chitownsportsfan

As @caulfield12 just pointed out Boras' comments are meaningless. I'll believe the Sox will sign a A list FA when it happens.

That would be pretty smart. Nick as 1B and using a DH/C platoon makes a lot of sense.

My apologies as I guess that is the new reality for these DH types. The new reality for these guys might be closer to $6 million per WAR as FA than 12. I see Fangraphs projects him at 4 years 56 million. That is such an incredible market "correction", but after the last two off-seasons I can see it. Good summary on him. All that said: I don't want him even at an AAV of 12. Rather go big with stars, not average starters at corner spots or DH. Just read FA's take, and yea, sucks to be a DH type. Kiley’s Take Castellanos is very young for a free agent bat, so he may get a longer-term deal than his track record would suggest. Still, he’s posted a -28 DRS and -17.6 UZR in two full seasons as a corner outfielder, and if teams think that is his true talent level in the field, they may not be comfortable with whatever his glove will be in 2023. Player Notes You won’t see teams paying Castellanos big money for his .321/.356/.646 line with the Cubs, but his late-season resurgence in Chicago after a bland half-year in Detroit helped to re-establish his offensive value. The difference between a 120-plus wRC+ and a 110 wRC+ for a player with glove as weak as Castellanos’ is the difference between a DH-only role and being someone whose bat may be just enough to compensate for his poor defense if put in the right situation. Baseball doesn’t have much appetite for non-star, corner outfielders or first basemen these days, but Castellanos’ case is helped by his signing not coming with the loss of a draft pick. – DS

Yea the thing is his bat really "doesn't play" for a guy without a position. Career wRC+ of 111. Career fWAR 10.2 in basically 6 full seasons. He's a more consistent, healthier Avi. What is that even worth? Certainly not 200 million at an AAV of 20. I would offer 5 years 90 see what he thinks.

That's fair. I think the Sox will be average pay roll wise, which won't cut it if all their youngsters pan out as they hope. They will need to wade into the top 1/3.

The Sox have some of worst fan activation relative to market size in all of NA sports. You're not suddenly going to have top 10 local ratings, top 10 attendence and so forth signing a couple big name FAs. Only sustained winning will bring those casual eye balls back. Advertisers know that. I mean, what evidence do you have that the Sox will bump payroll into top 12ish range? Other than induction from the last time it was, a decade ago.

What evidence do you have for this?

I'm glad the option is biting a team in the ass here and making people realize what a poison pill they are for teams courting FAs. Options are always friendly towards whoever has them. Sure, sometimes a player will make a bad bet on himself. But with an opt out the team holds all the downside risk of the contract -- not great.

while that's possible, this feels like some friction between the sides. If everything was peachy they'd have come to that conclusion before officially offering the QO. I'd hazard a guess Jose's camp was (or vice versa) is trying to call a bluff.

He's going to accept it and Chicago will be overpaying him by about 50% next year. Oh well. This at least indicates they aren't over valuing him past 2020.

Yea the aren't going to offer him the qualifying offer when he'd probably take 30% of the AAV on a 1+1 type deal with a vesting or even club option for 2022. The Sox have leverage here beyond just offering the qualifying offer if we take Jose's words about "wanting to be a Sox forever" at face value, which why wouldn't we?

they saved some ash tray money in order to not invest in their Latin pipeline. That's like me saving money by not carrying auto insurance. It's a fucking short sided stupid decision.

either way the fans take it up the ass. this is the equivalent of seed VC money the one time out of 10 it hits it hits big and you got in early. But staid old JR is too old to realize it. You invest in the kids that turn out to be unicorns and you make 100x on your investment. But JR owns the sox like some chicago suburb retiree owns a dividend stock.

How bout those Bulls!

Bad process can have a good result and vice versa. The Sox continually use bad process and hope for better long term results. Not playing Mercedes over Skole is bad process and at the margins this stuff matters over a long enough time period.

wut? ownership? management? he's in his 70s and his zero experience. if he wants to get into managing he should have started long ago. but hi Steve.

true. i'm just cranky from the bulls loss.

right which is why the cubs shit canned him as soon as they were ready to win. the evidence is that he's mediocre at best as a "leader" and is horrific on field. People are just used to the Sox having bottom 1/3 managers I guess. Oh well, they've already signaled business as usual in myriad ways since September. They can win fans back over the next 4 months or lose the few remaining hardcore ones like myself they have left. Their choice.

He's a leader of men in a way Renteria never will be. And while he has problems with his bullpen decisions have you seen our current manager? Joe > Rick in every way.

Philly signed Girardi. Looks like they are more serious about winning than the Sox.

There's a lot of problems with Avi but that's the biggest one. He's not good enough on a rate basis to bother with given you expect him to miss 30-40 games every year.

They can do better than oft injured, poor defending 1.5 WAR true talent players that are entering FA. If he had put up the same 1.8 fWAR on the Sox (.340 BABIP) while missing another 40 games people would be paying his freight out of town. Grass is always greener or something.

Very much doubt this. Even if it's true a rising tide lifts all boats. The Sox don't get "extra credit" for not spending money that is generated from MLB as an entity. If the Sox aren't committed to a top 10 payroll during contending years this won't work.

Possibly, above my pay grade. But to be fair the same studies basically showed the delta between an optimized lineup and one that is completely optimized is 10 runs. So basically one win, at absolute most.

It's fairly well known in saber studies. The 3rd spot is massively over rated. You should probably put your 3rd worst hitter there or even 2nd worst. The key is to not have a lot of automatic outs in a row. Most teams put 7,8,9 as their worst and not only is that like giving the pitcher a free inning it also rarely sets the table for you best hitters, which should be usually 1,2,4,5,6.