Balta1701

I really disagree. There's a big part of the story missing - on average all of his positive free agent performance has come from one single signing, every other dollar we'd have been better off not spending. That is as big of a part of the story as Abreu's success.

I think this is a case where the only honest way is to say it both ways in any comment on the matter. Abreu was a really good signing, but it's also a signing with a caveat because it was an international deal. Credit goes to them for taking the risk on that deal which paid off solidly, but outside of one international success the record is incredibly bad. It is not disingenuous to note that as long as both parts are included; it's basically equally disingenuous to give $250/23.5 if you're also not noting that literally all of the positive performance comes out of one intenrational signing and $180 million of it went completely to waste.

As long as it's only a 1 year deal, I'm ok with that. If we sign 4 free agents this year, at least 1 is almost certain to be a complete failure, maybe 2, by the end of the year. Hopefully not 3-4. But if the guy that fails is only a 1 year deal, he can be replaced far more easily.

Yes, MLB.TV was one of the earliest, best-developed streaming platforms for sports and MLB made a killing selling it, a $50-ish million check written to every team.

Good for you figuring it out.

The only reasons that make sense for any team to go for the guys we have not named Robert/Vaughn/Madrigal is to clear payroll, bonus if there's someone being blocked by that player.

No.

If you want to ask whether spending large sums of money on starting pitching is still worth it...check out the last couple world series winning teams. Lester '16, Verlander '17, Price/Porcello/Sale '18, Sherzer/Strasburg/Corbin '19. The losing teams have had big time starters too, Kluber and company, Kershaw and co, Verlander/Cole/Greinke. Frankly, the last few years, the only team to even make the world series without a huge money starter was Cleveland, and they had a loaded rotation developed internally.

I believe he is an Indy 500 racer.

See this article from earlier this season.

correct. We are now slightly better than the worst franchise in baseball!

Look on the bright side. At this time last year, he was 30th of 30 teams in wins during his tenure. Now he's up to 29th out of 30!

Sale, Abreu, Eaton, and Quintana was not a strong core. You can easily find 3-4 guys who give you 13-15 WAR on almost every team, including the really bad ones. The Angels get that out of their 2-3 top players every year, almost guaranteed, because of 1 guy doing so much. That was a weak "core" of a team at best.

But historically, the players who are available at modest contracts are available at those contracts because they're more likely to go all Melky Cabrera nearly worthless on you. The Red Sox's fanbase may not be thrilled that they have to cut payroll right now, but if you told them they could be out of those contracts if they gave up the World Series trophy from 2018, how many take that deal? The Cubs might be very unhappy with some of their current contracts, but if you told them they could be rid of Heyward's contract and all they have to do is forfeit the 2016 world series, are they gonna take it? Win your title and figure things out from there. Unless your franchise does an exceptional job in development, you get 2-3 years where you can pull it off. If you sign a couple of weak pitching additions, yes you have money available the next few years, but if Cole is on the Yankees and they're winning the AL the next 3 years because they finally solved their pitching problem, who cares?

I would very much say that the White Sox do not have the money to get whoever they want. Counting SP, RF, DH, Bullpen, and maybe catcher - they have 4+ positions where they need major upgrades to really be competitive. If you signed the best player on the market at all those positions you're easily over a $170 million payroll, and it seems unlikely that they'd want to go that high. They've developed some good players from their trades and their #1 picks, but they haven't found any big league regulars any other way, leaving them too many holes to fill to go for many premium guys. If acquiring someone like Mazara frees up money to spend $30 million on a starter, and it doesn't cost much in the way of trade assets, then it's a pretty plausible move. However, I still of course am skeptical that the White Sox will actually spend $30 million on a starter, even though I think it's a good way to spend their money.

To get a team serious about taking Price off their hands I think they'd have to include at least $30 million of the remaining $96 million. The Astros sent good players for Greinke, and got $24 million back out of $77 million. Both of those are just under 1/3 of the deal paid by the team sending the player out. Greinke has outperformed Price over the past few years, so that's why Greinke would bring back more in terms of players with that financial return happening.

Now that I've got you to more reasonable numbers; if Boston included $20 million total, is that a deal you'd do? It's not perfectly balanced but there's a lot of upside for the White Sox to get 2 good players right now.

And frankly we need to sign one.

But that's literally exactly how you valued Bummer. There is no other way that Bummer, a 1 WAR player, can come to the $40 million in total value/$30 million in surplus value you gave him over 4 years.

1 game wasn't a lot of evidence, but people complaining about that 1 game did not "mess up" and it wasn't "pathetic".

There were plenty of people who said "It was 1 game". I said that. I was wrong, the people who were berating him after every throw in game 1 were right.

But you're failing to fill in your own logic loop. You're saying that teams want to pay $6 million per WAR because that's how they value players, but they wind up paying over $10 million because of injuries and poor performance. You're then discounting Price and Benintendi by that amount. But then you project Bummer's surplus value over the next 4 years, 3 of which are arb years, to be $30 million. He was worth 1.3 WAR/$10.2 million this year - so assuming he keeps those numbers up and was a dominant reliever the next 4 years, he'd produce $40 million in value the next 4 years and maybe be paid $10-$15 million for it through arbitration. To count him as $30 million - you're taking him at the full free agent value price for that position. So you're discounting Price and Benintendi, but then you're treating Bummer in the exact way you say you can't treat Price and Benintendi.

Huh? You're just randomly applying a discount to Benintendi's production under a statement that "that's not how teams value their signings"? But we're literally balancing this concept versus the idea of acquiring guys as free agents. You've just discounted a guy for a reason that makes no sense.

I know he was down this year, but one place where you're estimating very low is Benintendi. Over the past 3 years he's been worth $67.3 million - $48 million would be continuing what he has been doing last year.

Which is why I suggested it. Note that I was replying to a person who said "Hell no".