Balta1701

I never made that assumption anywhere. On paper I think the Indians are a better team than the Twins right now. That's a 42 fWAR team this year, and they were truly devastated by injuries - Kluber, Carrasco, Lindor, Ramirez. They also have a young OF that is starting to perform, they have a pitching staff that could be the envy of baseball next year, and assuming they let Kipnis's option go away, their salary issues aren't as severe as they were last year. Out of Cleveland and Minnesota - I'll wager you want this division you have to be well over 50 fWAR between them. Between them, one of those teams is going to be a force.

I think the lack of depth leaves them likely to be a few games under .500 because guys always get hurt and the team overplayed its projected record last year by a few games. Interesting that also comes out to a similar payroll to this year.

I deleted that post, I got crossed up and thought the question was about reddick, seeing additional conversation made me realize that line referred to Gardner.

James McCann has only 1 arbitration year left, so even if he's brought back we're not thinking about 2021 with him, we're thinking about Collins and either a developmental option backup (Zavala?) or a free agent option. JMO - Collins was still serviceable behind the plate the times I watched him, and although I couldn't evaluate his pitch selection I liked him back there better than Castillo. So, if they decide to go elsewhere for the DH spot, I'm totally ok with Collins and McCann back there this year. There are catching options next offseason (including Realmuto if you wanted to get expensive), so even if we have a hole there, it's a hole that could be filled.

A 90 win team is entirely plausible with this roster, but the list of guys that made me scoff at this - those guys on their own get you no where near .500. Those guys plus a lot of other internal improvement - that gets you to .500.

If you want to play that game - you don't get to just look at the 5th starter and the RF and say that those guys upgrade those positions. You're not replacing the RF with Robert, you're replacing Adam Engel, who was a .8 fWAR player. You're not replacing your DH with Madrigal, you're replacing your 1.0 fWAR Yolmer Sanchez. You're not replacing your 5th starter with Kopech - right now you're replacing Ivan Nova and his 2.0 fWAR with him. So, from your 70 win team, with the numbers you just quoted, you have added 2.4 fWAR. That does not make you a .500 team. If you throw in improvement at several more positions - Eloy 2 extra fWAR Cease 2 extra fWAR, Lopez 2 extra fWAR - now you're approaching a possible .500 team, but that's also assuming no one (McCann, Abreu, Anderson) regresses from their 2019 seasons, which is also possible. That still leaves you a long way to go in free agency. To look at the math another way, we are at 23.3 fWAR in 2019. Minnesota was at 54.9. With some margin for error, you need to find 30 fWAR. You've added 2.4 from the list you just said. I will give you another 10 fWAR from guys on this roster - extremely optimistic but not impossible. You upgrade the DH spot, 5th starter, and RF to 2 win players - from the numbers above that's 11 additional fWAR counting the -5 fWAR noted above and 6 added by those players directly. That brings the White Sox to a healthy 46.7 fWAR. That is a solid, strong team, but if fWAR translated directly to records (which admittedly it doesn't) - you are 8 games behind the 2019 Twins. Furthermore, the AL Central has, for 50+ fWAR teams going back to the World series winning Royals, so you do need to load up. Cleveland will be back next year, and could be even stronger - they were demolished by injuries this year and their pitching staff has already found new blood. There is more that can be found elsewhere. Moncada and Giolito could turn into Bregman and Cole. Cease could come out and do a Giolito. You can improve the bullpen. There are ways to get this team to 50 fWAR based on internal development. But this act that this team is somehow a guaranteed world series contender and the setup you just did to find 10 wins - doesn't work the way you want it to.

Worth adding - Josh Reddick will probably be moved for minimal return.

He said absolutely nothing about the development of Eloy, Lopez, and Cease. That's totally reasonable including the other guys. He said those additions alone are 10 games, and just repeated it. He included Dunning and Hamilton as contributors but not those guys.

Ironically we may already have this on our roster in Leury Garcia, who put up a .786 OPS against lefties and a .642 OPS against righties.

Dane Dunning is not going to be in the big leagues this year. Hamilton was straight up bad this year and may never be a useful piece again. Rodon will miss half the season. So, basically in your eyes, 1 month of Rodon, Kopech, Robert, and Madrigal, is the difference between a 70 win team and an 80 win team? This is a joke.

With a good salary coming this year in his final arb year, and only 1 year of control remaining - he's not worth a whole ton.

Madrigal and Vaughn should not be going anywhere either. We're already getting annoyed at how hard it seems to fill the positions we want to fill with the potentially limited money available. Trade either of those guys and the end result is you have to commit another $10-$20 million to fill the position they should have filled. Trade Madrigal, fine, who is your 2b? Scooter Gennett might be an option but he's going to cost money (and struggled last year), so that means you have less money to spend on a pitcher or on your RF spot. Vaughn and Madrigal should be off limits with this roster. We need guys to fill more positions cheaply. I don't think you're trading Dunning for anything close to full value if you trade him, but there's also a solid chance his career is over since he's barely pitched in 2 years so you might move him for that reason. The other guys...I don't like trading from the low minors as that's a strategy that is ok until it isn't (Tatis), but I get why you'd do it. IMO - the White Sox are in a terrible place for trades right now. They need the 2 high level guys they have remaining, and their minors are so littered with busts and scrap that they don't have a lot other teams would give anything useful for. This is where the flops and injuries have taken their toll.

The biggest problem with Avi is you have to tell me who is going to take the 150-400 plate appearances he can't take because of injury, and he's not an obvious platoon guy since his stats are well balanced.

#spacehorses

You never want to wind up with 7 runs in a game, but it's a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Start off trying to throw the ball and Mitch gives up terrible sacks, so you wind up 2nd and long and 3rd and long - can't run there. One possession turns into a touchdown (Yay) but it's on a kick return so no runs are tallied. Then you have a couple fumbles, and wind up down 2 scores early, so you have to focus on throwing the ball, and you wind up with that stat. We've seen even good coaches like Reid get there. That's not a problem with your game plan, it comes from all the other problems.

Frankly, if it is so sharp that both those teams stay under again, and the Red Sox drop under - I think that increases the likelihood of a work stoppage. That was the Union's line - the luxury tax was not going to turn into a salary cap.

Hell you could even trade up to the 2nd draft pick! No way that could go badly.

I do have to figure they'll move a couple of those guys this year, but Bird and Andujar no longer make any sense for us unless we're going to move Andujar to the OF. If they move 1-2 of those guys for a solid starter and bring back Gregorius, and then land Cole or Stras, they suddenly have made their roster substantially better.

I don't know his medical state or how confident the Yanks are in him right now, but it would kinda make sense. Had he not gotten hurt he would absolutely have gotten one, and the Yankees have benefited this year from the infield depth. That's one way to see if they want to sign him long term, they have the money if they want to spend it, and their IF is stronger with him available and Torres at 2b. If the Yankees are confident he's back to normal...I'd strongly consider it in their shoes.

Go check the 2017 Mock Drafts. I found 3, and the first QB off the board in all 3 was Trubisky. If it was common knowledge that those 2 were better, it didn't filter through to the people doing mock drafts.

And why is his name being brought up here? Because even if he's a "Backup", there are usually 10 teams at any given time that he'd be a better QB than the one they're running out there, including right now the Chicago Bears, but those teams are willing to lose games to make sure they put him in his place. Right now the Bears are getting QB performance that is so bad that a "Backup" could be the kind of upgrade that puts them in the playoffs with their defense, but it is more important to teams to make sure he knows his place than it is to make a run at the playoffs.

Your second sentence is argued against by your first sentence.

I'm hesitant to commit $80 million to Ozuna, but I'll totally go with that deal and if it blows up I'll call it a gamble I'd do again.

If there's one thing that all 30 owners care about more than winning it's punishing Kaepernick for what he did.