caulfield12

Technically, we already had Rodon in-house, it's more a semantics argument. Hendriks and Lynn were different situations.

Top MLB free agents 2021-2022 Rodon #15, Conforto #20, Chris Taylor #22 Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen unranked. Lots of options of short-term or intriguing options on the pitching front like Syndergaard, Verlander, Kershaw...one or two of them are going to pay off like lottery winners, and a few will blow up in teams' faces, like a Ray or Gausman, perhaps. Some, like Bumgarner in the past, were relatively predictable disasters. Guess we'll see with Keuchel this year if we really made a big-time mistake or if he can resurrect himself.

And based on that, we should have had the best bullpen in baseball based on pure stuff/physics/spin rate. There are lots of other factors beyond infield shift rate to explain all those failures dating back to the very first series in Anaheim. We also had the most expensive pen in baseball the final two months of the season.

Speaking of eye tests, everyone can see Cease has great stuff...BUT, based on the often repeated fWAR numbers and 4th in the AL or majors ranking, does anyone think he could CURRENTLY fetch the same return Corbin Burnes was generating (Madrigal, Vaughn, Heuer, etc.) during that offseason? Would he even get back anything close to Jimenez and the younger version of himself? The psychological side of the game.. controlling emotions, loss of command, sometimes those pitchers just don't quite come around and have career trajectories more like Javy Vasquez if they're fortunate.

And Escobar. The supposed medical isdues. that might have been a negotiating tactic that backfired when the trade wasn't consummated. Just like you could have looked at James Shields' starts in April of 2016 compared to the weeks before the trade...eye test is just as good as statistics, the ball just wasn't coming out of his hand the same way. Heck, we could apply that to Lynn and Rodon as well the last six weeks, throwing out the entire season's body of work. One could argue the race was wrapped up, they were just going through the motions, but that obviously wasn't the real issue, it was physical. Giolito it's always noticeable if his stuff is crisp or flat.

Kike got 1/$8 from Boston and is a year younger and a better defender...Taylor seems closer to 2/$20-22 million, $24 if the spending went up again after CBA is reached.

It would be okay to spend $11-12 million x 2 years on Taylor if it got Leury off the roster…it’s probably better than Story or Baez, anyway.

Feel like Chris Taylor could easily end up as the big acquisition this offseason…which is kinda scary based on how high his stock will be after these playoffs.

We might need a few more Hail Mary's and Our Father's to win a championship with Micker Adolfo playing a key role next season...

Yep, Phillies won so to speak on both Harper and Wheeler yet with nothing to show for it. Harper has such a high ceiling but struggles to consistently maintain it.

Miller also is a lefty and had the reputation of being used multiple innings in any high leverage situation, though. Arguably, that's even more valuable than an inconsistent formerly elite/HoF closer. Also, it was not quite the moment where every team in baseball had a pen composed of cheap/er fireballers...2019 seems like a decade ago if you look at current bullpen utilization trends.

End of Dodgers' nine year reign even at a $265-270 million payroll with Scherzer and Turner??? https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/32442361/mlb-playoffs-2021-end-road-los-angeles-dodgers

Another Leury with elite defense but limited offense...and isn't an outfielder.

That's the larger problem, even when they make correct - looking FA moves and "win the offseason," the subsequent results haven't matched the hype...from Dunn to Cabrera/Robertson/La Roche all the way through the trade deadline this year. The exceptions being the Big 3 trades for prospects and then Luis Robert, as well as intl. free agents like Abreu. And, this past year, pretty much nobody thought adding Eaton was wise. The biggest move in retaining Rodon was the least expected to pan out but lowest risk at least. And then Lynn, but his repeatability late career now is up in the air, just like Keuchel's.

Look at the numbers with RISP after the middle of August....the sinking offense helped to crush the pitchers as well. https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/32431077/how-evaluators-rank-mlb-billion-dollar-class-free-agent-shortstops-where-land Tigers likely to sign one of the Big 5 SS's, with Correa reuniting with Hinch seen by writers as one of the potential pairings. If that does happen and Tigers' prospects take the next step, they could be close to competitive as early as next season. Still need at least another 2-3 lineup slots solidified, in addition to their obvious top draft picks coming up and producing.

Did you call the Kimbrel trade a mistake the day it was made? Go back and review that thread as well. Point 2, hard to control for having two subpar managers and counting that are controlled by the GM and essentially picked for "manageability" by the front office, the polar opposite of the White Sox issue with TLR and Hahn. And the Padres can at least argue they won a playoff series, even though their collapse from 17 games over makes the White Sox temporarily look like the smarter organization...but they still definitely have some room to maneuver with their farm system. That said, they have to deal Myers/Hosmer/maybe Darvish or Frazier to get some breathing room financially. So do the White Sox, with Kimbrel and Keuchel on the books. And one can argue they could have sat back like the White Sox if they didn't have the strongest franchise in baseball in front of them, not that Hahn didn't make a similar mistake chasing after veterans to get the Sox over the top, as well. Preller is the only GM to do worse than Hahn at the trade deadline, and he paid dearly for it. All the swirling rumors unconsummated created an irreparable clubhouse rift and split playing time without addressing the rotation...whereas we didn't add Marte or Bryant, etc. Finally, the Giants have nothing to show for such a historic season, either, in the end. It's all about coming out on top in the postseason.

Merkin is the one who wrote it…speculating about either Burger or Vaughn at second might as well be Jermaine Dye on the infield. He also acknowledged bringing back Kimbrel, yet again. Where does that put payroll, adding Kimbrel’s $16 million without Rodon and a 2B or RFer?

They’re much better off with Conforto and then using their trade ammunition (whatever there is remaining next year at the deadline) to add more starting pitching. They can get by with what they have on the pitching front and maybe one more veteran reclamation project, at least until July. Which means Lopez, Lambert and Stiever.

https://www.mlb.com/news/white-sox-offseason-questions God help the White Sox if they plan to put Burger or Vaughn at second base OR cry poor during FA when they have the Kimbrel and/or Rodon contracts added onto the books….removing (at least temporarily) any and all “unprecedented financial flexibility,” as the Astros can simply bring back Correa OR sign a replacement like Semien AND give Verlander an incentives-based deal for a year at a time and still have another $20-30 million to play around with.

Once again, last 2-3 years. I mean, we'd also love to have 2014-15 Jose Abreu back, right? Or Adam Eaton? I mean, if we go back another 5 years, we'd have HoFer Albert Pujols and not the broken down versions of him or Miguel Cabrera.

Yeah, assessing much further back than a 2-3 year time frame of statistics (just because 2020 was truncated) makes almost no sense, especially for a catcher closing in on his mid 30's and leaving the early 30's in the rearview mirror. The only ones who seemingly beat that prior trendline were Sal Perez and Buster Posey.

Well, that whole three outcome thing....like a Dunn or Gallo or Thome, that's also part of it with Grandal, obviously. Just a stylistic difference, and perhaps not agreeing with OPS and or the weighting given to walks compared to hits (see Moncada's 2021 vs. 2019).

But very few expected that to continue...he was at 0.52 ERA, and that was as the closer and not in 8th inning or 7th inning high/er leverage. Plus, the whole NL Central outside of Cincy couldn't hit very well this year, another clue.

The White Sox, after their experiences with Dunn, Melky Cabrera and LaRoche...it just seems impossible to imagine them paying another FA (position player) $15+ million to join this particular payroll. Obviously, they signed Grandal, but that RF spot has been an issue ever since Avi Garcia had one particularly strong season in the middle of his White Sox career, then couldn't manage to repeat it. Arguably, they would have been better off simply keeping Avi at his salaries and performance level since departure. Even at $10 million plus, he got slightly too expensive for comfort, can't imagine $15-18 or even 20 million...not without doing some major tinkering with Kimbrel and Keuchel and some of the other bigger salaries (Abreu/Grandal/Hendriks/Lynn) now on the books, or that they've hinted at/intimated.

Only surprise is Angel Hernandez or Joe West isn't involved...who was the one we had an issue with again, Tom Hallion?