caulfield12

Wheeler is the best combination of age, potential/stuff and present performance. Which means he’s likely to be in the $100 million neighborhood or higher. He’s also likely to be one of the few pitchers who you could theoretically count on over the next 4-5 years, as opposed to shorter term guys like Bumgarner, Ryu, Keuchel and Hamels. Getting Wheeler and then someone on the Wacha/Wood (past performer with major ?’s) would be about the best we can expect. Everything else fails...we need to at least subtract pitchers without a QO from the Twins...there are four to choose from, although it’s possible/probable they offer one to Odorizzi to mitigate depth losses. Not in love with the idea of trading assets for Boyd or Syndegaard without knowing what 2020 will bring with our current starting pitcher depth chart.

Have you ever said anything memorable since you’ve been here..besides chiming in incessantly from the dugout? You don’t spend Top Five picks on someone you’re not planning the rebuild’s future around...but we’ll see if they can get Grandal for exactly two years and Moustakas for exactly two years and maybe, just maybe...it will all come together, assuming they have enough money left on the pitching side. In this scenario, they likely go cheap in RF. But not only is Vaughn pushed back off the fast track...but Collins is likely jettisoned into oblivion.

Well, who the hell knows what the Mariners will do any given year...?

God help the White Sox if they are remotely considering Castillo for 2020...

That would be better, obviously but he’s going to get closer to 4/$80 due to his age, past breakouts and the dearth of quality position players on the market. Anything less than $65-70 million total would be a bit shocking. He’s simply not going to get a deal quite similar to Melky Cabrera’s from a half decade ago.

Then we should never have drafted Vaughn...of course, the obvious problem was the college pitching wasn’t there like previous drafts...but it’s not like Rodon and Fulmer have amounted to all that much.

If players like Ozuna are going for even $100+ million, this rebuild’s in serious trouble already. It would force the White Sox right back into trawling the Tier B/C waters for value deals. Not exactly Hahn’s forte.

Maybe they can put all their players up in prospective trades to see which ones the Astros actually like...then find better coaching for those guys.

Moustakas would get how many at-bats at third, 2B, 1B, DH and RF in this scenario?

That would have worked out perfectly had Bogaerts stayed on the market. Gregorious...due to his age, well, you're moving a kid in the prime of his career for a veteran, but the other reason to do this would be to move Robert to RF and prevent some of the wear and tear he'd be taking playing CF. Haven't seen how Gregorious rates defensively...this year, he's missed most of the year. What were his ratings/rankings in 2017 and 2018.

The Mets’ future looked like a huge mess this time last year. The Brewers aren’t the type of franchise to take that risk too often...they’re already getting diminishing returns from Cain, which is preventing them from solidifying their starting pitching.

Or end up in a perpetual rebuild as we make the equivalent of the Yelich trade...Moncada has a ton of value, sure, but there’s the fact that his cheapest years are behind him and the difficulty of getting him to sign an extension that will curb that value. The only way those 3-4 for 1 deals work out is to get back two sure things...and, if you look at all those moves from 2016-17...we essentially have Moncada, Giolito, Jimenez and a trio of question marks in Lopez, Kopech and Cease. Those guys could be TOR starters or members of the bullpen by 2021. Pitching is so fickle.

We all know Anderson grades out well below his potential, and Abreu contributes to it. Collins. RF is yet to be determined, but there aren’t many above average fielders on the market.

Joker is bleak...but a great, albeit divisive approach from director and actor alike. Still, Phoenix goes to the head of the pack for the Oscar. Hustlers was okay. Will Smith...what happened to your career, or Ang Lee, for that matter? The distraction resulting from the frame rate and stilted dialogue are so bad that a decent concept was turned into garbage. Favorite movies nobody has heard of, indie doc American Factory and One Cut of the Dead, Japanese meta zombie flick...

Should be some great pitching matchups this series. Cole and Strasburg auditioning for all of MLB...all things considered, that Houston lineup is just too deep. Osuna has scuffled for sure, but the Nats are relying on Daniel Hudson as their closer. One can only hope another Astros’ World Series win forces more front offices to adapt to the changing times.

That’s dangerous for a catcher at his age...three, sure. The fact that he settled on a one year deal for near a qualifying offer salary shows the willingness for clubs to make a long-term commitment wasn’t there.

Congrats to Illinois, from a Hawkeye fan. You could see a breakthrough was coming.

All of the Final 4 teams were Top 8 in payroll, fwiw. Yankees 3rd, Dodgers 4th, Cardinals 6th, Astros 7th, Nationals 8th. #8 was almost $170 million, fwiw. League average at $137 million, between the Braves and Rangers.

Twins and White Sox basically have the same arguments for not spending huge in free agency. http://www.startribune.com/twins-definitely-could-use-a-big-free-agent-but-history-shows-the-perils/563300722/ http://www.startribune.com/the-five-biggest-offseason-questions-for-the-twins/563393912/ The White Sox have to wait on Kopech, Lopez and Cease...just like the Twins with Berrios and Graterol (has never pitched more than 102 innings.) Both teams will eventually need elite closers...but don’t like to pay $14-18 million for said pitchers. Twins have the more complete offense and flexibility to trade offense for pitching...but will the asking price for Syndegaard or Matthew Boyd be too steep?

If you were a Twins’ fan, would you still believe they capable of beating the Yankees at least once? As bad as the Twins got into the heads of White a Sox fans from 2002-2010...at least we had 2005 and 2008. Never succeeding....not even once...in 15 or 16 consecutive tries?

It’s pretty clear until they spend at least $50+ million or more on a single FA contract that they’re really not THAT serious about competing for a World Series anytime soon...

Might as well just run Adolfo out there and see what happens...based on natural talent being enough to carry him alone. We’ve added so many veterans in the last thirty year or so that we were 2-3 years too late on. At least bet on potential...rather than retreads. For every anomalous 2018 Nick Markakis season, there are about twenty more Sox ones like Darin Erstad or Rob Mackowiak.

If we can’t even handle guys like Odorizzi, Wheeler (or Shark, another equivalent)...then almost everything’s going to have to come from the draft and trades. And we’re not going to have any more Top Ten picks to rely upon. The clock is already ticking with Giolito and Moncada. I mean, if the Tampa Bay Rays can at least afford Charlie Morton or the Padres occupy a universe where they can contemplate four $20+ million contracts simultaneously, what exactly does that say about us?

Truly scary. This year’s Jones or Kendrick is next year’s Lowrie, Zobrist or Keppinger. If that’s the very best we can do...especially on the pitching front...it’s going be about as bleak a dystopian/apocalyptic universe at GRF in 2020 as Zombieland. It would be one thing if we had a systematized, modernistic pitching and analytics approach to maximize the talent of veteran pitchers. Instead, we have Montgomery Burns.

We have six. I didn’t round 1.9 up for all the other teams, either...because it’s 1.9, not 2.0. Then I would have counted the Twins at 13. Nova is one. Jimenez and Abreu at 1.9. So sure, if we can add at least five more 2 fWAR contributors...and not get truly abysmal numbers like we did from Alonso, Castillo, Palka, Cordell, etc. If we’re going to count on McCann repeating and Kopech/Cease/Lopez and signing at least 4 “good to very good” free agents and at least THREE of them succeeding. But, even then, we’re still a long ways behind the Astros, Yankees, Dodgers, etc.