caulfield12

We better hope and pray Covid Delta and/or the CBA negotiations leading to a lockout or strike don’t mess up those newly-discovered revenue streams.

And Poppysox…

Giving Semien 3-5 years is scary. It pretty much wipes out Giolito and Anderson staying beyond 2023 and 2024. Because our 2 closers, Abreu, Grandal and Keuchel are soaking up way too much payroll space. And soon enough, Moncada. For just 1-2 years, definitely fine with Marcus.

He’s not going to be worth a $100+ million contract away from Coors and especially off SS…

Frazier and Hudson isn’t nothing…they addressed two needs, but they are now clearly weak in the back end of the rotation. Beyond Darvish and Musgrove, it’s 2020 White Sox time. Snell? Paddack? Injury-prone Lamet? Yikes. Weathers has honestly been their third best, but he can’t yet go deep into games…and it seems they are pointed more towards 2022 with Clevinger, Lamet and Morejon all returning at 100%.

Why do we keep assuming Moncada will move or Burger is actually capable of handling the position of 2B in anything more than a stopgap sort of way, like Vaughn yesterday?

Looking big picture, I’m absolutely shocked Preller didn’t overpay for Berrios, held onto all their top prospects, and basically declared this wasn’t quite their all-in year, yet. (On paper, they have the easiest remaining schedule and have beaten LAD 6 of their last 7.) Equally shocked Hahn seemingly got a bit impatient and decided to go for it all this year…and mortgaged a bit of the future (2023-25.) Whatever happens, that NL Wild Card death match will be high wire tension. And how the White Sox Nasty Boys 2/bullpen works in reality will be equally fascinating.

They extended him? Didn’t they learn from Mauer and Posey (up until this year again, where he had a full Covid rest year) contracts about catchers nearing late 20’s or early 30’s? And Contreras isn’t quite as good a hitter as Sal Perez. Will be interesting to see how that works out for them.

I’m shocked Hahn had the guts to watch it come back and bite them across town for a half-decade…not unlike Cubs’ fans upset over Jimenez and Cease. Now they get their chance for revenge if the Sox don’t win a WS or Kimbrel spectacularly implodes again.

Yeah, almost would be happier if we offloaded the entire Hendriks deal…just so much risk their value goes down (at least one of them) and it becomes a tough contract to move. By the nature of those salaries, one will be the highest paid non-closer in the history of the sport. Hard to see both of them maintaining value minus Kimbrel turning into A.Miller. Or worst-case, Hendriks goes through a week like Jansen recently did and uncertainty sets in…Hendriks can’t adapt to set-up and then Kimbrel blows up as well. In terms of contract risk, it certainly happened to the Cubs with the Heyward, Chatwood, Darvish and Kimbrel deals. We already have some in Grandal and Keuchel to a lesser extent.

The other big unknown is how Kimbrel reacts in a set-up or tie game role… For most closers, not that well. Slightly different mentality at play. Obviously with KC, Holland was the man and it shifted to Wade Davis over their window, with Escobar always coming before those guys in the 7th or 8th along with a lefty depending on matchups.

That’s very optimistic from you. I guess on the day of any trade, it’s always easiest to see the upside rather than the downside once they begin to perform. The drafting of Madrigal being a perfect example there where hype exceeded results, by and large.

After the Sirotka/Wells/Keith Law fiasco…there has to be something to protect both clubs.

Otoh, if you’re a stock market investor, Warren Buffett, etc., this is the gutsiest or dumbest buy high, sell low in Chicago White Sox history. We already were arguing that the Hendriks move showed a lack of patience when we supposedly had multiple internal options. And the knowledge Colome would likely regress due to advanced metrics. Just imagine if Burdi or Crochet had turned into a lockdown combo of their own and we could invest a shit-ton of money somewhere else less risky…and we still had Narvaez, never having had to add Grandal. Oh, well.

Rick Hahn, because he thought they would have more than enough power everywhere else. That said, the defense, speed and baserunning were not what we were promised. Then the injuries, dating back to OSU.

Sox history has been the highly paid ones like Koch and Robertson are dubious investments. You can look at every guy we’ve used going back to Roberto Hernandez and almost none came to the Sox as payroll leaders…almost all under the radar types. Which makes sense for a mid-market team to do.

That’s a bit misleading when you go from below a 1 to 2+ over the course of two seasons. Surprised we didn’t at least get Hoerner back, though.

Or converting one of the multiple SS’s on the market to second…some already playing both. Not dreaming over the $100+ million guys, of which two in addition to the real headliners this coming offseason are listed. Simmons, Gregorious, Semien, Baez, Schoop, etc. 90% it’s Hernandez barring a complete collapse, although you have to watch his age decline. Poppy still alive? Or Burger to second, haha.

There’s our second big bullpen move…

Since they both went to ND. Mancini isn’t getting traded today. The end.

Cancel SoxTalk. Nothing to discuss. They tried hard, that’s realistically all that we can ask for. Certainly the Giants should have adopted the same stand pat posture this past offseason…or the Brewers/Rays, they never manage to better themselves. Or maybe the key point is no headline making moves that “win the offseason” or “win the trade deadline.” We should have really kept Loaiza in 2004 and not taken a risk with that Contreras guy, with AJ’s prickly personality, Scotty Pods off a disappointing sophomore year, not taken a risk with Dye’s leg, El Duque at age 50, with Everett’s or Jenks’ past…just rolled into year with Magglio, C-Lee and Valentin instead. Because we could have been wrong about them all.

How many 1B/DH/corner types can fit on one 40 man roster? Wouldn’t it have been far easier to sign Nelson Cruz in the offseason?

There’s just no way that trade goes down…unless Dan Fabian is suddenly put in charge of trades.

Wilson Ramos would be another that couldn’t be worse than Zavala.

Do we have $700k+ to spend?