Balta1701

I haven't done it in a couple years, but back when the White Sox were signing guys to patch holes in 15-16, I looked at everyone who signed in the Rick Hahn money range of $8-18 million per year, and instead of previous career norms I used the standard of "would you sign this contract again now". In about 75% of the cases the answer was "no" at the time.

Yup. Except…they won the World Series with him, and they also signed a big contract for Jon Lester and a lesser contract for Zobrist. They don’t win a title if they pass on all big contracts.

Am I the only one who remembers how key Dexter Fowler was to the ‘16 Cubs? He hit the IL in like July and that was their only big slump.

Found it on the MLB page, yes I do think there is a multi year surcharge, but to be honest I can’t follow the language of how it interacts with the various levels. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/competitive-balance-tax If it’s the worst case scenario, the Cohen Tax and a multi year penalty could maybe have the Mets paying a 110% tax in 2024?

I don’t have the full text but I’ve seen no indication that the multi year CBA penalties survived this negotiation, no one has mentioned it as an issue.

Yes. It is entirely possible that Conforto will wait until the qualifying offer expires midseason if this many teams are pretending it was a big deal. That is exactly what happened to both Keuchel and Kimbrel in 2019.

I don't disagree that the Dodgers are caring about money - they're actually right up against the Cohen Tax, but probably not across it, and that isn't a coincidence. But what does it mean for the White Sox to take on some of the money from Kimbrel's contract and pay Bellinger? Let's imagine that the White Sox paid half of Kimbrel's contract, generating $8 million in savings for the Dodgers. Now the White Sox have taken on $24 million to pay for Bellinger - the money they paid for Kimbrel and Bellinger's contract. The Dodgers are happy with the savings, but the White Sox have pushed their payroll up by an extra $8 million. Are the White Sox going to do that? Would you pay $24 million to pick up Bellinger for 1 year if he was a free agent right now?

Just to stress this - the Cubs got about as bad of results as possible with Heyward. They also won the world series once and made the playoffs for like 5 consecutive seasons before having to rebuild, and TBH Heyward's contract was only a small part of the decision to rebuild - a much bigger issue was the fact that Schwarber, Bryant, and Baez got $450 million between them this offseason or whatever the number was, and holding onto those players just wasn't practical.

Like I said, you’re playing with sample sizes. The 3 previous years his FIP was 3.13, 8, and 3.97. Averaged over his contract or since his fly ball rate changed, it is worse. It’s 2.93 since he moved to Boston and 3.53 over the past 4 seasons - the latter would actually be a slight below average number, the former slightly above average.

His problem is that he’s a slightly above average reliever. He has an excellent strikeout rate, but also a high home run rate. That means he is going to go through exceptional stretches but they will be broken by a rare but impactful 3 run homer, and it is risky to take trends from 20 or 30 innings of his because of how random events work. Its kinda like Adam Dunn in a way. You pick 20 at bats of his he might go 1/20 with 12 Ks. The next 20 he might go 7/20 with 4 home runs and two doubles. If you say “oh for the first 20 at bats he was hitting cleanup, he just can’t hit there” - you are overconcluding based on a limited sample.

We have been told in the past that when everyone is querying and reloading a single big thread it can slow down the server. Not sure if it still is like that.

…a cigar just tastes better when it’s lit using a $100 bill.

Yes it is a lot of money to risk on a player. But first of all, it is possible to do more in-depth scouting of a player to assess that risk. Secondly, there is a big risk for a team like Boston in missing the playoffs - compared to making the ALCS last year, that’s tens of millions of dollars in ticket and ad revenue they could be out.

It’s also equally clear that those offers involve the white Sox sending along some money with.

Hahn awakens surrounded by an empty bottle of cheap Canadian whiskey, a bunch of dirty shoes, and next to a zebra…”I spent $17 million on what?!?”

Everyone this is amazing. One of the insiders got a direct quote from the general manager, made on the night that he signed Harrison, Kelly, and Velasquez. What a privilege to see this look deep into his thought process that night.

None of those involved winning a playoff series, let alone making the World Series. Let’s just get there. Figure out if we’ve done well from there.

F*** it, get to the World Series first and let me figure that out then?

For a 72 win White Sox team like the 2014 white Sox you are totally right, giving away a second round pick for David Robertson and a third round pick for Melky Cabrera would be nonsense. Only a fool would do that to try to make that bad of a team a little bit better. Heck, for a rebuilding team winning 60-some games, it would be just flat out fire-able to care so little about their international spending to, I dunno, trade some of the international space to convince Texas to take on the contract of a pitcher with a busted arm like Nate Jones. Giving up that opportunity for a minor bit of cost savings would just be nuts. No one in their right mind would do that. You would have to be the worst run franchise in baseball to be rebuilding and to care so little about your international signing pool. But when your team won 93 games last year and has a legitimate 2-3 year window before major pieces are gone, those draft picks just aren’t as important as winning right now. And they’re worth sacrificing. Pay market value and get the players you need, and the second round pick is inconsequential.

My personal pick remains “Lynn and Kopech have muscle soreness and there’s an unexpected IL trip for Gio or Cease” and “no one could possibly have predicted this team would have 3 starting pitchers hurt at once”.

All right, you get that thread but I call dibs on any “no one could have foreseen this number of injuries” posts. For how old this roster is, and the injury history of the young guys, it’s going to happen.

I’m not sure that any division in baseball is better than the NL East now. Which is crazy given last years results.

The fun will be the posts saying “no one could possibly have seen this number of injuries coming!”

No. But as of now that’s the official plan.

6 playoff spots and this roster? Fangraphs estimated over 80% chances and that’s fair even when the Twins add pitching.