Chicago White Sox

@Y2Jimmy0 - Congrats on the win James! My nephew will be going to Lockport next year and was at the game last night. Sounded like an awesome time!

The option has already been picked up though. Regardless, I’d rather just take a couple C prospects and not eat money that subsidize part of Kimbrel’s salary for a slightly better return.

What 1.5 seasons are you referring to exactly? My argument has always been dude was elite for the ~52 innings preceding the trade. That is a factual statement and me stripping out the first two appearances from 2020 (which was to point out he wasn’t actually bad that year despite many of you thinking otherwise) doesn’t change that narrative. Guess what, put those back and his FIP with the Cubs over the 2020 & 2021 seasons combined was 1.93. So yes, the dude was still elite! Yes, he was bad in 20 fucking innings during the 2019 season. I understand that those 20 precious innings mean everything to you despite them occurring after Kimbrel did not have a spring training and represent less than 1/3 of a normal season for Craig. As such, there is nothing left to argue here. I fully disagree with your point of view and there is clearly nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. I have no desire to carry on this argument because it’s annoying for the rest of the board, but I’m not also not going to sit by and let people throw shade at me for a very valid argument.

There may not be any quality starters left after the Dec 1st deadline

???…you crack me up buddy. Me presenting data / facts in a logical way isn’t “slicing & dicing”, it’s just calling your ass out for routinely calling Hahn “stoopid” due to the benefit of hindsight.

Yeah, it kind of seems like Ray back to the Jays, Gausman to Queens, and Scherzer to the Southside ?.

Craig Kimbrel’s career splits prior to the trade: 7th/8th: 38.1 innings | 17.8 K/9 | 5.9 BB/9 | 0.7 HR/9 | 2.22 FIP 9th only: 486.1 innings | 14.7 K/9 | 3.3 BB/9 | 0.7 HR/9 | 2.13 FIP Also, Kimbrel’s 7th/8th splits for 2020 only: 7th/8th: 10.2 innings | 18.6 K/9 | 5.9 BB/9 | 0.0 HR/9 | 1.32 FIP Small sample size obviously, but your argument doesn’t hold true.

Again, I’m not arguing it was a good or bad deal. I’m arguing that Hahn is not an “imbecile” for assuming Kimbrel wasn’t going to fall off a cliff post acquisition like many posters here are alluding to, which is very different than justifying the price we paid wasn’t steep (which it was and I acknowledged that at the time). That being said, I fully disagree with your view on the value of elite relievers at the trade deadline. Generally speaking, there is a reason the elite guys are always expansive at the deadline and that’s because context matters. I’ve been arguing with you for years over this and the marginal value of a guy who has a high probability of getting three outs without giving up a run in the 8th or 9th of the playoffs is enormous. This wasn’t about getting to the playoffs, this was about adding a guy who should been able to pitch 11% of nearly every single playoff game and get you three high leverage outs. Outside of a legit TOR starter, nothing is more valuable during the playoffs. You cite the volatility of relievers, but any player can go hot / cold during a short playoff series or two. This high likelihood of Kimbrel busting in the playoffs vs any other player is absurd and the best organizations in baseball were prepared to make this same “bet” that we did.

Lol…only once and luckily nothing was going on so it wasn’t too big of a deal.

You were correct…the baseball gods are saving that pain for tomorrow as I fly back from Chicago to Nashville.

Has this been reported? Not challenging, just curious if speculation.

Brian Balta, smarter than Rick Hahn, Andrew Friedman, & Erik Neander confirmed. Glad you knew from 20 shitty innings in 2019 that the best reliever in baseball over the previous 52.1 innings was suddenly going to fall apart. I really hope they fire KW and hire you to be President of Baseball Operations because you literally outsmarted two of the best organizations in all of baseball. And given this was such an obvious mistake to you, what actions do you suggest they take from prevent this from happening again?

No, I want Conforto for RF and/or Gausman (or Scherzer) as a SP. Those guys will eat up a lot of salary, which makes eating part of Kimbrel’s salary very challenging.

Who are the other? And why is Morosi leaking the Blue Jays?

I’m convinced you don’t like winning and simply want to hoard prospects. We need to payroll flexibility to address our 2B, RF, & SP needs, not to get slightly better prospects from the Padres that won’t help us win this year.

Sorry, change first appearance to first inning. He pitched a total of 15.1 innings in 2020. His last 14 innings he put up a 1.12 FIP with a 18.00 K/9. His first 1.1 IP he put a 33.94 FIP with 0 K/9. Because you are dealing with the smallest of sample sizes, those first two shitty appearances in 2020 masked what was otherwise elite performance (SSS of course). Look, this argument is pointless by now. You want to believe Kimbrel sucks and that Hahn was an “imbecile” for acquiring him. I will continue to look at the fact he was elite and perhaps the best reliever in baseball during the 52.2 innings preceding his acquisition, evident by the 1.64 FIP he put up during this stretch. Given you’d rather overreact to ~20 innings during which did Kimbrel did not benefit from a spring training from his peers, nothing will change your mind at this point. For the sake of others on this board, I’m going to stop beating the dead horse as I’ve made my case by this point.

Kimbrel’s 2019 was 20 innings and his 2020 was awesome expect the first appearance. You are greatly overstating his downfall.

Maybe teams are looking at Frazier’s total track record and realizing his first half last year was a total fluke, whereas some GMs look at Kimbrel’s HoF track and saw 50+ innings of elite performance before wearing down from a massive innings increase? And no one is thinking we’ll get a “big” return, but rather something more valuable than $1M buyout.

Unfortunately you can only fake too many poo’s before people start asking questions

Lol…I did explain that free agency will be on pause for two months starting on the 2nd and she was a bit more understanding. Ultimately she knew what she was signing up for when she married me and now has to live with those hot stove consequences ?

Watcha got $7M in his deal. I feel like Keuchel should be movable at $11M or so, which means eating $7M or $8M or taking a bad contract of similar value.

Having a late Thanksgiving dinner with my wife’s family today in Homer Glen. Already have been yelled at a dozen times the last few days for “blogging” too much as she calls it and will not have access to my phone starting around 4pm. As such, I’m expecting tons of crazy Sox rumors to happen concurrently starting at this time.

I would wager something happens soon as a result. But I think it’s good we haven’t seen us make a settling move yet at 2B or RF. They need to swing big at one of those positions and right now it’s better to have flexibility. But now that positional guys are starting to move, it will create a natural sense of urgency to get things done faster for all clubs with needs in these areas.

$17M guaranteed per Rosenthal which makes three years for Graveman look pretty reasonable.