Balta1701

I'd be genuinely interested in him too and if he's good down the stretch I'd go for a high contract, but I'm willing to say that I'll take cheaper options at RF and C to get him and a starting pitcher (and yes if he looks ok I'd go for Betances and Cole and the White Sox won't do that).

If he struggles down the stretch I could buy that. If he pitches 6 shutdown innings in the ALCS and is key to beating that Astros lineup, dude will make a fortune. Would you give him 3/$40 if he comes back, pitches for a month, and has an ERA near 6?

I kinda like the idea of Yoan hitting 3rd if Madrigal can also pump up the OBP. Madrigal Robert Moncada Jiminez Abreu Unknown but would be nice if LH Anderson You've got a top 3 including your potential future best hitter batting 2, OBP at slots 1 and 3, speed at the top, RBIs at slots 4-5, balance at the bottom of the order.

What sort of contract numbers do you think Betances gets? I did a bit of googling and while it depends on what he does down the stretch, I did find this quote just by googling Dellin Betances Free Agent

What's your plan for RF and the bullpen in this case? I don't think it's a bad set of signings I just know we also need a RF and bullpen help, and if those are the 2 positions you want to spend on, you might miss targets at others.

The only stats one needs to consider for any player are outs and runs.

If he's decent at W-S over the next month and he looks ok in Spring Training...I would. What the White Sox will do I don't know, but I want to see him at AA as soon as his performance justifies it. And FWIW, I've been way more conservative about calling for people being called up than the White Sox have been, like 75% of their callups I say "This is too early". I cannot remember any player we've drafted that I publicly said "Rush this guy!" Maybe back to the gordon beckham days? So me saying all this about Vaughn...this is unusual for me. I feel half weird about it, but this player we should push as aggressively as his numbers allow.

The US President just retweeted something suggesting the involvement of the Clintons.

If Vaughn gets off to a good start at AA next year I want him up ASAP, maybe as early as May. Advanced bat, destroyed college, plays fairly easy defensive position, once he proves capable at hitting AA pitching next year, what more will he have to learn in the minors?

I think I put this in the other thread. I don’t know what JRs true salary roof is, but the trick this offseason is to make this team a roster that can compete if a good amount of things go right...but to leave them room to maneuver before 2021 if some things go wrong. They have money to sign like 4 or 5 big deals, but truly they should sign 1 or 2 multi year deals and fill a couple spots with only 1 year deals. That way they have a possibly competitive roster but they have room leftover so that they can make moves before 2021 to fill in whatever goes wrong next year. If you commit too much this offseason it gets a lot harder in 2021 because Moncada, Lopez, and Giolito all hit arbitration in 2021 and even though his expensive contract will end, Colome will be a free agent that needs to be replaced also. So if you overcommit now and don’t win that division, it could hurt the team for more than next year.

There's no reason why the White Sox could not pay that money, they have put themselves in a position where they could, but I'm not going to bother rehashing all the reasons why they won't.

Managing expectations this offseason is smarter than last offseason, but seriously everyone, Cole is out for the biggest payday he can get. He's a Boras client, #1 pick, He's gone through 1 year arbitration offer deals rather than even signing an extension to cover the arb years. If you put an offer on the table that is higher than what David Price got as the largest FA pitching deal in history, you're in the conversation.

I needed a thread to put this in and this was the most recent relevant one.

Just remember - inflation in baseball is far faster than inflation in the real world. the amount of money going to owners has more than doubled in the past 10 years, and player salaries have doubled over the last 15 years or so. A contract that you thought might have been a good contract in the mid-2000s needs to be doubled. In 2008, CC Sabathia signed a 7 year, $161 million deal. A comparable deal to that today based on salary inflation since 2008 is 7 years and nearly $250 million.

To the 10 day IL at some point in the season? No that's not even close to a lot. Cleveland: Clevinger, Kluber, Lindor, Ramirez, Carrasco, Naquin.

Actual good teams are prepared to have that number of injuries. That number of injuries is still not a lot. If you're not prepared for that number of injuries, you are not a good team. If we want to be competitive next year we have to expect that. The Astros this year have had injuries to Altuve, Springer, Correa, Peacock, Pressly (all star reliever), and Lance McCullers is out all year. They have had a similar number of days spent on the IL to us. They're easily on pace for 100 wins. If you actually want to be a competitive team, that number of injuries needs to be something you yawn at.

Yes it does because he's on the MLB 60 day IL. It even counts Nate Jones, which feels like cheating. Without Jones we're the 7th healthiest team in baseball.

Did you know that the White Sox have used the 10th fewest IL games in the big leagues this season? And while the Yankees have spend a cumulative $57 million on the IL, the White Sox have spent just over $8 million - 3rd lowest in baseball? This is not a "rash of injuries", this is "a normal amount of injuries" and people need to expect that if they think we're competing next year. If you think this is enough injuries to derail your team, your team was not good in the first place. There's a good chance we're more banged up than this even though the team is young.

When KW was general manager the White Sox were also regularly drafting outside the top 10. In some cases they completely gave up their first round picks, in most others they were at least well after pick 15. There's often a clear consensus guy for the top 5 or 6, but by the time you're around spot 10 or later there's 3 or 4 guys who could be viewed equally.

Are you willing to do that and then go with McCann and Collins behind the plate rather than a FA acquisition, or are you willing to do that and then go with Cole Hamels as your main starting pitching addition? That's the tradeoff right now. All of these guys make sense. All of these guys would be upgrades. We could technically do them all, but that leaves us no room for the future, so you have to pick 1 or 2 positions that are going to be your key acquisitions. Could we get by with someone who costs less or is older in RF for 1-2 years while waiting for additional OF help to arrive? Alex Gordon, or Kole Calhoun in a trade, maybe something crazy like Adam Jones moved over?

So he's played 82 games this year because of injury due to a dive into a base on a pickoff move, doesn't have a history of being injury prone, and if he continues producing at the rate he has been without additional injury for the remainder of the season he's on pace for 2.6 fWAR this season and thus $21 million or so in value?

Now note that 2 of those guys - Adam LaRoche and Melky Cabreroid - had OPSs above .800 the year before the White Sox signed them. Then do the pitching staff.

I can never guarantee that they'll do the smart thing particularly after last offseason, but my version of this offseason is: 1. Put the team in position where if a good number of things go right they're competitive, but 2. Leave enough money uncommitted beneath whatever the salary ceiling is that they can still make a major move before 2021. If they wanted to right now they could do $30 million for Cole, $20 million for Grandal, $20 million for Ozuna, $10 million for Abreu, and $20 million on Wheeler and some bullpen guys, and come away with a $140 million payroll for 2020 and a legit shot at the division. But, a couple guys struggle or there's another injury plagued year and not only does that plan fail, but if you committed multi-year deals to all those guys you have now created a major issue in 2021. In 2021 we have some contracts that end for expensive guys like Colome and Herrera, but not a whole lot comes off the books because there's not a whole lot on the books. Meanwhile, Moncada, Giolito, Lopez, and Fry hit arbitration, so that's likely at least $20 million in payroll growth, maybe more than that if Lopez ever breaks out. So if we've already blown everything on big signings in 2020 and we don't win the Central, there's virtually no money left to play with under a hypothetical $140 million payroll cap. So yeah...maybe you go after a couple guys, maybe it's Abreu and Wheeler and Bumgarner, but you go for a cheaper RF option and hope something emerges from the system. Or maybe you go for Cole but you go cheap in RF and Catcher (yeah the White Sox won't seriously go for Cole I know). Either way, that's my slogan as of now. Put yourself in a position where if enough stuff goes right in 2020 you win the Central, but know how you'll answer the question "What do I do to get better in 2021 if everything doesn't go right"

I will let the Cubs out of that contract if they agree to retroactively forfeit the 2016 season. Deal? When you sign players to a multi-year deal, the length of the deal generally helps the team, not hurts them...in the sense that the team spreads payroll out over a longer term. What you really want is a guy who can help you win the next 3-4 years, and if you are paying a guy when they fall off...it doesn't matter because you won.

If the Halos knew they could trade Calhoun for a small return perhaps they'd pick up his option in order to trade him.