Balta1701

10 years of hearing excuses for Rick Hahn man. We have a lot of experience with inexplicable sycophancy.

When did MLB revoke the Titles of the Rangers, Astros, Braves, Nationals, Red Sox, Astros, Cubs, Royals, and Giants? Ok maybe one of those should have been, but “no one can beat the Yankees or Dodgers” is a pretty F’d up concept when they’ve won 3 titles in the last 20 years. 17 times other teams have won titles!! Hell the highest payroll team isn’t even on the list of teams you’ve declared unbeatable.

Two playoff appearances out of a 4 year rebuild is pretty much a joke. The Cubs got 5 and a title. The Astros got 9 and seemingly 1 honest title. The Royals only got 2 because they couldn’t afford to keep anyone, but they also got a title.

JR doesn’t need to pay all of it, almost no politicians have said that. What they’ve said almost entirely is that it has to be a good deal for the taxpayers. JR will have to come up with something, my guess has been a little more than half, and the politicians would play ball and say they got a good deal. Until that happens, my guess remains either team is sold to someone who will pay a reasonable amount or they move to Nashville.

November 2025: “How can you blame Katz and Bannister for the bullpen being bad again, they had nothing to work with on a $60 million payroll, literally no one said the bullpen was going to be improved this year.”

If this guy was going to be put on waivers, after being waived can’t he be claimed by any team? And isn’t the order of waiver claims based on the record last season, where the White Sox would have the highest priority of any team in the last 60 years?

Was Boyd the main person people would have wanted in a Crochet trade with Philly?

What successes justify this faith?

He specifically said that he didn’t like this move because these are the type of guys who sometimes grow two inches. You asked which player he was talking about. 30 year olds rarely grow upwards by two inches. Sometimes they grow outwards by that much.

2 other thoughts I had: -Could this be this years version of Getz liking some guys story and paying for leadership? Wouldn’t be the first time. -if this works as well as last years bullpen additions are we allowed to question the reputation of Katz and Bannister?

Guys in their thirties are much less likely to add two inches than 18 year olds. Vertically, not horizontally.

And the Boston Red Sox, who clearly intend to compete this year, and who had Booser, looked at an 18 year old years away from the big leagues and said “yeah we’d rather have that.”

Should be a free agent next offseason

Slade Cecconi is totally going to become another strong reliever for them isn’t he

Robert + Benintendi to Houston for Smith?

But like Moncada, another bad season from Robert or another major injury and you seriously consider turning down the option on his contract. The end result would then be saving money and having nothing to show for him long term.

If they did it wasn’t worth talking about because until his terrible 2024 brought his value down they had no where near the type of talent in their system it would take to get him.

What exactly are you calling a permanent DH? Frank Thomas played a total of 131 games at 1b in his final 11 seasons, never more than 49 games at 1b per year. Over that time he accounted for 23.4 fWAR. This included a 5.9 fWAR season where he was 2nd in the MVP voting to a guy loaded with steroids.

You were listed as a "Follower" of this thread, there's a button at the top right of the posts for "Follow" and you were the only person listed in there. I'd imagine you hit it at some point, possibly by accident, and it looks like that might trigger an email alert for new posts? This is what it looked like to me when I clicked on that box, showing 1 follower in this thread. I "removed" you as a follower, hopefully that stops the emails. If you would like to re-subscribe, please click that button again.

The woman who alleged the abuse case tweeted that it was the case, I believe.

Am I allowed Davis Martin? Does he count?

This is a great question actually, because my answer is literally "I don't have a F***ing clue and I'd rather go have some whiskey". Worse yet, we could easily have this discussion at the all star break about his 2nd half, and about his 2026 numbers next offseason, and all we're going to do is make me want better quality whiskey. In 4 seasons he has 1 season of 4.9 fWAR, 1 season of 3.5 fWAR, 1 season of 2.2 fWAR, and 1 season of 0.5 fWAR. How the bloody hell do you project that?

Here's where you and I disagree - I think he was an oft-injured player most of his career. That's how I describe his 2021 and 2022. He was a star in 2023, until he was injured. He was oft-injured in 2024, and for the first time - really bad at baseball. To put this in another view, in hindsight, if the White Sox had traded Moncada for those 2 level of players in 2022, would that make the White Sox better today? I would say yes. And fwiw, the utility guy also stole 40 bases last year, so there's some other skill to that player too.

He's suddenly a sub 1 win player because...he put up a sub 1 win season. 'm sorry this is personally offensive to you, but he was worth 0.5 fWAR last year and played 2/3 of a season. You can look at fangraphs yourself, I'm not making that up. And no, I don't believe a "lack of protection" makes anywhere near that much difference. Robert put up much better numbers with little protection in 2023, most of the time that year I was stunned people pitched to him. With all the literature on how "no protection doesn't matter except a tiny bit", it doesn't turn him into a 0.5 fWAR player. Is he that for the future? I'm not sure, with his injury history it is possible, and you cannot say it's impossible to believe Robert could only put up a 0.5 fWAR season when he just did. Can you tell me how Robert put up a 0.5 fWAR season last year and why it won't happen again? If that happens, and the White Sox don't trade him, then either 2025 or 2026 he leaves with his option not picked up, and that's the situation right now. In terms of the trade market, if you are asking for super high level prospects for that player, I wouldn't give it up and you'd hate it if the White Sox did that move. Instead, you would do exactly what the Yankees did - find a player who is also up and down, but who is available for a 30 year old reliever. As I said in my last post, what you have to hope for is recovery, fully. However, if teams can find options who are available for a 30 year old reliever and cash, they aren't going to pay a high prospect price for a guy like Robert unless he can clearly establish he's back onto an all star, MVP level pace. And even then, his injury history is going to weigh on the offers you get for him. If the best you can do for him right now is a 30 year old reliever, then yes hold onto him. If you could get an offer like the hypothetical Mets one we were talking about yesterday, taking that makes the White Sox deeper and removes a lot of downside risk on Robert.

I think a particularly interesting part of this is that he doesn't land with the Yankees. I was figuring that Bellinger + Walker + Fried is basically Soto's money, maybe a little more, but a lot better of a team.