Balta1701

If people are going to suggest we acquire "guys that teams will only trade if we overpay", you can't be that surprised when I suggest it would require a deal that is an overpay.

FWIW, "Jon Jay will provide OBP and is an upgrade defensively" was a thing that was said repeatedly last offseason. I just shuddered at hearing it about someone else.

Then they shouldn't move him. No reason to think the Rangers are embarking on a full rebuild next year, have him under control for 3 years, historically they've been readily willing to spend money, brand new ballpark next year - they've got some trouble known as "The Astros" to worry about in their division, but no reason why they can't think they have a shot at the wild card soon if they make some intelligent moves.

Even though he missed a portion of the season with an injury, the Rangers can value him like a 5-6 WAR player under control for 3 years based on him raking this year. Kopech, Cease, or Robert as the headliner, Madrigal or Vaughn as the 2nd piece, then a couple more guys to go along with them?

Because he was a free agent after 2019 and none of them were, and the 2019 White Sox were not competitive no matter what they did. A 0.1% chance that any of the other guys breaks out and has a strong 2019 is more valuable to the White Sox franchise than an MVP caliber 2019 from Avisail Garcia. Unfortunately none of those happened, but that doesn't change the logic.

They're spending that $35 million a year on Betts in your scenario, not 2b. What kind of players are they going to have to bring in to play 2b/1b in your scenario after opening that hole? Expensive, slightly above average players who have a high flop risk. Exactly the kind you just said you didn't want. I get spending money on a big name or two, but the reason why we can do that is that we haven't opened up holes by trading away the limited guys we have.

Because if you trade Vaughn or Madrigal, now you have to spend extra resources in 2021 to replace Vaughn or Madrigal, and our franchise is not flush with replacement resources. Especially if they're spending $35 million a year on Betts.

That is absolutely not nonsense. Boston has Mookie Betts as a star and they're in the business of developing and signing stars. They know teams will struggle to re-sign Betts if he's determined to hit the free agent market. The last thing Boston wants is for it to become public that they were willing to trade Betts to another team, then have Betts slink back to the Red Sox if the other team doesn't make a deal. Aside from Betts getting injured, that is virtually the worst case scenario; they've angered Betts, burnt a trade bridge, undermined their own business model, and they might be even put in a situation where they face a trade request that forces them to move him before the season starts. The only circumstance where Boston should allow that 72 hour return window is if the deal they're getting is a dramatic overpay. If I've got a chance that I'll get Luis Robert back in return for Betts, you're darn right I'll give a 72 hour window because that's a great return for him. For Nick Madrigal? Nah, either you take Betts and figure it out later or we don't have a deal.

If we're not able to be a competitive team in 2022/2023, well at the very least hopefully we've got a new coach and GM making decisions by then.

If one of our guys insists they're going to free agency then yes, that's a decision you will have to make. If we look like a competitive roster the year someone is a free agent, then perhaps you gamble on them just walking after you make your run.

Considering we drafted a 1b and we promised we were going to extend a 1b who doesn't like moving to DH, that's a worse option than 2b.

I believe the person I was replying to, earlier in this thread, suggested that if you put a deal on paper that beats Trout's deal...$440 million+, maybe that gets around that issue. He might be right; make the money insane enough that he can't turn it down. Are we willing to give up a top prospect and overpay by $50-$100 million? I'm not, but that's where we've gotten to.

Boston has no reason whatsoever to give a team a 72 hour negotiation/return window unless they're getting a huge return for him. They shouldn't do so.

Remember what happened with Machado. The Orioles took calls on him in the offseason and no one made a good enough offer, so they held him and eventually Seager went down with an injury and suddenly the Dodgers needed him. They didn't get a top 50 prospect, but they got a top 100 prospect from a good organization plus 3 other guys, so it was a pretty good deal. As I said above, another thing that makes this difficult for the White Sox is that they have no one right now in that 75-100 range, so either they give up Vaughn/Madrigal as a headliner or they have no top 100 prospects to offer. And the Red Sox should not move him without at least a top 100 guy as a strong return.

One other random thought I had...I might have actually thought about doing a move like this one, trading for Betts, had it not been for the number of flops and breakdowns in our minor league system. If we had a bunch of breakouts - Hansen, Adolfo, and Rutherford all having good 2019s or something like that, where we seemingly had guys to trade and we had some depth - this could be an interesting gamble. Trade an outfielder and a pitcher for Betts, but leave Madrigal and Vaughn in place. Put Betts out there, say that we now have a team we think can win the wild card, at least play some competitive baseball in September even if we don't make the playoffs, and maybe we're in an even better shape to re-up with Betts due to increased revenue. But since we have so little minor league depth behind our top flight guys/first round picks, we're not in a position where we can afford to give them up. If we give up one of them for Betts, that means we have to replace the guy we gave up with another trade or free agent. We don't have anything to spare in a deal like this because things went so poorly outside our top 5 in the minors.

Well, one of the reasons lots of people have talked about Grandal is the idea that he would DH sometimes - it does seem like Moustakas and Grandal are competing for ABs there somewhere, not to mention that Collins basically becomes worthless in that setup. That said, I'm generally a fan of the Moustakas concept.

I still wonder what the universe would be like if he had not destroyed his leg. A guy who just put up a .368 OBP and a .808 OPS at Birmingham, nearly 50 extra base hits during the year, struck out too much but was still getting on base, might have been an excellent guy to work on his "Launch angle" when that came into vogue a couple years later...

"We've been patient."

I think the bolded really isn't a great summary of how the Twins got there. Here are the top 12 performing players on the Twins this season by Fangraphs: Max Kepler Jose Berrios Jake Odorizzi Nelson Cruz Jorge Polanco Mitch Garver Miguel Sano Michael Pineda Kyle Gibson Bryan Buxton Luis Arraez Taylor Rodgers Out of their top 12 players, only 2 (Italicized) were guys who came in as free agents. 10/12 guys were developed internally. For a team that put up 53 fWAR this year, 35 fWAR came from the 10 internally developed guys on that list, and I haven't gone down to add in all the other guys such as in their bullpen who were developed internally. The Twins did fill in gaps with 1-2 win players, but that is literally what we just said we didn't want to do. What the Twins did this year that was effective was, first of all - have a lot of development success stories, and second - make sure they didn't have any positions filled with players who were dramatically negative.

I personally would want Lopez in the rotation if I was running the team, but I'd also know what my 6th starter options are.

I would not. Marcus Semien literally outhit Mookie Betts last year. In 2015-2016 we traded away the core of a team that would have at least been in the running for the wild card this year.

While sitting here pondering this, I do wonder if Betts doesn't find himself in a similar situation to Machado and Harper - the big 3 teams being "out" or nearly so on him and as a consequence he winds up getting a fair deal from someone else, maybe after a good amount of waiting.

It might get that done, not sure, but the bolded concerns me. The reason the Cubs would do such a deal is that even though it makes them worse on paper, it makes their bullpen better right now and saves them money to go after Cole. But, if Bummer is the White Sox's only reliable setup man, taking him out of the bullpen makes them worse, and we're taking on a Quintana who only has 1 year remaining on his current deal.

Apparently Vontaze Burfict suspended for the full season for repeated helmet to helmet hits.

If we skip on the elite pitching FAs this season (narrator: they should not have skipped on the elite pitching FAs but they did anyway), they could very well be in a position to make a run at this offer next offseason. I will not bore you with reasons why they won't.