caulfield12

Unless we're willing to return to the Albert Belle contract, blowing the whole field out of the water before the battle begins....and there would have to be an "out" clause after 2023/2024 or something like that (insurance on the player's part if the rebuild fizzles), there's just zero point in doing this. The Samardzija Consequences, let's call it. Ending up with a low 80's win team and then losing Betts and at least ONE of our top 3-4 prospects (Cease, Madrigal, Vaughn) is just not worth it. Boston fanbase won't accept a deal with Collins and Stiever as the headliners, and, if they did, it would probably mean that Chaim knows something we don't and that Collins miraculously (or invariably) turns his career around and becomes Tyler Flowers Cubed, or Omar Narvaez at the very least. Or Collins blossoms (let's say Bummer goes out too), McCann and Colome struggle in 2020, we have to spend even more money in 2021 to fix both catcher (assuming we don't sign Grandal) and the back end of the bullpen. Trading away younger, cost-controlled players for more expensive/veteran ones hasn't worked for the White Sox for the last decade. Obviously, Betts is a superstar, but the odds of him staying in Chicago couldn't be much more than 10-15%, at best (going on EVERYTHING we know about how JR conducts business.)

Richard Justice predicted Yankees would sign him in his article today. He loves Sox, but had us listed as destination for none of the top ten guys.

In the end, they should be thankful that Moncada struggled his first time in the big leagues and Benintendi looked like a RoY/perennial All-Star candidate...pushing up his value, to the point where he was close to untradeable at that precise moment.

Rafael Devers Prospect Rankings[BA] 2015-MLB-#99 ... 2015-BOS-#6 ... 2016-MLB-#18 ... 2016-BOS-#2 ... 2017-MLB-#18 ... 2017-BOS-#3 [PIPE] 2016-MLB-#17 ... 2016-BOS-#2 ... 2017-MLB-#17 ... 2017-BOS-#2 from thebaseballcube.com

Now it's Burrow, Herbert and Tua...with the first two obviously advantaged by the Tua injury...doubt he slips out of the first round, though.

Who is the Ron Washington of "catching gurus"?

Well, it doesn't help that Betances, Will Harris and Daniel Hudson all have major concerns associated with them.

Sure, but why would the White Sox not give him more than 30+ at-bats the first time he came up...or at least regular playing time? And, most interestingly/controversially, WHY not let him play everyday when he came back late in the season after having an impressive run at Charlotte? There was nothing on the line by then. McCann was wearing down. To help Castillo find a FA landing spot? We don't "owe" the players on the roster anything more than a paycheck, other than exceptions like Abreu, Konerko and Buehrle that JR has made in the past.

Braves' GM, and also Chris Correa of the Cardinals prior to that...

Clearly $20-25 million per year isn’t your idea of a big salary. The Red Sox knew he was a terrible defender and would eventually have to be moved over. Stanton, btw, makes $26 million, then you’ve got Choo and Carlos Santana at over $20 million. Khris Davis makes almost $17 million for the A’s. Jimenez is basically a DH playing LF but was still awarded a huge (certainly not a tremendous bargain by WAR) extension to basically rake.

I think trading that kind of talent is going to require Giolito showing he can sustain his success for at least 2-3 months...in which case Hahn couldn’t trade him. The Astros need to dump Reddick’s contract to take on another bigger deal...essentially, making it Tucker, Whitley and Reddick for Giolito and the financial flexibility to lock in Wheeler or perhaps even Cole (that last eventuality seems highly unlikely) for the Astros.

But he’s also had TJ, was the worst pitcher in baseball in 2018 and will get more and more expensive from 2021-23. It’s obviously a bold and unusual move, but if you got back Alvarez/Tucker AND a pitcher (Whitley had a really rough year, and Houston normally doesn’t part with their best prospects), and the staff was 100% confident on Whitley’s prognosis, they’d be foolish to at least not consider it. For all we know, Lopez could be the ace of the rotation or relegated to the pen/traded by the end of the year, young pitching is so volatile these days. It’s also impossible to make this move unless you start convincing a Moncada or Robert to sign an extension, knowing that after 2023, nothing is certain with this roster. We push hard now...keep pushing the rebuild back indefinitely.

I have posted his name approximately 3-4 times this entire offseason. Obviously, I’d rather have Tucker...but Astros probably wouldn’t deal him straight up for Giolito. Or maybe they’re acknowledging Cole is gone, Verlander/Greinke will be declining and Wheeler might leave their price range.

It’s like USC football...when they vacated titles, it’s not like Oklahoma got an extra for getting to the NC game. That said, the Dodgers’ fans and anyone the Astros beat the in the postseason must be up in arms. The Royals were especially lucky to escape the Luhnow Curse, they were dead to rights against Houston in 2015 and somehow escaped.

Between Ozuna, Brady Aiken (low balling after MRI), trying to force their young players into disadvantageous extension terms, sign stealing...they’ve gone from the Patriots to something even more insidious, crossing the line one too many times. Maybe it’s actually a good thing for baseball...to have another team join the Yankees and Red Sox as a team we can all unite behind cheering against.

That’s true, but it isn’t like elite hitters like JD Martinez or EE five years ago haven’t gotten paid extremely well. We’re willing to give Abreu $18 million. And it’s difficult to imagine in this analytics-driven environment even an average fielding LF getting the Harper, Betts, Springer or Kris Bryant type of money.

Sure, for Alvarez and Tucker...if we didn’t have so much uncertainty in the pitching staff, it would be something to consider. Obviously, they wouldn’t be getting both those guys. Reddick and Alvarez for Giolito would be at least interesting to consider...if the White Sox were determined to sign Wheeler and one other legit FA starting pitcher.

Sure, Sox fans have become conditioned to expect the worst, I guess. Stockholm Syndrome, or something. When I created this thread, the odds on Wheeler from an acquisition standpoint felt at least 50/50. They could still shock the world and sign him for $100+ million and at least five years, but I’m certainly not counting on it at this point.

You act like one Fegan article mitigates every long-standing concern with Cooper. It doesn’t work that way. If Lopez, Cease, Kopech and Giolito...if two of those guys consistently pitch like Cy Young candidates throughout the next three seasons, I’ll more than happily say I was wrong about Don Cooper. You can go back to this thread and keep reposting it at the top of the site as we make the playoffs for at least three consecutive years. Time will tell. About Cooper’s health, and that of the pitching staff.

Therein lies the point. Wheeler bumps from expected 4/$80 to 5 and even 6 year deals. Hahn then turns around and argues that money in Year 5/6 needs to go to extensions of players already under control...the window has to be extended and not limited to 2021-23. Meanwhile, we still aren’t getting the quality of pitching to make us sure fire contenders for those three years, let alone 2024-26.

If you can guarantee JR will be comfortable spending that much, there’s absolutely nothing to be concerned about. Of course, payroll range still wouldn’t put us in below the bottom fringe of last year’s playoff field. Good enough to make it, but not realistically constructed to compete with the big boys.

Every year under KW/Hahn, we always had this mentality of fixing things at the ASB and only adding at that time if attendance was on the upswing and the team was in a “realistically competitive” position. The last times we set out to compete from Opening Day were April, 2006 and 2011 with Dunn and you can argue rest of the decade if you are so inclined.

The rebuild was pretty poorly structured for Balta to have gone from proclaiming it a dynamic dynasty in the making...to however you would describe his current take. Losing Kopech to injury removed 2019 from being the .500ish year and pushed contending all the way back to possibly the second half of 2020 or first half of 2021. Imagine we lose one of Giolito, Cease, Kopech to injury again after having only added Wheeler...or the very real possibility the gamble on Wheeler doesn’t go as expected. What do we have to trade with, then? We are heading right back to a mid 20’s ranked farm system after graduating Robert, Madrigal and Vaughn. Then the payroll would be forced into the $150-165 million range out of necessity (dipping back into FA like the Cubs have been forced into)...because rebuilding again obviously wouldn’t seem to be a realistic option.

Should all those injuries be happening to relievers as well as starters? Our entire foundation...other than Lopez, is based upon a set of pitchers with at least one TJ surgery in their history. High potential, sure, but also high volatility. Which is the biggest reason they need to add the pitchers now in FA. Somehow teams like the Rays, A’s, Twins, Indians, Brewers and Braves can figure this stuff out while investing a lot less money than we have historically into our starting rotations. Even with the Rays getting hit by a series of setbacks to Snell, Glasnow and one of their top prospects, they still manage to roll right along. We lose Kopech, and it seemingly set the rebuild back 1 1/2 years.

They said we shouldn’t select Nick Madrigal so high...or Vaughn. They said we could never have the #1 ranked farm system again, etc. Does it really matter when he’s part of the same braintrust trading away Top 3 MVP candidates in Semien and Tatis to other teams, blowing up the payroll simultaneously to the point there was no other realistic choice but to rebuild?