Balta1701

Yes, someone will take a flyer on taking Lynn's contract on. If they're willing to pay Syndergaard $20 million then someone would take Lynn on for $19 million. But you won't get anything back for him more than money, and I ask you this what is the point? The White Sox have no one to replace him! Signing Quintana for $14 million after dumping Lynn's $19 million - does that make the White Sox better? Eloy would probably bring back a small return. He has hit well this year, but you are talking about a guy due minimum $27 million on his deal over the next 2 years, while having played 134 games over 2 seasons. Would you pay $27 million for less than 1 year's worth of plate appearances for a DH? One who has an OPS in the mid-800s this year in the best stretch we've seen from him? And oh by the way he's only hitting .214 since the team quit. Oh and yes, he has option years on his contract - for $16.5 and $18.5 million. Depending on what happens with some other guys, picking up any of those options would make him one of the highest paid DHs in the league. I would take that deal on if I was the Mets or Dodgers, and you can have a reliever or something like that back for him, but something of real value? Not with that contract. If I were a low salary team like the Brewers or Marlins? Not a chance. Moncada is not movable unless you take back comparably bad money. My examples are still guys like Corbin (too much money remaining), Hosmer, etc. Moncada for Hosmer is a deal the Red Sox do.

Yoan Moncada has trade value? Eloy Jimenez does too? C'mon now. Eloy goes into "Might get something in return", you won't get much for him above his contract, not with his injury history. Moncada goes into "Won't get something in return." While I'm at it, Bummer won't get you anything in return either. Lynn probably won't either - you could possibly move his contract.

It's .280.

Does sending Anderson and Grandal to the Dodgers, or Hendriks and Grandal to the Dodgers, make the White Sox better in any way? Are the White Sox going to go sign Correa to replace Anderson?

That's all true. But none of that changes the dollar amount he's owed, and none of that makes another catcher magically appear. They have 2 guys capable of catching right now other than Grandal, which means they would need someone else on the roster in the event of injury next year. Here are your options: 1. Pay Grandal $18.25 million in 2023, play him along with Zavala as your main catchers, Perez moves in when there's an injury and spends a decent portion of the year in Charlotte. 2. Pay Grandal $18.25 million to leave. Sign another catcher for $1-$5 million. Get a .600 OPS from someone like Luke Maile or Kurt Suzuki for that money or maybe gamble on a Roberto Perez coming back from a severe leg injury. Your catching rotation is now Zavala, Perez, Maile or Perez or whatever else. Total cost - $19-20 million. Costs you extra to feel good about dumping Grandal, congrats. 3. Pay Grandal $18.25 million to leave, trade for a catcher. Total cost $19 million or more, and you've given up somethign from a weak system. Costs you money and a player to get rid of Grandal. 4. Package a player with Grandal and see if someone will take Grandal's deal for a top 100 prospect. Montgomery + Grandal for a minor league reliever saves Reinsdorf the $18.25 million. The right answer is #1. Stop putting him at DH, see if you can get a platoon bat out of him and Zavala behind the plate. If he's terrible, so is any other catcher you might bring in. Develop Perez for a year, out from under the contract after the season.

No. There are only a few guys with actual trade value after this season - mostly Cease and Vaughn. Although Vaughn could be traded, there's no real pressure to trade Cease with 3 years left of control of him. He's the only one on this list I could actually see moving. Everyone else could conceivably be worth more at the deadline next year or next offseason, or potentially much easier to discard next offseason. They'll go with the same core and hope for better results.

MLB may not be able or willing to say what the record is for home runs by an actual human being rather than a chemistry experiment, but that doesn't mean I am somehow unable to know what it is.

Zavala was out of options. He passed through waivers at the start of 2022 in order to be removed from the active roster, but his performance in the minors and majors this year was good enough that someone would claim him as teams always need catchers. Zavala could not be optioned to Charlotte.

Grandal is unmovable. The only way to get Grandal off of the White Sox's roster is to Designate him for Assignment, meaning they will pay his entire remaining deal. That will clear a roster spot, but they have no obvious catcher to replace him - Zavala and Perez simply isn't good enough of a catching pair to survive without additional veteran depth. Cutting Grandal actually is therefore a bill for an extra $2-3 million or so. Engel can be non-tendered this November. They will still need to figure out what they are going to do as a backup OF, because it seems uncertain whether Pollock and Leury can be the main OF backups and the DH in the OF problem needs to be solved.

No, they weren't. Not even close to Sale and Quintana - affordable, under control for multiple year, young pitchers?

There's enough talent on this squad that if they're the healthiest team in the league like people demand that they should be, that will probably put them in a winning season. Does that put them into first place in the division? Maybe. Cleveland is younger and better than people gave them credit for, and the other 3 teams could easily take steps forwards next year. Being the healthiest team in the AL should be enough to put them into the wild card at least.

Loser is in third place.

Harris has been a minor league coach for the White Sox, Reds, and Giants, and now a 3b coach for the Cubs for 3 years. He is genuinely working his way up the right way and is showing a commitment to coaching and learning. He isn’t the most experienced but definitely isn’t Robin Ventura/should be coaching little league. I would have no issues including him in a professional and well run interview process and if he stood out based on personality or ideas for how to fix this team, move him ahead.

Seby was a 1 WAR player this year in 200 PAs by B-R and 1.9 WAR by Fangraphs. I would be skeptical about that latter number, but that performance is easily a catcher in a rotation. He was much better behind the plate this year and showed offensive promise. Seby and Reese could have been a solid platoon at that position.

They aren’t even coming up as the most expensive pen in the league this year, let alone ever. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/positional/relief-pitcher/

One of the reasons he never had anyone to give up is that they spent 10 years as one of the worst systems in the league. About the only player who actually came through their system worth a dime from 2005-2015 was Chris Sale. While he's not chopped liver and it would have sucked to give him up early, he's literally 1 top draft pick. Some other guys they gave up who were decent include Gio Gonzalez, Aaron Rowand, and Daniel Hudson. They couldn't give away a Tatis level player though because the only 1 they found over a 10 year period was Sale.

I think the lack of playoffs and performance this year does that already.

let's go with $10 billion per year - an average team therefore would have a revenue of $333 million per year. League wide, we know that players are getting somewhere around 40% of revenue, maybe a little higher after the last CBA. If the White Sox are an average revenue team (remember they're below average on attendance) - then they'd be at $333 million in revenue. A $195 million payroll there is a 58% revenue share going to players - plus we know there's at least $15 million in benefits on top of that that are coutned as payroll. So the league is paying 40% of their revenue to players, the White Sox are paying 63% of revenue to players right now? That's even higher than the rate players were getting in the early 2000s. Now, imagine that they drop back to 23rd in attendance, like they were in 2019? Not a big drop, but now we're talking about 65, 70% of revenue going to players? That's starting the season in the red, unless they can sell a lto of new ads or new tickets during the year. They may or may not be able to support that salary, it's going to be up to ownership as to what they will tolerate.

They're #7 in payroll this season and #17 in attendance. There's some ways around that - extra money for ads from having the Chicago Market and from having playoff games, being willing to pull in 0 profit for a year because the team value is growing, the sweetheart stadium deal, but that only holds so long. Lose the playoff ticket sales, lose any extra revenue that comes from ads in a crowded ballpark during playoff games...the math is tough here. I doubt they lost substantial amounts of money in 2022. But without the support of a playoff team, the same payroll in 2023 - top 7 in baseball - could readily leave them in the red on paper next April. And if ownership wasn't willing to do that, after several other years of taking losses...that's not unreasonable, a team can't operate in the red forever.

While I totally agree with the sentiment, I also will have to face up to this - ownership spent more in 2022 than I guessed they would at my most optimistic last year. They went right up to the line that was the tax in the old CBA, and I believe last year I said "they could probably go up to the tax line" in at least one post. The people who say "They can't possibly cut payroll" right now gave plans assuming the payroll might be $170 million last offseason, and they went to $195. If there is a general sentiment that they cannot spend what they did in 2022, for the first time in a long time - the White Sox cutting payroll because they're too overstretched is actually justified.

nope. IL days however...