Balta1701

Maybe the owners should lock them out, that will create pressure to get negotiations to happen faster.

The white Sox have a shortage of both money and trade chips.

What convinced us that Engel will be prepared to play 50 games this year, let alone 100?

Not sure if anyone saw this blurb from ESPN, from an insider section but short enough that an excerpt should be ok: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32882139/mlb-lockout-owners-players-talking-baseball-fans-worried-here-latest

The players do have an important decision here. The owners are making incremental changes in their offer, leaving things far apart. Do the players: make incremental offers of their own, risking a long negotiation, or Make an offer that basically splits the differences, hoping that the owners will pretty much accept it with minor tweaks, and risk the owners saying no and the players having no room left to maneuver. This could also empower any players who say they need to wait out the owners since they won’t give anything?

Their biggest need with a healthy roster is in the front court, but their biggest need right now is warm bodies. If he’s willing to take that role, sure, but he might find a place that he thinks gives him more of a chance to play late in the year?

The commissioner has the authority to suspend guys who aren't charged with things - For example, Aroldis Chapman was not charged with anything but did receive a 30 day suspension. A top level suspension for Bauer is possible. But...if he tried to do something excessive like the full season, with no precedent for that, there's a very good chance an arbitrator would rule that the suspension was unfair. He could absolutely receive a month and MLB could probably win that case.

I'm sure that language exists, but nothing so far has reached the point where it could be invoked. The Commissioner does have the right to suspend him for domestic incidents outside of those contracts, that's where he might miss some time.

He DH'd in 9 games last year.

I do like a lot that the precedent of “we have a good team, let’s load up everywhere we can and figure the rest out once we have a trophy” actually worked.

For the Rays to move him, they would probably expect the return of a 4 win player with 3 years of control remaining, which is a lot. But he’s only been a <2 win player the last 2 seasons (short 2020 included). A 2 win player in his arb years shouldn’t be worth very much, but you’d probably have to pay a lot more based on his pedigree and 2019. This seems like a guy I’d target if I was pretty desperate for a LH bat solution at the trade deadline.

You know how I feel about the Kimbrel deal so I’m not going to address that again, but let’s look at the tax number. Right now the White Sox have about $15 million in space according to Spotrac. The Owners number submitted has a $4 million increase, so let’s just go with $20 million as a starting point. You ship Kimbrel out, so $36 million is available. You add Conforto at $20 million, about $10.5 million for Kemp and Bassitt, $2 million for Marchan, and $5 million for Tepera. You have added $37.5 million, using estimates for the arb guys that could still be low? That is over the tax line proposed by the owners by several million. Counting minimum salary guys and the fact that some people will probably hit the IL, this is only under the tax line of the tax goes up to at least $220 million this season, and it could be a very close call at that level, while the owners are hanging at $214 million so far.

It’s a good move for The white Sox, I just can’t see how to do it without substantially going over the luxury tax.

As of right now, Spotrac has the Dodgers luxury tax payroll at $232 million. This is in the second tier of the owners’ proposed penalties, where the Dodgers would owe about $14 million in luxury tax and lose their second round pick. They also have not resigned Kershaw. Adding in Keuchel would almost certainly push the Dodgers into the highest tier of the proposed luxury tax, costing them their first round pick and a total cost of $40 million to take on his full contract if I’ve understood the tax proposal correctly (I think the 100% tax rate applies to everything over the tax line, I could be wrong on that). If I’ve got this right…Dallas Keuchel for $40 million and a 1st round pick…is pricey.

My guess based on his agent continues to be that he’ll get a couple years with an opt out after 1. For example, 3/$50, with the first year worth a little less than the others could be plausible.

Quick big league appearances with the Nats in 2017 and 2019, 27 yo, was mostly a catcher through 2019, looks like he was probably hurt for a while in 2021 as only got part of a season and mostly played 1b in his outings, has hit pretty well when given the chance. Should be minor league roster filler unless several people get injured, doesn't really make you think you can drop Collins or Zavala and wind up with an obvious upgrade.

?

Except, as you pointed out this morning...nothing like that has leaked. Not just in Chicago, league-wide, at a time when anything reported on anyone will probably trend on twitter because there's nothing else to report.

Yeah $4 million seems low, but how much the owners will move I can’t say. Either way, this is going to be really complicated - once the lockout ends, most guys like Conforto will be signing within 24-48 hours based on the 1995 precedent. That will make trades so tough.

No, it doesn't. You don't get to count up to a $210 million threshold for this - you have to throw in benefits and the fact that the luxury tax salary is not the same thing as the guy's salary that year for all the pre-FA contracts the Sox signed. Spotrac throws in an estimate of a couple minimum salary guys and a couple guesses on the arb numbers and comes in at under $16 million in space available total - and that doesn't count things like "the trade deadline" and "we had to call up extra guys because our team had lots of injuries this year". To their eyes, the White Sox's luxury tax number right now is $194 million, and I think you should give a couple extra million of a cushion for "whatever". If the tax goes up by $4 million (the owners proposal), the White Sox still have under $20 million to spend unless they can move a salary. If they spend $30 million, either the tax level needs to go up to nearly $230 million next year, or they need to move a contract. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/chicago-white-sox/payroll/

With their payroll constraints and other needs I just can't see any way to make it work.

The big thing I need to see is "movement from the owners somewhere in tomorrow's offer". They put out a CBA proposal that was clearly more favorable to them than the current CBA, especially now that we know they massively increased the luxury tax penalties. The players responded by legitimately giving a little ground since the owners had actually made an offer, and the owners yelled at them for not giving in completely. If the owners move a little towards the players, the players will give them back a proposal a couple days later that likely moves on something else, and we'll start seeing a path forward as long as they keep working. Both times there has been a stalemate has been when the owners refused to do anything - that has to change.

Outside of "Jeff McNeil is available" a month and a half ago, we haven't gotten wind of really anything in terms of trades from any team in the league leaked to anyone. That could suggest that teams are not doing much in the way of talking trades right now, unless every team has somehow clamped down on leaks and that seems like it would would be tough as scouts and legal offices would still be involved. Not definitive, but if that were the case and teams haven't worked on trades much during this, it will be exceedingly tough to pull off a trade when all 30 teams are busy trying to sign like 5 major league free agents each in 48 hours to fill out their rosters.

$16 million in space is including the luxury tax increase the owners proposed ($210 to $213 million). To get to $30 million in space, the luxury tax would have to go up to about $227 million. In terms of Kimbrel, I know you and I disagree on his value, but I would also note now that if this thing ends any time soon, everyone is going to have to sign in like 3 days to get started for spring training. That’s what happened in 1995 - a huge surge in signings the couple days right after the legal ruling ended the strike. Unless they have a trade already set up during this dead period, getting a complicated series of moves done involving at least one other team before Conforto takes the best deal on the table will be extra tough.

Jesus Christ people, please keep your dogs on a leash or otherwise appropriately contained. Was walking my dog this morning. Colleague of mine walked by with her golden retriever. 2 big, untethered dogs came charging out of someone’s apartment and attacked that dog. Tried my best to help while holding my dog but couldn’t do much with one hand holding mine, had to back off.