Balta1701

That's a lot of long term money for a guy who is one more short injury stint away from being untradeable and who we're talking about as a "bounce back/.800 OPS at 3b" candidate.

The fact that we're all of a sudden hearing about how we need to spend 9 figures to sign a starting pitcher after all of the trades that brought back starting pitching should point out why that's a rotten idea. If we do wind up needing to spend that kind of money on a starting pitcher, then we have absolutely flopped in our talent evaluation and development.

The Minnesota Twins tried to buy into that philosophy this year when they went out and got guys like Morrison on the cheap.

My version of the numbers is 2 top 50 guys + a strong third. I don't think he'll get that offer, but it's not out of the question given the years of control, and if he has a strong start to next season he should be able to get it by the deadline. I'm not in a hurry to move him, but I'm now listening.

So 5/5 with 2 home runs? This guy's decent.

I always point this out - there's no reason to assume that he was clean prior to 1998. He could just as easily have started steroids in 1980 and then switched to a more potent steroid in 1998 when his body exploded and, per that one book, he said to Griffey that he was going on the "Hard stuff". That line could easily have indicated he was on softer stuff, a-la Palmeiro or someone like that, whose body did not explode.

Are you willing to go well over the Samardzija deal on Corbin? 5/$125? He's already said that he wants to pitch for the Yankees so you're going to have to pay that guy.

I couldn't be mad about signing him if it was a 1 year, $15 million deal with an option or something like that, but that's not a deal that you sign guys to in order to compete for the wild card. It's a deal you sign just to fill a gap and to hopefully find a tradeable asset. Even if he had a great finish to the year I'd say the same thing - right now, you have to expect he's going to get hurt. If you're planning for him to be an MVP quality player again, you're very likely to be have overpaid and it's likely to sabotage your season.

Correct. He has yet to "Win" a playoff game.

The Angels made the ALDS in 2014 and lost to the Kansas City Royals. Trout was 1/12 with a HR and 3 walks.

He's a decent bounce back guy, but he also has played only 36 games so far this season. He's as good of a bounce back candidate as he is a candidate to be a guy who hit a physical wall starting last year at age 31 when he played 113 games because of injury. He's been hurt for 1/4 of the year and 2/3 of the year over the last 2 seasons. Are you getting him at a huge discount and calling him nothing but a bounce back candidate, or are you outbidding 4 other teams for him based on what he did 2 years ago? Someone else dropped a >$20 million a year price for him in another thread. Is that the amount you'd gamble on a bounce back guy?

This says a lot about your plan. Josh Donaldson has 159 plate appearances so far this year. He has a .757 OPS on the season. He has played in 36 big league games. You've got down $24 million a season for the guy who just did that, the highest per season salary in white sox history. I don't think those numbers are all that wrong. But that says how bad of an idea it is. You sign those 3 guys, at least 1 of them is a complete bust.

Yeah but they didn't move top guys for him, as far as I can tell they have traded 0 of their guys who became top 100 prospects. They got Cole cheaply because of injuries, struggles with the way Pirates pitchers are taught, and the fact that Pittsburgh doesn't want to pay for the final years of those players before FA unless they are loaded. They gave up their #5 prospect (Colin Moran) and Joe Musgrove, as well as like their #15 guy. They're ok giving up guys in the middle of their system. We'd be demanding their #1 and #2.

Atlanta and Houston are the 2 teams I think have the talent and need. The Padres have the ammunition and they've talked about making a big move but it would be dumb for them to do it. Technically the White Sox have the ammunition too, but well. Houston has the ammunition and will need a LH starting pitcher this offseason, but Houston has shown no inclination whatsoever to move their top guys for established big leaguers, they would have to fundamentally change the way they operate and I would call that surprising at the least. So...that literally leaves the Braves, and any team marketing a big name starter will have the Braves org circled. If anyone else comes on the market, the market could saturate.

Go look at the Yankees and the Athletics, the 2 teams that are going to take the AL Wild Card this year, and ask yourself if your roster comes anywhere close to measuring up to them. Severino, Judge, Torres, Stanton, Chapman, and $50 million+ to play with this offseason, and they're a wild card team. Really, you think you're going to sneak into a wild card spot in this league with Moustakas and Cargo? Not with these teams. If you're going to sign someone, fine. Clearly we have to sign 2 starting pitchers minimum, we simply don't have the horses right now to even field a roster. But don't even think about the Wild Card while doing it, think about the holes you have and flipping guys only. If some magic happens and Moncada outplays Trout next year, then great, but you can't make business decisions where a key part of it is "and then a miracle occurs".

I wouldn't say zero reason. Rodon could struggle more early next season or have a short injury, and if either of those happen then there will likely only be weak offers for him. Furthermore, I don't currently see a lot of teams with the ammunition to trade for him, and if DeGrom is on the market also, there may not be a lot of suitors.

The Astros broke out in 2015 and made the playoffs, before winning the title in 2017. They had Keuchel under control for 4 seasons during their competitive stretch, 2015-2018. He was still pre-arbitration during 2015 when they made the playoffs. Rodon's last pre-arbitration year was 2017.

And unfortunately, we are now undermanned during those years. That the Cubs did it does not change that reality. This is like the Cubs losing Bryant for 2015 and 2016.

So...if you send him to the minors to start the year there are 2 ways to do it. Either...you call it a rehab assignment, where there's what, a 30 day limit and he still accrues service time? or you burn a minor league option to start the year. So, can we burn a minor league option on him? He still has to have 2 right?

Almost certainly. You're not talking about him reaching arbitration with a cy young award. His first arb year will be 2021, he'll probably be at like $2 million or something like that, as opposed to $10 million+ if he was a dominant starter that year.

After this news? Yes. Before this week, if I was in RH's chair and the right offer came in for Rodon (2 top 50 guys and a 3rd strong piece), I'd have hated to do it but I'd very likely have made the move. At this point? I see no reasonable way Rodon's next 2 years are useful to the White Sox. We're now waiting on Kopech to recover to full strength (2021) and that Winston-Salem team to arrive (2021). Other guys like Collins will arrive before that, but you have to expect some growing pains. We may not get the right offer this year, especially if both Rodon and DeGrom are on the market, it may take Rodon pitching to the break next year to prove he's healthy, but if the right offer comes in you now have to make that move. It will make you better in 2021 and beyond.

The past 3 seasons at the major league level, this team was still fairly healthy. Not as healthy as it was the previous 5 years, but nothing compared to an org like the Dodgers, and that stretch including '15 and '16 was about the healthiest franchise we have ever seen. The health of the minor leagues imploded this year at a level we have never seen in this organization before, at a level that if it happens again it will effectively demolish all of the talent we thought we acquired. That could be a sign that RH failed to assess injury risks before trading for guys, that could be a sign that RH's people in the minors really are that bad, or it could be bad luck and a 1 year event that won't repeat next year. If we're having this same conversation in 2020 about how on Earth we are having so many injuries in our prospects, then it will be time to call this a trend.

I would have hated re-upping Shields 2 days ago, because I would have liked to see them go for someone stronger to fill the back of that rotation and I thought that could be a legit strength. Our offense and defense wouldn't have measured up to the big boys even with Eloy and Machado, just go compare the guys we have to Cleveland, Boston, Houston, or New York, but a rotation of Kopech, Rodon Lopez, Giolito, and a legit 5th guy could have been as good as any of them. That could have been the thing our organization was strong in, strong enough to push .500. Drop out the top name on that rotation list and the back side is now a gaping hole. Now, adding in Shields and another arm are necessary just to fill innings, and it's basically impossible for the rotation to be a strength without blowing a huge amount of money. A couple days ago I thought that right now, the White Sox were a 90 loss team, and I thought that over the offseason, improvement in guys would probably bring them up to an 85 loss team level. They were a 100+ loss team at the start of the year, improvement during the year probably has made them a 93-95-ish loss team, adding in Kopech would have made this a ~90 loss team. Now, improvement over the offseason just makes up for losing Kopech and they're still a 90-ish loss team. Adding in 10 wins on the free agent market isn't cheap. That's a $100 million payroll boost just to get to .500.

This team still doesn't have a ton of positional talent on it, Eloy will make a difference but as a rookie he might still have a slump or two in him. 3b is being covered by a utility guy, our catcher was suspended for steroids, our middle infield is young and struggled a ton, CF is a black hole, we might have a decent DH, but our RF who was an all star last year was bad enough he could be nontendered this year, and our 1b has had the worst season of his career at age 31. Some of that might improve next year just by luck, but if we were thinking of getting to mid-80s wins next year, we'd get there because the strength on the organization would be a rough rotation led by Kopech and Rodon, with better depth at 3 and 4 than we have had in a decade. If that rotation stepped forwards then we could have surprised next year, but we just lost the key piece. .500 next year was already an "everything is going right" kinda setup, and this destroys that concept. Now just for 2019 we have 2 rotation slots to fill in addition to a bullpen that is at best inexperienced and a young lineup with a lot of holes. Kopech isn't going to come out and throw 200 innings in 2020 and he might not even be very effective, it takes a while to rebuild strength from this surgery. Madrigal in 2020 is a huge rush. Hopefully by then we're seeing serious progress from Moncada, we'll have some guys like Collins up, but the Winston-Salem team that is so talent loaded won't be ready to take over the OF and other spots until 2021.

THey might be a little more conservative with Cease, but not because of this - his innings total was less this year than Kopech's was last year, so they may want to stop him on September 1 next year to avoid overloading him.