Balta1701

I'm personally partial to his career -1200 DRS/year at 2b and kinda want to experience this...

Ah gotcha, 2nd half of the line and it's friday night and my eyes hurt. Thanks.

So someone has pointed out that Palka seriously outhit him last year already right? Anyway, sign his in-law or blah.

Where did you catch this? I googled for framing stats and found him substantially below average and basically as bad as Castillo, but I'll admit I didn't check every web page that compiles such things.

I gotta go the other way. We added $10 million in payroll, made the bullpen better, but made the catcher's spot substantially worse, and we traded away a possibly useful asset. With $10 million in payroll, we could have made the bullpen better without subtracting from the catcher's spot and losing a potential trade asset.

Yes.

Well "Are you really stupid enough to give the Yankees a discount" is a pretty decent question also.

It's really not that hard to deny that you're really interested in these guys even if you are. Great example - Brian Cashman of the Yankees has repeatedly denied interest in both of them, even if it's not true. The Nationals GM also pretty much said "Welp we're out on Harper" publicly. It's also not that hard to be noncommital. The White Sox are specifically not doing either of those.

Was the difference in win total from Arrieta and Santana worth nearly $50 million?

And if you wanted, you could go through their list and find multiple other guys that performed at the level of Moncada/Anderson. So they've got a stud and several reliable guys, especially in their fairly young rotation, who are the reason why they're ahead of us. Jake Arrieta and Carlos Santana did not improve them by 15 wins last year, they improved because they're 1 or 2 years ahead of us.

No, it's because their young guys are ahead of us. Go find a White Sox youngster who performed at the level of Aaron Nola last year, I'll wait.

Nobody knows. Many of us make a not-unreasonable guess that he moved to SS last year to help make himself more flexible in free agency, so that teams who needed a SS could go for him as well. There are some whispers that go the other way, that for some reason he does really want to play that position. If that were true, there's a good chance it will cost him money. But really, until he signs with someone, we're not gonna know.

The Phillies have spent big on players much more recently than us. They have signed Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, Jake Arrieta to big deals. They have had a $175 million payroll before. They're down the road from New York and not the 2nd team in their city. They are farther along in their rebuild than we are. The big media are used to them being players for guys. I'm ok with that, what they say or feel doesn't bother me as long as we get one of these guys.

In the other threads they make fun of me for wanting to lose because I don't think that adding mid-level free agents is a good path to winning. I will be flat out disappointed if we strike out on both of these guys.

The best argument I can give that this isn't silly is the words coming out of Rick Hahn's mouth. He has had every chance to downplay his chances at this, and he consistently does not. They have made it clear in public that they are in this game to win one of them.

FWIW, I totally don't get this.

Really, ok if you want to play the GMAB game...Juan Minaya's BB/9 rate in Charlotte was 3.5 in 2016, 2.4 in 2017, and 3.1 in 2018. Hell, Minaya's BB/9 was 4.2 in 50+ innings in 2016 and 2017 in the big leagues. For comparison, Adam Ottavino's BB/9 in 2017 was 6.6 and in 2018 it was...4.2.

One other point about the Astros - note that they're not resigning everyone. This year they're letting their utility guy walk (Gonzalez) and he was huge in their world series season, and they're letting 2 starting pitchers walk - Morton and Keuchel, because they believe they can replace them. If your team is drafting well, then you can afford to take some losses of guys and still remain competitive because the players in your system should be able to fill in for some guys as they walk, or they should be tradeable assets to fill in gaps. The Astros may still do something in their rotation, but right now Luhnow's talking about how he has confidence in his young pitchers stepping into roles at the back side of the rotation. That may not last forever when you're drafting in the 20s, but it can last for years, and if you're willing to trade an Eloy Jiminez a year or two before he hits free agency then you can push that even farther.

Is Ottavino the difference between a crappy bullpen and a good bullpen? Maybe the difference between crappy and tolerable, but probably not good. The difference between a crappy bullpen and a good to great bullpen is turning the multitude of young bullpen arms Hahn acquired into a multitude of good relievers. Having at least 1 guy out in the bullpen with experience (Colome) is a good thing. Is the 2nd veteran guy necessary? Maybe. Does that 2nd veteran guy limit the experience going to the young arms? You betcha. Is that worth it? Well you know my answer.

If it's really coming down to the difference between a 3 year opt out and a 4 year opt out, you can move some money around and negotiate for a year 4 opt out that makes it worth doing. Even I'm ok with a year 4 opt out if that's the standard everyone else offers.

Pulling an offer away from Boras does not make the offer go away unless they can sign Machado for the same money, and right now that's not a threat. If the White Sox were to say "our offer is pulled" and Boras came back with an honest proposal the next day, the White Sox would listen and he knows that. But more than that, brinskmanship only works if the threat is reasonable. The White Sox would be shooting themselves in the feet with not only Boras, but with every other free agent available in future years. If you want to get a reputation that your management is of the quality of the Chicago Bulls, this is a way to do it. They would not and should not threaten their own credibility as a professionally run organization just to get this negotiation done early.

Machado hasn't met with anyone yet apparently and Harper's agent is Scott Boras, Scott Boras is only going to have his player sign now if he thinks there's a real chance that his best offer could evaporate with nothing comparable available. At least for the near future, there's no pressure for either of them to finish.

Anything other than a 30 minute special about himself while he's surrounded by children who never actually get the money he promised them for the special will be ok with me.

I think that's aimed much more at Brantley than it is Harper as you move people because you get a Bryce Harper, you don't move people or delay people in your org to bring in a Michael Brantley.

Ok, the sarcasm was a little too much there, there are some people who would believe that stuff.