Balta1701

Some of these really annoy me because you’re obviously cheating to say it - for example, how is Moncada worse than last year? Hes not. Elvis Andrus is the exact same mid .600s OPS player he’s been for years and you’re counting him as worse because of an insane HR stretch over 2 months of last year that he was never going to repeat. For Grandal you’re comparing him to 2021 and saying how clearly he’s not motivated, but he was way worse in 2022 - but for Eloy, he was actually worse than this in 2021, slightly better but hurt more in 2022, so you pay attention to Eloy’s 2022 and ignore his 2021. They’re just generally bad, with numbers that bounce between tolerable and terrible! But the real fun part? That you’ve literally said that you can tell how this team needs better motivation since they didn’t get anything out of Hanser Alberto, Gavin Sheets, Clint Frazier, and Adam Haseley. i think there’s a bigger problem than motivation when stuff like that gets written.

Which guys with track records underperformed? I will give you Anderson but who else? Robert seriously overperformed. Clevinger was better at baseball and boxing. Moncada was about the same. Burger broke out. Grandal was way better than last year. So many guys - Kopech, Vaughn, Colas, Sosa, Crochet, Bummer, they just never were good. Lynn was worse sure, a 35 year old lost his fastball, that’s not a motivation thing. They were a bad team last year and the only reason they weren’t in third place was that they got lucky in 1 run games. They lost their best hitter and second best pitcher in the offseason. They didn’t upgrade basically anything, they have no support from the minors and maybe less depth than Oakland, and their already old roster got a year older. This was a terrible roster coming into the year that sone people refused to recognize.

Because this team was put together the way Jerry Reinsdorf wanted and it didn’t work. Because Jerry Reinsdorf did a great job; it can’t be a problem with the players, it has to be that they need veteran leadership. So, he decided that move is happening and found the only candidate for the GM position on earth who won’t tell him no.

That is his 3rd walk in September. In July he had 1, in September he had 2. In June he had 7, in May he had 8. 3 walks in 3 weeks is not going in the right direction.

There's a guy who started with the Braves as a scout and who worked his way up to an assistant General Manager position with the Braves by 2005 who is currently just a senior advisor of baseball operations for the team in Texas. He's probably available.

I'm still pretty sure that the #1 person who said Joe Kelly is being signed was Tony LaRussa. I'm not sure what else went into that, but basically the press said it happened because of him and he personally bragged about how good the signing was going to be right after it happened.

Why was I tagged here?

The usual progression among white Sox fans for trades like this is: 1. Pre trade: “I’m not sure we’re only one piece away, this guy isn’t bad but he’s expensive, I hope we don’t overpay. 2. Trade happens: fanboys celebrate the success and brilliance of the GM and tell everyone else how stupid they are for not seeing this brilliant success. You always hear compliments over how little they actually gave up, and anyone who doesn’t praise the GM is called a bad fan 3. Later that year: “well maybe we weren’t one player away, but this guy is still good so that was a good trade. 4. Two years later: wow we are bad, our payroll is too high and we are selling off pieces to get if down. Our system is terrible too. Boy the guys we gave up in that trade turned out way better than I imagined, wouldn’t it be nice to have them back while they’re still pre arbitration. Oh well, no one could possibly have seen this coming, so there’s no reason to learn anything from it or do anything different this offseason. 5. repeat.

Bregman, Altuve, Verlander, McCullers?

Jeff Samardzija's trade occurred on December 9 2014. The idea of trading for a guy to get them to the postseason on September 21 makes no sense, that is after the trade deadline,. https://www.espn.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/12004547/chicago-white-sox-acquire-jeff-samardzija-trade-oakland-as

Assuming they don't do anything with Hendriks other than use his option, and they pick up options and arbitration on everyone you'd expect, their payroll right now is a little more than $100 million to fill out the roster. Adding Perez, if the Royals picked up nothing, adds $20 million. $120 million ish was their salary range basically for a decade up to 2016. The last couple years, they've pushed the payroll to $190 and $180 million. Perez would be in the way of adding pitchers, but they should still have some money to play with in any case. How high they'd go on payroll though, I have no good guesses, because attendance is collapsing and I'll wager that season ticket cancellations for next year continue to be high. I do highly doubt that they have the money available to sign 4 good quality starting pitchers, add serviceable arms to their bullpen, and do what they need to do to improve their terrible lineup.

Given what we have seen from that franchise, I find it doubtful that the Royals are going to be desperate to move payroll such that they would make a move like this. Their total salary this year is $93 million and a lot of that is currently on the IL or guys who were traded away so there might be insurance things that offset them. Their total committed payroll next year is about $40 million, and $10 million of that was to release Hunter Dozier. They will have to take a few million in costs for arbitration guys and a few million more to fill out their roster, but this is a team that should already be raking in money due to revenue sharing alone. They really aren't in a position where they are desperate to move this contract to the point that they would give up talent to move it. Quite the opposite in fact, I'd expect them to spend some money to fill out their roster this offseason. Their payroll commitments are probably in the $55 million range depending on guys' arbitration numbers, and they've spent $70-$90 million each of the past few seasons with much higher totals the years coming off their playoff appearances. Perez may be overpaid, but this is far from a situation where they obviously need to dump the contract so badly that we should expect them to throw in something of value with him. So far, the Royals have been a losing franchise, but they haven't stripped themselves down to a $30 million payroll like some like the As, Orioles, or Pirates. This guy is a long time representative of their organization, and I'm guessing fairly popular with the fans there although I don't know for sure that part...this would not be their style of move. Just this year, they brought back and probably overpaid one of their former players in Greinke just so that they had someone for their fans to cheer. They also had multiple teams at least showing interest in Perez at the trade deadline in 2023 including the White Sox, so they have reason to think that a large portion of his contract is movable if they decide they do want to cut costs in the future. Maybe if you take on the majority of his contract they'd move him without a return in the trade, but I'm not sure about that, they might well demand an actual prospect for him despite his contract given their financial stability, his status as a long-term veteran, and the potential to have multiple teams showing interest in him at the trade deadline next year if they hold onto him.

Well that sure sounds like Davis Martin.

credehr.wav