caulfield12

Unless TLR was the one who'd pushed the most for Kimbrel, then reversed himself to do the whole CYA thing in the media at the end of the Astros' series (TLR "Basically, I never really would have wanted him, had I known he would only be used in high leverage and not in the only role he'd ever known previously as a closer, I would have nixed it and said RF should have been prioritized instead.") Knowing that Hahn wouldn't dare to come out and call him out publicly... Of course, TLR had something to do with how he was being utilized...notwithstanding his disastrous early showing, they certainly could have turned to him in late August/September to let him get his feet back under him in a familiar role. Because they had to have known (already) that they would exercise the QO and/or attempt to trade him in the offseason, so why not try to rebuild some of that lost value in SEPT? They certainly were NOT prioritizing tracking down the Astros until the last 7-10 days of the entire season. CONSPIRACY THEORY/TINFOIL HAT TERRITORY

$75 million to add to current payroll for JUST 2022 or IN TOTAL for "new" FA or added contract dollars stretching until 2025/26/27? Because some of the projections here have us adding $300-350, even $400 million in NEW spending (and that's with Kimbrel and even Keuchel subtracted.)

With these kind of demands, we'll be served a Thanksgiving helping of two more guaranteed Leury Garcia years, if not three.

He's 10x more likely to be added by a legit contender than someone looking merely to flip him at the deadline, so we will see what he actually has left with no excuses about pitching in the 8th or tie games.

Mullins is pretty close to untouchable. Reynolds less so, but it would require almost all of our remaining trade chips.

29 on Opening Day, which is the last peak season historically for the majority of MLBers without steroids.

Fatigue coming off abbreviated 2020 and lots of innings/pitches in the first half is the likeliest answer…then the Dodgers were “pretty good” and the Rockies on the road maybe? He actually did pretty well the second half, after looking more closely….the Padres were still a 17 games over .500 team around then. Other than 4 ER against the Dodgers in postseason and one bad start against Pitt (6 ER), it’s not like he fell apart, he just wasn’t as dominant. https://www.espn.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id/32667/kevin-gausman Look at home vs. away splits. I would have expected the home games to be his big advantage, but he actually pitched better on the road, compared to his more pitcher-friendly homepark.

Is this the modern-day version of the Shawon-O-Meter?

What about Herschel Walker?

But does anyone realistically expect even $1 will be spent specifically on the DH spot by Hahn this offseason? You can argue Conforto, Taylor, Escobar or Segura would get SOME At-bats there, but far from the most.

Alvarado, it should be...correcting the names from Phillies' list from previous post. Would honestly rather watch Leury for 145 games than Kingery, and that's saying something.

But we also pursued Alex Gordon, that would have been a complete disaster. And curious why the pursuits of Machado and Harper and even Tanaka are not being included....the problem is that this kind of thinking is like Cubs' fans with their "mythical attendance championships" putdowns to Sox fans. In the end, GM's and managers are graded on W/L percentage and results in the post-season. I mean, pretty much every move that Hahn and KW made, starting from Dunn in 2011 through Robertson/LaRoche/Cabrera, 2016 and into the rebuild...you can find legit reasons why the move/s looked good on paper. We have witnessed many "won the off-season" articles. Interestingly, we didn't get that much hype last off-season, because the Lynn and Rodon were not really headline grabbers. But I'm not sure in a results-oriented business why coming up 2nd or having a seat at the table is supposed to be good enough. I mean, I guess we're conditioned to expect less as White Sox fans? Let's imagine this was a Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox board...would anyone be applauding their GM's for coming up short or targeting the right players, but not having the farm system to execute a trade? We can say the same thing for NOT being able to trade for Miguel Cabrera back in the day...because the Tigers' package (at the time) was more enticing. Heck, even the Padres/Preller were crucified for their trade deadline moves and non-moves...it cost another manager his job and the GM will be next if they come up short again in 2022. What do we get, so far? A change in the strength and conditioning coach, pretty much that's it.

Buying at the market high for Schwarber without considering all the reasons the Cubs basically gave up on him...will end up with the White Sox following the same ultimate descent as the Northsiders. With Sheets and Grandal on the roster, we're just not going to spend that much money on the DH position...especially if they add a legit veteran catcher to really share the load with Yasmani. Including Collins, we already have 5-6 DH types on this team, as is. Why would would we keep spending FA money instead of addressing RF, 2B and the starting rotation?

Not sure you can afford to pay two "non-closers" in Tepera and Graveman the same the Dodgers with a much higher payroll are going to pay Treinen ($8 million) to close next year...at least, that's the official plan, until things change and they bring in a bigger name like Iglesias or Kimbrel.

The most important year of the window is 2027, because after that season, we would/could lose Luis Robert to an absolutely gargantuan FA deal. For the last year or so, I believed that Giolito and Tim Anderson were the keys to keeping the window going, but the Wander Franco situation reminded me about the true value of a superstar to a franchise. Of course, we can look at the Angels, who haven't surrounded their position stars with nearly enough pitching, they arguably have three superstars and still can't make the post-season. I do question whether they have the cojones to offer that Tatis/Franco type of money, or whether they're just content to let things play out through 2027, then go into another rebuilding period/cycle yet again. There's obviously a ton of risk (still) around Robert, mostly on the health side...but if he does put up an MVP season in the next year or two, that window to get anything approaching a "bargain" (from the White Sox perspective) will be LONG gone. It's certainly possible with the direction that the Tigers are going now that they threaten the White Sox sooner rather than later, but we have enough cushion with Moncada, Jimenez, Kopech, Cease and Vaughn to overcome that for at least the next two seasons. Then we face our first crossroads, after the 2023 and 2024 seasons. The Royals' run fell apart pretty quickly (injuries/aging/non-performance, signing Gordon), the Cubs faded away but were still competitive and the Astros have been the only team other than the Dodgers and the Red Sox to a much lesser extent to sustain excellence over a prolonged period of time. Then the Rays are right there in that the top of the next tier of organizations.

Look at the Rangers’ roster back then and how far they were from competing. Timing. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/52900-was-mark-teixeiras-trade-to-atlanta-the-worst-trade-in-braves-history Arguably, this was THE trade that kick started everything for their WS run, just like we dealt three assets in their prime for a slew of top prospects that mostly panned out.

Or they just bring back K.Jansen, but most likely to exercise $8 million option and pay Blake Treinen to close. Not to mention Graterol and pretty sure Knebel. Kelly’s also gone, it seems.

That’s the issue with Toronto and the Phillies, who both did relatively well with young/cheaper closers. There aren’t mote than a handful of logical matches…maybe 4-5 contending teams, tops.

That’s a pitching name that writes its own headlines if he takes a loss…

Or a Greek island…

Kind of crazy that Marcus Semien could end up with anywhere close to 3x greater than the Grandal deal in terms of overall dollars.

Then if he reversed track (signing Escobar), it would be a bit difficult to explain to fans in terms of what changed/improved exactly without raising some red flags. “They all but agreed to the trade about three weeks ago, but then Escobar hurt his quadriceps. Then the reliever the Diamondbacks were going to get back; he had a little problem, had to get a cortisone shot.” https://southsideshowdown.com/2021/07/19/chicago-white-sox-escobar-deal-was-place-fell-through/

Sounds like a new Crayola color…

Rodon now becomes the pitching mystery to watch of the offseason, along with Scherzer, Gausman and Kershaw…and, of course, the Kimbrel trade.

Assuming you went by end of season rosters, so Kimbrel was $5.3 million and Tepera at $266,667.