Balta1701

“We had an outfield signing all wrapped up but then it leaked on Twitter.”

A higher ceiling? Syndergaard once put up a 6 fWAR season, and both were 4 fWAR pitchers in 2018 and 2019. Care to elaborate on how you concluded that?

I believe Holland was really good the year after he left Chicago

This is also why teams like the Red Sox, Guardians, and Tigers are in the bottom 5.

I don't think they're going to move Anderson yet, that would be an unavoidable admission that they are rebuilding. They can't frame that move any other way and be believable, even "we brought Andrus back" doesn't come off as convincing. You can certainly imagine a scenario where Montgomery is ready enough by next offseason that they feel more willing to make such a move then.

Some people have suggested that based on the market for relievers, one like Hendriks being available for $14 million is a pretty good arrangement, even if his luxury tax number is higher. This is probably true, he does have substantial value in this market. I've also believed that he has a strong likelihood of being worth more at the trade deadline, if he is healthy. The White Sox are not the only team that will pay highly for closers at the trade deadline, The Braves, for example, took on all of Iglesias's back-loaded contract at the trade deadline last year and gave up a decent enough pitching prospect who was previously in the top 5-6 in Atlanta's system before some forearm issues in 2021. However, the teams that would be willing to take on a $14 million a year closer are teams that are looking to compete themselves. The only team that trades for highly priced closers when they're winning 60 games is the White Sox, no one else thinks that's smart. Those teams are always hesitant to give up major-league-ready players, because major-league-ready players are guys who can contribute to big league rosters this season on those competitive teams. To my eyes, Hendriks could bring back a solid return, but it's a rebuilding return. You're unlikely to get back a big league quality piece for him, because your trade partner would rather have the cost controlled big league piece than a closer.

Anderson tried to play through being hurt? That one I don’t recall as much, what injury was that?

I believe that’s likely the case for Colas. They have upgraded RF defense even if his offense is a downgrade from the middle -of-the-pack performance they got offensively in RF last year. The difference is that in 2021 the Astros led MLB in runs scored and on top of that they knew they were getting Verlander back. If they downgraded a bit on offense that was ok to them. In 2022 the White Sox were 19th in runs scored, lost Abreu from that team, and oh by the way they replaced their second best pitcher with Clevinger. They have little room for anything other than solid offense from Colas.

You're fully correct. And yet somehow we went an entire thread about trading Liam without anyone bringing it up, but we didn't do that with Anderson. Fascinating.

I have no idea what the White Sox are trying to do. The lanes still available are - sign Benintendi and go with what's there, sign guys like Conforto and Frazier and go with what's there, pretend a trade will appear that isn't there yet, or pretend Eloy and Sheets are outfielders and go with what's currently here. The longer that this drags on the more the last one on the list seems plausible? Because this team on paper should be so desperate for another outfielder that they should be willing to pay to bring one in, in terms of either prospect talent or money. The fact that they haven't yet is troublesome as the market for guys who could give you 500 quality plate appearances is genuinely dwindling.

There's an entire thread about Hendriks being on the trade market. Where in there did you complain about his excessive celebrations?

What is this .500 team trying to do? Is this a .500 team that has plans to stay .500 over the next year or two while they bring up a series of well thought of prospects that they then hope will carry them to playoff births? This was what Cleveland did in 2021. That makes sense. That would make sense for Baltimore this year, they were a nearly .500 team last year that just brought up a ton of talent and has more on the way. Is this .500 team trying to convince themselves that they're going to take a huge step forwards next year? Because the rookie probably won't help too much there. They might, rookies sometimes do, but it's a gamble more likely to fail than succeed.

I do think these extended deals will change one thing - you will have a lot more guys like Pujols who stay in the league rather than retire, so that they can get to the end of their contracts. Many all star guys reach the point where they would be backups or part time players and they wind up retiring rather than play for a couple million a year. From the White Sox, this happened to Jermaine Dye, notably. He still could have contributed a little, but it wasn’t worth it to him to stay in baseball shape for an extra couple million. These guys with the extended contracts are probably going to wind up part time players towards the end of their deals, filling rosters as platoons or as backups. It might well be more interesting to see the old veterans hanging on in those roles than guys like Leury, at least. We saw Pujols have some late career magic, a few more guys probably will. Maybe some might still retire, and maybe some will go the Ellsbury route of being permanently benched.

So he would have to finish top 3 in the Roy citing to get the team a draft pick?

Here's the basic problem. The argument you just gave says "This team will not be competitive next year and needs a substantial and significant overhaul. Virtually none of the current lineup can be counted on and an entire new core needs to be established." If that's the case, yes, trading Hendriks makes sense, if he is able to return good value now then do so, or alternatively given the weirdness of his contract I still think the trade deadline is likely. None of that suggests that the current core can be fixed by trading Hendriks for a minor piece and freeing up $14 million that can go to Gallo and another reliever or Benintendi. Not only do all the same problems remain, but you have the additional issue of trying to pry away a nearly big league ready player from a team that wants to compete so much that they're trading for a closer, which is a difficult proposition to work out (if the Dodgers, for example, thought they had a solid OF contributor for next year out of your favorite guy, they're going to hesitate to part with him for a closer when they need OF depth themselves).

To be fair, you're talking about a Boras client. He's smart enough to prevent his clients from signing contracts like that.

For that level of performance, where the upside is a 5-6 win pitcher and/or a draft pick, yes, that would have been a smart allocation of resources. And yes, I started off last offsaeason by saying "we probably don't have the money for both and that means we have to go with Rodon because he's way more likely to be worth it"

that seems like a vastly bigger ask than what they actually got?

If Oakland is piling up guys they like but who aren't ranked highly, the fact that they aren't ranked highly should mean that they can add on extra wild cards in a deal like this. Didn't the Gallo-to-the-Yankees deal include like 6 players going back to Texas?

Maybe Oakland just doesn’t view our guys that highly or they are going with guys their scouts likes? Iirc the return for Samardzija from us wasn’t viewed that highly at the time but it turned out great for them. When they acquired Samardzija they gave up a guy who was roughly top 10 in MLB on prospect lists and they didn’t get back any top 100 guys when they traded him away only a couple months later, but in the long run they won both of those deals.

The NL East has three teams that believe they can win 100 games next year.

I believe there was general agreement that the Robertson, Frazier, Kahnle trade to the Yankees was light on the prospect return because the Yankees were taking on Frazier and Robertson's decently big contracts. Kahnle in particular had like 5 years of control remaining or something ridiculous like that.

NO COULD YOU LET US KNOW WHAT IT WAS?