Balta1701

I won’t believe anything until he tweets that Hahn is working hard.

My guess based on precedents and the fact that no charges were filed is that he'll get a month suspension, appeal it to an arbitrator, and it will be upheld. Open question will be whether he makes an a** of himself on Twitter complaining about it.

and Boras did exactly what he was going to do - get an opt out after 1, so if Rodon pitches 160-170 innings this year and is still that good, he hits the FA market again coming off 2 5+ WAR seasons and cashes in a 9 figure deal.

Wait for it...wait....wait...

Because either they had a handshake agreement not to offer it or because Rick Hahn hasn't figured out that a guy who is worth $44 million and paid $18 million has trade value while a guy who is paid $16 million and is worth $12 million does not.

Boras would have done a handshake agreement for Rodon to return to the White Sox in 21 cheaply over other teams if they wouldn’t offer a QO. It’s either that happened or Rick Hahn is an idiot who didn’t understand the market by $26 million.

First of all, Dye was not as bad in 05 as he was in 06 and later. Secondly, one OF black hole perhaps we can deal with. That roster had an excellent CF and an excellent defensive LF. Robert should be ok but we have some worry about that injury lingering, and Eloy isn’t exactly on Podsenik’s legs in LF.

That shouldn’t matter for a truly rebuilding team (still no clue how he wasn’t sent to Arizona for Escobar last year for that reason).

If Oakland is rebuilding I wonder if Adolfo could be a usable second or third piece in a trade with them.

Yeah, but you’re literally talking about locking some prospects who are ready enough to win ROY at AAA for a year or more. It might happen to one or two guys, but this would be very tough to justify and probably would provoke a grievance. Rare at best.

My guess for him is still that he gets like 3 years but with an opt out after 1. Seeing the CBA, maybe 3/$70 with $20 million in year 1 would make good sense. If he throws 170 innings next year and is a 7 WAR pitcher, Boras will want him in a contract that anticipated his performance and gets him right back onto the FA market. They would probably take a shorter guarantee to make that possible.

Yup, and so was the Tepera trade. Yay! I will even give you Colome as a wash, but Narvaez sure fixed that “he will never be a good framer” thing by becoming a great one. And on the other side we have Kimbrel, Hernandez, Mazara, Alonso, Frazier, Samardzija, and a trade with San Diego that might be on the swear filter, which are various degrees of poor to among the worst in MLB history. Even with rose colored glasses, this is a terrible trade record. A trade is probably still the right move, but Rick Hahn’s ability to pull off any trade success absolutely deserves every bit of skepticism available. This is like Ryan Pace trading up in the draft.

Fine. I get that. But there’s also a big downside to signing that pitcher and going into next season with Sheets/Vaughn as the RF/DH pair as a consequence. They have basically $30 million to spend if they want to leave a few crumbs for the deadline - you just spent $20 million on Rodon. They still need a backup catcher, someone to make sure Leury isn’t the starting 2b, and help in the outfield. Theres 3 ways to do this. Sign guys who are all beaten up and make no trades, so you’re getting say a Pederson, Corey Kluber, Roughned Odor level set of additions. Or, you could sign Rodon, and go true scrap heap for the other slots like Jose Iglesias and Jake Marisnick. Or, you sign a guy for $20 million and you make trades to fill in the other slots - on paper, that gives the best lineup easily, but you have Rick Hahn doing it.

Honestly it might do the exact opposite. You’ve got the number 1 prospect in baseball, you want him on your club and don’t want to keep him at AAA for a season and a half, you don’t want to lose the year of control if he wins ROY, so you bring him up the previous July rather than September or April so that he gets enough ABs that he no longer qualifies for the ROY award the next year. That’s the only way to guarantee he won’t win that award. The players would be totally ok with that.

If they’re willing to spend the money, that extra $20 million in space under the tax helps take some of the sting out of losing a young guy also. That was probably the biggest issue with the Lynn/Dunning trade - worked out great but if the tax line hadn’t gone up, the White Sox were in a real jam this offseason.

Unfortunately the White Sox right now must have a “win now” attitude. While I agree they have shown no skill at making trades with that attitude, they probably have no choice. If the White Sox gave up Semien, Bassit, and Phegley for Samarzija when they had a legitimate 92 win team, and that pushed them into the playoffs, it would still sting to have overpaid that badly, but at least a playoff run could justify it. That’s where they are now - it is less important to avoid overpaying than it it to get guys who actually produce. In 2 or 3 years they’re going to be trying to plug holes on a sinking ship no matter what they do now, so they better get themselves into the World Series before that.

Cabrera was at best iffy because he was a proven steroid abuser and you didn’t have any way of knowing if his performance in Toronto the year before was clean. If it was, it sure wasn’t repeatable. LaRoche falling apart I didn’t see.

Anthony Rizzo hasn’t signed anywhere yet has he? They actually added 2 LH bats last deadline and I think Rizzo is still a FA, but might have forgotten a move there?

23 pages to this thread in 16 hours or so, without a single move recorded and with a bare minimum of rumors.

While there’s a match with the White Sox, the reason the Yankees traded for Gallo was they needed left handed balance alongside Judge and Stanton. The Yankees still need that. Trading Gallo and signing Conforto does make some sense for them, but would they open the hole in Their lineup if they don’t have Conforto already signed?

The Astros had 6 starters make 20 starts last year, a 7th swingman make 9 more, and Verlander was hurt and eating salary. The Braves had 36 starts made by people outside their top 5. Rather than a 6th starter they moved them around. Which of these works for the White Sox? 20 starts for Lopez and 9 for Lambert, or 36 starts among Lopez, Lambert, Stiever? Both of which have full workloads for Keuchel? These all seem unpleasant.

Even if Kopech lasts 140 innings, you’ll be in about the same spot as last year with Rodon, a long break down the stretch. Imagine the season went the same as last year and Lynn had some September knee problems, for a recent example. Right now, the rotation would be Giolito, Cease, Lopez, Keuchel, Lambert, with a double header in there somewhere too. Hope there’s a big lead in that division.

We have been sitting here talking about the need for more pitching. You come in with a take that the pitching depth is fine. Keuchel getting 30 starts, the high likelihood that Kopech can’t throw 150 innings, and the lack of depth on the back side are obvious potential risks beyond the chances of a freak injury. That covers two of them.

You’re still going to have to eat some money.

Are you ok with another 30 starts for Keuchel? Are you ok with Lopez getting 12-15 starts in addition to Keuchel’s 30? (Kopech got 4, Lopez 9, and Lambert 3 last year, and that was with 7 inning double headers and no scheduled ones).