caulfield12

Polanco would be a lot closer, and Nimmo...at any rate, they’re certainly not capable of putting together the package for the preferable S.Marte with secondary pieces, but the Pirates will Pirate, so who the hell knows.

Age and two TJ surgeries are what depress his value. But it only takes one competing team a better offer than KW made to Herrera. Let’s just call it the Eovaldi/Kelly Effect after this past postseason.

We’re counting on Minnesota and Cleveland to fumble away their current competitive advantages for that to happen. Another TJ hit to the young rotation, Collins/McCann fading into obscurity along with Abreu’s bat speed and the relief corps completely imploding...and then what? They’re 100% forced to get Realmuto at top dollar...and DESPERATELY spending another $60+ million in free agency this time next year, or you can start taking about firing the entire front office and trading off Moncada, Giolito, Anderson, etc. While that’s not LIKELY, it’s also not outside the realm of possibility, either. Certainly not with this front office group’s record the past decade. Just imagine we didn’t add one veteran starter who could even profile as a #2/3 and Kopech/Giolito/Cease goes down with a major injury. Heck, even Lopez, the way the roster is currently constructed. To quote Midway, it would be “sayonara.”

And the Padres’ local media (tv/radio) deal is 2nd worst in baseball. Only KC, Cincy, Pitt, Cleve, Detroit and Milwaukee can vie with it. Despite our abysmal ratings, we’re closer to Top 8-12 in local media market “value.”

Hudson will get more for one year coming out of 2019 than Herrera on a down/decline season in 2018...and he left the White Sox on the not so greatest of terms with Cooper. Not to mention there are only three more legit relievers on the market: Harris, Smith and Betances.

Boston?

That’s really nuts, since they just signed Machado for Rendon’s best position...coming next, after Strasburg, Kris Bryant, too. Only $160-200 million for Stras. https://www.gaslampball.com/2019/11/4/20947800/acee-padres-to-pursue-strasburg As you might’ve seen on the Union-Tribune or elsewhere on the web, the Padres are expected to make a run at Stephen Strasburg in free agency. Kevin Acee of the UT relayed on Sunday that “multiple people in the organization indicated over the past few days that the team will be in position to make a run at Stephen Strasburg”. Strasburg, 31, officially opted out of the remaining four years and $100MM on his contract with the Nationals on Saturday evening. In order for the Padres to lure Strasburg back to his native SD, GM AJ Preller will have to overcome a few obstacles. First, Strasburg and his agent Scott Boras have a historically strong relationship with the Nationals and their Lerner family ownership. Strasburg re-upped with DC back in the middle of 2016, opting forego his first taste of free agency; that was a serious anomoly for a Boras client, as the Newport-based Boras Corp typically guides their clients toward free agency as quickly as possible. In recent years, Boras clients like Patrick Corbin, Max Scherzer, and Jeremy Hellickson have all found homes in Washington; Juan Soto is also a Boras client, so it will be interesting to see if the Lerner family and Nationals GM Mike Rizzo do everything in their power to keep Strasburg—and his agent—happy partly as a means of facilitating future negotiations with the new face of their franchise. Indeed, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported that the Nationals and Boras would commence negotiations on Sunday with an interest in keeping Strasburg in DC. Couple of interesting tidbits from readers’ commentary... does he live there? stras is definitely a family guy…. but he also cares a great deal to be close to his family here. He lived in the dorms at SDSU for like 3 days before he moved back home to be with his mom. he also works out here in the offseason, often at SDSU. If you can get him for 6/$180m i think you have to do it. Guy is a stud and lives for the big game. his command and secondary pitches are elite which leads me to believe he will age well even if his velo gets down to low-90s by the end of his career. he sold his SD home a little while back But he may have just upgraded, actually not sure where he currently lives. dont get me wrong, I think SD has a good shot at him too, because of the hometown ties. Assuming the money is there. But Im definitely not counting out Washington because of the familiarity and success he’s had there.

Down on Lopez?

If we have any media spies out there, would just love to get the internal Braves' spreadsheet predicting the White Sox FA spending this offseason. If that came out publicly...and the number was only $25-30 million again, well...they're going to have to provide a phalanx of security for Hahn to prevent another Nancy Kerrigan incident at SoxFest.

Jose Ramirez (not so much last season until second half) also comes to mind...that guy all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, became a legit MVP candidate. The last time we experienced that with an acquisition was Carlos Quentin for five months in 2008, and Alexei Ramirez. Other than Quintana, there's nobody that really fits into the "diamond in the rough" category. With all of the available "open/free" playing time, we've only managed to come up with Bummer, Narvaez (since traded), Fry and the most successful "non-core" position player was Yolmer, who the majority of board is excited to see launched into space. That's pretty abysmal for THREE years. Along with Yolmer, Avi never lived up to his ONE truly outstanding season, and could never stay healthy enough to even consider signing to a 2-3-4 year extension into his FA years.

Nobody knows for sure, yet. Maybe half of the season? Not unlike the Padres signing Garrett Richards for 2021...he pitched for most of September.

W. Smith, Harris, Hudson and Betances are the only relievers likely to be at or above the same we were willing to award Herrera.

Pretty sure they’d take Eeovaldi over Sale, as well. There’s too many potential ways that blows up in their face to make it even worth contemplating. Lets not forget, you’ve just given the Red Sox the ability to retain Betts...so that’s yet another team the White Sox have to get through to arrive at another World Series. When we won it last time, we dumped three larger salaries and spread it across something like 8 new players. This is the exact opposite approach...

Fine, but pace is hypothetical/theoretical and actual results count, too. By that theory, Tatis is runaway Rookie of the Year over Alonso. In reality, he’s 34 and has just 6.2 over the last three years....so you’re willing to pay $15 million/fWAR (that’s roughly the production from 2017-19) and hope/pray that Price puts up a 4 and Benintendi a 3? Is that worth it to spend $40 millionish on 7 fWAR. Definitely...But what about just just 3.5-5? Well, now most are turning around arguing that Cole or Betts is more likely to consistently put up 6+ fWAR seasons at $35 million, right? And you’re left with how much money to spend on the rest of the FA’s? $10 million? $15? $20 million? Do you honestly think we can or will add $70 million in just one offseason?

Then lose him and have no 2B? They would have to spend another $40-50 million in FA to put a legit full charge at the playoffs or it would just set us back again into 2021. Even if they wanted to spend it (additionally) on Wheeler and Grandal, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen. There’s pretty much zero chance he signs at extension before hitting FA.

They do that, Boston resigns Betts and this becomes the biggest gamble of Hahn’s career if Price continues to be just a 2 fWAR pitcher at age 34-35-36. With Benintendi, we’d hardly be getting any money back from Boston, maybe $12-15 million out of $94. That alone would add $35 million to the payroll. Wouldn't it be better to just pay Cole or Betts that money directly...because Benintendi really needs to be a 3-4 fWAR player for it to really make the type of difference they need. At 1.5-2.0 fWAR, it becomes a lot more questionable because you’ve just blown through 70% of your offseason budget for additions...maybe even 80-85%.

Castellanos won’t get more than 3/4 years. Five or six, the White Sox will be out, at any rate.

Price is 34 and has only been worth 6.2 fWAR the last three seasons...hasn’t been over 4 since 2016. $94 million for three years would be the biggest contract in Sox history...by about $25 million. If the Red Sox gave the White Sox $47 million back, how many would still want him for 3 years, at roughly $16 million per season? Giving the Sox Benintendi to get Price off the books would add another player who’s getting more expensive...pushing Jimenez to RF or DH?

That’s fine if they’re going to sign another low risk veteran outfielder who can play all three positions...running the likes of Cordell, Skole, Delmonico, Engel and Palka out there must come to an end.

Cole for $280-300 million (in his early 30's and with a lot of recent high-stress mileage on his arm) vs. Betts (at age 28, beginning 2021 season) for $350 million is really a fascinating debate from an ideal roster construction standpoint.

Except we didn't pay top of the market FA dollars for Contreras and Garcia when a previous #1 farm system collapsed in terms of injuries/non-performance. That's where not having the equivalent of Olivo Morse and Reed to deal in the system of today is really hamstringing our available starting options on the trade market.

In the end, the volatility of paying top FA dollars to pitching has to move the pendulum over to the $300+ million deals going to position players. Even Wheeler, a "$70-80 million value," has been conjectured to be flying well into the low $100's because of supply and demand issues. You simply HAVE TO develop your own pitchers internally, unless you're one of the Top 3-5 payroll teams and can go out like the Cubs did and preemptively strike for a Lester. We did the same thing in 2004 for Contreras and Garcia, not knowing how good Jose was going to turn out for the last two months of 2005 and first two months of 2006. Kopech and/or Cease need to reach TOR status, to go along with Giolito and Lopez....at least 3 of those guys, at a minimum.. Look what happened with Rodon, Fulmer, Alec Hansen, for example, Spencer Adams, almost every Round 1-3 pick in the pitching area over the last half-decade. (Hopefully Stiever/Thompson can make the leap.) Or go back to 1998-2001 and look at how many of those top pitching prospects (in the #1-ranked BA group) actually turned out to have good/successful careers...Buehrle, Garland, Wells and Fogg with the Pirates, that was pretty much it out of a pitching depth chart of prospects that went TEN deep.

Interestingly, Puig, Avi, EE and Gardner are all ranked as having approximately the same amount of value on the FA market. Take it for what it's worth.

You're going to move Eloy to DH or play him in RF? Usually, trading for more expensive players and sacrificing some of our better/best prospects hasn't worked out well in the past...and it invariably leads to payroll issues. In reality, they should let Benintendi try to recover some of his value and move Betts and attempt to compete on the fly by acquiring a (relative) haul for Betts (although that return will be depressed by the one year nature of the move.)

Obviously... cumulatively, across those three players. 5~6 legitimately interested parties per player. Wheeler could easily be 6-8 alone, if not higher. Or you disagree?