bmags

His presence in the pocket is night and day compared to weeks 1-3. Really pleased recently even with the accuracy disappearances for series.

Also just encouraging population in Chicago with premier company is important. It could have been a big deal for essentially every city except the ones they chose and Boston.

As far as entertainment goes on a message board, I have decided potential trade target talk >>>>>>>>>>>>> free agent talk. this contract stuff has nothing to anchor on aside from difficult to assess opportunity costs. Hoping for some good trade talk soon.

I would put odds that arenado hits market pretty low. Odds that he hits market and white sox sign against the field even lower. It's a risk I'd take.

I'd rather make a $40 million mistake on donaldson than go after someone like jed lowrie or marwin gonzalez hoping to match their career years. SSS, but he did hit with a .940 ops. He also has a relentless drive to improve. He may not be MVP candidate donaldson, but he's still a much better chance at .900 ops. I just tore down marwin gonzalez but i don't know, i see the benefit there too.

You think so? It's hard to tell with prices, but I think $200 mill would go pretty fast. Even 3-4 level pitchers i'd peg at $16-18 mill aav. Any position players I'd peg at *at least* 15 million aav. I know people don't think Donaldson will get a lot, but I think he's at least a 2 for 40 guy. And if we do it, i'd really want them to get at least one projectably dominant bullpen pitcher.

No I saw, and I get it. I am not dogmatic on approach, and I think there are actually big benefits to our young pitchers in pitching on an 80-82 win team as opposed to another 68-72 win team in terms of pitching to pressure, keeping focus, etc. I just don't think there is any combination of players that can get us to 88 wins on the FA market that isn't adding $600 million+ in long term commitments (and I think the quickest way to playoffs is probably building a stupid expensive bullpen) The good news is if the sox do your approach and the free agents strike out, it lets us know earlier that Hahn hasn't put the team around him front-office wise to take us to finish line.

Ah, thanks for clarifying. I think I'm with balta. One reason for this is an exercise I caught up with last year, can't remember if I posted it somewhere. Last offseason in about february just before a bunch of free agents signed, baseball media was perplexed at how many unsigned players there were. Travis Sawchik wrote a post making a team of the remaining free agents and saying that it was probably a playoff team. I checked the WAR on that group in August, it was far behind the playoff teams in terms of team production. It even featured awesome players like JD Martinez. Free agency is really hard, but for me to believe we could compete next year with an aggressive free agency means we'd have to hit close to 100% on not just productivity but career years out of those players. Sox still have a bright future. But things like the bullpen we just have no idea how it will playout. It just requires a lot of luck, and I think it's better to save those bullets until we know we if we actually may need an upgrade at SS or CF or whatever while these kids perform. ANd I still think 2020 is possible. A lot happens in 2 years. 2 years ago today, sox still had chris sale and adam eaton.

I'm not sure you are arguing different things. The white sox are likely to add this year in possibly some big ways in both hitting and pitching if they feel it adds to long term and short term competitive outlook. and Those improvements are still unlikely to make them a playoff team given where they started. I think sox will add in an exciting way this offseason, but I do not think their pitch is that we are ready to compete this year and you will lead us to the playoffs. It's just "we have a bright future ahead of us, and we see you being a leader and producer on the teams that take us over the top"

I'm not sure it matters that much this year. If his bat looks to be league average or better you either expand his positional versatility to OF or whatever else, or you get to trade him for pitching.

I also feel the same with 3b, but the success of rondon gives me pause. On one hand, his power may be for real, on other, sox have not treated him like they think he turned a corner. And obviously CF is a place they can even experiment with a 3 year deal or more for right candidate.

I don't know. On a stacked rotation, and in playoffs, rodon could be super valuable. "Go in there and throw 100% sliders for 3 innings". The opponents success vs his slider is terrible. 40% whiff rate, .251 wOBA. I could see a lot of interest.

Absolutely. I'm also fine with sox handing out short term deals to bounce back veterans in certain positions. They need to show off that they can sign free agents, and in some cases the opportunity cost is just "Nicky Delmonico playing time" and i'm fine with that.

Was thinking same.

Exactly. Sox clearly have identified corner OF as an area they can get a significant upgrade this year. Absent that, it makes sense to give Avi one more year to see if he has future as a dh/of rotational player. This removes that salary from books, lets them explore, and return back to it. I don't see Avi as someone that signs early.

Any yankees fan should be confident the yankees will land anyone they want.

Right, I guess my point is it's possible sox try to re-sign him.

I think it makes sense to see what teams value exclusive rights to Avi would be, non-tendering him if the value is not particularly high, and then taking the risk that you can re-sign him at a lower cost even among competition. If sox ended up signing harper, this saves them money. If they don't, they give garcia opportunity few teams will have, which is a starting job in RF mostly dedicated to him.

They could still sign him, right?

He still makes me nervous to let go, though I don't want to keep him particularly. Still a bundle of talent that couldn't put it together, fantastic arm, great exit velocity numbers when he hits it, spurts of power, but just never able to put it together. It reminds me a bit of smoak, who was who he was until suddenly at age 30 he became pretty good. That said, I don't feel like waiting around for Avi anymore.

Kudos for having guts not to use a contract not ending in a 5 or 0

He keeps saying "they were playing small" so he sends in parker defensively, but I guarantee WCJ can play smaller PF better than Parker.

I was fine cutting Gould, but the savings did not end up doing much, and the main problem, and this is still an issue, is Pace has not really endorsed competition among his kickers. He should have had multiple kickers every year seriously pushing o'donnel and parkey and barth, and he only gave token gestures toward it.

Performance wise, I think it’s time to push him. Remember we had to keep him in DSL for tax reasons. Health wise is my only concern.

Floyd!!! Wonderful Trubisky performance. Doubt we’ll hear “Robinson is a bust” today.