Balta1701

The Chairman literally outlined their thinking on TV during a recorded meeting with Selig, they wanted to be able to move people in and out of the DH position to keep them fresher since the drugs were less prevalent. The problem was that they insisted on one player being a key part of that rotation who wasn't a big league starter (Kotsay).

When payroll constraints are a thing...I think trading either of them is a colossal mistake. We should be signing guys like Stras or Cole, but we already have so many needs before trading either of those guys that we've ruled them out before even trying. The only way we have resources to fill those holes is to fill as many spots cheaply as we can.

I would not be surprised at all if the Dodgers asking price is too high. They're the only team in the bigs that seems readily able to play 5 outfielders - every other team would want to clear one out of the way.

Technically that'd be closer to 3 years, $65 million since we are shedding Herrera's $8.5 million.

Because it has to be a contract that they can't believe they will beat this offseason. Literally everyone here has said "ok, if it's about 3/$45 or 3/$50 this makes sense" and we've been saying that since the start of the offseason. There will probably be 5 other teams saying the same thing. That money would be there if he waited until February. To get him to sign now, you're going to have to go well beyond that, to give him an offer that isn't going to be beaten later.

If he was only getting 3/$50, what are the odds he'd sign now rather than waiting to see if a better option appeared later in the offseason? There's every reason to think several teams would be interested at that amount and that the offer wouldn't go away. To get him to sign now, my guess would be his contract is comparable to Grandal's. That's an offer they might not be able to beat by waiting.

bah, it sounds like he is pretty confident but not nearly done yet.

Syndergaard isn't until 2 years from now.

Whether or not the White Sox have success developing guys - the key for right now is that aside from Robert, Vaughn, Madrigal, and the guys in their big league roster already, the guys they do have to trade are currently worth very little. Either they're very far away and need to break out at a higher level to be worth anything more than "3rd guy in a solid trade", or they need to recover from bad/injury riddled seasons last year. Maybe at the trade deadline we will have other players worth something, but right now that whole list is "Filler/guys who go for big leaguers of limited value".

I still think he was 100% right on with a direct pipeline to the org when he ran with "White Sox offer Machado $175 million."

No, not yet, because the pitching staff still needs help.

The first stat (Hard hit %age) is the first thing you said (hard at an above average rate) and the second thing you said (top exit velocities) means that on average overall his contact is particularly hard.

That would have been item 2 or 3 on my list of issues.

Vaughn is going to get you nothing anywhere close to Syndergaard or DeGrom.

Are you Steve Stone?

You’ve had Stone saying that it wasn’t a big deal some guys gave up a lot of home runs last year, that’s pretty clearly a Bumgarner defense from their mouthpiece.

Depends on the contract. If a guy can get guaranteed money and a big league roster spot he will almost certainly take that. Sometimes guys take minor league deals that would include guaranteed money but that require them to be called up by a certain day or released, Gio Gonzalez was on one of those last year. The only way to keep them off the 40 man is a minor league contract.

We have so little worth anything in trades - Vaughn, Madrigal, Robert, and guys already on the big league roster - that I'm still strongly opposed to trading for a starter.

Your biggest issue is probably roster spots. Unless they're on a minor league deal with a spring training invitation, you run out of 40-man spots.

When a guy's on a trajectory that could be HOF quality, a former #1 pick who is living up to the expectations, it is not unfair to compare him to others on that list. Coles' current "Similarity score" leader on B-R is Corey Kluber. Cole will be 29 this year. From age 29-32, over 4 seasons, Kluber put up 24.2 rWAR. He struggled with injury this year but even some of the guys you mentioned went down with injuries.

And yet, somehow there are also guys like Verlander who stay almost completely healthy while throwing that hard. And there's guys like Scherzer who have 1 injury and then go right through it to become HOF pitchers.

I get that, it's also possible they do the same thing as last year and they're quite comparable players. But even if Joc outperforms him by 2 wins, what is a total of 2 wins worth to this roster? If Stiever just becomes a bullpen pitcher, over 6 years of control, 2 wins isn't much at all to get out of that.

Aside from 2017, Joc has been a 2.7-3.5 fWar player in his career. Aside from 2018, Calhoun has been a 2.1-3.4 player in his career. Yeah Joc does his damage in fewer PAs because he has stronger platoon splits, and Calhoun is older so he's projected for about 1.5 fewer WAR next year so maybe it is worth trading something minor for that upgrade, but I struggle to see how the difference between those 2 next year comes to "one is fine and one is puke".

The White Sox should say no to this ask. An expensive not great player with one year of control should not bring a solid return. At similar dollar amounts you can have Joc or Calhoun and Stiever. I’d definitely take that.

Shorter commitment but a 7 year deal for him takes him to the same age as the 10 year Machado deal.