Chicago White Sox

True, but they wouldn’t be able to option him.

Who is Aquino? I’ve never even heard of the guy.

You do this same bit every year, claiming your pessimism is simply a “protection mechanism”, and then you still end up disappointed when the Sox ultimately underachieve. When will connect that dots on this?

Who is possibly Colas’ equal?

Rub…One…Out…Dude. Your view of Robert is ridiculous. He had a 124 wRC+ through August. He then posted a -90 wRC+ in September by playing through a hand injury when any other organization would have had him on the IL. As for his defense, I don’t buy for a second that he’s suddenly a bad defender in CF. He dealt with multiple issues last year and it took a toll on his game. They need to find a way to keep him healthy for the bulk of the season and hopefully having a full off-season to actually work with him will allow that to finally happen. Moncada is going to rebound significantly with La Russa gone. Eloy should be able to play more if he DHs on a regular basis. Vaughn won’t wear down like he did this year if he doesn’t play the outfield. Anderson hopefully won’t miss a massive chunk of the season and his off the field bullshit should finally be in the past. Even if Grandal is cooked, the retuning positional group will much better than they were in 2022. On the pitching side, Giolito will likely be better if he can fix his mechanics over the off-season and ultimately his four seamer & slider. Kopech will better with a healthier knee and an arm that has fully recovered from a massive innings increase. I also don’t see why Cease is expected to regress. I think overall our four core starters will give us more in 2023 than they did in 2022 and that’s assuming continued age / health regression with Lynn. Is this a playoff team in its current form? Depends on how much better the core is under Grifol vs. La Russa and whether Hahn is finally able to address our couple major holes, but it’s not nearly as dire as you’re making it out to be.

It’s really not hard at all. A conservative ZiPS system has them winning 76 games with no additions. With any substantial improvement in health, I think this team has a .500ish type floor. Hitting 90 wins is the problem if the payroll is constrained to $180M or so.

25% increase in attendance and Jerry is going to cut payroll. Just a terrible businessman and horrible owner.

I think Colas is playing a prominent role regardless of payroll ceiling.

I’m certain it came from James Fegan, but see above for confirmation it’s not Jimmy suggesting this.

I could live with Yogurt plus one of those other guys. Just don’t see the Twins taking that package from us though.

I think you’d have to be crazy to trade Moncada right now. At least give him a chance of Grifol and see what you got. He’s worth his salary next year if he’s back to being a 3 to 4 win player.

Where else have you heard that? I know Eloy vs Wall is saying payroll will be down, but haven’t seen anything to suggest the $180M figure other than Fegan.

Or just want to bring him along a bit slower.

Teams like the Phillies & Jays are able to give a $100M+ contract every winter when they are going for it. Meanwhile, Jerry is tapped out and on the brink of bankruptcy after signing a couple high paid relievers.

He was good in 2020. And the Twins may want to move him because they two other young corner OFs that warrant playing time. I agree on the divisional aspect making this very far fetched though.

I don’t disagree with your core premise, but I wouldn’t categorize Kepler as old.

I don’t disagree, but sometimes teams can’t through to guys and they need a change of scenery. I could see Kepler being one of those guys, I’m just not convinced we’d be the ones able to tap into that potential. Regardless, I think this rumor is 100% BS given the sources. And even if our interest was real, I think the two sides aligning on fair compensation is very unlikely to happen.

At this point, we just got to hope Fegan was wrong on that $180M estimate, because I can’t see Hahn pulling enough miracles otherwise.

Oh I totally believe that Tony pushed them to bring Leury back, but Hahn still negotiated the contract and gave him a deal that kept him around longer than Tony’s two years remaining at the time. I don’t care if Leury’s agent said the Tigers were offering three years to make him their starter at 2B, Hahn 100% ended up giving a well above market contract to Leury. And what makes it even more frustrating is Hahn’s unwillingness to commit long-term to free agents at 2B & RF to avoid blocking prospects, but had no problem committing big dollars to a mediocre UT guy / reserve infielder despite having several guys in the minors who likely could have filled that role for pennies on the dollar by 2023.

I may be in the minority, but I wouldn’t hate a Kepler trade at the right price if Jerry is in fact cutting payroll. The guy is a premium defender with plus plate discipline and above average raw power. His main issue is a abnormally low BABIP. I’m a strong believer that you can’t teach plate discipline this late into someone’s career, but adjusting someone’s plate approach to create a better quality of contact is still theoretically possible. Am I confident the Sox are the team to help him figure it out? Definitely not, but I may be willing to roll the dice with a new hitting coach coming in and a change in shift rules that should benefit Kepler more than most players. Again, it all depends on the price and whether I can simply buy a similar player in free agency for just cash. I’d rather sign any of Conforto, Bellinger, or Gallo to a pillow contract than trade assets for Kepler. But if we’re too cash strapped, Max’s $8.5M salary would make some sense. However, the price would need to be reasonable (i.e. a prospect in the 10 to 20 range) and I just don’t see the Twins going for something like that. I think they’d want something far more valuable to trade him to a direct competitor (say Ramos) and that should be an immediate non-negotiable. As such, I just don’t see this having much of a chance of coming fruition.

I bet Leury’s agent still can’t believe he pulled off that miracle. Like how did he even get the discussion to three years? There is no chance in hell any other GM would have been willing to go more than two for Leury. Just one of the most mind boggling signings I can remember in recent years.

I‘ll take Clevinger on a 1/$12M deal as our #5.

The only reason I’m entertaining the thought I’d because of Tosar. If Frank “f*** the HR” was still here I’d be steadily against the notion of this trade.

Dude blocked me on Twitter and I’ve never even tweeted at him. Must not appreciated me calling out his buddy FootlongComiskeyDog for the attention seeking fraud that he is.

If I were the Twins, I wouldn’t accept a prospect less than Bryan Ramos. And for all I know they’d prefer a major league player in return rather than obtaining more prospect currency.