Dick Allen

Rodon without injuries is as likely as an entire 8th grade class without zits.

Yes, even Boras' assistant, Heyman, has nothing.

He should be, but innings will be very limited, probably fewer than Rodon because he still is expected to be around after 2022. They really can't ride him hard and put him away wet like Carlos.

Not Kopech. VV is the guy who will give you what Rodon gave you in 2021. They signed for the same money.

The lockout really hurt the Sox. You can still get tickets for Opening Day at face value on ticketmaster. That usually only happens when they are hopelessly bad. They did no business from Thanksgiving on, and haven't done anything to excite the fanbase since the lockout ended. Bad combo. JR doesn't take chances with his money.

If I was a team in the market for a closer and waa considering Kimbrel, I wouldn't give up jack shit for him now, and I am not a Kimbrel hater. I would make the Sox use him as a set up guy and see which version has shown up. The longer this drags on, the lower his price tag gets. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see the Dodgers giving anything of value for a guy who ended last year struggling and is getting paid the same as their longtime closer they apparently didn't want to pay. Bellinger would be a great prize, even though he is a huge question mark. It just doesn't make sense to me from a Dodgers perspective. Sure, overall they save a couple of bucks. But they don't care too much about that. If they would give up Bellinger, it makes me think they think he won't hit anymore. I think their scouting is pretty good.

I think the White Sox strategy is they think they are good enough now to be in a great position I July, so they can add then and pay the addition for 1/3 of the season.

Of course, but if you aren't willing to go there, you wind up not signing major free agents.

If the Sox had interest in Conforto, I imagine it would go like their interest in Bryce Harper. Thanks but no thanks after they find out how much it costs, but probably has some year and $ amount they would be interested. That would probably ve enough for Boras to use them if the price dropped.

Usually free agents who were pretty mediocre before having a big year their free agent year, go back to being mediocre. Conforto isn't the first guy who was thought to be in line for huge money, to have a bad free agent season, but I don't know the track record of similar players.

I was reading about him last year, and they were thinking he would be in line for a Springer like contract because he is younger. It was like 7 years. Someone will pay him a lot more than I think. Boras has a way with pulling rabbits out of hats.

Conforto is also a big union guy, so why he would probably be popular with teammates, JR would probably have to be hospitalized if he gave him the biggest contract in team history.

Most projections have him at about 2.5 WAR for 2021 which technically is a $20 million player. And to try to project that out another 3 or 4 seasons after that, you have to figure there will be some decline. It will be fascinating what he signs for. The QO would have been pretty fair.

Many years ago there was quite a run on SLAP lesions. They figured out how to avoid those pretty well.

I have no idea, but if I was to let him go, the idea is to have a replacement that you could easily say is an improvement. I really doubt if RH, KW, and JR thought the replacement was Harrison at the same price or slightly higher, they would have let Cesar go. He is a better defender, hits LH, and can run into one. That's why I figured they totally misread the market.

When they didn't pick up Cesar's option, i didn't think twice about it myself. I figured they would get something bigger and better, yet he's replaced by a 35 year old that has 1 2.0 fWar season since 2014.

Everyone looks like that when they are struggling. He was really good until the Field of Dreams game. That's when it all fell apart. If you were a Tigers or A's fan, you would probably wonder how the hell Harrison got anything but a minor league deal. Not a contract to be a regular on a team that's supposed to contend.

And iff it's all about defense, Hernandez is a better defender than Harrision, and he was deemed not good enough by the White Sox front office. They obviously got caught with their pants down on this one. Either they thought they could get a guy like Story cheap and move him to2B or teams would be giving away players, whatever it was, it was a huge error at a time they need to be accurate.

I was a little surprised the Cubs didn't re-engage on Rizzo, Bryant, Baez or Schwarber. But it's probably smart. I think their reps are higher than their games right now, although Schwarber did have his best season last year, after a slow start. But he is a DH in reality.

If you are just going to trade him for another bad contract, why did they pick up the option? Just buying him out opened up those funds at the beginning of the winter to be used on something useful. Now, even if a miracle occurs and those funds are freed up, most of the options where you could have used those funds aren't available.

he was. I was at a game he was throwing 100 coming out of the bullpen. He was heavier back then, had put on a lot of weight, and a lot of bad weight, quickly. The word I heard was that the White Sox were very concerned about his knees holding up.

How much longer will KW and RH be able to resist Billy Hamilton?

It's among the worst, but right in line with what they did at 2B. Forget the $1 million Kimbrel buyout, have him at $16 million, and trade him for a $21 million player projected to play to an under 1.0 fWAR.

If they had it, that's where he got it. He gets many rumors from Jimmy. Jimmy should just make something up sometme. It will show up on NSC twitter in no time.

If his fake rumor is true, picking up the contract was just compounding a mistake.