caulfield12

Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register talked to Kopech Monday, and when brining up the possibility of opening the season on the injured list, the right-hander said, “More than likely. I don’t really know. Things could happen quickly and I could be ready for our home opener. I’m not really sure, though, so it’s hard for me to say that definitively and be sure about it.” Kopech likely to start season on DL https://www.truebluela.com/2025/2/19/24366076/dodgers-payroll-2025-competitive-balance-tax Dodgers will be over $500 million payroll including CBT payment/fine to the league...or roughly 10x White Sox eventually payroll after Robert subtracted.

https://www.truebluela.com/2025/2/19/24368696/yoshinobu-yamamoto-dodgers-start-spring-training-opener Opening Day in Glendale Yamamoto vs. Poteet (Dodgers vs. Cubs) 2 pm Central Time only game in MLB today cheapest price to get in on secondary market $37.00 Eddie Rosario and Giovanny Gallegos two more notable names to follow with LAD this spring...

Both are 30 something left-fielders that should probably be DH's. Benintendi one year younger. Both owed about the same amount of $$$ and years on their remaining contracts, $49.3 million for Andrew and $54 million for Yoshida. I'm guessing Boston would prefer to have Andrew at this point (past history alone, more motivation to compete for playoffs, back home in AL East) and they have been pretty disappointed with Yoshida overall so far, especially from a defensive standpoint. Would you trade them if the Red Sox included $2.5 million (or a prospect/sweetener) to balance out the contracts? My only reasoning (change of scenery trade here) is that Benintendi would clearly be happier (at least from an outsider's viewpoint) to move on from Chicago and his Hahn contract...back to Boston, where he's still fondly remembered (and leaving behind a 120+ loss team and being the veteran face of that disappointment). For Getz, it would be another way he could move on officially from the Hahn Era and forge his own line-up. And, it MIGHT be a way for the Sox to get a foot/toe-hold into the burgeoning Japanese market for players... And, it would be more exciting for Sox fans to watch almost anyone in the world besides Andrew Benintendi (granted, he had a very strong second half last year, and might even be their best hitter when/if Luis Robert, Jr. is traded). Then I would also bring in Tadahito Iguchi to the White Sox coaching staff. and bring in/recruit via FA the following players: Tomoya Mori C/OF (turning 30 this season, reportedly the best catcher in Japan, also an outfielder and can theoretically DH and play 1B, often compared to JP Realmuto...yes, we already have Quero and Teel, although depth is always a POSITIVE and could be traded for another position player the Sox value more) when he's old enough, LHP Yuma Miyagi (will be 23, turning 24 at the end of this season, ALL THE LEFTIES, the next Imanaga???) potentially 1B Yuma Tongu, who's 28 (turning 29 at end of season) and plays basically every infield position but SS, and can also catch as well ANYONE else that Iguchi can successfully recruit (and convince JR to shell out the money for) that fits the Sox roster. With the Cuban Connection Niche long gone (and with Marco Paddy finally out the door)...and the White Sox seemingly unwilling to extend any young player (especially pitchers) into the first or second season of free agency. what other options do the Sox have other than starting to look more internationally???

It's a mess, and it's why I didn't think Bregman was a good fit for the Red Sox. Here's a potential 2025 plan: Alex Bregman at 3B Trevor Story at SS Kristian Campbell at 2B Triston Casas at 1B Rafael Devers at DH Masataka Yoshida traded or in a part-time role I think there's a fair chance Bregman misses 20 or so games due to injury. Third base would well-covered in that case with Devers, perhaps Campbell in a pinch, and maybe Marcelo Mayer when he's ready. Story is 32 and hasn't topped 94 games in a season since 2021, so the Red Sox may need to cover 40+ games at shortstop. He could be backed up by Mayer, Campbell, or even Bregman. www.mlbtraderumors.com

Depends if the competitive (or comparative) advantage you have over the majority of teams in your sport is perceived as "fair" or not? (Obviously the Dodgers, for example, are paying all the competitive balance taxes they're required to according to the rules governing the sport agreed upon during the last labor negotiations...which are then redistributed to the so-called revenue sharing teams from mid and small markets.) This isn't Wal-Mart or Costco vs. mom and pop grocery stores, it's an institution protected by the antitrust exemption granted and enforced by the US Congress.

Yeah... it wasn't so bad, another summer I cornered the market on Benito Santiago rookie cards and dumped them after his long hitting streak. Experiences/memories >>> money

By my count, 7 of the most currently popular teams in baseball (or at least playoff-caliber) are near the bottom 10 of games with the least available Statcast games...wonder why that is?

Because I tend to look at everything through (first) a stock market/investing lens, and secondarily, societal/sports/White Sox, etc. I've already learned a HARD lesson here investing in Alibaba (sold 200 Berkshire Hathaway B shares, brilliant) and bought (BABA) when it was down from $340 into the $230's/$240's, Baidu, JD, Ten Cent, etc. Sold it this past summer at around $105-110, so that was not one of my best investing moments. Obviously both China and the US are investing billions into this emerging industry, you have Apple (dramatically struggling now over here now, just like Tesla), Meta/FB, Google/Alphabet, Huawei, all the big players involved in both countries....OpenAI potentially for sale (to Musk for around $100 billion?), the overhanging TikTok resolution that's supposed to come in the next 45-50 days or so. To be honest, I decided it was much better to shield myself from individual stock volatility and dumb "gut decisions" and just keep most money across an array of mutual funds...basically sold all the individual stocks. My dad used to be a big believer in gold as a hedge, but I personally prefer autograph collecting (mostly presidents/celebrities) and have another $50-75,000 worth of baseball cards from the 1950's through the early 90's...and then started getting interested again recently, tried to corner the market on O'Neil Cruz rookie cards, lol. I bought a bunch of Ohtani, Sasaki and Murakama cards directly from Japan, as well. Worst/dumbest baseball card mistake was selling a mint 1968 Nolan Ryan rookie card in the early 90's so I could spend the summer traveling and playing baseball instead of working, lol. The pride of my collection is 2 PSA certified Roberto Clemente autographs and most of his cards from the 50's and 60's, including his rookie card in VG condition. Sold my 1949 Brooklyn Dodgers' autographed ball as well because nowhere to store my stuff in US anymore.

If you buy some of the claims of DeepSeek (they are alleged) to have run their models off of OpenAI/ChatGPT....then the energy usage, water/electricity consumption and need for high end chips (Nvidia) just fell by a factor of 75-90%. That will make the analytical models developed by the Cardinals/Astros over a decade ago look like child's play. Is commercial real estate even viable anymore, long-term? I guess you're referring more to the "ballpark cities" trend of construction around newly-constructed sports stadiums, with the inclusion of retail, condos, restaurants, entertainment zones, bars/clubs/pubs and casinos.

Even John Danks' career falling apart has been used by the organization as justification for no long-term deals....long-term being considered 3 years for Sox pitchers. That was a decade ago.

Except suburbia is 75-80% Cubs' fans to the north and west...

https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-26-and-under-power-rankings-nos-25-21-giants-angels-rangers-hoping-their-young-cores-step-forward-in-2025-163136655.html Numbers 25-21...no more AL Central teams yet.

"Beginning with a four-inning long relief showing at Yankee Stadium, Soroka punched out seven batters. He went on to fan 15 in 9 1/3 frames over his first three relief outings. From May 18 through season’s end, Soroka pitched to a 2.75 ERA and struck out a gargantuan 39% of his opponents. That includes a two-month absence due to a shoulder strain, but Soroka returned in late September averaging an improved 94.5 mph on his heater and closed out the season with 7 1/3 shutout innings and a 13-to-2 K/BB ratio. His overall command was an issue, as Soroka walked 13% of opponents even after his move to relief." https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/11/2024-25-top-50-mlb-free-agents-with-predictions.html Soroka another guy who actually improved last year and was rewarded with a $9 million deal.

Didn't realize that about Smith. Well...Cole Ragans is the test case here. Two TJS's in his past and one of the best pitchers in baseball last year. Usually the second was a death sentence for starters and led to no more than 3-5 final years pitching (more often in relief). Ohtani will be another. He's already changed his delivery to be smoother and exert less pressure on the elbow. And of course we went through it with Rodon (multiple injuries) and Kopech. Dylan Cease, otoh, has pitched with incredible stamina/durability since his TJS very early on. Giolito now with his second major injury. Reynaldo Lopez has been pretty resilient too with how hard he throws...although he was nicked up a bit last year if I recall with ATL. Danks was a shoulder injury...that's still the hardest to overcome.

No way...the agents will advise them to wait for FA once they make it to arbitration since the White Sox will likely expect hometown discounts again. The only way is if the team's at least halfway competitive again.

Until further notice or JR's demise...we are the defacto farm or feeder team for the rest of baseball. Used to be the Pirates or Marlins.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/02/astros-brendan-rodgers-agree-to-one-year-deal.html This is the guy I wanted over Rojas to man SS before Colson... "The right-handed hitter has turned in a .266/.316/.409 slash line in more than 1800 career plate appearances. He put up virtually identical numbers last year, posting a .267/.314/.407 mark across 539 trips to the dish. Rodgers hit 13 home runs with middling strikeout and walk rates. He hit the ball on the ground at a career-high 56.1% rate. Among hitters with 500+ plate appearances, no one hit the ball on the ground more often." Fuller could have fixed him...haha.

He was technically the best hitter on the White Sox last year...at the very least, he had the highest fWAR, which, once again...isn't saying all that much. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/paul-dejong/18015/stats?position=SS For the full year, he was at 1.7 fWAR. Pretty sure Luis Robert at 0.5 was the second highest on the team. Maybe Pham? https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&team=4&qual=300 DeJong was actually 1.0 (just with the Sox until the trade deadline, not overall) and Nicky Lopez 0.9 due to his defensive position. Pham 0.2 and Lenyn Sosa 0.1 fwar, fwiw. And that was pretty much it for positive contributors.

“It always seems like ballplayers are more expensive than you think,” the owner told reporters (including Newsday’s Tim Healey and Jorge Castillo of ESPN). “Listen, I have the ability to spend if I have to. I want to win. And I want to put the best team I can on the field. But free agency is expensive. … Even this year, I had a thought of where I wanted to be, and I’ve already blown through it. And I really wanted to be there. And just circumstances created, ’all right, I have to adapt my thinking.'” Landing Soto required an eye-popping $51MM average annual value that handily shattered previous precedent. They successfully waited out Alonso’s market to avoid a long-term commitment, getting him on a two-year deal with an opt-out after the first season. That comes with a lofty $27MM AAV and a $30MM figure for the upcoming season, so it’s still a huge investment in 2025. Manaea landed three years and $75MM (albeit with deferrals), while Frankie Montas, Clay Holmes and A.J. Minter all secured multi-year contracts with eight-figure salaries. RosterResource projects New York’s raw payroll around $331MM. Their competitive balance tax estimate is slightly lower at $325MM. Those seem to be within the ballpark, as Cohen told reporters that he expects to finish the season with a payroll in the $340MM range after accounting for in-season pickups (i.e. waiver claims and trade deadline acquisitions). By Anthony Franco | February 18, 2025 at 8:03pm CDT mlbtraderumors.com Just put this here because we don't have a "potential 2027 lockout" thread...kind of a catch-all for MLB's various financial issues. They're (Mets) apparently not interested in bringing back Jose Quintana, even though he (supposedly) would like to return.

Fine, how confident are you that Schultz, Smith and Taylor won't get hurt in the next 5-7 years? I suppose there's some study out there that PTAC has access to that we can put an actual number to it...if we can agree to an official date when "max velo" pitching actually started. Then in July of 2013 Will Carroll came out with an article stating that 33% of opening day Major League pitchers had undergone the surgery. I, however, found the study problematic, which I discussed in my previous article. In March of 2014, Jeff looked at players who threw a pitch 100MPH or harder and found that 25% of them had the surgery. And finally at this year’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Dr. Glenn Fleisig found that 16% of all pitchers had Tommy John, 15% of Minor Leaguers had Tommy John, and 25% of Major Leaguers fell under the knife. So how does this relate to velocity? Well in my previous article I found that 32% of pitchers who threw 95+ MPH on average had the surgery. If we are to believe Will Carroll’s findings then really there isn’t any significant risk of throwing harder. If we, however, choose to look Dr. Fleisig’s results then throwing harder does increase your chances of having Tommy John. https://community.fangraphs.com/velocity-and-the-likelihood-of-tommy-john-surgery/ That was almost a decade ago...so the numbers surely have increased from that isolated point in time.. "Since the introduction of pitch tracking in 2008, Major League fastball velocities -- and the velocities of other pitch types -- have climbed higher and higher. That increase in velocity has correlated with the increase in pitcher injuries over the same time period."Dec 17, 2024 But it's not just fastballs. Pitchers are now chasing "stuff" -- velocity, spin and movement -- on all their pitches, especially with all the tracking technology now available to them. Teams value pitches with higher stuff grades, so pitchers work to attain certain measurables, both during the year with their MLB team and often in the offseason with independent pitch development labs. That also might be increasing stress on pitchers' arms. "With all the modeling of pitches that goes on now, it’s very binary that higher velo with a better shape is going to yield more positive outcomes. It’s hard for guys to step off the gas because it’s me versus you, and if I’m going to give less than my best effort, and if you hit it over the fence, I’ll be kicking myself because I know I could’ve done more," said a pitching development executive from one MLB team. Pitchers throwing as hard as they can, or their nastiest breaking ball, with maximum effort every pitch is the combination that the experts surveyed agreed was the likeliest cause of arm injuries. That consensus will help MLB focus its research going forward. "If we interviewed 200 people, I was concerned that we'd get 200 different answers," Fleisig said. "The fact that there was agreement in this report -- that most people think the No. 1 issue is velocity -- is great. The survey does not prove what the issues are, but it shows us what people [in baseball] think the issues are. So it gives us a gameplan or roadmap for what we should try to solve." https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-releases-report-on-pitcher-injuries-2024 .

Mr. Beast has been taking ALMOST as much heat as Kevin Hart, which is pretty amazing in and of itself.

NBA Celebrity Game, Rising Stars, down Friday night Friday’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game averaged a 0.7 rating and 1.21 million viewers on ESPN, down 27% and 23% respectively from last year (0.9, 1.6M) and the least-watched edition of the event since at least 2007. It was still the most-watched sportscast of the night, topping a college basketball window on FOX (UCLA-Indiana: 1.14M). The Rising Stars Challenge followed with 912,000 on TNT and truTV, down 15% from last year’s 1.07 million, but up 3% from two years ago (888K). https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2025/02/unrivaled-1x1-ratings-most-watched-nba-all-star-friday-nascar-trucks/ The enthusiasm was validated by the game’s huge ratings: According to ESPN, the U.S.-Canada game averaged 4.4 million viewers on ABC, peaking at 5.2 million. It makes the matchup the most-viewed non-Stanley Cup Final hockey broadcast since 2019. https://frontofficesports.com/nhl-4-nations-face-off-steals-the-spotlight-from-nba-all-star-weekend/ “Real humans are watching NBA skills competition over USA vs Canada and I feel bad for them,” wrote one person on X. “I didn’t have Gary Bettman outshining Adam Silver on my bingo card this year,” wrote another.

The hunt for Caitlin Clark rookie cards has the newest release of WNBA trading cards selling for higher prices than the NBA equivalent for the first time. On Feb. 12, Panini, which currently holds the exclusive trading card licenses for both leagues, released its flagship 2024 Prizm set for the WNBA. Even though the league’s 2024 season is long over, hobby boxes are presently selling for an average of around $1,200 each across retailers, according to Waxstat, which tracks sports card retail prices. Panini’s 2024-25 NBA Prizm set will be released on Feb. 19 and the average presale price of a hobby box is currently around $800, according to Waxstat. WNBA and NBA Prizm hobby boxes each contain 12 packs with 12 cards in each pack and a guarantee of two autographed cards per box. Hobby boxes of 2023 WNBA Prizm carried a suggested retail price of $150, which means the price of the latest release marks a 700 percent increase. https://sports.yahoo.com/caitlin-clark-rookie-card-chase-213105532.html

Counterpoint: they had EVEN MORE in the 2017-2019 (plus Rodon) and 1998-2000 prospect cycles. It took the Contreras and Freddy Garcia moves in 2004 to put them over the top coming into the 2005 season. Odds are that at least 25-33% of pitching prospects will get injured, it's just an irrefutable fact in this age of super max velo.