Balta1701

I wasn’t one of them, but there were people in the Kimbrel thread who said they didn’t like the trade because he could fall apart again.

Marcel Ozuna got 4/$67 in the middle of the COVID mess. AJ Pollock got 4/$55 with a player option at the end at age 33 with a terrible injury history. Both of those happened with a broken free agent market. If you aren’t prepared to go 4/$76 on Conforto in a year where the market seems to have corrected partially back to normal, your going to end up with “your team is on the field” as soon as you see someone offering Scherzer a 4th year or whatever other seemingly ridiculous contract it takes to get him.

Depends on the CBA. If there was a $100 million payroll minimum hypothetically, then Keuchel might be movable without adding much. No minimum payroll but DH in the NL and that probably makes Keuchel and Burger enough to get rid of the full contract. Right now, Keuchel and Burger might be enough to get you partial relief from that contract.

Ok, no Sheets cannot be Schwarber. At age 25, Schwarber walked nearly 80 times in just over 500 PAs. Same age this year Sheets was on pace for 40. So, Schwarber has a better approach and Sheets can’t change that very easily. But, as a 25 year old, Sheets hit 22 home runs in just over 400 PAs, half at AAA. At that same age Schwarber hit 26 in just over 500. Sheets has also hit more HR every year since he was drafted so he is also improving his power game. Prior to this year Schwarber’s best OPS was .871, then he added another 50 points this year. Sheets was at .830 this year. Could Sheets improve on that by age 28? Sure. Could he also fall off? Yes. But he’s young enough and showed enough this year to think he’s a decent enough DH candidate to get a shot this year. Could either of them fill the RF hole? Personally I think Sheets is a bit worse out there than Schwarber but they’re both bad enough it hardly matters. You would be hiding either of them out there and praying the ball went somewhere else. Both should be at DH. Schwarber is almost certainly an upgrade on Sheets this year and probably 2023. How much of an upgrade - was this a career year for Schwarber and can Sheets improve on last year are the questions for that. Is Schwarber worth $20 million a year more than Sheets? Since neither of them can play RF reliably, that’s one I struggle to justify. Put Sheets at DH and find someone who can catch the ball or a pitcher who strikes out enough guys for RF to matter less.

How can 2 hits and a walk total 4 ER?

There’s a buncha caution flags in his numbers. Big jump in his Houston walk rate, career low HR rate in 2021 too. But it’s also his first year as a full time reliever, so maybe that’s who he is out of the bullpen. I feel like this one is squarely a test of those big league scouts. Are they just looking at his ERA and saying “that’s fine” or have they really torn into his tape this year? If he’s got an ERa of 2 in July someone can bump this post when trying to compliment them.

Hmph, hard hits against him in Houston went down, Ground Balls went up, but his ERA went up a lot. Looks like a very low BABIP in the first half. Also a full year gone in 2019. Was he a Tommy John surgery guy? Different pitcher in 2021 from any of his earlier years.

So it seemed like he struggled in the playoffs against us, how was the rest of his second half?

Yeah a guy who has been top 3 in the MVP voting two of the last three seasons. He should be a bargain!

If you're dealing with a Boras client or someone comparable, and the MLB's FA market is not broken, then it's going to be for enough years and money that you'll say "This will look like a bad deal in only a few years". That will be the case with almost any of the top level FAs in the case of a functioning market. If you're not prepared for that, then you're not prepared for the FA market. The trick remains - to make it worth it, you sign the guy and then go win a world series. Or two.

If that's going to be the attitude, then the White Sox's roster is on the field.

You could readily convince me that a team with Seager or Correa at SS is better than a team with Segura there. But...can you count on the Phillies making all of that work without knowing what the luxury tax might look like? Nah.

If you could get exactly that same deal for Kopech or Cease today, it would buy out 1 year of FA in exchange for $55 million. Obviously I'd do that with Cease. Would you do that for Kopech? I'm not so sure I'd do that one.

Remember how last season went. If Romy was technically the 5th guy on a 4 person bench and was slated to start at Charlotte if no one got hurt…he might still wind up with 400 PAs. And that’s true even if they’re healthier than last year.

And I could not ignore “the rest of their lives”.

I am not ok with this comparison.

I will admit I don't like the carpet in their stores and lately their holiday selections stink.

I cannot stand Walgreens. Literally every time I'm in their store trying to check out I wind up with some sort of technical problem. 2 weeks ago on a single transaction, I had an ecoupon that was shown on their app but gave me an error if I actually tried to load it, then when I finally got a purchase ready to go to check out, I followed the instructions and managed to completely lock up their cash register forcing a full restart of that register. Every single time I'm in that store I feel like I send some complaint about something not working.

There's a crude joke here about Bassitt's IL trip this year...

They then missed the playoffs the next 4 years.

Well first of all he’s already a free agent. Second of all, can you think of a White Sox team that had 5 outfielders hurt at once? I mean, with a roster of Eloy, Robert, Eaton, Engel, and Hamilton, no one would ever expect that many injuries.

I like the Kemp concept of they’re holding Vaughn, that makes a lot of sense and provides depth around the OF.

The way I would justify it would be to say “we have a 2 year shot before we lose Giolito, we can always move the more expensive guys to clear payroll after that if needed”. But let’s take the next step since this is useful anyway - we would need a LH hitting Right Fielder to balance that lineup regardless of FA or Trade. Vaughn is moveable for him. Have any interesting name suggestions? Looks like Reynolds and ?

Are you defining innings eater different from how I would? I would describe an innings eater as a guy who goes out there all the time, isn’t great, but throws like 175+ innings and is decent enough that you always let him pitch 6-7 innings to save your bullpen. That’s not what you need if you are only “skipping Kopech from time to time”.