caulfield12

Yeah, you have to start somewhere to build a starting lineup…but too late for him unless he’s a bridge player to the next group but the Indians and Rays always cut bait when players get too expensive in arbitration or won’t sign extensions. Of course, they also have Andres Gimenez as well from the Lindor trade. They’ve currently got eight to ten players in their system who could end up as starting 2B or SS in the majors if one already includes Rosario and Gimenez. They continue to murder the White Sox in Latin America despite inherent budget restrictions. At any rate, with all those players, it’s a massive potential trade haul…almost twice what the Sox had to sell off in 2016/17. projections for 2023-24 starters Bo Naylor catcher Josh Naylor 1B/DH/OF Brayan Rocchio/Tyler Freeman/Owen Miller 2B Gabriel Arias/Carson Tucker/Aaron Bracho SS Jose Tena/Angel Martinez Nolan Jones 3B/OF OF George Valera, ?, ? Quantrill, McKenzie, Daniel Espino, Gavin Williams, Ethan Hankins, Logan Allen, Tanner Burns Clase The Indians have a TON of infield prospects already (their #9 and #10 prospects are also infielders). The biggest current and future weaknesses are the outfield and catching spots. https://www.mlb.com/prospects/guardians/

Run it out there the first half with Conforto and see if you can compete. You only lose a second round pick for the signing due to CB status and Conforto can beat up on Royals, Twins and maybe Tigers pitching. Or you do the greatest fire sale of all time over the next 3-12 months! Jose Ramirez, Bieber (back in All Star form), Conforto, Plesac and Civale all must go. Reyes and Shaw as well. Undecided on Clase, but closers are so up and down...he would be worth a ton on the open market, too. That leaves you with Quantrill, McKenzie and Rosario as your young core to rebuild around, and it would be relatively well timed to follow Sox, Tigers and Royals cycles in 2025-2029. Really, with a perennial Bottom 5 payroll, there's not much of a choice here.

"I honestly think he makes a ton of sense for the Guardians on a short term deal, with a structure similar to Correa’s (but less money). Cleveland has the room in the budget for sure, they probably just don’t want to invest in anyone too long term. And Conforto is coming off a down year, a deal where he can opt out after year one and return to market without a QO attached if he does well seems like a good fit. Cleveland has a short porch in RF that would probably be very good for his home run totals as well. Something like 2/40 with opt out after year 1 or maybe even a 3 year deal would make sense to me. It’s not like the Guardians couldn’t afford to run a 70-90m payroll." MLBtraderumors.com

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/03/padres-open-to-trading-from-rotation-catching-depth.html Padres looking to trade pitching and catching depth...three obvious names here are Alfaro/Caratini and Paddack. They're highly unlikely to trade Weathers or Gore, fwiw.

They've got five guys already fighting for that spot...

Ummm...are we quoting former presidents now? How many newspapers are actually healthy from a financial standpoint these days?

30th? MLB expanded?

https://www.mlb.com/pirates/history/records-stats-awards/postseason-results Sure, but even the Pirates have 12 post-season appearances and two World Series titles from the Clemente Era through today, 1960-2015. Nobody is arguing that the White Sox are the worst franchise in baseball today...maybe the worst off-season COMPARED to fan expectations, that's more or less accurate for the Top 10-12 teams in MLB. If it's not the White Sox, it's arguably the Padres.

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/95x05i/graphic_of_total_mlb_postseason_appearances/ This graphic is pretty amazing, bookends with NYY and the Marlins (2/2, now 2 WS out of 3 total appearances after 2021 Covid) The White Sox now have 11 appearances, so we would be somewhere around 17th in terms of total post-season appearances. The real problem is when you start dividing those appearances by total opportunities, 11 over 121 possible seasons. That puts the White Sox right at the very bottom along with the Seattle Mariners. Even the Cubs would be at 20, and the Indians 14.

If you add 1984-1997, probably closer to 21/22. Otoh, if it's just 2000~2012, something like 6 or 7. If you go back to All-Time Win/Loss percentage (dating back to 1901), the White Sox are actually 10th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_all-time_Major_League_Baseball_win–loss_records Here’s a list of all the teams have finished in second place for four or more seasons in a row: 8 consecutive seasons 1998-2005 Red Sox, 5 consecutive seasons 2002-2006 Astros, 5 consecutive seasons 1965-1969 Giants, 4 consecutive seasons 1996-1999 White Sox, 4 consecutive seasons 1985-1988 Reds, 4 consecutive seasons 1970-1973 Dodgers Second place finishes in 1957, 1958, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1972, 1990, 1991, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2020 1921-1956 pretty much a barren wasteland of mediocrity...only 7 third places finishes, including five consecutive from 1952-1956

Boras usually goes for guarantees...then incentives are the cherry on top. Because that locks in his commissions.

Ask SF Giants fans if they prefer to be the Dodgers last season...losing in the NLCS? Or winning the division but getting knocked out early?

It would have to be a player option for $22-26 million in 2023 for that to make any sense to the Boras camp.

The White Sox don't seem to care all that much about picks or they would have offered Rodon a QO...and the impact would likely be post-2024/25 regardless.

Repeating that isn't going to make it happen. They would go be us Pollock instead, and he would be injured for 65% of the season.

And a 10-15% cut from each year of his long term extension signed upon leaving the Sox at end of 2022.

Well, basically you have Mendick and whatever comes out of the DFA period this next week and at the end of April as rosters shrink down to normal numbers. But the odds are, at best, 1 in 4 that you're going to get a 1.5-2.0 fWAR 2B and 75% you're going to have to turn around and replace him again, just like Eaton and Mazara in RF. All those wasted contract dollars add up, to the point where it would have been much more effective to pay $10-15 million for a longer-term solution.

It would have been simple enough to sign Suzuki, even. (But no, we'd block Colas and Cespedes!!!) But at least you'd finally have some minor league depth that would allow you NOT to trade off the MLB roster at the TDL, opening up more holes on the roster. We tried to strengthen a gap in the levee, but three additional holes were sprung as a result. It's like those old black & whites of the Three Stooges bailing water out of a sinking boat. (I remember thinking all the way back in 2017 that we had too many utility infielders, as back then it was Lawrie, Leury, Saladino and Yolmer. Seems we haven't made significant progress since then, other than handing Leury a lifetime contract. Bring back one-year wonder Brent Lillibridge!!!)

0.3, -0.6, 0.3, 1.5 It's almost the complete opposite of Michael Conforto. We're totally ignoring his age 30-32 seasons (because that player has zero value for those seasons), then banking on a repeat of his age 33 season. I miss the days of extrapolating Madrigal numbers into 2-3 fWAR-ish seasons.

That seems like a perfectly valid reason not to add a LH hitter. The dreaded White Sox jinx at 2B, RF, DH, especially since 2011. Because if we do acquire players for these slots, they suddenly won't look like the numbers on the back of their baseball card anymore. Seems about as logical as our team-building approach in the last calendar year.

Finding patterns, links and connections between seemingly disparate elements at least has its advantages in personal finance/investing.

No Erstad, lol?

Lillian will be distraught.

But how many non Top 10-15 payroll teams would want Kimbrel at the TDL? How many of those same teams are not going to be eventual competitors at some point in the postseason? Let’s say he is 2021 first half Kimbrel, you basically can’t trade him because then he’s pitching the way and fitting into then pen the way he was supposed to LAST year. Unless you get an absolute haul, but then every team knows we want to clear payroll space as well. Hahn seems boxed in every direction you think this through. These flipping theoretically acquired prospects scenarios seem even more of a reach…

It’s not like they couldn’t get a 2B at the trade deadline…if Romy flopped. There are always a handful available at the deadline.