bmags

I know it's never released that early but, i mean the first evening is in 2 days. When is the freaking schedule gonna get released?

Totally agree, but when free agents are discussed there is mandatory "lol why would anyone live in that city it sucks!"

The As may not win 97 but they have some really awesome prospects coming up and some that already arrived. They also have a payroll this year 13 million less than ours but will almost certainly destroy us in the standings. For some reason they don't feel the need to add herrerras, colomes and nova, which may combine for like 2 WAR, for 23 million.

I get why they are there, I'm very skeptical of the value of this set of relievers. I'm not sure of the currency they provide from a trade standpoint, they are kind of a nuisance for the 40 man soon, and so far when they have come up I've been less than impressed. That our "depth" is being stood up on the backs of relievers at age appropriate levels doing well makes me nervous.

Exactly. They don't draft many high schoolers, never signed that many intl players. Maybe it's an admission they are terrible at it, but we are seeing that the higher floors of these college picks isn't that inspiring. Most of all though, any set backs injury wise just seem debilitating. We'll see if the college reliever stuff pays off. I doubt it.

I don't know, at some point Robert needs to prove his ranking by staying on the field. I mentioned in another post how it feels like there is so little momentum with our prospects. Few are surprisingly pushing the core forward or adding to it, they just are what they were and are either falling off (hansen) or being caught up to by better prospects (collins/rutherford)

Trade rumors are so much more fun than free agent rumors.

The only FA whose market has apparently evaporated that maybe you take a shot at for a 2 year deal at this price is marwin and...it would be really nice if he played CF.

I can't believe I agree with caulfield. Guys Pederson is 26, Markakis is 35. How many times do sox have to get burned assuming older players can repeat past performance before we stop believing the marginal FAs will be any sort of improvement?

And if they don't have what it takes, why not get a piece of the pie.

I have a hard time believing we win a bidding war. I do still think it's possible our interest ends up being as a facilitator. Hahn has worked well with Friedman in that role and they've been largely successful trades for him.

Yeah, there is just a massive gulf between major league and the rest of the prospects after you bake in Eloy. Now, i've said before, if 2019 on the farm is as good as 2018 was bad, then the dynamic of everything changes, and maybe it pays off to have advanced on a talent like pederson early. But our track record with player dev has, in my mind, changed little. The best examples of it to me recently are Anderson, Leury, Narvaez and ...Trayce Thompson? Flowers? Sox weren't really impressed with most, and then when they are shipped off they've seemed to have taken leaps. Hard to get a gauge. Development isn't linear, but when you have the white sox track record, it's hard to bank on regression righting the ship. They need to be urgent to make sure their mass of talent hits as often as possible.

basically my sentiments in 2 paragraphs instead of 20.

Right, I think the variation in the names thrown out as being involved and how unrealistic that is has made this an impossible conversation. I like Joc Pederson, and am not ready to punt on 2020 the way many are. However, the idea that he can be had for Bummer and Bush seems incredible considering better positioned teams with equal farms such as braves also exist. But, that is the info that was presented to date. Apparently, there is no salary offsetting any talent sent LAs way. I would love to upgrade over Engel, but not at the price of hurting our future goal of consistent contention. Unfortunately at this point, it feels like the talent we amassed in trades of 2016-17 is what it is, it is not being re enforced well in draft and there has been no fast risers from the latam classes of 2015-16, and no class to speak of for 2017-18. None of the minor trades to date have resulted in an immediate turnaround for a prospect. So trading for the depth at this point is a scary proposition as it feels removing the margin for error. When you just absolutely need specifically Luis Robert and Jimenez and Dunning and Kopech and Cease to hit. Is that likely? History says no considering the major league record of our recent good prospects at least shows significant major league work required. And for that reason bush feels like one of the pieces that could catapault into a future core piece. Is it likely? No. Now there are pieces I'd trade for young productive players even if it isn't cost controlled for 4 years or more. Rutherford is one, Hansen is another. Burdi is another. And pederson is a guy that would be really nice in a mix of 4 good outfielders. Say a combo of Eloy, Robert, and say Luis Gonzalez, then using a platoon with pederson for LHP with Gonzalez (obviously this could be wrong but I don't know what to make of the fact that Gonzalez absolutely destroyed LHP despite being a LH batter), then you are talking about the kind of depth that competes with Astros, yankees and red sox. And I thought that was the goal, not to take a weak division for a year like the 2017 minnesota twins. I know it sucks to watch garbage. And I don't like the idea of just continuously pushing out the window of contention. But this team is still 90% garbage on the ML roster. Adding machado helps. It doesn't change a lot of it. Adding pederson will be nice. I don't think it moves us past, say, 80 wins even with both and significant jumps from moncada and good jimenez.

What did Matt Holliday do this time

I remember when I thought leaked numbers meant it was close Now I remember that JD Martinez contract was basically well known for two months before he signed it.

This is why it’s important Halladay got in so easy. His overall numbers are on the low end of HOF pitchers, but for the new era of how pitchers are used they will certainly be in the safe, if not high, end of hall of fame pitchers moving forward.

He is by far the most obsessed over “kinda nice” player on this site.

How could we have taken Bohm again?

Does Comas make top 30? Last year I would have hoped many more from 2016 class made this list. Production from INTL classes continues to elude this franchise.

I think part of it is the back log finally starting to clear up.

Glad Halliday made it. He is going to be a good realistic modern comp for today’s starting pitchers.

It removes the lower 1/3 range of sprint results to eliminate “non-hustle” plays.

Because you replied to his post talking about platooning with "Please lets get real" and didn't have anything to say about platooning.

I think if they acquire Pederson they should let him play vs lhp this year and see if it can improve with more consistent reps. For others, well, we have two catchers who hit pretty well off lefties. Lets get Tim Anderson reps as emergency catcher.