caulfield12

We can't afford to trade Madrigal for Benintendi to lose 3 years of control for 7...not when Madrigal's suddenly looking like a shoe-in to be at least a 3 fWAR second baseman at the floor of his abilities. In fact, along with Anderson, those two are set up to be the leaders/co-captains of this franchise for many years to come. There's a million things that Madrigal does well that don't show up in the box score and will start to rub off on the rest of the players when they finally start to turn the corner at .500 and above baseball at some point next season. He'll bring a lot of the same qualities as Pods/Iguchi at the top of the line-up in 2005 (minus the strikeouts). Benintendi's going to be at a disadvantage as long as they continue to use these baseballs...because he's always been a better pure XB hitter than a home run guy. And his defense has never graded out that well (obviously, harder to assess with Green Monster, but still 81 road games per year as well.)

Sure, but those payrolls were back in 2006-2008 and 2010-11. http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm#2006payroll If our current young core is mixed together with the obvious top 3 prospects....and Giolito/Kopech/Cease/Lopez/Dunning form at least 3/5th's of our future rotations in the coming future, then everything SHOULD be okay if they make the right moves to supplement with veterans like the 2013 Red Sox, or this year's Twins. Of course, it still depends on a number of X factors, like catching...that position hasn't been filled adequately since AJ Pierzynski for the White Sox, and is vitally important to forming a playoff team. But pitching...defense...there's no getting around that those are the two biggest weaknesses that need to be shored up if they want to be legitimately competitive. Of course, the main complaints are about round 1-5 drafting, injuries, not taking advantage of the opportunity to sign an additional haul of Latin Americans in Robert's class, managing/fundamentals/defensive execution, the Tatis trade, there are lots of positives but there are some negatives that can/should easily be addressed. The skepticism was natural after missing out on the two big FA targets and then watching the number of potential free agents in 2020 and 2021 come off the board one by one. The concerns about Renteria, Steverson and Cooper are not new, but they're not without warrant, either.

The problem with Ozuna is that he's angling to be one of the most expensive FA's on the market due to his age... I also brought up Dickerson, who's in the middle of an injury-plagued year....Domingo Santana, on the block again with the Mariners and defensively-limited...and Franmil Reyes/Hunter Renfroe/Wil Myers. Then you have the yearly Dodgers' logjam at that position as well. The problem is that, other than Ozuna, all of the players mentioned for RF have defensive pretty serious defensive issues. Renfroe's playing so well, has a strong arm...he's going to be overpriced in the trade market, so Myers and his bad contract would be who they would try to offload, which would be okay if they ate half of it. Myers is as good a bounceback candidate as any, if you're not going with a Tier 1 guy in Ozuna.

Marcell Ozuna?

We don't have any idea...the last time they spent significantly in free agency, it was Robertson/Cabrera/LaRoche/Bonifacio. That doesn't exactly instill confidence.

Took some money out of the stock market (mutual funds) recently, wanted to get some friendly advice about where to reinvest it. Time horizon: 3-5 years Issue: Generating cash for my mother's long term care treatment....she is 90 years old with pretty advanced dementia/symptoms of Alzheimer's but otherwise in good health for that age Amount: $200-250,000 Essentially, it costs about $55,000 per year for her care....maybe $62,500 total if you include doctor/dentist/snacks/prescription medicine, etc. She currently has enough money in her bank accounts to cover at least the next 3 years, because of money coming in from my dad's (deceased) partial pension, other investments (go Vanguard!) and a limited amount of Social Security (she worked mostly in 1950's-1970's so the amount is pretty small.) Rate of return on investments, cumulatively: roughly 9% per year since 2000 Some ideas for generating additional revenue to offset future expenses from 2022-23 onwards: Option 1: 2.48% interest on a 25 month CD (barely will keep up with inflation, if that) Option 2: REIT Option 3: Renting out house (I live in China and stay in US for basically 4-6 weeks per year, doing this is probably a "no go" from my mom's perspective anyway) Option 4: Reverse mortgage (home owned outright, but needs a lot of work, would probably sell for $125Kish) Option 5: Selling house

Wow...high praise for Shazam. Not sure I'd go that far. Always Be My Maybe....indie Asian-led (Randall Park from Fresh Off the Boat and Ali Wong) with a hilarious supporting performance by Keanu Reeves as the anti-Keanu, 3.25 stars Toy Story 4 3 1/2 stars Spiderman 3 1/2 stars Tried to get through the critically-acclaimed Booksmart and made it through about 60 minutes...

I think this name keeps getting misspelled because of former Cub Jason Hammel... Hamels

Rangers' announcers are convinced it would need to be closer to $210-240 over 6-7 years...but then they would need to overpay compare to the Astros, Angels, Phillies, Yankees, etc.

http://twinsdaily.com/_/minnesota-twins-news/minnesota-twins/the-twins-should-extend-odorizzi-not-gibson-r7408 This is the same reason why the Twins are probably going to prioritize signing him for a 3-4 year extension, letting Kyle Gibson walk. They probably can't afford to hold onto both those guys...because they also need to hold onto some of their hitters (free agents) and always be mindful about trying to extend their young core simultaneously. In many ways, the Indians and Twins are in similiar positions, although Minnesota is still on the upswing and Cleveland the downswing of their runs. A month ago, it seemed the Indians would be trading away one of their pitchers, probably Bauer. Right now, it's a wide open race again, with the Twins battling back against Oakland to keep the once 12 game lead from falling all the way to 2 games. I would agree the best way for the White Sox to quickly compete in the Central is signing pitchers away from those other teams...although getting excited about the Gibson's and Lance Lynn's (he has actually had a nice bounceback year in Texas of all places) isn't going to fill in many season ticket order forms.

I really don’t see a match. They could play Holt in his spot, theoretically...but then you have a hole at second. I guess in that scenario, Abreu would play first, Chavis at second base and Holt in LF. Leury Garcia being included in the package isn’t going to be enough, either.

Castellanos would be 1B/DH...otherwise, you’re forced to use Engel defensively while you wait on Robert.

The only conclusion is the White Sox really didn’t want Machado all that badly. It doesn’t make sense, because of the courting of Alonso and Jay, but then why would they have telegraphed the move of Moncada to third (Machado’s best position)...? it was all to light a fire under Yoan and Timmy? Because if you want to make it clear to Machado that he’s wanted...you don’t move one of the best young players in the game to his natural position. It’s not like he was wedded to playing SS either, as he made it abundantly clear he was willing to move back to 3B. Ironically, the player they most needed was Harper (from a positional standpoint), and they barely paid lip service to that possibility after the initial meetings.

It’s all about leverage, or just simple supply/demand. McCann had none. Playing opportunity was just as valuable as the contract dollars, especially because he was already familiar with all the pitchers in the division. As far as the money crap, if the Yankees were winning every year, that would be one thing. As long as teams like Oakland can afford a Cespedes or the Padres Machado and Hosmer...then there’s still a reasonable balance because every team in MLB has enough incoming revenue from media/broadcasting to afford one of those guys if they really wanted to, even the Marlins and Rays.

Cashner? Benintendi was worth 4.4 fWAR last year and is mired at just 1.2 this year. Do you really think that Dombrowski would deal him at his lowest value? They had a million opportunities to do that with Jackie Bradley and never pulled the trigger. Granted, Bradley is a better defender at a premium position. At any rate, it’s going to cost a lot more than an expiring Abreu and bullpen guys.

The other thing to remember with Baines is that he missed portions of three seasons to strikes, 1981 and 1994-95. Plug that playing time back in and he's over 3000 hits and right at 400 homers. How many more hits and home runs would Baines likely have logged? Using simple "on pace" calculations: 1981: 40 hits, 5 HR 1994: 51 hits, 7 HR 1995: 14 hits, 3 HR That'd bring Baines to 2,971 hits and 399 home runs. He'd get my vote either way, but his odds would probably be considerably better with those numbers literally scratching at Cooperstown's door.

The Padres have plenty of young highly-touted pitchers (Morejon and Baez, just brought up yesterday, are both Top 100), they just need seasoning like Kopech and Cease. And Mackenzie Gore is their centerpiece franchise pitcher to go along with Paddack and he's at least another half season away. That said, he loves Southern California. But I honestly don't see how the numbers work there with Wil Myers taking up a big chunk of salary and currently just a bench player. They'll definitely pursue him as their rotation anchor, but it would be more shocking than reeling in Machado.

I'll believe it when Bryant leaves the Cubs.

I guess I should have eliminated Trout, because of the discussion of the player to select after him is quite fascinating... But still can't get over how the current version of the Angels parallels with the 2012-2016 White Sox, how having 4 really solid or even great (in the case of Sale with the Sox) players didn't even once lead to the playoffs. Trout and Ohtani are the only LA hitters over OPS+ hitters over 112. We have Moncada, Anderson and Moncada at 132, 119, 118. Then Abreu at 107 and Eloy at 106.

Yes, but it was also taking that player’s current contract into consideration... Acuna, Soto, Jose Ramirez, Bregman, Lindor, Judge, Betts, Guerrero, Tatis, W. Franco, Correa, Trea Turner, Snell, Buehler, Nola was Jonah Keri’s Top 15 Most Valuable Trade assets coming into 2019. Cody Bellinger has basically taken Jose Ramirez’s spot since the season started. Jimenez was 22nd, for the record. https://theathletic.com/880451/2019/03/21/keri-the-2019-mlb-trade-value-player-rankings-part-3/

A year ago, most would have picked Betts, Guerrero Jr or Acuna, Jr., after Trout.

Realistically, we need the pitching equivalent of Trout...except that doesn’t exist. So I would take the $430 million savings from choosing a 20-22 year old and put it into the pitching staff. Nobody will match Trout’s numbers offensively, but that isn’t the point...because you need to have a talented pitching staff to win consistently, and the White Sox are much further away in that area than offensively.

I listed Yelich...here Boswell makes a case for Soto, but also provides a warning about overhyping anyone too soon. He was the last player I cut from the individual voting options, right there with Lindor and Betts. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/we-need-to-chill-on-hyping-juan-sotos-ceiling-but-hes-making-that-very-difficult/2019/07/16/c098c5ba-a7f7-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html?utm_term=.f5eed47cc177 3.7 fWAR last year, 2.3 this season https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=20123&position=OF The main reason I dinged him was speed/defense....and he’s a lot like Vaughn in that he’s a lot closer to a 25-30 homer guy than 35-50. (Of course, the exact same thing was said about Christian Yelich earlier in his career.)

I’m assuming you don’t mean this season...

This would be absolutely perfect for Brooks Boyer’s 2020 marketing campaign! Or simply, “Tatis, Jr., is gone. Get over it. Plus, we have Elijah.” On second though, just like a good Aaron Boone rant or Laura Dern on “Big, Little Lies”...the f*ck you part makes it 1,000x better.