point.

Thanks, couple thoughts: - I think people have taken the information that the sox front office not being capable of signing high-level free agents due to incompetence/misguided sense of budgeting to actually being the correct thing, when obviously it's very bad. We should not as an org set-up be refusing to go after Betts, few other teams are in as good of a position long term to afford him. - If the sox acquired betts I would expect them to do everything possible to sign him long-term, that it would be the plan. That he would do so and expect at least a Harper contract, or a very player friendly opt-out period - for instance, what if he had an opt-out of 2021...and you get 3 years of betts. Is trading still not worth losing prospects? - I think a player this valuable becoming available is worth acquiring, and if worse case scenario it becomes clear that not only will he test free agency but would not like to sign with sox, they can trade him at the deadline and receive back some value. Push comes to shove, if boston said we'll trade you betts for Cease/Dunning I would do so and commit the organization to try and cobble a pitching staff together brewers/twins style. But, if the separate question is what do I think the white sox front office is capable of? Not much, but as a fan I am looking at a team struggling to develop and draft, and poor at identifying undervalued assets, and am supposed to get pumped about just committing to acquiring depth and letting all of our prospects fuel this entire thing? No thanks. The rebuild should have enabled plays like going after Betts, that it may not is an indictment not on the the idea of acquiring betts, but of this rebuilds shortcomings. And I think acquiring betts and paying him would overcome them.

Trading 2 pitchers with tommy john, one that has struggled with control and staying deep into games is actually not the worst idea if he has value. Relying on him to be a cost controlled TOR starter is also quite risky, but yes, we can just write in each of our prospects into their positions with their max ceiling value and everything will work out.

Yes, and I feel much more confident in filling the 2b and DH positions with lower cost and getting production than right field. - Eduardo Escobar - 7 mill a year - 109 wRC+ - DJ Lemahieu - 2 years 24 million (set market) mvp candidate - Tim Beckham/Derek Dietrich - minor league/min deals - 99 wRC+ - The one clunker you can really point to is Jed Lowries 10 million a year deal, where he got injured. It's a nice position with FA money. Scooter Gennett/Schoop/Moustakas on that wheel again this year. And when you are getting an elite offensive and plus defender in RF, you can cycle through 2b.

Ok, then sign him by bidding the most money for him.

Cease + walker would be a great deal. They should do that yesterday.

If they are spending $35 million a year on betts the perfect positions to need to fill externally are 2b or 1b/DH. Those extra savings will mean little if we have to throw amounts at marcell ozuna esque players, providing slightly above average offense with horrendous defense. You hope to have economic flexibility to pounce when a consistent 6 WAR player becomes available, this team will not be organically grown into a world series contender.

If you plan on signing him next year, why not pay prospects to also get him this year when the white sox fan base is also planning on contending (just with perpetual playoffs-appearer Cole Kalhoun as our magic wand to improve 20 games)

Fair enough. I really did not imagine the rebuild needed to be done so that we'd have to play the same "gamble this cheap/oft-injured/volatile will emerge rather than going after top players" game we played for most of the decade. Say we signed or kept avi...would any of us feel great about him in RF for the future? We'd be in essentially the same place as I doubt he'd have received greater than a 1 year deal.