caulfield12

If the price comes down under Edwin Diaz...$85-99 million.

Red Sox are looking to sell...so they can buy (see Mariners/Padres) Despite their reported interest in Imanaga, the Red Sox have also expressed interest in trading away either closer Kenley Jansen or outfielder/designated hitter Masataka Yoshida. Both players were signed by the Red Sox last offseason. This seems to be an anticipatory move by the Red Sox, who need to free up some cap space in order to sign free agent Teoscar Hernandez, who has been linked to Boston since the middle of December. Jansen, 36, still has some value. He was an All-Star in 2023, and although his 3.63 ERA was his highest since 2019, he still provided a solid season outside of rough months in May and September. Yoshida, on the other hand, is still owed a lot of money, and is coming off a season where he posted just 1.4 rWAR. Yoshida could obviously improve, but he was a horrendous fielder and not nearly good enough with the bat (109 OPS+) to warrant other teams spending considerable prospect capital. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/latest-mlb-rumors-imanaga-hernandez-225628143.html Seriously underestimated how bad Yoshida would be in LF in front of the Green Monster, as he was a really solid hitter for most of the season. Seem to remember his fWAR being much closer to 2 for majority of season, it was definitely better than Benintendi's if I'm remembering correctly. Not that this decision would have won the GM any awards or accolades, with Devers equally bad at 3B as well. Foolish Baseball @FoolishBB · Follow I can wrap my head around the Red Sox trading Yoshida. What I can’t wrap my head around is teams wanting to offer actual prospect value without Boston eating money. He could improve, and WAR isn’t everything, but what org is tripping over themselves to pay a 1 WAR DH $18mm/year?

Forgot about the Raiders' situation with O'Connell...unsettled at best and likely moving on. Penix would seem to be more interesting to Denver/Payton. Not sure about Nix or McCarthy.

Seems too obvious. Seattle is another unsettled position now with Geno Smith and the way the season ended up disappointingly to so many frustrated fans there. TB stabilized under Mayfield, who has certainly earned another year down there. Arizona decision process on Kyler Murray can end up going either way. Jets to spend 1 year as understudy to Matt Rodgers? Of course then Rodgers would want one more season if things went "pretty well" meaning a playoff appearance or at least .500 finish. Pats? Redskins? Saints? Can't move on from Carr for one more year without a huge cap hit.

The biggest surprise here is that we were only behind about 70% of the league, as opposed to 90-95%. It certainly feels as of today that it's only the A's, Rockies and Pirates, and two of those three at least have much nicer/newer stadiums (A's will have a totally new facility) and the other has some of the most strangely faithful and undemanding fans in baseball if you look at their overall franchise direction and lack of results/performance since 2007 on the field. But especially Kris Bryant and getting rid of Arenado, for example. Fan favorite Blackmon on his last legs. Bud Black a solid manager but hardly more than average/decent. Could have just as easily have imagined Jeff Passan doing a guest podcast performance with Rockies, PIrates or Mariners fans and saying almost the exact same things.

Was Haber really in a position to overrule Shirley/Hahn/KW??? From what we know about him, his idea of scouting was almost completely from a statistical/analytics standpoint and almost nothing about passing the so-called Grady Fuson "eye test" from Moneyball...you never heard about Haber getting out on the road and doing anything resembling scouting or talent evaluation in person.

Surely a lot of those guys like Votto are in the midst of weighing similar retirement decisions. Martinez, Turner, Belt, Solano, Santana, Vogelbach, Cron, etc., all getting up there in age. At best 1-2 seasons left for most of them. Like Carpenter/Cruz a year ago. Brantley has had so many injuries...and made a lot of money, all things considered. You can be sure he's one of those guys who is thinking mostly about quality of life in retirement and being able to enjoy being able to play with his kids from a physical standpoint. Will always remember Michael for his father and being a terrible thorn in the side of the White Sox as the quintessential professional hitter for the Indians/Guardians when he was in the prime of his career.

There's really no point to hold onto Eloy, unless it's purely for offensive (and defensive on those occasions when inserted) entertainment value/provide a bit of legit protection to Luis Robert and hope for a rebound season so they can shave some savings off his contract and get at least one Tier B/C prospect back.

Free agents: 1. Rhys Hoskins, 2. J.D. Martinez, 3. Jorge Soler, 4. Justin Turner, 5. Joc Pederson, 6. Brandon Belt, 7. Michael Brantley, 8. Donovan Solano, 9. Carlos Santana, 10. Daniel Vogelbach, 11. C.J. Cron, 12. Garrett Cooper, 13. Joey Votto (We can also list Bellinger here, although he's more valuable as an outfielder than a first baseman.) Dave Schoenfield/ESPN.com FA List

You mean JR style cost-cutting management where the goal is to finish in second ... except that historic franchise basically has no excuses for not basically printing money, with the main issue relatively smaller stadium capacity/luxury box revenue.

White Sox fans are quite familiar with what happened second half of 2006... Basically, the entire staff started to break down...but especially guys like Garcia, Contreras and pretty sure Buehrle as well. Quite memorably Jenks out of the pen started to have his struggles as well. Of course, that was "just" 2-3 additional starts during that playoff run, because they also had McCarthy helping out, too. El Duque out of the pen, etc.

The Padres' top two are the youngest catching prospect in the game in Salas and Merrill/SS. Anyone else but those two would probably be up for discussion. Cease is exactly what they need...cost certainty for two years/won't blow up the budget and will provide a great amount of stability to the 2-3 spot in the rotation, perhaps as high a #1 depending on Darvish and Musgrove in terms of their health.

And Flaherty, not that he pitched all that well...three question marks in the back end of the rotation until proven otherwise, and lots of variance possible with their 1/2 TOR guys as well.

Milroe is a Fields clone. Sh.Sanders got destroyed by his Oline but hard to get a real read and then you have his dad involved in both good and bad ways. Allar from PSU isn't or hasn't been impressive compared to the physical tools. Ewers? Mixed bag. Will probably transfer but could go pro. McCarthy would be tops but he could stay if Michigan loses...maybe. Feels like 50/50 and depends on Harbaugh as well, likely Sherrone would take over and he's quite popular with team. Dillon Gabriel is a great college guy but limited for pros.

Haber makes even Rick Hahn himself look like he pulled himself up by the bootstraps un a Horatio Alger-esque tale.

Manaea was pretty terrible the last two seasons in notorious pitchers' parks...his stuff has deteriorated considerably.

Thanks heavens we have yet another external advisor. Right up there with TLR and Buddy Bell in modern Sox history...as well as Dayton Moore, peripherally.

Definitely not Stanford University...

Rick Hahn administrative tree still with jobs in baseball not exactly looking like the baseball version of the Shanahans… Hostetler the last one standing? Nick seemingly has the Dayton Moore seal of approval going for him due to their original Braves’ connections…and cross connections with Getz as well. At any rate, Josh Barfield will be the new GM in 2-3 years anyway. Then, all the ex Royals can be purged.

That's a pretty lousy group right now. McCarthy if he returns and Milroe in theory at the top...

PLAYER POS TEAM RATING 1 Shedeur Sanders QB 91.0 MORE>> 2 Drew Allar QB 87.0 MORE>> 3 Conner Weigman QB 86.8 MORE>> 4 Carson Beck QB 86.6 MORE>> 5 Jalen Milroe QB 85.0 MORE>> 6 Tyler Van Dyke QB 83.6 MORE>> 7 Dillon Gabriel QB 83.0 MORE>> 8 Preston Stone QB 82.4 MORE>> 9 Riley Leonard QB 82.0 MORE>> 10 KJ Jefferson QB 81.3 MORE>

Tyler Goodson over anyone else on the team who has touched the ball more than ten times out of the backfield all season long? Just wow.

Fair enough. Everyone is simply getting frustrated. Guaranteed that definite movement with Imanaga in the next week will lead eventually to Snell and Montgomery, but Boras FA's typically go down to the last minute. Meaning this could drag on for weeks unless two teams are willing to meet Boras hyper aggressive price points.

One thing is certain. Between Basallo Kjerstad and Mayo there's going to be an eventual logjam at 1B/DH. And they already have Mountcastle and O'Hearn. Those two are disposable...but odds are usually out of three guys like that...only one is going to actually make it. Two are going to disappointments, especially because they are "hit first" players. Basallo in RF turns into Melendez of the Royals.

Basallo still has too high of a risk factor he doesn't stick at catcher...and the White Sox simply don't develop catchers well from a defensive standpoint. Plus they just went out and added Quero. Maybe with Basallo you could argue that Maldonado would be around to tutor him (and Quero...and that would be part of the deal), but Basallo has a lot more value to other teams just like Ortiz because they're blocked behind stud players. "His arm is also well above average, looks elite at times. He is still working on his blocking and overall concentration, but he should catch a whole lot this year and continue to grow at the position.” At 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, there is a chance Basallo (pronounced Ba-sigh-O) could outgrow the catching position, although the Orioles have a big guy now back there doing pretty well. One scout put it as 60-40 or 65-35 he stays as a catcher. If he has to abandon a catcher’s mitt at some point down the road he could end up at first base or in a corner outfield spot. But even at his size, he is considered quite athletic and flexible. His fielding got a 50 scouting grade from Baseball America, and his arm a 60 grade. MLBPipeline.com put it at 45 fielding and 60 arm. So yeah, his arm is well above average, and he touched 86 mph on some of his best throws to second base last year. Adley Rutschman averaged 86.3 mph on his arm strength, via Statcast data in the big leagues in 2022. And that velocity tied Rutschman for seventh-best arm strength among all big league catchers." https://www.masnsports.com/blog/he-s-no-1-catcher-samuel-basallo-heads-up-o-s-international-rankings