Balta1701

Joc should not cost as much as Betts. He's a 2-3 win player with 1 year remaining on his deal and a decent salary from arbitration. Betts is vastly better. I know we're terrible at trading guys for veterans, but I'm more open to trading guys outside our top 7-8, and Joc does not deserve any of our top 7-ish guys.

I want a roster that has 2 properties. 1. It is able to compete "if a lot of stuff goes right". Because there's so many youngsters, that is entirely possible. If a couple of those young guys come out blazing, we could be in this race early, and the last thing we want is to have wasted 300 PAs on Yoenis Yonder Alonso Cespedes in the cleanup spot. 2. There is a clear plan for how they get better in the future; in other words, don't bump up completely against your long-term salary limit. If guys get hurt or struggle, there needs to be some funds left to replace them with at least decent players. If someone like Vaughn is traded away, we have to have a plan for how they're going to be replaced, including funds available to do so.

Is there any way the Bears could pull that off with the salary cap?

He's the kind of guy we might have considered taking on in 2018/2019 if someone sent along an actually valuable prospect to go with him. (that 1b who was not even in their top 5 in 2018, Peter Alonso, would have worked well).

What you're missing from this point is that Mark Cuban has gotten a huge return on his investment in the Mavericks. He took them from a 10 year playoff drought into a team that made the playoffs 14 times in 15 years, with a title. A stadium that wasn't full to a stadium full every night, with high priced tickets. A much better TV package. He has a little fun with his persona on the sidelines, but he ran that as an effective business. He brought in good people like Carlisle and Nelson, he brought in good marketing people, he brought in professional front office people, and even if he gets to party a little bit on gameday, for the most part they're professional outside of that. He has to deal with the occasional issue (Harassment) like most franchises will, but by the fact that they did prioritize winning - it maximized return on their investment. As we've said in other parts of this thread...the White Sox are happy to win, but only if they are winning the way Reinsdorf wants. If winning is one of those things that, like the Mavericks, builds shareholder value - the White Sox are willing to sacrifice that in order to keep the guys they like hanging out in the front office.

Can someone figure out the difference between how Spotrac is calculating the 2016 payroll at $129 million and how everyone else is listing it ($110 million after LaRoche retired but Shields taken on)? In 2016 I had them at close to the lower number but I can't figure out what the Spotrac one is doing to get numbers so much higher than everyone else.

There's a difference between using a guy at a less valuable position as a backup plan and going out and spending $220 million to move an already good player to a less valuable position.

More than that - a lot of the pitchers in that price range have been pretty good bets, and their deals have either worked out or been tradeable. Greinke and Verlander (tradeable), Kershaw - Dodgers even brought him back after an opt-out, Scherzer, Strasburg (optout), Lester, Sabathia, Hamels. About the worst ones have been Price and Tanaka, and Price was key to a world series and is probably still movable if Boston throws something in alogn with it.

I think that's somewhere close to a reasonable guess.

FWIW, here's the Astros owner already saying "eh".

I think Houston is out, they're already sitting close to $210 million this offseason without him, signing him puts them into Boston's luxury Tax territory. I think the other 3 you mention are at least competitors, and I think there will be some surprise teams that come in (a-la the Diamondbacks and Greinke). The Dodgers dropping out of the playoffs so early could definitely motivate them to make a splash somewhere this offseason.

Go longer. David Price got 7 years, $217 million, any bid less than that should be considered a waste of Scott Boras's time. Beat that total value and you're somewhere in the ballpark.

Plus, it's not like Steve Stone is supposed to be a highly paid professional, he's basically just a twitter troll anyway so why should you expect better from him?

Quickly checking playoff teams...on the Braves that OPS is the 5th starter, on the Nationals that's the 6th starter, tied with Wainright and Mikolas at the back side of the Cardinals rotation, something like the 9th starter for the Dodgers, On the Yankees he's a swingman 3rd-5th starter depending on who's alive, on the Rays he's like a 7th starter, on the Twins he's a 4th starter but promoted because the #3 got suspended, on the A's he's a 5th starter right there with Homer Bailey (But hey another suspension related promotion!), on the Astros he's the 7th starter. Just for good measure he's also the 6th starter on the Indians, and might be lower except for a guy getting leukemia. So...the only decent team where he's a #3 starter with those numbers out of this season is the Yankees. So yeah, on an average, playoff-missing, .500 team, he's a #3 starter.

I would say that Colome is slightly overpaid on a $10 million salary but not hugely so. $8-9 million is roughly a fair rate for him...and hey, that's what Kelly is being paid! Also..."1 good year" skips the thing that got him that contract, his sub-2.0 ERA in the 2018 playoffs.

WTF?

Well yeah Joe Kelly doesn't have any value right now either but that's also why: 1. the free agent market remains terrible and 2. it was really dumb by Roberts to use his pitchers the way he did.

Yeah, i can't make them younger, but thankfully that's taken into account in the standings.

Mike Moustakas is left handed and coming off a 35 home run season. Kole Calhoun is left handed and coming off a 33 home run season.

Yeah, pressure did wonders for the teams in the AL. The Yankees and Astros weren't all that far ahead of their 2nd place competitors, right?

I don't know that $160 million is a ceiling (that's a lot for a franchise that has never spent more than $130m but whatever, lots of new revenue streams are available), but I do know this - the White Sox will have a ceiling imposed by ownership. It could be $110, it could be $160, it could be $180 - they have always operated with one. Whatever that ceiling is...going hard up against it in 2020 with long-term contracts, with no plan for what to do if things go wrong in 2020, is one of the worst mistakes we could make this offseason, given how our internal expenses grow starting in 2021. If you go hard against that ceiling in 2020 - make sure some of it is done with 1 year deals that end so that you have some payroll flexibility in 2021.

In this rotation? Sure. In a good team's rotation? Maybe sliding in as the #5 starter. He hasn't been all that good even when healthy.

As currently constructed, if Rodon was healthy, he's my #4 starter. I will take guys who are unproven over guys who have proven they're not good pitchers.

Not if he physically cannot stay healthy while pitching out of the bullpen due to needing multiple days of rest between outings. And one elite pitch does not guarantee success from the bullpen, especially when you still don't know where it is going. His floor is an injured reliever or a reliever being beaten up with an ERA over 5. His ceiling as a reliever could be much higher, if his body can take it.