caulfield12

JR probably would have preferred that outcome, he could get all the season ticket monies, parking, concessions, jersey sales/merchandising and still collect 60-65% on the insurance policy. I jest. Well, sort of. That would actually work a lot better for Bryce Harper than Machado.

One of Cashman's greatest mistakes in the last decade, along with the Contreras/Loaiza trade back in 2004.

This would be one of those years where it would be advisable to announce tickets sold and not fannies actually in the seats. I might start one around the end of April, but I don't even have the heart to care about attendance at the moment simply because the front office has proven time and time again they don't really care about White Sox fans, so why the heck should we care about their inability to sell tickets...? It's not OUR problem, it's THEIRS.

And yet nobody outside of die-hard White Sox fans, MLB front office staff and sabes/fantasy league owners perceived him as an All-Star caliber pitcher. Of course, all it took was Theo...despite his numbers tailing off pretty dramatically.

Forget about the overall money, the guaranteed money, the incentives/escalators...you'd have to believe that JR would be willing to commit to 10 years and then also not have a way for the club (and not the player/Boras) to opt-out of it. And a mutual opt-out just isn't going to happen. The fact is, we should WANT Harper to opt-out after 4 or 5 years because the franchise is doing so well...it means there are multiple younger core players in need to extensions.

Lopez will be a TOR guy in the same way that Quintana was...."under the radar," but (hopefully) just as effective, granted, he has the "bigger" or flashier stuff but it's sometimes hard for him to consistently maintain it.

Well, they brought in Segura ($15 million), Robertson and McCutcheon ($10 million each) and traded for Realmuto, ($5.9 million). What's another $325 million for Harper, right? Basically about the same as what we're spending on all of our garbage FA acqusitions and "Machado Influencers." In fact, I think we STILL managed to spend more than the Phillies, and yet we're going to struggle to win 70 games. FWIW, I do think they're going to have to trade for another starting pitcher in June/July, when the NL East race has fleshed itself out more fully.

Rick, Jr., this is your dad calling you down to dinner...please get off the computer!!!

I think we can actually use an 824 OPS hitter against RHP for 350-375 at-bats, and one that's cost-controlled. For the last 3 years (combined), Yonder Alonso has hit only 788 against RHP and 635 against LHP. And Alonso's significantly overpaid for that level of production, especially considering his strength is defense, but Abreu's going to still get the majority of playing time there because...well...we're the White Sox.

Because we can make the exact same argument about the Cubs and Bryant. There are too many to count, but bringing up Jimenez in a wasted year isn't one of the Top 100 reasons to be upset with the Chicago White Sox as of today.

But it seems we say that nearly every year. Other than Daniel Hudson and Brandon McCarthy, it's hard to recall a starting pitcher shooting from obscurity to top prospect status or at least effective big league results in the Sox system, unless you go back further to guys like Buehrle and Josh Fogg who weren't highly touted. By the way, we could have solved this problem by giving J. Guerra more of a chance. The Brewers simply out-scouted/outworked the Sox, who didn't know what they had in him.

Dec. 7th, 2016 The Chicago White Sox have acquired right-handed pitcher Lucas Giolito, the top-ranked pitching prospect in baseball and No. 3 prospect overall, and right-handers Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning from the Washington Nationals in exchange for outfielder Adam Eaton. "An important part of the process we are pursuing is acquiring quality pitching talent. We feel like we've done that today -- and yesterday -- en masse," said Rick Hahn, White Sox senior vice president/general manager. "Giolito and Lopez rank among the top prospects in baseball, while Dunning is another young prospect who possesses front-of-the-rotation potential." Even Bryce Harper was absolutely shocked they gave up that much (the perception at the time) for Adam Eaton. I think we're better off criticizing Colome/Narvaez at this point, as there's no point in belaboring our issues with talent identification and continued development.

Yuck, I see they're also pushing Banuelos' name out there as well. We all know how this story goes, just like Tyler Danish, Adams or Chris Beck.

Is Basabe really out 12 weeks? That can't be right...

If anything, Eaton was an overpay (even with Giolito's star fading) and Sale an underpay because we weren't going to get Devers/Benintendi, but it was basically short "one-half" a prospect from what we should have gotten. I guess there's still hope for Basabe, though.

But why give Alonso at-bats over Palka unless you're trying to compete legitimately for the playoffs? Maybe they're happy to trot Daniel back out into RF every day, but one gets the feeling Jay is going to get a lot of wasted playing time (certainly before Jimenez is up for good) before he gets traded or dumped from the roster. Delmonico, too, although he's more or less an afterthought at this point in time. But both of them can put up a better than 740 OPS and be paid a LOT less to do so.

Which stage of grief is denial again...?

BWAHHAHAHA.

If you look an Eaton's injury history, and the fact that his sky-high fWAR was boosted just as much by defense as offense (the shift from CF to RF, and all the assists he piled up that year)...it's hard to say he wasn't fairly valued, because he wasn't close to a 5.6 fWAR player over the rest of his career seasons. If he'd had at least TWO years like that, well, you have a better argument. He looks a lot like Pollock...to the point where you're expecting the lower range of outcomes (1.5-2.5 fWAR due to missed playing time) than the absolute ceiling in the 5-7 range.

Ozuna's been far too inconsistent to include on that list right now...but you could have said 2-3 years ago he might be better than Yelich and had a legitimate argument about it. With the rule of White Sox FA acquisitions, he'd undoubtedly play more like Ozuna did in 2018 with the Cardinals than his 2017 season.

Even then Adolfo's value goes way down if he can't continue to showcase that shotgun of an arm...but all indications are that 90% of players come back, and many are even better than before. It's just a matter of his offense at Birmingham, as he's seemingly been in the low minors forever. He probably has the most natural talent of any player in the system after Robert.

If you had to choose between Bryce Harper at $325 million and Corbin at his price point...and couldn't have both, which would you select? It's really that simple....the same reason they weren't offering enough for Machado, because there's no way their payroll could sustain both with everyone they've brought on board this off-season already.

I was referring to the previous post about "trades being Hahn's specialty." Trying to think of any...obviously, a LOT of posters felt Giolito/Lopez/Dunning was a win, but the bloom has come off that rose with Giolito putting up the worst statistical season of any qualified starter in MLB last year.

Other than Cease/Jimenez...what specialty are you talking about, exactly? Adam Eaton?

SS2k5 had said it from the beginning...but even he couldn't have assume that things would go so poorly. We all got spoiled by how seemingly easy it was for the Cubs and Astros. In reality, I have a sneaking suspicion we're going to pull off a string of Hail Mary, desperation moves like the Cincinnati Reds heading into next year in order to at least create the illusion of competitiveness, but none of the fans will buy it anymore after watching this tired dog & pony show for the past decade plus. The front office and marketing department will be completely befuddled by the tepid response. Then we'll get a recycling of the KW quotes about not spending $1 if you only have 50 cents and the cycle will repeat itself until someone smacks Kenny across the face and tells him to wake up to reality. WE'RE NOT DOING YOU A FAVOR TO SHOW UP UNTIL YOU SHOW UP FOR US.