caulfield12

Braves=too good, roster and payroll crunches White Sox=too bad, needed bad players who were excess baggage on Braves on Sox major league roster to cover for even worse in minors that clearly weren't ready (except Romy Gonzalez apparently)

JR won't give an extension to a pitcher with one TJ in his history who throws in the upper 90s....might as well wish for Jason Benetti to return to the Sox under new ownership at some Indeterminate point in the future.

If they don't get a great offer...every start is one step closer to getting nothing back in return if he gets hurt again. That's the talking time bomb that can't explode while the ball is in Getz's court.

Now if we could only have even 50% of the Orioles' young hitting talent...

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/10/31/chris-holt-leaves-role-as-orioles-pitching-director-forrest-herrmann-promoted/ Forrest Herrmann pitched collegiately at two schools. As a freshman he pitched at Southwestern Illinois College, splitting time between the bullpen and the rotation. He then pitched at the University of Evansville from 2013-2016, appearing in 27 games out of the bullpen. Herrmann earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and management. After college Herrmann worked at Premier Pitching Performance from 2016-2018. The Seattle Mariners hired him in 2019 to be one of their pitching strategists. The mission of the strategists was to do everything from analyzing technical and bio-mechanical data to help further develop players at all levels of the Mariners' organization and to use that information to discover unique traits to target in players from outside the organization. The skills he acquired in these roles appealed to the Cincinnati Reds and they hired Herrmann in 2020 to serve as the pitching coach of the Billings Mustangs. Unfortunately, COVID-19 interfered with this plan as the minor league season was cancelled. In 2021 Herrmann was appointed pitching coach for the Daytona Tortugas. Herrmann moved to the Baltimore Orioles' organization as pitching coach of the Aberdeen IronBirds in 2022 and Bowie Baysox in 2023. After the latter season he worked as a pitching coach for the Mesa Solar Sox in the Arizona Fall League. The Orioles named Herrmann their Minor League Lower-Level Pitching Coordinator in 2024. https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Forrest_Herrmann

Cue Eloy "Hi, mom!" GIF. Jimenez headed back to the Southside to be fixed up.

If we acquired all five of those Braves' guys just ASSUMING THEIR EXISTING CONTRACTS (or any combination)...it would have been TERRIBLE, just from a cost/fWAR perspective. The only thing JR did was saved himself the money remaining on Bummer's contract. Yay....winning. Then we turned around and wasted all those savings on terrible FA's...other than Fedde. Then we managed to screw up the positive asset we had in Fedde, even.

If the White Sox had a decent farm system at the upper levels (who was responsible for that???)...they wouldn't have needed to take the Braves' oveepriced mostly garbage, especially Lopez and Shewmake.

His main asset on the baseball field was speed/quickness on the basepaths…didn’t use his frame/leverage to hit for any power.

Then they better not keep Vaughn or Sheets because neither one of those guys came close to putting up Burger's numbers of homers RBIs or OPS. He finished almost 75 ops points ahead of all the hitters who ended the season with the Sox. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/jake-burger/22275/stats?position=3B 1.4 fWAR in 137 games...and wasn't healthy the first 6 weeks playing through an oblique...gives you much closer to a 2 than a 0 when projected over 162. And still much more cost effective than Jimenez or Vaughn. It's one of any reasons the Sox have gone from 12th to 30th in fWAR in the last 2-3 years. If you trade Kopech Fedde Burger for Eder Vargas and two limited tools middle infielders...you tend to get worse.

Compare to Pettite pre-steroids...who earned so much of his reputation in the post-season. I would put Cole ahead of him, but obviously he needs to go for another five years at least.

Soto definitely on track. Probably Gerritt Cole as well. Yordan Alvarez if he keeps it up. JR Martinez Correa Bregman come up short.

Betts Freeman Kershaw Ohtani from Dodgers alone.

Sounds like either an accounting firm or a golf equipment manufacturer...

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/42195046/gerrit-cole-yankees-stay-together-original-deal Cole and Yankees extend pact...by one year.

The Orioles are responsible for both Jimenez buyouts of $3 million? Or there's just one...voiding 2026? What about Liam Hendriks? Hendriks is owed a $15 million buyout that will be paid in 10 equal installments from 2024-33 After his option for the upcoming season was declined, Jimenez is due a $3 million buyout, which the Orioles and the White Sox will split. https://clutchpoints.com/orioles-news-decision-eloy-jimenez-future Then you have the Sox eating at least one more year on Grifol's deal...basically between these three another $4 million wasted, roughly.

Well, if Fedde for $15 million over two years is considered expensive...it's going to be Flexen and Rea types. Better just go with all youth unless there's just no other legitimate or feasible choice.

Wacha was looking at 2/$44 million if he went to the market...so guessing very quickly him and Cole are off the FA board. Probably more than the White Sox will spend in total these next two off seasons.

Some of the original fans of that Burger/Eder trade (few are left defending it at this point) are going to still be talking about his potential all winter long. Because what else is there left to argue? You certainly can't cite his statistics, credibly.

But just think if they actually make the playoffs eventually...? (Everyone's already expecting you to be the worst team in baseball for the next year or two, and you're not adding significantly via Free Agency...) All the credit will likely go to that manager and GM, so you essentially have nothing to lose (except for time, opportunity cost) and the Marlins job is far from a sure thing with the Braves and Phillies in that division, and even Washington on the rise now. Assuming Venable couldn't get any assurances in Texas that he was going to eventually take over for Bruce Bochy, and when that handover was actually going to take place...a World Series team (well, one year removed) is just as likely to go after a more experienced Skip Schumaker, Buck Showalter, Fredi Gonzalez, etc.

Venable is basically guaranteed a 3-5 year run as manager...because the next person fans will blame is the GM or owner when the personnel level is so bad. It would almost be impossible to equal the ineptitude of Grifol...and nobody expect the team to approach .500 until 2027 at the earliest. No Adam Dunn FA signings to excite or motivate the fanbase to have unrealistic expectations either. So multiply $750-900k per year over that time frame...it starts to make a lot more sense than Miami. Look at the career longevity of the majority of their front office and managers in the last 10-15 years.

A bit reminiscent of the Braves' and Nationals' scandals...at least this was stopped before money changed hands. JR was right...haha...don't sign underage LA kids!

https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-reportedly-finds-dominican-prospect-with-4-million-padres-deal-is-19-years-old-not-14-022945322.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/11/02/report-prospect-linked-to-padres-caught-falsifying-age-documents/

Thought it would have political overtones this close to the election...