Balta1701

They're bidding against a guy taking a lesser deal from a team in a location where he might want to be or holding out to see what the CBA does. The White Sox almost certainly did something similar with Grandal, they had a solid idea of how much he was worth, but he might not have gotten that deal from anyone given the depressed market and his issues in previous postseasons, so they just went out and made it happen rather than waiting. Teams in MLB have had revenues through the roof for a decade, the Mets have an owner with deep pockets, and the Mets have huge potential for revenue and team value growth given New York. Put a deal on the table, it's going to look bad, but its done.

Just to see, I checked out his B-R page, and I think there's a good chance this is the worst DRS I've ever looked at. I have to go look at Soler or someone like that now for context. Edit: Good God his career DRS is nearly twice as bad as Soler's in the OF in a comparable number of games. This may be what it looks like if I were a big league outfielder.

I do wish they had worked harder.

The idea that the White Sox had all these strong offers for Kimbrel weeks ago and have...not moved him yet...also seems doubtful.

Who on Earth is it who cares so much about white sox fans believing that the front office is working hard? Even if he's completely making all this up, why would he think that's something he should push literally every trade deadline and offseason?

If the White Sox were actually serious about this, they could probably put an offer together that would get Conforto signed soon. You just have to realize that the response to every contract is "That's an overpay and I won't like the latter part of it".

We're talking about a team in the NY market that in 2019 was 13th in the league in attendance. The team was estimated to be worth under a billion dollars a decade ago, and sold for $2.4 billion. Most teams in MLB have their values shooting up, and the Mets are in a place like the Dallas Mavericks when Cuban bought them - tons of room for revenue and franchise value growth. If they win 1 world series and make the playoffs 6 or 7 times this decade, how much is that franchise worth if he sells it? Hasn't he cleared a billion dollars easily?

I mean, compared to 7/$175, no a 3-4 year deal for a veteran or a deal covering a guys arbitration years with a couple extra options...those are not big free agent signings.

A 7 year deal for a guy like this is a way for a team to sign him for 5 years at a money amount that would make sense…and then spread out the luxury tax number and payroll hit over more years. Imagine this as a 5/$150 deal, isn’t that fair for a guy who has recently been top 3 in the MVP race twice? And your buying out his last years for $25 million on top of that? If those last couple years are a time when you just can’t afford it, you attach a closer and trade him to the Mets for their top prospect (half kidding about that part, but that’s literally what the last years are. Making it easier to win in the first couple years when he might put up another 6 WAR season. And yeah, those final years can always be dumped.)

And they took time out of their minute to minute calls to leak that to the press?

I think it’s important to point this out - a 7 year, $140 million deal is in most cases more team friendly than a 5 year $125 million deal.

“This season is fine if you select only these 14 innings and slice away the previous 1.5 seasons plus these specific innings” is pretty much exactly how I would define slicing and dicing.

He went 2-7 with a 4.66 ERA and a 1.57 WHIP in 2020. That’s fine?

No I wasn’t smarter than them, I liked that deal, but I had watched approximately 0 cub games in 3 years. I would continue to suggest that “a person who watched zero cub games couldn’t figure this out so no one could” remains a poor standard for a billion dollar business and not an acceptable excuse.

No. Hahn made a mistake in acquiring him. His scouts and the system around him let him down and led him into a decision that imploded. He is deserving of insults for doubling down on that mistake, a move with a large risk and a low reward at best. He is deserving of more scorn if they don't take actions to correct how the mistake happened.

Excluding his first appearance in 2020 he had a 4.20 ERA and a negative WPA, using the stats that B-R sorts easily. His 1.20 WHIP during that stretch would have tied with Michael Pineda, among others, for 180th in MLB that season, amongst guys with > 10 innings. You are greatly overstating his effectiveness in 2020.

I’m willing to say that everyone has done a good job as long as they win the World Series this year as long as you agree that anything less is a failure where heads should roll.

And Id say that two guys who struggled in the second half make a decent comparison, when one of them was worse in 2019 and 2020, worse in the second half of 2021, and paid twice as much. It’s not clear this pitcher will be better than Kendall Gravemann overall.

Didn’t you bring up Patrick Corbin as one of those comparable one year step up acquisitions a couple days ago? Is a 5.82 ERA in year 3 good enough for you in this case?

So why did the White Sox pass on a comparable deal if it was so cheap and made so much sense for them? Im ok with your response being “the white Sox should have done this but Rick Hahn is an imbecile.”

I’d have likely done this deal too but 28 other teams didn’t. This is one case where the full league probably has a reason why they didn’t.

Unless he’s not movable at all.

So Frazier was traded at the deadline and was worth 1 rWAR in the last 2 months. This was disappointing as his performance was significantly down compared to his first half. He is going to earn around $8 million in arb next year. That was expensive enough that no one, including the White Sox, would give up more than a pittance for him. Craig Kimbrel was traded at the deadline and was worth 0 rWAR in the last 2 months. This was disappointing as his second half was a disaster compared to his first half. His option is worth $16 million next year. People are expecting a big return for this?

Not if he does it for Minnesota.