caulfield12

What is the Top Ten this year? Stroud there? Tua? Mahomes? Jackson? Allen? Purdy?

Miguel Cleto is still out there. Somewhere in the world.

Dodgers Ohtani/Yamamoto Show will be #2 except for Memorial Labor Day July 4th and whatever sponsorship giveaways they can scrounge up somehow...

The White Sox odds of identifying Cole Ragans as the prospect coming back?

The Rays discovered Phillips was non-viable as an everyday starter something like 7-8 years ago...

We will see with Joyce, right? If his results coming out of Tenn are any different?

That all makes sense...if they continue to WANT to be a feeder team for the O's and the rest of MLB (fwiw, Pirates will start ascending now as well with their farm suddenly alive)...when they probably are in a position to out compete with them in terms of financial resources. ADD ADD ADD. Plus NYM are down. Basically have to worry about the Braves and Phillies, which is no small mountain to overcome but last year was at least forward progress for them.

Not even the White Sox are going to be that tone deaf as to start someone like this in RF. Or Sheets. Or Getz will already start out the year with the dogs baying at his heels....and sacrificing Grifol alone will hardly quell the discontent swirling in the fanbase.

The barbarian hordes are back at the gates if Cease goes into the regular season as OD starter and somehow manages to get hurt. 100% feels like we are are relying on starting pitchers going down on expected/predicted playoff teams to get a deal done now.

Who is Miami willing to trade other than Luzardo? Eury Perez and Alcantara have to be off limits for quite obvious reasons...

Corbin Burnes came in with a lower arbitration number than some were expecting. So he's a lot more attractive at $16 million than let's say $25ish million. To the Brewers attempting to compete OR potentially acquiring teams. Then you have Bieber as well, depending on his health in spring and Guardians' RSN deal/resolution.

No way he's under the $11 million mark, which is what he would have gotten to stay in Chicago, correct? Heck just look at Montas and Severino. He might be closer to $15-17/18 million, even.

You want to have that jag-off around one of the youngest teams in baseball? Read up on what happened to him in CLEVE with Francona, and he was run out of SD as well because he was never reliable from a health standpoint and they traded a boatload of talent to get him from the Indians. Start researching Puig/Tatis Jr./Bauer and you'll see Clevinger connected to all the same individuals in that "groupies" list who took down/took out Trevor Bauer.

Health record is atrocious since second major injury....bad mechanics, bad PR and he wets the bed in a high-pressure games, like the 2022 playoffs (one especially disastrous starts against Phillies in the NLCS). Padres gave up on Clevinger and Manaea that year.

Almost as big a question about Cortes....let's not forget how solid King was for them down the stretch, and he's now in the SD rotation.

Other than Kopech and health Santos....on the 2024 MLB roster, who else do the White Sox have projected that another team would actually WANT (Robert and Cease assumed, obviously)? Maybe maybe maybe a LHR will emerge at some point. Maybe Crochet and just limited to relief work...no other team at this point would be trying to stretch him out as a starter with his remaining years of control.

I remember many skeptics about the Quintana return when he was flirting with a mid 4's ERA for most of his trade season and only his FIP looked fairly decent. But that track record and left-handedness and durability. Cease misses bat and not starts, that's incredibly incredibly valuable to any playoff contender, until he gets hurt. Interestingly, the one area of commonality with both Snell and Cease is the amount of pitches they throw and their total number of innings averaged per start, usually out in the 5th and pulled before the end of the 6th.

Yeah, Stroman in NY is a no-go.....even worse than Snell in NY. And obviously Montgomery wants NOTHING to do with the Yankees, and 85-90% ends up back in Texas if the money is remotely competitive.

The more you try to figure out how to complete these trades for Cease, and ONLY names I can think of that might have any value to other teams right now are a 100% healthy Santos and Kopech, just because there's always a pitching coach out there who believes he can be "fixed" with all of his so-called untapped potential. And that his psychological side of pitching will take care of the physical/mechanics/control issues. Not unlike someone like Manoah with the Blue Jays, although I wouldn't really want either if I was a playoff contender unless I was the Dodgers or Braves and had very little to lose trying them out because both teams should cruise to division wins without much effort.

Then the Blue Jays are going to have one last gasp before their window with Guerrero closes as well...lots to consider. Replacing an entire outfield is pretty much the exact same challenge the White Sox have/face when they trade Robert. It's easy to project the infield (Henderson, Holliday, Westburg, Rutschman/Basallo, 1B let's say Mayo or Kjerstad...the best of those two in terms of outfield defense shifting likely to RF because of arm respective strength/s, maybe even Basallo like Melendez's shift for the Royals and Kjerstad in LF with a rotating DH. You could stick Kjerstad in LF, but that's setting you up for some lousy defense and then CF is obviously the hardest position to fill and they're unlikely to be in a position to gamble on Mullins the second half of his career at the going FA/extension rates. (Also will end up dumping O'Hearn and Mountcastle for younger players.) Then you have questions with 3/5ths of your starting rotation, health and the bullpen enigma that will certainly pop up for Baltimore just like it did the Phillies in the playoffs. Very little serious starting pitching depth, which is the kiss of death for most mid market teams when 1-2 key guys go down and there are no quality replacements. They might even be worried about Cease having a second TJ with his velocity and slider reliance, and then the 1.5 MPH decline in FB velocity or whatever it is. Maybe if Dylan's velo pops back in ST with all the trade rumors swirling around him and as a competitor being desperate for a trade, but that also puts him at additional risk of getting injured coming out of the dead arm period and trying to show off for the scouts in late February and early March.

If you look at the Teoscar deal...the Ms and Jays were in a similar position to where Baltimore is heading with three of their veterans. Nice asset to have in Santander but perhaps not at that price point. Especially the O's with their limited payroll flexibility, betting on each stud prospect hitting the ground running and cheaply replacing the veterans.

Was he also a Skull at Yale lol? And aren't you so excited MLB.com article already predicted three WS appearances over the next six years for Balt?

Somehow I doubt Boras is panicking, holding Snell Montgomery Cease Robert...Stroman too? He already knows neither of the Sox players will even get legitimate extension offers, so anywhere that those guys will get more national games and playoff exposure now works for him.

Did Balta or ChatGPT write this?

A certain someone will get himself fired right out of the gate if he botches both Getz and Robert. Of course, JR will double down out of stubborness to prove he was right all along and that Getzie will someday win AL Executive of the Year like Hahn.