caulfield12

From a $100-140 million Boras Corp. client all the way down to just $4.5 million... According to a report on Wednesday night from Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic. The deal, which is pending a physical, includes $2.5 million in incentives and maxes out at $7 million. World Series winner in a newish stadium (drawing huge crowds) compared to the White Sox...? Not much of a choice there, really.

That's not even counting a bomb threat Wednesday to attack the dome they are playing in...Ohtani has had an interesting week, as well as his new wife getting so much media exposure.

Flexen is obviously one...Deivi Garcia's a good possibility for 5th, after Nastrini for now.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39768770/dodgers-shohei-ohtani-interpreter-fired-theft This for now seems to clarify everything...

Phil Mickelson II. Now we know why he wanted to defer all that money...to keep everyone away from it. Joking. I hope, for baseball's sake. Embezzlement sounds about right...and Ohtani almost has that Tiger Woods-esque image before everything came crashing down from his hidden life.

Could have used him out of the bullpen last night...

One run on ten hits...sounds about right. Soroka pitched well at least.

Are you NOT entertained? Maximus

How many pitches for the no hitter against Detroit I think it was...really pretty cold weather that day as well. Still...pretty hard to imagine more than a handful of managers pulling him. And of course they pretty much knew that was going to be his final season with the Sox as well.

It's the same tune that can't help but mention having a 25th-30th ranked farm system for most of the last few years until recovering in the most recent calendar year. Let's put it this way. Ozzie always said you win with talent as a manager, first and foremost. And Don Cooper is undoubtedly the "best" pitching coach of most Sox fans' lifetimes. He had the greatest collection of young arms in baseball from 1998-2001 coming up through that system. Other than Buehrle (on the periphery of the Top 10 prospects lists back then) and Garland (for Karchner), he won a WS with Contreras, F.Garcia and the likes of Jenks/Politte/Cotts, etc. Was Cooper a failure with youngsters like #1 prospect Rauch, Kip Wells and then all those guys who got hurt...or were they all pretty much overrated...or was he a near-genius due to the Sox results from 2004-2012? Once again, somewhere closer to the middle than genius. Maybe it was Herm Schneider who was the real genius for keeping them all so healthy until Danks. Or was it Cooper who's equally to credit for teaching the pitchers not to go for max velocity...? Anyone watching the Sox from mid season 2021 through the end of 2023 would identify lack of talent as the #1 issue with this organization, especially on the pitching side as the veterans aged out or got injured and Cease (2022) and (previously) Giolito and Rodon (2021) had their runs at Cy Youngs.

After Kopech, who we can all agree was a "failure by committee, mostly himself" situation, what 2-3 pitchers would we even "blame" on Katz, though? Bummer...let's see how ATL does with him? Kelly...he's one of those guys like David Wells who will always pitch better when "inspired" for the Yankees (Dodgers/Cardinals), etc. Lynn...see Joe Kelly Keuchel...his results since 2020 would argue otherwise, Hahn was simply wrong to throw money at him when Dallas was the last guy standing in his tier at in that particular FA group

Other than the names mentioned...it feels like keeping Giolito together with baling wire and duct tape until he could really get paid (well, almost $40 million) is one of his most significant accomplishments. Because his Red Sox 2024-25 contract numbers certainly weren't based on his brief time with CLE and LAA. When all things are considered, one would say Katz pretty much deserves a "neutral" rating and that the next 2-3 seasons will be his truest test of all. Even then, other than Schultz, he's lacking a slew of "top" pitching prospects, so approximating the Guardians/Brewers/Braves in terms of major league development would be a massive crowning achievement. This "exercise" is not unlike trying to assign Marco Paddy a grade without taking into consideration JR's pocketbook controls, the supposed underage ban in the org and what actual resources were made available to him...you'd have a difficult time isolating exactly how much he's even responsible for the last 5 years or so of limited upside Cubans after the "Connection" had already worn out. Alexei Ramirez, Abreu, Robert, Jr., and Tatis, Jr., pretty much amounts to a lifetime contract/tenure. Plus, he's never been directly tasked with "fixing" the Dominican, and that's probably one of many reasons the Sox are still struggling there 15 years after Wilder. Yes, two wildly different debates, certainly...but the tentacle-like influence of JR, TLR, Hahn and KW touches nearly everyone, doesn't it? And it can't easily be separated in any easily quantifiable way.

And Gregory Santos could easily still end up in that category as well...

Bob Feller was something of a prick in real life (early teenage memory). He had a pretty bad reputation at autograph shows of being fairly surly and resentful of the money that modern athletes were making...whereas he was forced to hock his signature all over the country to make ends meet. Another reason that Mickey Mantle autographs (featured at ST recently, lol) aren't nearly as valuable as one would expect...way too many of them out there. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Turn your point around, though...realistically, which pitchers other than Michael Kopech were you expecting dramatically better results out of? Other than Kopech, you're left trying to blame Katz for disappointing performances out of expensive veteran relievers and/or blaming him for Liam's injury/mistreatment...and 100% his early return was a combination of Sox PR/Boyer and Liam himself being so willing to push himself to the limits. Lynn was/is pretty obviously cooked. Keuchel was, as well. It's not exactly like he had Wheeler and Nola to work with here. Spider tack and sheer aging/physical health deterioration there. If you had a SoxTalk poll of who is to blame for Michael Kopech's career...I would venture to guess that only 10-15% of that (at most) would fall back on Katz. So we're left with a very incomplete record. And even "disappointments" like Reynaldo Lopez got paid "generational family wealth" upon leaving the Sox. Dane Dunning has settled into a 5th starter/swingman role, but it's not like the Rangers trusted him in the heart of their postseason rotation either, fwiw. That leaves who exactly, Aaron Bummer?

Otoh what happened to Giolito after departing the White Sox...? He got paid, then completely collapsed. You could argue Rodon was subsequently built up enough with SF to get a generational wealth contract (after 2022) with a 6ish fWAR...as the Sox realistically had zero interest in resigning him from the get go in 2021 and were even afraid of the QO being accepted. I'm more willing to blame Rodon on TLR and Katz not feeling tenured enough to challenge him, like Cooper and Schneider would have done with Ozzie. Michael Kopech remains the biggest enigma of the rebuild...but how much of that is on him personally, versus the coaching staff?

Clevinger was better than he was in SD. Santos Scholtens Cueto Martin all outperformed expectations. Cease's 2022. Rodon's 2021... or was that a different pitching coach? Let's see how all those guys they traded away do in their new settings first. I would venture a guess Joe Kelly is the only one with significantly better numbers.

Well, Snell to SF doesn't help as that's the first or second toughest division in baseball. Obviously depends on offers, who's the GM assuming Preller's job is on the line...and any of their pitching prospects looking like they would be ready for 2025.

Team Cy Young will be ... Dylan Cease "Cease’s arrival does two crucial things for the Padres’ rotation. First, it stabilizes the front end. Both Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish appear healthy, but their 2023 seasons ended early due to injury. Cease, meanwhile, is a frontline arm who has made his full contingent of starts in each of his four full seasons. “It’s a power repertoire,” said Padres general manager A.J. Preller. “But power with durability.” Second, Cease mitigates the risk at the back end. Michael King’s transition to the rotation is easier in the No. 4 spot. Meanwhile, the rotation race is suddenly a battle for one place instead of two. On top of that, Cease is just … good. He struggled last season, but playing in front of a much better defense in San Diego, here’s guessing that Cease will look more like the pitcher who finished runner-up in AL Cy Young voting in 2022." MLB.com AJ Cassavell

Well, minus one Brady...and now Stroud.

After lavishing a record $3.9 billion on free agents in the winter of 2022-23, MLB teams pulled back this offseason as questions about the future of local television rights roiled the industry. More than one-third of the $2.9 billion in free agent spending this winter went to two players: a record $700 million for Shohei Ohtani -- $680 million of which is deferred for a decade -- and $325 million for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, both with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Two historic financial behemoths, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, committed less than $50 million to free agents. Eight teams -- the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, Miami Marlins, Cleveland Guardians and Colorado Rockies -- guaranteed less than $15 million. Disillusionment among players, sources said, burbled in recent days after the Giants released veteran infielder J.D. Davis, who had beaten the team in an arbitration hearing for a $6.9 million salary. Because salaries won in arbitration cases are not guaranteed -- a long-standing rule that was not changed in the most recent labor negotiations -- the Giants were required to pay Davis only one-sixth of his salary ($1.15 million). He signed a one-year deal with Oakland for an additional $2.5 million. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39763512/sources-mlbpa-call-majority-players-ask-removal-bruce-meyer

Bob Melvin/Snell connection from SD over the last two seasons...

Like Hahn's constantly mentioning of all the FA's he finished 2nd or 3rd with, lol...had the seat at the table, etc. Won the AL Executive of the Year, so he can't possibly be THAT bad, can he?

If you could only go back to before the 2020 postseason with that same announcement...

Because they were only on the hook for $3 million and were finally going to get their money's worth out of him...