Balta1701

Kimbrel has to finish 55 games this year for the option to vest. He has finished 35 so far.

The top relievers in baseball clearly are more valuable at the trade deadline than a 1b in an average year. The Cubs, for example, previously traded Gleyber Torres for a top reliever. The same year, the Guardians traded Clint Frazier for Andrew Miller, and the world series wound up practically as a duel between them.

Does Kimbrel have a specific walk-in song? Does Hendriks?

And the 6th highest guaranteed payroll for 2022.

Yeah. Good point. I sorta block out 2020 mentally for reasons.

Tommy La Stella got 3/$18.75 from the Giants. He has 1 season in his career worth more than 1 rWAR. Cesar is a 2 win player every year. That option is a no-brainer unless he gets hurt.

If you want to talk about payroll...every series you get in the postseason is huge value in terms of ticket sales for next year. Going home in the ALDS to the Astros as a 3 seed, with 1 home game - sells some tickets next year. Up 3 games to 2 in the ALCS coming back home for game 6 - that's a packed ballpark next May.

I actually sorta disagree with this. While it's not 100%, you also can't miss your chances when you have them. The Cubs, the Astros - yeah they went several times, but the years they won...they went big. Chapman for the Cubs, Verlander and a trash can for the Astros.

Bah, I think Madrigal's replacement is Cesar.

And seriously, this makes it so much easier to stretch Michael Kopech out over the next month, to have him in better shape to take a rotation spot next year.

Eh, with the extra rest in the postseason? Get a lead in the first 6 innings of the first 2 games, these guys pitch back to back days, and then they get a mandatory offday on the way to the next city.

But you know what? Win 1 world series and the investment strategy has paid off several times over.

That’s why Bummer can pitch in the 5th or 6th inning when a couple lefties are coming up. Literally the White Sox just need a tie game through 7.

You’re right, read that one backwards. My bad.

Yeah but we get 27 outs. They get 21.

I’d imagine the multiple injuries played a huge role.

Well, that’s a twist I did not see coming.

Compared to those Royals teams where the bullpen won them a title? I dunno about that. I guess I could deal with a title coming from relievers though.

Both the White Sox and the Rays would probably consider having the Cubs pick up some/all of the money on that, and the Cubs already did so for the Yankees.

The White Sox have a very right-hand-heavy lineup, especially coming into the season prior to the injuries. Robert, Jiménez, Abreu, Anderson, Vaughn, Madrigal, Grandal is dramatically better against lefties, Moncada is somewhat better against lefties, Mercedes was in the lineup for a while and was dramatically better against lefties, Engel can be a platoon player against lefties. In that case, adding some ability to hit right handed pitchers with a lefty bat has some potential to have very strong leverage, outweighing the loss of defense. That isn't the case for another righty.

If you don’t want people bumping your old threads then maybe think twice about making them?

I mean, both of the guys you mentioned are left handed.

@ron883 apparently this was decided specifically because you were abusing it to hide your old Abreu threads rather than using it selectively to hide single posts with minor errors.

I do think the lack of a waiver wire deadline has pushed teams to be more aggressive on selling. The Nats and Cubs could have said “we will wait one more month to see”.