caulfield12

My Clemente rookie card might just be worth slightly more...or 1968 Ryan. Although 2-3 years ago I atempted to corner the market on ONeil Cruz rookie cards, to no avail.

But Gilbert once threw a no-hitter in the actual, like, major leagues.

Blue Jays Phillies Yankees Mets Red Sox Braves... Baltimore, remains to be seen after Alonso. Likely a trade of position prospects for pitching. Seems everyone else is pulling back on spending.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/12/phillies-to-sign-bryse-wilson.html

The Blue Jays are in agreement with free agent reliever Tyler Rogers on a three-year, $37MM contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The deal includes an $11MM vesting option for the 2029 season. The signing is still pending a physical.

Because he is the only closer left on the market and approximately six to ten teams still need a closer with Robert Suarez off the board and Luke Weaver the next viable choice. The Tigers are going to run a payroll more than twice where TB is at when all is said and done. At any rate, supply and demand, market forces, etc. The invisible hand or animal spirits. Call it whatever you want. So we can add a third aspect to the ongoing bet/s. Luis Robert is going nowhere before OD without money or prospect/s going along with him to mitigate acquiring team's risk.

So why is he now going to receive $20+ million and two years? Angel Pagan received two years and $20 million at a more advanced age and with much less closing experience. Whereas Fairbanks has 75 saves across the last three years... And Brandon Finnegan just got $19 million for two years with a very spotty record as a closer... It's a different version of the Robert conundrum. Is he actually worth the $20 million salary and sending xyz prospect back in return? Where's anything written about free agency that is exhaustively and objectively informative and yet doesn't provide any interpretation or subjective opinion??? Then why even have a discussion board? If you want to keep arguing that you're right definitively...then all there is to do is WAIT for the signing to be announced and then you can simply apply your own spin/interpretation at that point. "according to Ken Rosenthal no teams had interest in Fairbanks at 1/$11M at the time of the non-tender." So the Rays contacted every team in baseball and offered him in trade for $11 million? Of course not. The Rays would lose leverage in that case....until a team decided they actually needed him when supply/demand forces kicked in, making it more immediate/pressing. Why not just wait until he cost just FA money instead of $11 million AND additional prospects??? By this argument, Luis Robert has very little chance of going anywhere because no teams feel confident he's still a 3+ fWAR player after 2024 and 2025. Unless the White Sox first kick in additional talent or a cash subsidy. JR needs to dump his salary more desperately than other teams want to take the risk of adding him and assuming that full $20 million contract.

https://www.si.com/mlb/rays/onsi/news/mlb-insider-reveals-why-rays-never-traded-pete-fairbanks-in-recent-years Something has obviously changed one month later when the supply of experienced closers has dwindled down to one. The Rays didn’t want to take the risk on Nov. 12 that he might get hurt or not perform and that they might be stuck like the Sox were with Robert for the full season…representing a good chunk of the season’s payroll. That said, they just inked Steven Matz for about the same amount of money and we don’t know if anyone else valued him that highly, either. Matz isn’t even a closer, he’s a LH swingman the Cardinals didn’t want to keep.

https://southsideshowdown.com/white-sox-might-be-priced-out-of-closer-market-after-latest-bullpen-signings

$2-3 million surcharge for LH hitters. https://southsideshowdown.com/should-the-white-sox-target-or-avoid-these-veteran-outfielders-in-free-agency Target 35 year old Rob Refsnyder and 33 year old Max Kepler, avoid Michael Conforto. Brilliant. OF: Mike Yastrzemski (signed), Max Kepler, Rob Refsnyder, Cedric Mullins (signed), Lane Thomas (signed), Michael Conforto, Starling Marte, Andrew McCutchen, Randal Grichuk, Miguel Andujar, Tommy Pham (not happening, to Schiffren’s chagrin), Ryan Ward, Austin Slater (not happening), Michael A. Taylor (retired), Dustin Harris, Daz Cameron, Billy McKinney

For the Dodgers it's just a write off like Conforto last year by the end of the season. Cost of doing business. For the White Sox, it's life and death to wring the last possible drop of value out of Benintendi and Robert. Which is absolutely crazy having watched Rodon Abreu Anderson Jimenez Moncada Lynn Keuchel Kelly Graveman and Hendriks all leave with almost nothing to show in return or still owing money. The ill-advised Kimbrel QO, in fact, led directly to Pollock and then to Benintendi's ghastly crippling contract. Same with Burger and Vaughn in the end. Well there was Giolito/Quero and Crochet out of that entire 2021 cycle of players. (And no comment on the Cease deal is necessary.)

You could probably come up with only 2-3 examples over 40+ years where JR willingly ate more money to get top flight talent back. Just dumping contracts for negligible paper returns in prospects, sure. That has happened. Erik Johnson and roughly 35-40% of Shields' salary subsidized should have been enough to consummate an escape for a player whose ownership had decided he must be traded...but JR nevertheless wanted to get even more money back and therefore lost HUNDREDS of million in value as a result of that deal. Talk about wasting leverage for a team already facing from contention.

No that's just the front page and opinion columns. They're really relatively fair and balanced about sports. How could they sell papers if they constantly defended the likes of Cohen and Hank Steinbrenner? They would be eaten alive. And there's already the Wall Street Journal and Forbes that trend in that big picture/pro ownership and corporations way already.

They want to legitimately compete...stop pretending Mead Vargas Sosa and Quero are 1B men!!!

Cornering the market...niche advantage.

Dumb dumb dumb. Getz must have convinced JR he could reasonably be traded without a subsidy. God knows what they're saying internally about Benintendi. Sink cost fallacy.

https://southsideshowdown.com/what-white-sox-fans-learned-about-the-team-s-offseason-plan-after-winter-meetings Dustin May provides a lot more versatility fwiw. Just depends on the medicals. Would go May and Bleday and let 2026 at least play out until the deadline. (Unless they can trade Robert before the beginning of the season.) Twins also in on O'Hearn when they already have eight LH hitting options among their OF 1B DH core. That's a bit weird.

Last year there was a massive debate on Brewers' boards about leaving Smith unprotected. No such buzz this year. Petit such a big guy...hard to expect his control to hold up without some massive mechanical adjustments. And Colorado is death to fly ball pitchers. We'll see I guess.

Fairbanks’ asking price is unclear, but closers of similar caliber have been landing $10-15 million a season on the open market. In a competitive market with contending teams involved, the White Sox are unlikely to be the team to overpay to sign the player and may even have to add extra to convince Fairbanks to come to a rebuilding team. Instead, look for the White Sox to ultimately pivot to a cheaper option, albeit a less-reliable one, and use the money elsewhere. southsideshowdown.com

With Vargas Mead Sosa backup catcher…for that 1B spot? I know you’re going to argue O’Hearn, but theres just no way two separate guys in the $8-12 million range can/will be added. Look what Yastremski just got at his age.

Going from $70 million to roughly $10-12 million in tv revenues…has also absolutely killed CLE and MN. Then you had that loss when they offered access for free…relying on advertising. Teams getting broadcasts taken over by MLB were getting paid roughly $13-17 million depending on market size/ratings.

Why does this come off like the Sopranos or DeNiro vs. Costner in The Untouchables? Only missing the menacing baseball bat hovering over the table...

Try NY Boston Philly boards lol. Cardinals and Twins boards recently. I remember living in Georgia in the 90s and fans didn't go to Braves' games because they believed they weren't good enough to win in their seemingly inevitable post seasons or because of a downtown stadium located in a reputed "dangerous" area. It's all relative to expectations.

Kyler Murray could return to A's lol.

In JR's mind...instead of spending into more debt, he's attempting just to get back to even from significant debt. 2020/2023-2025 led to losses, and they're quite fortunate if they're creating another $10-12 million this year. Low viewership is likely making it challenging to sell advertising/sponsorships without heavily discounting or promising free placement in future seasons, when the team is theoretically more competitive.