caulfield12

Not to mention Kikuchi 3/$63 to the Angels. Rwo lefties off market and Fried next to go. Supply and demand.

That's why you will get DeLoach Fletcher Julks Veras and god knows who in CF if they are able to trade Robert.

That's why you will get DeLoach Fletcher Julks Veras and god knows who in CF if they are able to trade Robert and/or Benintendi. Those are the only remaining "bigger" contracts.

Nishida

A team like SD where he's eminently affordable and would fit in LF/1B/DH to replace the mix of Profar/Solano/Peralta, essentially.

Not quite the correct usage but the history teacher in our school was just using it in class so I decided to incorporate a new word of the week. Snell would drive Greg crazy with 4-5 inning 100+ pitch count outings. Great personality/interview, good kid but wouldn't be the best mentor for Smith and Schultz compared to a Buehrle/Sale fast and efficient approach to pitching. Every 4-5 seasons, you get a Cy Young quality performance out of him as well.

But the Dodgers took that similar chance with Glasnow, even though everyone was well aware of the attendant risks. A decent discount is already automatically implied for any acquiring team, or they'll be stuck with him for at least half of 2025, if not longer.

Free-agent left-hander Blake Snell and the Los Angeles Dodgers have agreed to a five-year, $182 million contract, sources told ESPN on Tuesday night. The deal, which is pending a physical, includes no opt-outs, some deferred money and a $52 million signing bonus, sources said. The $182 million contract is the third largest for a left-handed pitcher in major league history based on total value, behind only David Price's with the Boston Red Sox in 2015 ($217 million) and Clayton Kershaw's with the Dodgers in 2014 ($215M). And for the Dodgers, it's another massive deal for a free agent. They've now handed out five contracts worth at least $100 million since the start of the 2023-24 offseason -- the same number as the rest of MLB combined (and five significantly bigger than the Benintendi and Grandal deals, haha). https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/42634448/sources-dodgers-reach-deal-free-agent-blake-snell

Since the alternative seems to be Amaya for now, hard to argue that, but sad nonetheless.

Merkin is projecting him as the 2025 Opening Day Sox CFer, fwiw...

Notably, Chicago and Oakland both have net "negative" scores from an MLB revenue sharing standpoint...Chicago 5th at +120 and Oakland at +111. But Oakland had a "special cause" added into it to protect them due to their unique circumstances.

"As of recent agreements, each Major League Baseball (MLB) team receives an estimated annual payment of about **$100 million** from national broadcasting deals with MLB Network and Fox Sports. This payment comes from a combination of the national television rights fees that MLB negotiates with these networks, which are then distributed to the teams as part of their shared revenue model. The exact amount can vary based on the terms of the broadcasting contracts and any subsequent negotiations." So it's about $200 million just pooling the two together...not including game revenues as well as local media rights packages. So the White Sox reporting a figure of under $300 million in revenues when they likely had $60 million still in 2023/24 for their RSN deal just doesn't make sense if you add in all the ticket sales, parking, concessions, corporate sponsorships/advertising as well as souvenir sales in-stadium. Of course, that's the Pirates' example, as someone noted in the thread. Of, course that $87 million profit was from 2017-18, when they were running one of the lowest payrolls in the game and attendance was "relatively" better as well as their RSN deal.

Better the devil you know in Robert than the devil our rapidly disappearing scouts are pointing to…with another organization, like a Lux or Bohm. You’re far likelier to end up exchanging a queen for a rook bishop or knight here. Or just throw in the towel that Robert’s “cursed” just like Anderson, Jimenez and Moncada. Except he’s 27 and one year removed from 12th in AL MVP voting…just like Cease was one year removed from second in the Cy, yet much more durable overall. You’re not even getting anything close to the Cease deal at this point.

Why do they want Bohm to rent for just two years again? Just to turn around and try to flip him? They (Phillies) could look to shake things up this offseason by trading Alec Bohm. Bohm is "on the trade block," according to ESPN's Jeff Passan, and could be dealt to add a superstar (yeah, sure!). USA Today's Bob Nightengale noted that if the Phillies trade him, they could sign Astros star Alex Bregman to replace him. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/philadelphia-phillies/news/phillies-could-dump-alec-bohm-and-sign-alex-bregman-replace-him-astros-mlb-news/aa30cf2dac8416858a4e7aaf

“Of course, if Robert is healthy and playing well, $20 million isn’t a negative. He has not really been either of those things this season, but in the four years before that, he slugged .500 and posted a 125 OPS+, and he doesn’t give away runs with his glove. He’s someone who would be absolutely worth the risk for another team to acquire, and the White Sox might even get someone interesting back for it. Of course, he’ll also be just 27 next year, so he’s the player you’d most want to keep if you were actually interested in rebuilding in a timely fashion while giving the fans you do still have something to watch that wasn’t outright embarrassing.” https://www.marcnormandin.com/2024/09/16/white-sox-to-cut-payroll-in-2025-after-substantial-losses/

“They weren’t exactly killing it in attendance in 2023, a season in which they lost 101 games, but they’re averaging 17,959 fans per game through 74 games, compared to last year’s 21,405, compared to 2022’s 24,704. While 2021’s attendance per game was lower, owing to COVID restrictions coming off of 2020’s fan-less, shortened season, Chicago ranked 14th in the majors in attendance per game and 13th overall, alongside franchises like the Red Sox, Mets, and Phillies. They’ve fallen all the way to 27th now, because they’re horrific in a way most of the people who could buy tickets have never even seen before. At least the ‘62 Mets had the expansion excuse. The White Sox are this way practically on purpose. ….. The White Sox were a bad team that fans lost interest in, that became a much worse team because of cutting payroll and poor transaction decisions on top of the existing bad things getting worse for them. The 2025 White Sox might be better if for no other reason than it’s difficult to imagine anyone repeating a season this bad, but they might not actually be better, or good, if so. Cutting payroll further, which in some cases not only removes the existing decent players and their upside from the team but also limits how much can be invested in their replacements, isn’t going to solve anything besides making the team unwatchable once more. Which certainly won’t fix these supposed catastrophic revenue drops. Maybe fielding a team that isn’t a punching bag for the rest of the league would help, but why would a notably cheap, corner-cutting owner like Jerry Reinsdorf want to try to do something like that when he could instead not?” https://www.marcnormandin.com/2024/09/16/white-sox-to-cut-payroll-in-2025-after-substantial-losses/

“So, the Pirates received around $100 million in revenue-sharing funds for 2023, but our payroll was only about $75.7 million—among the lowest in the league. This raises some serious questions: Where did the remaining $24 million go? Revenue-sharing funds are supposed to be used to improve the team’s competitiveness, not just padding the owner's pockets. While MLB does monitor how these funds are used, the lack of transparency makes it hard to know if the Pirates are truly reinvesting in the team. It's frustrating as a fan to see our payroll so low when we’re getting this much in revenue sharing. Are we really putting that extra money into player development, scouting, or other areas that could help us win, or is it being underutilized? MLB could investigate if there are suspicions of misuse, but these things are often handled internally, and the details might not even come to light. What do you all think? Are the Pirates doing enough to stay competitive, or are we just spinning our wheels while the ownership profits?” The incredible thing here is generating even less revenue (supposedly) than the Pirates, Rays, Royals, Marlins, Guardians and Reds. Miami drew roughly 4,500 less fans per game but still generated more revenue despite Sox totally controlling all their own parking fees??? https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/01/each-teams-local-broadcasting-arrangement.html Last year the broadcasting revenues were reported, which was 2022, White Sox at $60 million and Marlins $49 million. And the Marlins somehow are generating enough viewing interest to get a renegotiated media rights deal with Diamond Sports Group even. https://www.mlb.com/press-release/press-release-diamond-sports-group-and-miami-marlins-reach-multi-year-renewal-of-local-television-and-digital-rights-agreement

Robert basically has to be a 3 fWAR player for that to pay off...at $20 million...but I have a feeling that JR wouldn't see ENOUGH value, because that's being sunk on another 100 loss team with Bottom 5 attendance and local broadcasting advertising revenues or individual team or package subscriptions. So he really needs to be the 4 but much more likely 5/6 fWAR version of 2023 to return to his perceived status of being a "premium" player again...but the odds of that actually happening (being both productive and 100% healthy) are what, 25%? 50/50?

Unless they would rather save the money on Benintendi/Robert vs. the possibility of getting anything resembling career "norm" fWAR/bWAR results and being able to get better prospect trade returns vs. the very real and equal possibility of getting nothing back in return but even more squandered payroll. Risk/reward...opportunity cost...risk tolerance/mitigation, whatever term Hahn used to use that fits here.

Gives me little hope we'd ever sign a young player to an early extension again...let alone a position player here, unless he's not Latin American? So no pitcher extensions...they might go the way of Danks, and no risk taking with position players either. What the hell is that vision for success when it seems predicted more on fear of failure than anything else? So just waste the money one Vaughn Lux Bohm at a time...then start over every 2-3 years with another rebuild/retooling? Madness.

No leverage...terrible trade, you're just running a yard sale to dump potential future salary hits to payroll in an attempt to strip the roster down to the bones. Then getting guys like a Bohm or Lucy back in return? Why? Bohm plays third...and that's Montgomery's likeliest landing spot and one that Ramos plays as well. So just add cheaper vets that we may or may not be able to flip and or watch them go into FA with no return if you put them on a 100 loss team as happened almost all of the so called studs on the roster like Jimenez Moncada and Anderson? Benintendi also couldn't handle playing on a historically terrible team until his pride finally kicked in the last 2-3 months of 2024. Why would guys like Lux and Bohm suddenly excel on the Sox, untethered from their previous WS-contending teams?

BamTech? https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/each-owner-will-get-at-least-50-million-in-early-2018-from-he-sale-of-bamtech

Australian pseudo Olympians?

Who else on the Sox carries the type of value to eat $50 million for…? Schultz Smith or Montgomery are the only other names that are halfway plausible.

Hindsight is always 20/20...just good enough to lose every game. Difficult to shed that that "what's possibly going to go wrong now" mentality.