Balta1701

You’re right. The White Sox were totally able to move Craig Kimbrel. I specifically remember how hard people came down on me for suggesting they would have to take bad money back, and my favorite was the day I said he was an average at best reliever. Boy did that ever provoke outrage. So please, tell me how great his value is again. I really want to hear it. Please continue, Governor.

Their GM has no contract after the end of this season.

All right let’s play this out. Using the numbers here, https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/teams/467/ Colson Montgomery has enough value that you could trade Montgomery, Grandal, Garcia, Kelly, and Diekman for a utility guy from someone. This clears out many of the mistakes of last offseason and clears the payroll we need for Nimmo quite readily. It does so without hurting the 2023 White Sox at all, the reliable arms stay in the bullpen and now there’s even a spot for Crochet. I assume I’ve solved the puzzle and everyone agrees this is the right strategy, right? Does exactly what you said you wanted to do, trades away that easily movable back end of Grandal’s deal.

Here are the players who signed $100 million contracts 1 season ago. Seager $325 Bryant $182 Semien $175 Freeman $162 Story $140 Baez $140 Scherzer $130 Ray $115 Gausman $110 Correa $105 Castellanos $100 How many of those deals could be moved without eating money right now, one year in? I’d say Freeman, Correa, Gausman, probably Semien, Maybe Seager. If half of the free agent market is hard to move just 1 year out, then what are the odds guys will be movable several years out? And yes you could attach prospects to guys to move them….which most teams don’t do now because the young players are much more valuable, and the White Sox have a crappy system anyway.

The “drop payroll” setup isn’t in my eyes all that different from the steady payroll setup. The White Sox are well behind Cleveland as of right now. If they went out and signed Nimmo and Rodon to 5-6 year deals, that fully offsets what they are losing to free agency on paper, but still leaves them well behind Cleveland…unless a lot of people who stank this year can improve. If they have to go cheap, then they partially offset what they are losing to free agency, but the season will still be determined by whether a lot of people who stank this year can improve. In either case, the results of the season are dominated by the guys already here. If they can recover with a new coach, they have a shot at a playoff spot. If they can’t, then you’ve cleared out a couple bad contracts this year and gotten closer to a couple other ones ending. Fill what you can, be cautious about long term money if there is a hard payroll limit, find a real set of coaches and see what happens.

Yes, he was the White Sox’s bench coach under Ventura in that super successful 2016 season.

How many consecutive coaches have the Cubs hires that had clear connections to the Cubs? The last time The white Sox hired someone without them appears to be Gene Lamont, so 6 straight coaches with an organizational connection.

Let’s spell out how people think this is going to work. They think the White Sox have exactly $10 million to play with. They look at a $5 million starter and a $5 million OF and say the White Sox aren’t close to possibly competing if that’s all they add. So they say ok, we will save $15 million out of the bullpen by trading away its best pitcher. Now they will sign the second best OF on the market, but keep the same 0.5 WAR fifth starter. And now we are so confident that this OF will put us over the top, despite a weaker bullpen than we started with, that we are willing to go 5 or 6 years to beat the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers. In reality, if you think your team is so far away they can’t compete with the stronger bullpen and scrap heap additions like Pederson, your team won’t compete by being 1 or 2 wins better next year and having the contract last until Nimmo is in his mid 30s, and you have no business trying to sign that kind of contract.

I will again take the opinion that if you subtract the best player from a slightly above average bullpen and replace him with a 28 year old journeyman, most likely you turn that into a below average bullpen and that offsets the good you did by improving the OF.

So give a real example then. I would contend that middle relief spending is pretty likely to give you a Kendall Graveman and a Joe Kelly for the same money Hendriks got - two guys who can be above average at time but who are inconsistent and who might have some injury issues thrown in. And if you spend less than that, you get guys like Velasquez, where you're hoping for the best. Clearly it doesn't help the White Sox to trade Hendriks and then try to outbid the Mets for Edwin Diaz. Maybe a 2 year, $20 million deal for Eflin, saving the white sox $5 million a year on Hendriks?

Alex Colome had a 1.68 WHIP and 5.74 ERA in 2022. I'd rather pitch Ruiz and Foster. If that's what we're talking about having to do to be able to sign Nimmo, then there's zero reason to sign Nimmo. A team that needs Alex Colome to contribute as a major piece isn't going anywhere.

He is slightly more valuable than his contract. His contract could be moved to someone without picking up much money. The return would be a player, but not one of substantial value. That could mean an A baller, or a seemingly washed up prospect, or a utility guy, something like that. You don’t have to take a bad contract back to move him. The White Sox’s bullpen has been an issue for 2 years, he’s been one of the only 2 reliable guys. While you could move him to save money, I would ask how this makes the team better short or long term? If you still want to compete this year, you remove the only strong force in that bullpen and now have to go find more arms, which costs money and we have seen how well that works. Trading him is, to me, a rebuilding move. No reason to hold onto Cease if you’re moving Hendriks.

Andrew Vaughn not being conditioned for the outfield is not as much in the coaching staff as it is on the genetics of Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn.

Little Ricky and Tantrum Tony weren’t about to admit that they did a bad job by trading away guys at the deadline even if it helped them this offseason. If you’re in a culture surrounded by yes men who say you did everything right, you have to continue saying things are going to plan even when they aren’t.

Lambert does have options left. If somehow everyone in the pen is healthy you can send him down to start the year.

I might seriously think about tendering Ruiz. He hasn’t been a below replacement player, and was positive in 2021. $1 million isn’t a lot, and perhaps most importantly they don’t have a ton of bullpen depth. Hendriks, Graveman, Kelly, Lopez, Lambert from the right hand side if everyone is healthy? Unless they are planning to sign another good money reliever, let Ruiz go and I guess Burr is the next guy up?

I feel like I have to change my text color to all white if I'm going to support a search with those names at the top.

If he gets two strikes on him though he’s an automatic out, he can’t protect the plate. He can’t make pitchers work and he can’t foul things off. He has to hit the first strike he gets, it’s not a good strategy but it’s not wrong.

They didn’t do multiple interviews for Tony. They interviewed Willie because of his skin color and I doubt they even interviewed Tony.

Whatever you do, just don’t strap it on.

Well there wasn’t exactly any good reason for him to be playing.

I think Luis had about one good swing he could make per at bat before the pain built to unbearable, and no ability to check his swing on a close pitch, so he was trying to swing and make contact at the first pitch that was anywhere close. You could see how he would get worse the longer the at bats went.

No it can’t. There’s literally no one on earth who would give the same combination of lack of preparation, ignorance, and arrogance, while also having the ability to get anything he wanted by having the owner in his back pocket.

Is Ron Washington my ideal choice? Is Ron Washington going to be a key cog in a 10 year project to build a system where the coaching, training, scouting all work together and even if they occasionally have a bad year or need to rebuild they’re regularly at the top of the division? Naw. Is Ron Washington going to run to his owner like a crying 77 year old b**** asking him to sign a utility guy or broken down reliever because the GM was a poopy-head? Also no. Is Ron Washington going to tell the opposing team to throw at one of his own players because those Hispanic guys need to be taught a lesson? No. Is Wash going to shout down his own staff trying to explain a rule to him after he slept through the presentation by the league about those rules in the Spring? I dunno, I would hope not. Is Wash going to start walking guys randomly on 1-2 counts because he has to show he’s the smartest guy in the room, show up the opposing player by doing so, and then allude to his knowledge of a nonexistent stat to cover his ass when it implodes? Naw. Not ideal, but better than last time, and yeah I can think of worse options even this year.