Balta1701

how many losses do you think an average team in baseball has when winning after 7 innings? Over a whole season it's about 5, league-wide. So the difference between 5 losses and 1 loss is 4...which you just split into 2 people, Bummer and Colome. You just made a convincing argument that a good closer is worth about 2 wins over a season and a good 8th inning guy is worth about 2 wins over a season. At the end of July 2018, there were 4 teams that had 0 losses when leading after 8. 3 of them had good closers, and a 4th, the Texas Rangers, was at the bottom of their division and had a tolerable bullpen, but they also had pretty poor starting pitching so they just didn't have many games when they were leading after 8.

If it came down to that, you hold the money and wait to see if someone defects or becomes available from overseas if your goal was actually a winning ballclub. It also should not have come down to that, not this year, not when they had 2 full years to prepare.

Well obviously the bolded is true and everyone is correct this totally illustrates that saving a couple million is more important to the franchise than their long-term baseball performance. But seriously, there is no reason at all to think that Nate Jones will pitch again, and if he ever does it starts on a minor league deal. The guy's body was able to withstand a couple years of throwing the way he did, and it just gave up. He's made decent money, I hope he saved some.

They just don't believe that anyone out there has the right to criticize them, and calling them cheap is criticizing them so no one has the right to say that.

I would not have picked up that option on him, no.

It's not a Headscratcher, they're White Soxing. Because that's the White Sox way.

Yes, I think it is entirely possible that if the White Sox did not trade for Colome, they would have something like 1 or 2 fewer wins this year. Most outings for closers they come in for the 9th inning with the lead and don't have to worry about a pressure situation - even a bad closer will still have a 75 or 80% save rate. Sergio Romo is not particularly great, he's ok, he's basically a replacement level player this year (0.2 bWAR), but he's also 17/18 on saves. You can find cheap guys to pitch the 9th inning when you're up by 2 or 3 runs without much trouble. Colome also has only pitched a couple of times outside of save situations, and in at least 1 of those he got blasted. So, let's say the White Sox had 3 more blown saves this year, that's an 80% success rate for a closer, which is pretty replaceable. Have the White Sox lost all 3 of those games? No, one or two of them go to extra innings and there's a 50/50 shot they win one of those. So, 1 or 2 fewer wins with a closer off the scrap heap.

If I were the Mets, I certainly wouldn't be giving him away without something of value in return, not when we've seen relievers go up and down so often and when he's not expensive.

I will happily give RH credit for them let's just see them in the big leagues having success first. Literally the exact same thing could have been said about Carlos Rodon and he's been a complete disappointment.

Robert was signed before the Jiminez trade.

Yeah, but his BABIP is bad but he's also in the top 5% of the league in hardest contact made against him.

I think there's a risk he isn't that great, his numbers are genuinely bad all across the board this year, and I don't have any idea why the Mets would give him up if they weren't getting a substantial return.

The Cubs bought Quintana and paid full price for him when there were signs that he had started falling apart in 2017. His velocity hadn't changed, his strikeouts hadn't changed, his peripherals were good, so the Cubs paid the price of "Near all star pitcher under control for 4 years" for him. Instead, they got an asset that had just fallen apart, but they didn't recognize it. I feel like getting Edwin Diaz would require paying nearly full price for Edwin Diaz, as the Cubs did for Quintana, and there's a risk that you're paying full price for an asset that has depreciated.

Wha?

Without Injuries the Yankees might have lost 10 games all year by that standard.

Neither of them can pitch a game against the Yankees in the ALCS. Everything has to go right to win the series. They won game 7 against a great Dodgers team. If that was the only one they win, they aren't a dynasty, and their rebuild was still a complete and utter success.

If you're judging any team on being a "Dynasty" in MLB you're doing this wrong. The White Sox winning 1 world series and 3 playoff appearances out of our current rebuilt - that would be an enormous success. In MLB right now there are no Patriots. Even if you do your rebuild well, you also have the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox sitting there. They will win 100 games in some of the seasons when you're peaking and in a 7 game series they will beat you half the time. Did the Astros do something wrong if they don't win the World Series this year (and lose Cole to FA)? No, they rebuilt the roster, brought home a trophy, packed the ballpark for 5 years, and next offseason or two they can figure out how they want to restructure by making an aggressive trade or signing or two.

This feels like the Cubs trading for Quintana and paying full price.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27256518/mlb-weekend-watch-yankees-red-sox-madbum-future-al-west-stars

One of the lessons of this offseason has been that you create your own opportunity through running a quality franchise (or by being lucky enough to be in the right city).

And when they lose 2/3 to the Marlins?

Because even though there's no guarantee it will work, it's such a powerful technique that it's at least possible it could work even if the people running it aren't that skilled. And the counterpoint - signing moderate priced free agents - leaves the team rebuilding in a couple years anyway after a few more low-70s win years.

Wow that's great.

What was his average draft position? If you're regularly getting starting big leaguers from 1/2 your drafts and you're a playoff team every year already, so that you're drafting after #25, that's elite performance. Getting good players in 1/2 your drafts during a 10 year playoff run would be exceptional.