Balta1701

I'd rather have a pitcher than any of those guys, but as long as we aren't trading one of the tiny selection of valuable players we have to make a move, I'm not going to be that outraged by any signing this year that fills some hole.

The dramatically underbidding a guy but producing a fancy video strategy that we tried last season worked so well that Boras and the White Sox didn't even bother talking in January and February. He didn't even bother pretending we were a mystery team while leaking offers. There is no reason why these things need to play out in February. You know what the guy is going to get. If you want to sign him, put a fair offer on the table, don't waste their time. They could have signed Machado in late December of last year, but they insisted he needed to take a $125 million discount to play with his buddies. Fine, you want too start at $217.1, start there - but make it 100% clear that it's a real offer by going above Price's price, and let them respond. And to answer your other question, it's because I have a good chance of living longer than Rick Hahn is GM.

Given our infield and DH situation, unless they think Scooter is their starting RF, I actually like Moustakas as an option more.

Put $220 million on the table at the winter meetings, a genuinely fair starting point, and you can get it done there. Might have to go a little higher than that to complete it, but the formula isn't that complicated. No one put $330 on the table last year for Harper until the Phillies in February and everyone knew that was roughly the number - beat Stanton's contract. The only team that met with him at the Winter Meetings, the White Sox, dramatically underbid him, so they waited until they got professional franchises to put realistic offers on the table.

If we were in the middle of the season, 12 months out is usually when guys are close to starting a rehab assignment. We're 13.5 months from the surgery for him, so if this was July and not October we'd be talking about him starting in Great Falls sometime soon. Whether his control is all the way back in ST, no way to know as getting that back is a different beast from getting arm strength back. 12 months for pitching, 18 months for full arm recovery and full arm strength - so we're right on track for that.

Back when the problem was his shoulder, our pt said that converting to the bullpen wasn't likely a good thing for his arm. Whether that's still the case now that he has a different arm injury I can't say.

Where have they said they're trying to cut salary? Serious Q, I haven't seen it but I'm at my limit on Tribune articles already.

The NBA also doesn't have a hard cap, they have a soft cap with a luxury tax that teams can go over if they are signing their own players or making trades using trade exemptions. The Bulls have also paid the Luxury tax exactly 2 times since it was instituted nearly 20 years ago. Counting last year, 19 teams have paid it at least 3 times, putting the Bulls in the bottom 1/3 of the league, tied with such big spenders as the Jazz, Grizzlies, and Kings. This year, the 76ers will likely pay it, putting another team past the Bulls.

They won't get much but the trick is it's not zero. The right move would be to pick up his option, make their run at Cole, and if they're able to sign him - have already talked to teams about trading Quintana for a pittance. That way, they have the pitcher and can use him if needed, but if they land the big FA they know he's movable.

Yeah. Money. That was what they valued. Because they're cheap. Thank you.

So teams that have been bad and in rebuilding with weak rosters for years but with considerable financial resources might find luck if they gamble and buy several of them to see if they can find a couple rotation players? Hmm, this seems like a smart strategy for the Bulls, I wonder why they haven't done it. And wait, you're telling me that MLB gives you the ability to sign international free agents, and the White Sox have money available to do this? What did they use that money for last year? I sure hope they spent it and didn't use it to get another team to write them a check.

No, they weren't. Even they didn't bother trying that excuse. They literally said it was so that ownership would have more money available.

They literally sold a draft pick to Golden State because they ran out of people that they had bothered to scout. They released a statement saying that the move was done to "build equity with ownership".

I can't read it as I've hit my article limit but here's a piece from the Tribune a few days ago on this matter.

Works for me just fine also.

Yeah, you can see above that one of the reasons I want a 6th starter is that I don't have confidence in Lopez, but I am also absolutely going to give him more chances, both to open the season and maybe even in 2021. If they were to acquire Q...that sorta rules out Wheeler/Cole/better options, IMO. I could see them doing exactly that, but it's not my preferred route. Frankly, I'd prefer Keuchel if they were insistent on a cheaper, LH option.

I do not believe at all that this org is ready to give up on Lopez completely (nor should they. Last year in the offseason our "competitive" rotation models were dropping Giolito!)

Then he will be changing agents. Seriously, we saw this with the Danks brothers. You do not keep Scott Boras as your agent to sign a deal like that.

I have no issue with that whatsoever. IMO we need 2 pitchers right now given the youth and injuries in our rotation; we need one strong pitcher for the upper part of the rotation (Cole? Anyone? Cy Young winners are useful right?) and a 6th starter/swingman. With slightly expanded rosters that extra starter will be very helpful and easier to carry. That 6th starter could start the season in the rotation if Kopech isn't ready, help Cease control innings, be useful if Lopez struggles, replace anyone who gets hurt, and if things go well for a while we've got a long man in the bullpen. We could probably find names other than Nova that would work also, but Nova isn't unreasonable, and I'd pay a few million dollars (maybe up to $5 million) to fill that role.

Even if they do that, Carlos Rodon's agent is Scott Boras. The only reason they'd sign such a contract is if they think Rodon will never pitch again.

I think the White Sox are going to dramatically overpay him. 2/$42 or 3/$60.

It will depend on who wants the job. How many different fill-in guys have we seen for Stone already? Any of them could take it, but honestly...if AJ was serious about wanting to go into broadcasting....

One of the things about the Semien trade is that the quotes by the A's people have always been shots at the White Sox's development staff that are not meant to be shots at them - just matter of fact statements supporting their player. In 2015, Washington had a quote somewhere saying that Semien had promise but he'd never done basic fielding drills at shortstop so he had to start from scratch. He said that not to take shots at the White Sox, but to support his guy when he was having a huge problem with making errors. But, that was describing a guy who came up through each level at our system and, although the org pigeonholed him as a utility player, he played SS more than any other position. How on Earth does a guy come up through a team's entire system, playing 100+ games as a starting shortstop, without doing basic fielding drills as a shortstop? I'm not sure how it works with the guys today, that could easily have been part of the Ventura "take it easy don't work to hard don't practice it'll be fine" mentality and it may have somewhat gone away today. At least I hope so.

Please find the post where I was ok with trading a top 50 prospect for him, particularly given the lack of depth in our system. Hell, please find deals we've made where we gave up youngsters that I was ok with. I didn't hate the Nova trade? You want to talk about after 2020? No worries. He's a "free agent" then. I would even be ok with a 1 year option and keeping our pitching expenditures low if we were serious about bidding for this guy (narrator: they weren't).