caulfield12

Where else have they been ranked in the Top 5 besides Bleacher Report? Just curious.

Bassitt Montas Dunning Three more pretty obvious names on the starting pitching side. Guess you can include Carson Fulmer, too, haha...almost nobody knew he was still in the big leagues with the suddenly obscure Angels.

Well, sure...he's probably better than Tim Hill, but let's first see how he does in high pressure roles or as a starter. If the Braves were satisfied with him, they wouldn't have traded for Aaron Bummer and taken on that salary package in the first place. As Shuster would have been much cheaper to employ.

Ummm...no. That's the last way any scout across the entire sport would describe him.

Beckham? Gordon, Tim or David? As an announcer?

Carlos Rodon down to a 2.93 ERA and will likely get another W with the Yankees at KC leading 4-1 late.

I'm sure they decided even before the WNBA season even started...that she was going to take too much attention away from the established veterans on the team whose spotlight "was stolen" by CC...rather than looking at all the positives she was bringing in terms of ratings, attendance, jersey sales, charter flights, etc. Didn't want to answer questions game after game about why she wasn't playing very much, but there will be even more questions now. Jealousy about her $28 million Nike shoe deal, and Wilson/Gatorade. UConn/SC block of players and coaches against Clark would be another. A lot of the coverage has been pitting straight vs. LGBTQIA, white vs. black, established stars vs. up and coming future of the game (the precedent has been set with "rookie/college" players such as Laettner, Taurasi, Candace Parker, Breanna Stewart, Lobo, etc. A precedent had already been set for including the college stars over a number of Olympic teams. 70-3 Olympics record with pros is going to likely result in no game being less than 20-30 blowouts and little coverage...but HUGE questions if they stumble at all about why they didn't include CC. https://athlonsports.com/wnba/wnba-coach-voices-frustration-over-caitlin-clark-coverage Minnesota Lynx/Olympic women's coach said she wouldn't pick Clark "because she hasn't gone to war with her" and she has been quite outspoken about her getting so much more media attention than her own team with a much better record and Napheesia Collier (Olympian) as the star of the team. "ALSO in action tonight - @minnesotalynx vs @chicagosky 7pm CST. Though fans won't be able to watch, #Lynx fans can go to the Lynx app to follow along via play by play. Or if you are in market, come to the game...as we start the season off right #12teams #theWismorethanoneplayer," the Team USA coach wrote. See the tweet at the end of that article. Plus, you have Taurasi at 42...they're giving her the chance to get six gold medals (Clark is shooting better from 3 despite facing the most ferocious defense/face guarding of any player in the entire league by like 25-30%, blanket covering her for 92 or 94' feet or whatever, just up and down the court, suffocating D)...the Aces' have four Olympians and only 5-4 record right now (two time defending champions) but their Point Gawd has been out with an injury since the WNBA finals in 2023 and then you have the Britney Griner case (marijuana/issues with the US government, debate with Kim Mulkey over her sexuality). Arguably those are 3 players she could have been chosen over, particular the first two and then Clark is shooting better (despite the oppressive defense arrayed against her) than Jewel Lloyd of Seattle too, but Seattle is a MUCH stronger team than the Indiana Fever (now 3-10 overall and in 11th place, ahead of only the Washington Mystics).

Not exactly, see details in my post here just now. If you look at the total fWAR return on the 5 Braves' players for Bummer and then Stassi, it's going to definitely end up as a negative net fWAR for XYZ amount of money, whatever the total for Lopez, Soroka, Shuster, and Shewmake is. All up to Gowens (whatever his name is) in the minors to make something out of this deal, positively.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2023/12/11/stassi-costs-white-sox-740-000-minimum-in-2024-with-braves-sending-chicago-6-26-million/71883394007/ The way I'm reading this is $740,000 this year and it LOOKS like they're on the hook for the $500,000 buyut. $1,240,000 wasted that could have easily gone to improving the front office/analytics/modern technology. 24:$7M, 25:$7.5M club option ($500,000 buyout) placed on restricted list 9/2/23 (Angels will not pay salary for last 30 days of season, saving $1,129,032) acquired by Atlanta in trade from LA Angels 12/8/23 acquired by Chicago White Sox in trade from Atlanta 12/9/23 (Braves pay White Sox $6.26M as part of the deal, with White Sox responsible for $740,000 of Stassi’s 2024 salary)

Reminds me of when they picked up Matthew Lecroy at the end of his career, and he was basically shot at that point.

Shocking...who didn't see this coming at his age and with how much downtime he's had in the last few years? Just more money thrown down the drain, unless they had taken out insurance on his deal (roughly 60% payout)...

But there was that pretty extended window after Giolito's two really excellent seasons, whatever it was, 2019/20, or 2018/19/20....when there was an opportunity to get something done. Of course, he went from one of the very worst pitchers in baseball that first first season or two with the White Sox to one of the very best, seemingly overnight. And there was always the "greatest RH pitching prospect in the game" pedigree with his draft, although it was tarnished a bit by the initial TJS.

He pretty much played a full 2020 and was clear RoY favorite until the last 4-6 weeks when he faded terrible and Kyle Lewis of the Mariners kind of took off, but he flashed that huge Mike Trout potential. So I would go with "showed up" at least 2/5 times, compared to just once.

That's exactly what has happened to the Tigers...who are one of the best fourth place teams out there now. Royals have another huge series this week, but their playoff probability was 70%+ in recent days. Clearly their best season in almost a decade, nine years to be exact. And they're pretty much the 2023 Reds of 2024, one of the biggest underdog teams out there from one of the smallest markets in the game.

But the Chiefs were poorly rated in this regard....well, nvm.

Manager Pedro Grifol didn’t complicate matters. “It's fun to win. It sucks to lose,” he said.

Blame it on John Danks, Lance Lynn and a bunch of expensive veteran relievers. Sox just don't do top line FA pitching and they don't do extensions ever since Sale and Quintana. (You would think those last two names would only reinforce the value of young/er, cost-controlled pitching.)

by fWAR, Sox have 7 connected to the bottom 30 with over 100 plate appearances. Burger Vaughn Grossman Then we get to the absolute bottom of the barrel. 318. Anderson, Tim -1.1 319. Abreu, Jose -1.4 321. Benintendi, Andrew -1.6 322. Maldonado, Martin -1.7 Moving it down to 80 PA, you can even pick up Nick Madrigal at -0.7 fWAR. That's five former first round draft picks represented there.

Worst offense by 3 whole fWAR in all of the MLB and the only team in negative numbers overall, pitching and hitting. Pitching 28th at 3.1, ahead of only Houston and Colorado. Without Robert and Crochet...absolutely unwatchable to all but the most die hard fans or masochists.

Uh-oh. Maybe all White Sox fans need to start flying upside down Cubs' W flags or create their own unique version of "Southside Stand Down" L flags in protest of the general decrepitude of the organization.

Who created that environment for Luis Robert, Jr., anyway? Hahn...Ventura, they set the tone for years (see the Drake LaRoche/Sale/Eaton fiasco, for example)...Rick Renteria, TLR, Grifol, Montoyo, etc. Think about Tim Anderson here as well, Grandal, Moncada, the failure from the veteran leaders as well jettisoning Abreu, the only guy Robert really seemed to respect a lot. Isn't it amazing how players like Reynaldo Lopez or (fill-in-the-blank) and suddenly transform into almost completely different players and even personalities. Put him on a competitive team, look at how Dylan Cease has suddenly elevated his game this year.

Without Covid, Burger would have probably ended up completely giving up on his career and we wouldn't have been able to trade him for a quasi-first round talent in Eder. That's another way to look at it, instead of two busted draft picks. Of course, two top five drafts with virtually nothing to show for it (at least where things stand now) is a killer. And then letting Anderson's value erode down to nothing after being an All-Star and Rodon escaping without a QO. Obviously, no bueno.

Getz is also the problem if he made false and overly optimistic promises of turning this thing around given all the budget/resource restraints apparently placed upon him.

More excuses fans can use looking back at the history of the Sox years from now, just like 1994.

What is Bergin? Did have one Corona last night lol.