Balta1701

You are missing how this would work. For a team to claim him on waivers they would need a roster spot. Because teams are protecting their players from the Rule 5 draft, many teams have full to nearly full rosters. That means, for a team to claim him - teams would have to drop people they just protected for the rule 5. Having most teams with full rosters to protect people, or with 1 spot open that they can use in the rule 5, could limit teams' willingness to claim this player right now.

I do think doing the DFA right before Thanksgiving when teams have filled up their rosters for the rule 5 draft makes sense as a way to get a guy through waivers. Is the rule 5 draft on the Thursday of Winter Meetings week? Because that's just about 10 business days away.

I specifically meant the White Sox opening roster spots before the rule 5 draft happens so that they'd have a chance to use their pick.

I've got 2 guesses. Adding someone in the rule 5 draft and using many teams having full rosters as a way to move the guy through.

FWIW, that quote was not you, but I fully believe the poster was lying at the time.

Yes he does, because "White Sox Wheeler" is going to be getting searches on Google News and so forth and now that article is going to turn up and there's a bunch of extra clicks for him.

And those same 3 posters insisted, up and down and left and right and to literally everyone who would listen that they knew what the White Sox would do last season. They were completely and utterly wrong, and may well have been lying at some points - one of them famously said the Sox were "Walking through the open door" with regards to Harper late in negotiations and they didn't even bother putting in a real offer. How many different ways could there be to interpret what the vague posts were? It could be "The White Sox are going to put a real offer up for Wheeler and will not let the Twins beat them." The exact same language could mean "The White Sox do not believe the Twins offer is realistic and see no reason to budge from their 5/$55 offer." Even if people have their information correct, it's a game of Chinese Telephone, where important details are always missing. Last year the White Sox genuinely believed they had Machado in the bag repeatedly, and the problem was the White Sox FO were idiots. None of the insiders bothered telling us that, but they were thrilled with everyone begging them for info, tagging them all the time asking what was up, following their twitter feeds, and clicking on their articles. It's literally . Every single claim should be viewed as skeptical and people shouldn't be begging and tagging and asking over and over for info when we already know how low quality it is by the time it gets to us. Did anyone know the Grandal signing was coming? Why not? Because it was handled correctly - the guy was literally scouting our pitchers and we were wondering if anything was up.

How have people not learned their lesson about "Insiders" from last offseason?

Robert for Trout. Done.

Avi just can't stay healthy and platooning him isn't a good option given his splits and our lack of lefties.

The most important thing to know is that this isn't the league of 2010 and 2011.

Would you like to put a wager on the White Sox never once complaining that they're poor in any way, shape, or form over the length of this contract, or using that as an excuse for why they couldn't sign someone else? (How would we extend our next core if we signed someone to a guarantee for 2027/2028? Can't spend a dollar when you only have whatever?)

Pederson will be much more expensive than Castellanos?

I don't know how you're getting wRC+ on a double-split like that so please do tell me - but no matter how you're doing it, you're drawing that trend line from something like 30 plate appearances against righties, because he only had 71 in September/October total. And because those plate appearances are so low - a couple home runs have a huge amount of leverage. If he'd only hit 2 home runs, or if he hadn't gotten a triple, you'd be saying that his ISO was low. So maybe he can pull that off over a full season, but if I'm signing guys like Grandal to actually target winning the Central as a possibility this year, I am not betting my DH productivity on those 40 plate appearances..

Spotrac has a tracker on this, you can sort by player or by team or by money on the DL.

Let's note that it's not Huntington in charge in Pittsburgh any more, it's Ben Cherington. Yeah there's sometimes "Move this salary" mandates from Pittsburgh's cheap owner, but Cherington isn't going to just give up one of his good players for a pittance just after being hired, at least not without a fight.

Is our goal to actually win the Central or not? Because if it is, at least go add Encarnacion, or hell even at least Matt Adams or Hunter Pence or Adam Jones - at least someone who has hit big league pitching before. It will be way less money than we blew on LaRoche or Dunn, it'll be a 1 year deal, and I'm sure not convinced that Collins is ready to be a big league contributor yet - clearly the White Sox weren't either. If Collins takes the position, great, but if we're spending that much money on Grandal and others, I'm not ready to risk the division on whether Collins's bat is ready. At least give me options.

They're going to have to trust the kids they have if they want to get anywhere. The reason why we could sign a catcher today is the money freed up by having 3b, SS, 2b, CF, LF covered by kids.

There is absolutely value to being a guy who throws nearly 200 innings.

I am totally ok with Lopez being the 5th starter in a rotation where he's giving me 180 innings and 2 fWAR.

And yet, a guy who is below average on almost everything, who is young, cheap, and throws 180+ innings is a 2 fWAR pitcher and a great thing to have at the back side of a rotation.

Not currently as those guys are not under contract until their contracts are renewed in January or so. They're listed as - on spotrac right now.

You're missing the 10-15 minimum salary guys that fill out the roster. They were just about $70 after Abreu, assuming no Yolmer and counting those guys. This pushes them to nearly $90.

So a general question here and there's 1 or 2 people who have brought this up...some people have suggested that (even excluding the playoffs where he had the yips series), the Dodgers didn't like his fielding nearly as much as the advanced metrics, which adore him. Does anyone have any extra ability to add reading or info on that?

So this is the biggest contract in team history right?