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Jonathan (Los Angeles): Does Zach Collins establish himself as the White Sox catcher of the future by the end of this year? Kyle Glaser: It's tough because evaluators who think Collins can actually catch are limited exclusively to the White Sox organization. No one, and I mean no one, anyone on our staff has ever spoken with thinks he's a viable major league catcher. Given that, I have to say no. There is a major league role for him, but everyday catcher does not appear to be the one ++++ Sounds promising.

I went with Yonder, Jay and Manny.

While certainly true, I feel like I recall people saying this about him in his first year, that he really lacks confidence. I hope he can cope with his nerves and have a great year.

This was really great. Was disappointed in last years write-up which had very little detail...but also may have been an indication of those prospects. He had tremendous detail in here, really looking forward to seeing some stats from these guys.

Absolutely it's different. Those players were on a market. The sox doing nothing have ~7 years of control at relatively fixed costs and not guaranteed. They have no one to bid against, they already own those years. How much do you add to those costs for an additional year? This is quite a bit.

I get that they'd want to extend, but it's this amount that's surprising to me. Not expecting a george springer deal, but, this is really on the edge of too risky.

Same, I think an RB and a kicker are almost a lock.

I just have a hard time believing Sox do that pre any mlb at bats. If it was after year 1 I get it. It seems remarkably risky.

I was trying to think of weird deal structures where the total money is over 100 but that's with escalators like MVPs and stuff, and maybe a swellopt that sox have to trigger pre arb years and are quite expensive for the extended years but I think it's more likely this was floated from jimenez' side?

Yeah this was for UCLs where they, in my basic understanding, could just tape a fairly healthy though torn UCL to the bone which allowed faster recovery. This was the PRP I was talking about (did not know it was a common term) https://www.stack.com/a/new-tommy-john-surgery-promises-to-cut-rehab-time-in-half And this was the player (Seth Maness) https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/maness-a-trailblazer-new-surgery-for-elbow-repair-cuts-recovery/article_165ee721-5a36-58f9-8d8e-fb515ba037da.html I guess it's been done about 100 times but this was the first mlb player to do it, mostly done on younger high schoolers. edit: I can see why it's confusing that I asked a UCL question in a shoulder injury thread.

The one part of it I'm interested in is Pagano, who from what I understand manufactures pressure from all over. Skrine and Callahan are both good pass rushers from the slot, adding more secondary rushers could be interesting, especially where with Roquan you have some nice interior pass rushing lbs. You know, the flurry is over now and I actually think I'm comfortable in this spread the money around approach. Not crazy with Skrine deal but whatever. We got great impact from players like Lynch last year in depth roles. I think at this point I don't see him getting more than a 1 year deal. He could come back, or you could go after Shane Ray, who had a similar profile to lynch the previous year and is given a great role to try and be productive. I wonder how you could spread around a bunch of 1 year 4-5 mill deals. I'm not sure I wouldn't be happy if we could get maybe Jared Cook, Shane Ray, Ronald Darby/cb, Spencer Ware and a swing G/T. It lets them focus draft on some high priority targets and protects against the worst thing that can happen next year which is a lot of injuries.

I honestly think Giannis has hit that level where it won't matter. He's been limited for a while from long range, but he just can get to the rim no matter what the hell you do. I could buy that they'll end up one of those teams that were just on their top gear all year and then get to the playoffs and don't have another one, but I believe that more for the Raps. Now if the shooting goes ice cold around him, that will be difficult.

Hey @ptatc has there been any updates on that primary repair surgery that was supposed to have a faster recovery for less significant tears that a STL pitcher did? I saw that he was cut and was in independent league, but he wasn't very good before.

That rockets win was big for them. They seem weaker but its hard to trust teams like Denver until they prove it. But Houston/OKC look like tough matchups if PG doesn't disappear in the playoffs. But, I do think the Bucks are the best eastern conference team since the 16(?) Cavs.

Aside from Houston, I’d love if Bears could still bring back Callahan. Getting good depth at CB after how healthy they all were last year would be reassuring. Getting to 2-3 days later you mostly assume the guys will come relatively cheap.

I don't recall this at all. I know they were interested but I mean come on, sox could have easily picked that year to go way over and get a tremendous player and they picked their quantity route. In their defense, they picked the other incredible player in that class then traded him away.

Wasn’t really a fan of Larsen. Could have been a Fox issue and he was favored by FO, but certainly liked Kush and Wintzmann more.

I in general agree. However you never know what your window will be. Bears have talented roster but do not have a lot of draft picks, I want to maximize this roster now. With the exception of the patriots and the great job Andy Reid has done, even successful orgs have had basically two reboots in a decade. Look at Philly. Really good decade, two rebuilds in it. Bears cant just trust that trubisky will be elite and carry them during periods where they need to retool.

I guess I don't know how much Houston will go for. But I don't know that Allen was that bad of a signing, though important that Houston is 2 years younger than he was. The bad part was they needed Allen to be a dominant player on a bad defense. For bears, Houston can just be an important veteran for depth that can still get after the QB. He is certainly better than Aaron Lynch.

After manny disappointment I had a dead cat bounce for the first few games of spring training but apathy has definitely washed over especially when I read James Fegan's 25 man preview and realized again what this year will be (eloy will come, yeah I know). If Eloy (forbid) gets injured, this team would be a 55 win team in any other division.

Well, what would have made it cap hell is to splurge guaranteed, long term money on a player that will decline over next 4 years. This isn't ideal, but it really isn't necessarily bad either. There will be june 1st cuts, there are still some names out there. However, as big a fan as I am on the team Pace has built, he is operating more as he did his first few years which got a lot of mid level deals that could be cut. They didn't create structural issues for the bears, but they also didn't add talent. The bears are in a window, you don't want to prematurely shorten it, but you also don't want to put a ceiling on it. This free agency to me is more acceptable if we had 7 draft picks but we only have a hand ful, so I would have preferred they were more aggressive. edit: obviously if they can get houston (I have been busy so don't know if he signed) that's good usage of money to me. You can't have enough pass rushers.)

I think its better and healthier. Prior to it (feb-march) you have the speculation on who the team could sign plus the combine/draft stuff, and then you have the actual moves. It's anticipation/build-up and then big event. In the mlb it's so spread out, the speculation becomes boring and the payout being spread out is less entertaining to me. In two days we got to see what the browns are likely to look like next year and judge those moves against others. You can't judge how mlb teams fared in free agency even into spring training!

I think the bigger bases may be fun. I think finding ways to adding the run game more effectively back into baseball is a good thing. Stolen bases are fun, the players that found incredible value stealing bases were fun. edit: It wasn't mentioned in op but one of the changes is increasing size of bag from 15 inches to 18 inches

I was listening to some sports radio this morning on way to gym, a lot of consensus that Bell came out poorly. I agree in the perception in a team game of doing this is bad, and the contract is less than he initially sought. But the whole reason players hate the franchise tag is even though you get one big year, you are at risk of long term security. It is absolutely likely that he could have had a good year, made that $15(?) million int he bank, and found another $15 milll guaranteed in FA/re-signing. However, he also could have gotten injured or slowed down this year, and then entered free agency as a player people were loathe to give guaranteed cash to. This isn't best case scenario deal, but it also isn't worst case scenario, which would have been playing and having a catastrophic injury.

Takes pressure on needing a playmaker at safety too.