caulfield12

Well, Anderson is “only” under control through 2024...but he’s certainly not a priority in comparison to Giolito, Moncada and possibly Robert. Those last two will be the toughest to extend. Giolito repeats his 2019 and he suddenly puts himself in elite territory...so now is the ideal time to strike if they’re 100% confident in his “repeatability.“ That would obviously carry a not insignificant amount of risk, as he’s already past the first three years. Of course, no extension and his arbitration numbers rise exponentially each season as well.

Hawk, that you? We’ve been missing those last weeks of 1967 stories for awhile now.

Good to hear. Now if they successfully convert on one of their top pitching targets, the high-decibel/unbridled optimism level will legitimately be reinstituted for the first time since the Moncada and Kopech debuts.

When Realmuto and Sal Perez are your best options after 2020...this type of go for broke move was necessitated because waiting and hoping on Realmuto...who at least 50/50 resigns with Philly, that’s just as much of a risk because who’s their starting catcher then if that falls through? In the end, both Narvaez and Collins weren’t good enough...nor was wishing, hoping and praying on a McCann repeat. If this goes south, or those three players all go on to successful careers outside of Chicago and Grandal has a swift fall-off...that will be the time to have that conversation. This is one of those moves that also puts the nail in the coffin for Hahn OR makes him GM of the Year. We’ll see...but it’s the first real risk they have taken since signing LUIS Robert and trading the Big 3 to kick off the rebuild.

They’re going to start him off low in the order and tamp down the pressure/expectations as much as possible. Down the line he gets more comfortable and confident at the big league level, sure. At the very least, he’s putting up numbers similar to Mike Cameron early in his career. As long as the K rate is less than 35-40%, he’ll be fine. He just can’t be Brian Anderson hitting in the 625-675 OPS range, at least not longer term.

The problem is 2022-23 is clearly the heart of the competitive window, as currently constructed. With Grandal’s age, competing this year at least now has to be looked at realistically...predicated on the rest of their moves and all the young players making steady progress and not busting...at least the very top guys. Ryu, Bumgarner, Keuchel, Hamels....they collectively as a group fall into that same category of win now rather than win later acquisitions due to age, mileage and/or injury concerns.

Love that they went out so quickly and set a precedent...even with an extra year and maybe $10-15 million higher than most were ideally hoping for, overpaying by a bit was always going to be a necessity to not let these negotiations linger on and on and then risk losing said player to a surprise last-minute bidder.

Finally the White Sox are back on the radar again. Here’s hoping he has a MUCH more playoff-filled and statistically significant career than our last big name move 8 years ago...no more NY Times articles, except for breaking the offseason slide. Don't know if they can also get Wheeler, who was #1 on my want list...but the leverage this provides shows it’s not just a pipe dream. Of course, it also puts a real spotlight on Collins, and, specifically, his hitting ability...the risk of him getting the most DH at-bats OR being completely out of the picture and shipped away in a trade. Hostetler being right on the the money in that draft would have saved a big chuck of money, but it does show they weren’t banking on McCann repeating his first half magic trick. And it is difficult to imagine they’re not considering Puig due to his name recognition and the Cuban Connection. Wheeler, Grandal, Puig and a reliever is about the most I could have optimistically hoped for. Will be extra curious now how it plays out. But at least they’re finally serious again about actually winning and not just fielding a team.

There's still a disconnect between "out with the old, in with the new" and keeping Renteria as the big league manager. If they (FO) really are (still) strong believers in Cooper and Renteria, how the heck are they going to align that throughout their system because those two guys are so idiosyncratic in their ways. I guess I get the "Wolverine Synergy" between Hahn and Getzie, but where does it lead to as an organizational philosophy?

But isn’t bunting simply a reflection also (as well as a personal preference)...of the fact that such strategy is exactly what they would be expected to do under Renteria? Maybe he has been led to believe the Sox will stick it out with Renteria and wanted a faster path to the big leagues as a bench coach or third base coach elsewhere.

We’ve been speculating $100-115 million from the original 4/$80 “reasonable” price. Still not sure $100 gets it done unless he really has his heart set on Chicago and doesn’t want to wait it out. He’s not ever going to be a second or third tier option this offseason, so not sure how waiting until January/February has more negatives than positives attached to it. From a Hahn standpoint, getting one big name in the fold early is huge in terms of setting up the other moves. Devil’s Advocate of course is that Melky, Robertson and LaRoche didn’t exactly work out when we “won” that particular offseason.

Haha...that’s like when Andy Gonzalez and Jerry Owens were ranked similarly, and a catcher whose name now escapes me.

When’s the last time we sold “really high” on a Top 5 team prospect that later fizzled? Jeremy Reed? Daniel Hudson for EJax doesn’t really fit here. I guess Santiago for Eaton...although he technically was no longer a prospect by then. A. Reed for Davidson, although also no longer a prospect.

Would the White Sox go five on Wheeler, let alone six?

Nobody will give up that much for McCann unless he repeats his first half...in which case, we’d undoubtedly be extending him for 2-3 years into the heart of the rebuild.

You do realize Tauchman is already 28...? I guess Hahn would like the local boy comes home angle...Fremd, Palatine, Bradley, but generally trading high upside, cost-controlled starting pitchers for more expensive veteran 4/5 starters doesn’t work out well. If we were making 3 big moves this offseason to go with it, maybe. By the time we actually need Happ, he’ll be yet one more year removed from his prime. And Tauchman was a low 700s OPS guy in 2015-16...it wasn’t until Albuquerque, a hitter’s paradise not unlike Charlotte, that he really took off. He might be a late bloomer, but he could just as easily be in a one year flash in the pan.

Well, we're always good to take another team's expendable veteran off their hands (with a salary subsidy) and send back prospects to save on payroll...

What I meant was if he ACTUALLY ends up with that $17.8 million one year salary, rather than the reported 2/$25-30 or 3/$40-45 million extensions that were being negotiated (and probably still are).

Does that $40 million include Abreu's raise if he ends up ultimately accepting the QO?

Didn’t the Call/Fisher draft represent their first attempt to go high OBP, more refined collegiate hitters...?

Seems the Cubs are looking at Akiyama for CF...

Unless we're willing to return to the Albert Belle contract, blowing the whole field out of the water before the battle begins....and there would have to be an "out" clause after 2023/2024 or something like that (insurance on the player's part if the rebuild fizzles), there's just zero point in doing this. The Samardzija Consequences, let's call it. Ending up with a low 80's win team and then losing Betts and at least ONE of our top 3-4 prospects (Cease, Madrigal, Vaughn) is just not worth it. Boston fanbase won't accept a deal with Collins and Stiever as the headliners, and, if they did, it would probably mean that Chaim knows something we don't and that Collins miraculously (or invariably) turns his career around and becomes Tyler Flowers Cubed, or Omar Narvaez at the very least. Or Collins blossoms (let's say Bummer goes out too), McCann and Colome struggle in 2020, we have to spend even more money in 2021 to fix both catcher (assuming we don't sign Grandal) and the back end of the bullpen. Trading away younger, cost-controlled players for more expensive/veteran ones hasn't worked for the White Sox for the last decade. Obviously, Betts is a superstar, but the odds of him staying in Chicago couldn't be much more than 10-15%, at best (going on EVERYTHING we know about how JR conducts business.)

Richard Justice predicted Yankees would sign him in his article today. He loves Sox, but had us listed as destination for none of the top ten guys.

In the end, they should be thankful that Moncada struggled his first time in the big leagues and Benintendi looked like a RoY/perennial All-Star candidate...pushing up his value, to the point where he was close to untradeable at that precise moment.

Rafael Devers Prospect Rankings[BA] 2015-MLB-#99 ... 2015-BOS-#6 ... 2016-MLB-#18 ... 2016-BOS-#2 ... 2017-MLB-#18 ... 2017-BOS-#3 [PIPE] 2016-MLB-#17 ... 2016-BOS-#2 ... 2017-MLB-#17 ... 2017-BOS-#2 from thebaseballcube.com