caulfield12

Not to mention the Mets were DESPERATELY trying to convince their fans they could compete in that division this season with the additions of Cano and Edwin Diaz, calling up Alonso...but it's also not like they have a YOUNG team, they've got some younger players like Alonso, McNeil, Rosario and Comforto, but Cano/ and deGrom are all ticking away in terms of fighting father age or nearing free agency.

Even now, he still has doubters because of his 2018 season...at any rate, just for baseball smarts, work ethic, baserunning, defense and fundamentals alone, he's worth at least 1.5 fWAR without even setting foot on the field of play.

The ONLY thing that makes sense about this is putting Madrigal closer to his California/Oregon State home...but it's not like it's going to cause Mariners' attendance to increase by 1,500 per game. Kalenic would probably prefer to be closer to home, too, but that's not a good reason for either team to trade one of their future franchise cornerstones.

Bumgarner really likes the West Coast and he also enjoys hitting...think it's around 75% or higher he stays in the NL.

Then you should fire Hostetler, lol... In all seriousness, what team is going to give us a TOR young/cost-controlled starter for Madrigal? What team does Madrigal have more value to than the White Sox? (The answer might actually be the Cubs, because they have strong hitters at almost every position in the line-up, whereas he would be expected to contribute a lot more to the Sox offense.) Of course, Hahn's not actually going to make that trade, let's say for Schwarber, Happ, Strop/Edwards Jr./Chatwood. (Won't even mention Addison Russell, he's that far in the doghouse that no team in baseball will touch him after what Epstein went through vouching for him.)

Why can't he play winter ball, in the Dominican, for example? He could even play right next to Jimenez on the same team if they wanted to make it happen...obviously, there's going to be a heightened concern about injuries when they're outside of the control of the MLB club, but you can't keep putting Jimenez out into LF and then worrying everytime he's out there. If you're going to do that, just make him a permanent DH now, but that's not what he signed that long-term extension with the intent of sitting on the bench for 6 years and watching the games.

Who would you play at 1B when they're competing for the division in 2021/22/23? Certainly not Abreu... Who are you going to be able to trade Vaughn for that's going to be a guaranteed frontline starter? Until he's an established big-leager, all these guys...even Robert...are going to have less value than someone with a big league track record. Even then (and I only mention this because it was a suggestion here or another thread), trading the likes of Moncada, Madrigal or Jimenez aren't going to get you the equivalent frontline pitching prospect without red flags...and then all you end up doing is creating another hole in your line-up. It SHOULD be easy to find a decent two-way player in RF, or a DH...but, for some reason, it's something the White Sox under Hahn have struggled with the last couple of seasons. Granted, they traded Eaton and then let Avisail Garcia go, but it's not exactly rocket science either. We SHOULD be able to do better than Cordell, Tilson, Engel, Delmonico, Palka, etc.

Well, that's easy....just do what the Twins, A's, Rays, etc., do. I remember the idea of signing Nick Markakis at any point (in the last 2-3 years) being almost as heavily criticized as signing McCann, but he's been much better than expected for the Braves, for example. With the Twins, I think they added Schoop, CJ Cron, Pineda, Martin Perez, Nelson Cruz...traded for Jake Odorizzi (who the Rays weren't willing to even pay $6 million, while we're paying Nova $9). The majority of these movies have been pretty solid, although Pineda has struggled. They were smart enough not to hold onto E.Santana any longer, as well. With all of that and a young core of position players, they're STILL no quite good enough to overtake the Yankees. The irony is that it was former "unaffordable" player Aaron Hicks who beat them in perhaps the best game of the season with a "walk-off" diving catch in CF to end it in the bottom of the 12th.

Thanks for the idea...at this point, I'm okay to control the risk completely if it's just a matter of a couple of percent. Over 20 years, that would make a huge difference, obviously. The rest is in individual stocks, mutual funds (Vanguard, Legg Mason, Oakmark, Fidelity), so I think it's okay if the major portion of the portfolio can keep trucking along at 6-10% per year. I actually don't believe that we're likely to keep seeing such high returns over the next decade, and am prepared to deal with the likelihood it's going to be 4-6% as the new normal for quite some time. Who knows? Nobody thought three years ago that this would continue as long as it has, but I've seen enough warning signs (the canary in the coal mine) living in China for most of the last decade to know the days of "easy money" are long gone and things are quickly tightening up. Maybe the biggest example to me was three huge bicycle rental companies in China with billions of dollars of venture capital flowing into them while 90-95% of the bikes were haphazardl lying around the subway entrances and street corners blocking traffic and creating a huge eyesore everywhere you go in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. At that point, they were talking about renting umbrellas and basketballs, even. Now the buzz word is click farms...to drive traffic, to create the illusion of traffic or positive reviews or whatever they are programmed to fake in order to create value out of nothing. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/click-farms-internet-china-154440209.html What's amazing is how much effort goes into faking everything when it would be easier to invest in an education system that teaches creativity and innovation, rather than replication and reverse engineering.

• Hahn said Luis Robert’s major-league debut likely won’t happen until 2020, despite the young star announcing his arrival to Triple A with a .440/.500/.960 batting line and three homers in six games. “It’s been six games, so let’s keep a little perspective,” Hahn said. “I’m fine with the calls getting greater or the excitement getting greater to see another potential premium piece here at the big-league level. I hope he keeps this roll going. It’s probably unrealistic to hope he rolls like this all the way through Triple A.” James Fegan, theathletic.com Also said that Eloy Jimenez won't be changing to 1B/DH...

And you just know that Madrigal would somehow manage to outproduce Dustin Pedroia's career numbers and be even more beloved by Red Sox fans, lol...

They tried to do that with minor league placements in 2018...especially with Vizquel's Winston-Salem team last year, but then they haven't really kept that team together with all the injuries/adjustment problems and then Robert getting pushed so quickly to Charlotte after he started to take off. It would actually be nice to see the Barons make the second half playoffs, but they might not be possible due to the dearth of pitching in the system right now.

With a guaranteed deal for next year, you can practically guarantee Herrera will be on the roster for at least the first 2-3 months of 2020.

That was one of the best trades in KW's career, it brought back Quentin, who should have won 2008 AL MVP. 1) Tatis and Machado share the same agent/representation, so you can be sure they're on the same page about signing an extension or not. There is a danger if the Padres can't at least make the playoffs in 2020 or 2021 (blocked by the Dodgers) that they both start looking to greener pastures. 2022 will be the key year, for both their futures. After 2023, Machado can opt out. Then we can go through this whole offseason fiasco again with a 31 year old Machado, yay!!! 2) Commendable job of working Colombian caballos into the story. 3) The Padres wanted to set the tone from the very beginning of the season that they were going to put their best team on the field. Hosmer and Machado actually talked to Preller and management about it in spring training, and they finally agreed. At that time, they also agreed to put Paddack on the roster...even though they knew he would be limited in his innings not too far removed from a TJ. Other than a brief 3-4 start stretch, he's been as good as advertised, and has become one of the best NL young hurlers, along with Soroka. 4) By my count, they've brought up eight Top 100 MILB guys to the majors this year....most of them on the pitching side, once you get past Tatis, Urias and Naylor. They pretty much knew they weren't going to compete this year, but they wanted all those young arms to be in competition at the major league level to see what they actually had: starter, reliever, or back to the minors for more seasoning. In that way, they're able to make a determination on trading Yates (they have a kid in Munoz throwing 102-103 and still growing) or holding onto him for one more season (see Colome situation with the White Sox). 5) Whether they can compete with the Dodgers next season, it's all going to come down to Mackenzie Gore and when he arrives. If they start him in the major leagues on Opening Day, then you'll really know they're throwing all caution to the wind. You can definitely make an argument with all the volatility with pitchers, you might be better off forgetting about years of control and just utilizing them as long as possible before they start depreciating (see NY Mets, 2015....or Nats/Strasburg.)

This thread is in danger of entering borderline creepy Watchmen territory...

I ended up parking $150k in a CD that pays twice a year at 2.5% Have to keep it in for 25 months (25th anniversary of local bank here). Wish I could go back to that time in China about 4-5 years ago when my wife through her insurance company could get a CD guaranteeing 8%, but (already) there was a limit to the amount you could put in, something like $50,000. Last time we did it, it was only 3%.

The problem is nobody is going to value either Giolito or Moncada (Moncada would definitely have the higher value) in that Sale fashion until they keep this up at least through mid-season next year. You said it yourself...who was so faithful to Giolito last year and then has had that confidence shaken over the last month in 2019, if his biggest fan isn't going to overvalue him or believe in him in terms of trade/asset value, why would an opposing team's GM feel even more strongly about overpaying to acquire Lucas? In retrospect, I certainly get why trading Eaton made sense...he was AT BEST a negative clubhouse presence, he was coming off an anomalous healthy season where he had an extremely high fWAR because he'd moved from CF to RF and was piling up the assists, which isn't an easily repeatable stat...but there's the problem that if you trade both of them, you're still looking at losing Anderson/Rodon, you've still got Kopech/Cease/Dunning with TJ histories, then MAYBE you buy ONE extra year of contention? The problem with that is White Sox fans have already been going through this for a decade...they're not going to stand for a payoff to their patience that's deferred until the 2023 and possibly the 2024 season. Then you're basically just the Oakland A's. If they want to do that, get someone from the front office of Oakland, Tampa Bay, Cleveland or even Atlanta that really knows how to operate in that type of rebuilding/retooling on the fly environment, because it's definitely not Hahn and Williams any longer.

That argument would work better if they missed the playoffs entirely...still going to the NL Championship against the Mets validated that decision in the minds of Epstein and Hoyer. They got there one year earlier than anyone could have predicted. That said, if Bryant's determined to walk as a result of that bitterness, you pretty much have to keep Baez/Rizzo/Contreras together as long as possible. Realistically, it was never going to be realistic to keep all four of those guys, not with other contracts like Heyward, Chatwood and Darvish on the books.

The idea that you can expect someone like Wheeler "to get straightened out" while providing him a premium contract (similar to Eeovaldi) is pretty nutty...as most of us already have our doubts about Don Cooper adjusting to the modern game. Far likelier, second tier guys like Bumgarner or Odorizzi will end up with much more palatable 3 year contracts. The line probably gets drawn at no more than 4 years, which definitely means no Gerrit Cole. The likelier Sox path is finding two of those second tier guys to combine with the existing roster. In the meantime, you have to believe in your own prospects fulfilling their destiny and at least one of the three becoming a true, TOR stud. IMO, there is a LOT to be said for simultaneously going after underperforming guys like Aaron Sanchez (like Rodon, Boras is his agent and team control is through just 2020), Jonathan Gray, Foltynewitz, Freeland...as the bigger names are out of our current price range due to the fact that we'd be asked to give up more than we're willing to or can afford to give up.

I'm just not seeing the advantage of doing that, rather than simply selling the house outright...right now, she's having to pay for mowing, snow removal, homeowner's insurance, plus we have to keep the gas/water/lights on in order for the insurance to cover the house while nobody's occupying it.

They better hope an extra year with Robert/Madrigal is worth losing a possibly competitive one with Moncada and Giolito in 2020... 2026 contention doesn't really matter to the fans much at now, and Reinsdorf might no longer even be around. Of course, there's another perspective. I'm sure that Cubs' fans are thankful in these last 2-3 years of their contention window that they control Bryant, Baez, Rizzo and Contreras as long as they do. They can grope and whine about all the prospects they've traded away and how well they're performing with other organizations...but they're still right there in the thick of it in Season 5 (unfortunately for them, the Dodgers and Braves might not be cooperating.) The other thing having that extra year of control does is that it also helps to justify charging $8 extra per month for the Cubs' Network/Marquee. Likewise, the White Sox have to believe that Robert and Madrigal are centerpieces when they are negotiating yet another new t.v. deal in 2024. (Of course, this is the type of argument only an accounting firm or JR's tax attorney would enjoy...)

I can just see it now. Sox acquire Aaron Sanchez, because Coop can fix him like he "fixed" Giolito...there's your Cole/Bumgarner/Wheeler.

The Pirates were actually the first to embrace shifts, pitch framing....emphasizing two seam sinkers to keep the ball on the infield with superior infielders, lessening wear and tear on starting pitchers with elevated pitch counts (more k’s and walks with four seamers, more fly outs/homers).

Michael Wacha came out of the bullpen tonight, his 5.33 ERA will be a bargain...

Or signing Descalso...