almagest

Cespedes was good before he got hurt, but the rest are fair points, though all were extremely inconsistent and had warning signs - Springer has basically been the same player every year so he's a much safer bet.

It's like they're stuck in the late 90s-early 00s. You don't see really see deals like Mike Hampton or Barry Zito anymore. Teams know how to judge talent and project how long a player will be good and how they'll decline. The Sox play in a space where the deals fail way more often, and the MLB scouting they do seems pretty bad so they're seldom successful at these low-end signings.

The longer this takes, the less I think he'll sign with the Sox.

Assuming someone has a good deal on the table and this is the call to other teams to beat it. If he doesn't sign within the next day or two I assume that means Hendriks is waiting to see if someone hits his number.

Rosario - not a RF Bradley Jr - I'll give you this one Robbie Grossman - I'll give you this one David Dahl - not that different than Eaton. He was terrible last year and is injury prone Ozuna - not a RF Schwarber - not a RF Brantley - not a RF Guessing the other guys all wanted multi-year deals, though. It's pretty obvious the Sox only wanted a short-term deal. I'd guess Eaton's option is only picked up if he's back to the player he was before they traded him.

I can second the Gold Coast Dogs at Union being great. During normal times I work in the building above it and head down for lunch probably too often.

He's not a platoon option though. He's going to be the everyday right fielder as posted by others in this thread. I also see him being a 0-1 WAR player as a likely outcome, otherwise he'd be getting paid much better. Teams aren't stupid, especially right now with revenue down the tubes.

The Rays were just in the World Series and that organization knows how to build a contender. The Yankees spanked the Indians, who we couldn't beat, and can match us offensively. They also won over 100 games two years ago. The Indians traded Clevinger and still beat us badly. They have the AL Cy Young.

I don't understand how people keep buying these "buy low" candidates as a good idea. None of them ever work out. The Sox end up paying a relative premium on replacement or below replacement level performance. Honestly I hope I'm wrong and everything goes right for the Sox next year and they make a deep run. I hope Eaton is back to a .300/.400/.400 level player with decent defense. I hope every young player continues to improve. I hope some combo of Kopech/Cease/Lopez/Steiver steps in to fill the 4/5 slots in the rotation. My concern is that there's a lot that needs to improve/go right.

They're all as good as or better than the Sox (except the Twins given who they've lost). Adam Eaton does not make this team better than any of them.

Yes. But seriously, I've explained my thought process twice already - if ANY player struggles you're probably dealing with two black holes in the lineup and we've seen over and over and over how that doesn't work out when making a postseason run - last year when Robert slumped the team scored less runs and lost a ton. So far they've added Eaton and lost McCann. They don't have a DH so we don't know if that position will be any better this year. I don't see how they're not at risk for the same problem that caused an extended slump last season.

This team is better than last year (due to Lynn) but they still finished 3rd in the division. I'm not confident they'll make a postseason run with a normal postseason because Eaton doesn't make the team better. The idea is to supplant your existing talent with solid players to put you over the top. Eaton doesn't do that, so you're heavily reliant on every player on offense being better than they were last year (except Abreu, Anderson, Grandal and Jimenez, who I'm lumping together as "consistently good"). Eaton is probably going to be bad, so if any of the other 4 struggle or if most of them just don't improve you're putting a lot of pressure on the rest of the lineup. You don't make deep postseason runs with 2+ holes in your lineup unless you get absurdly hot.

Man the more I think about this the more I can't stand it, not even factoring Eaton being an asshole. You give NO slack to anyone on the team - if Madrigal isn't good or Moncada slumps again or Robert continues his slump for an extended period or Abreu regresses or Vaughn struggles when he comes up - this team likely doesn't make the postseason. Unless something changes we're likely punting another year of contention.

It seems the Sox definitely aren't spending much this offseason. I'm assuming a decent reliever or two (assume Colome comes back) and maybe they'll bring up Vaughn halfway through the year and rotate the DH before that. Maybe Yermin gets a shot though I doubt it. All told this is pretty typical White Sox free agency. Eaton sure as hell isn't going to put up 6 WAR again. He'll probably slot around 0-1 and they'll move on from him in 2022. At that point it's Adolfo or Colas, because the free agent list isn't great from what I see - Michael Conforto, Tommy Pham, Starling Marte, Corey Dickerson, Nick Castellanos (opt-out), Charlie Blackmon (player option), Andrew McCutchen (club option). This team is going to be carried on the backs of their home grown players. They won't be getting much long-term star-level help unless they luck into someone. I don't see this trend resulting in a perennial contender over the next 5 years. It's disappointing for sure.

If both Kopech and Cease fail this rebuild is screwed no matter what. They'd need to build an entire rotation from free agency or wait until any second wave comes up, at which point the existing core is expensive and/or leaving.

If they're not extending Lynn for another year or two I'm not a fan, and I don't even know if I'm a fan then, as Lynn probably drops off quite a bit over the next 3 years, if he even plays that long. I guess this buys you a year to see how Kopech, Lopez, Cease, Steiver develop, but odds are they'll just need to replace Lynn next year.

Lost an eye. Hope he learned his lesson.

I really hope a one-eyed cat breaks the Liam Hendriks signing

I thought I saw some concerning trends in his advanced numbers but I checked Fangraphs again and contact %, swing %, exit velocity, etc were all within career norms. He probably has another year or two left but given the Sox luck with signing over-30 left handed DHs in the low-mid market price range I'll still take the under.

Him and Robert probably swap assuming Robert gets back to being great.

This is the Sox MO, though. Waste money on low/mid tier acquisitions that seldom pan out. I think Brantley is prime for regression and I'd bet he posts below a 100 wRC+ next year.

Schwarber as DH/LF makes sense on a 1 year deal. On the position player side, I'd be content with: Anderson SS Moncada 3B Grandal C/1B/DH Abreu 1B/DH Jimenez LF/DH Robert CF Pederson or JBJ + Engel RF/CF/LF Madrigal 2B

I'm thinking this leak came from Springer's agent. We know the Sox made an offer, and I bet it's for 4/80 or something similar with maybe an option year taking it to <= 99 mil. This is code for "If you offer 9 figures you sign George Springer".

I can't do podcasts or audiobooks while working. I want to be able to focus on them.

Anyone listen to Kasper on ESPN 1000 this morning? Curious how that went. Doesn't look like it's on their site.