Balta1701

He’s not on the roster yet, but they still absolutely need an OF on a minor league contract at some point. If they have 2 OF injuries, their only roster depth in the OF is Adolfo (lost on opening day) and Rutherford. At least if they have 2 IF injuries they have Mendick.

We made Sheets a full time DH. There’s your balance?

Joe Kelly because Tony LaRussa told him it was happening and he has to listen to LaRussa under all circumstances because LaRussa outranks him.

Bruce Levine ran with it. And like it or not, Bruce sometimes knows that stuff. He had the exact offer to Machado on Jan ‘19.

So let’s see, Henrdiks, Bummer, Crochet, Lopez, Foster, Ruiz, and Burr? You’re totally right, they needed at least one more righty if they did this right - almost everyone had Tepera on their offseason wishlists and that was reasonable. Tepera got $7 million a year for 2 years, the White Sox gave Graveman $8 million a year for 3 years. That was more than Tepera got, but everyone understood the need for that. You can check the early offseason threads for that - they may or may not have scouted correctly, Graveman was somewhat lucky last year, but they absolutely needed the arm. You could also justify a guy like Velasquez. Long reliever option with some upside? Sure. The role would have vanished if they had kept Rodon, because then Keuchel would start in the pen, but if they passed on both Kimbrel and Rodon I get that. Replace Velasquez, Kimbrel, and Kelly with Conforto and everyone is way happier. They will have spent extra on utility guys, but with their failure to develop backups it makes sense. A certain amount of bullpen depth makes sense. Kelly and Kimbrel as guys 7-8 - WTF?

But if they have a $190 million limit, they are basically at that. Moving Kimbrel could be the space they think they need at the deadline - which means if they don’t get an offer that saves enough money, they could hold him and see how things evolve. Not moving him would mean less money at the deadline but nothing else major.

We might. The white Sox won’t, seemingly. They bet everything on expensive veteran relievers.

The White Sox didn’t buy prospects from other teams when they had plenty of space to work with. I express extreme skepticism that they will try to do so with a $180 million payroll.

They are going with their current OF, I think they’re even trying to sell people on that.

Oh I think it’s a bag of balls and a couple million to move him if it happens. They just want the couple million to be as small as it can be.

I think Jimmy is completely right on this - they can’t get anyone to take on his whole deal, so they are holding out to see what the largest chunk they can move is. That sounds very white Sox.

Under no circumstances do I think the White Sox are eating nearly all of his contract for a prospect return.

Oh come on, the Phillies literally said “we have $20 million to spend on relievers. Kimbrel? No thank you” already. Plus they’re now in tax territory so it’s what, $20 million to take on his deal?

That sounds very much like the white Sox to me.

I can’t figure out why they wouldn’t try to get both this trade and Correa done at about the same time.

The problem with the Dodgers is they are way into the luxury tax. Spotrac has them at $288 million, which means any money they add now is basically hit by the Cohen tax, which starts at $290 million. That means absorbing Kimbrel’s $16 million deal completely costs them $25 million. The White Sox of course could and probably would pay some…but then the White Sox don’t get salary relief out of the deal, they’re paying to get the prospect, which takes them out of the market for any remaining FAs or trades, and they really didn’t even do that when they were rebuilding and could afford to.

Not for the white Sox.

Who else is left?

Serious question - I know Bauer’s status but what is Ozuna’s this year? Not that I want him, just legitimately don’t know.

Rodon without injuries would win the cy young though right?

The Twins weren’t crying bankrupt in the negotiations 2 months beforehand and they were in the playoffs in 2020. Plus, the Rockies just dumped a 3b. I can’t make any sense of the Rockies’ move.

5.5 to 3.9 on the sheet I’m looking at. Obviously worth noting these are just projections at this point.

Since I have the window open, right now the Astros are projected to be dramatically (2 wins) better than the white Sox at 2b, 3b, RF, and DH. The white Sox are comparably better at CF and C, with a decent lead at SS (1 win). 1b and Lf are close and the rotations are a wash. On paper this gives the Astros a continuing narrow advantage.

Right now, Fangraphs projections table gives the Twins the advantage at 2b, SS, CF (narrow), and RF. The big difference as you said is the pitching staff - but add a starter or two to the twins and they’re very close.