Chicago White Sox

Meidroth can play SS which is an advantage over The Chairman.

You might as well add guys to the 40 man now until you need the roster spot.

Better than Tauchman? I think he’s the better defender in a corner, especially in Mike’s current state. Offensively is the big question, but Bleday put up a 119 wRC+ against RHP in 2023 & 2024 combined and if you believe he can return form that is better than the production gave you against righties last year (114 wRC+). Bleday is a true platoon bat whereas Tauchman has flashed more against LHP in the past. I think if the price is right (he was non-tendered over $2.5M), then adding him to the corner OF mix makes sense. Would allow you to play Baldwin a bit more in the IF against RHP as well. Anything that helps push Benintendi out of the OF is a plus to me.

Helps the Robert market some but could make it hard to land a useful corner OF (not that there are many in free agency to begin with).

I think Luis Robert will require us eating some money to get a quality prospect in return, but this shitty OF market (Lane Thomas getting $5M, few CF’s worth a damn) will likely limit how much that is. Don’t see us lining up on a bet here.

All this makes sense. My point was it’s exciting that one of these kids cracked a top 100 list when still in the low minors despite limited velocity. That doesn’t happen very often, which goes to show how special this control / command and suggests his secondaries are much better than some sites are suggesting.

Kyle Finnegan got his deal because he was dominant down the stretch with the Tigers when he ramped up the usage of his splitter. Clearly the Tigers believe he can continue doing that and he will be worth the contract. Whether that happens remains to be seen. How do we know Fairbanks is getting 2/$20M+?

Bleday comes with multiple years of control too. Still shocked that the A’s couldn’t find a buyer at his salary prior to non-tendering him.

Not to defend Jerry as he sucks major you know what, but has anyone read the actual article and able to summarize what is fact vs. speculation? All I’m able to see is Heyman stating Jerry may be unwilling to give Steve Cohen money, not that he won’t and not that he won’t give money to teams in general. If you recall, Jerry hates the ever living f*** out of Steve Cohen. This may just be some billionaire beef as last offseason it sounded like the Sox were willing to eat some money in discussions with the Reds. Obviously I have no idea what is true here, but find it hard to believe that Getz picks up the $20M option if he didn’t have the authority to eat some it in most cases.

I guess I don’t get why it’s interesting. If you take a guy who can play a competent SS or plus 3B and you put them at 1B, you are not optimizing their value. At that point, you either trade them or someone else to ensure they are in the right spot on the field. Now, if Colson needs to move to 1B due to health issues (back) that’s a different story, but I’d call that unfortunate moreso than interesting.

It’s wild you linked to an article that provides very little info and then pull almost nothing from it and instead just throw out your own random thoughts. The only key takeaway from that article is that per Ken Rosenthal no teams had interest in Fairbanks at 1/$11M at the time of the non-tender. The Rays were not worried he “might get hurt or not perform” next year because they had no interest in retaining him and wanted to use the money on other needs. They could have theoretically picked up the option in hopes of his market improving later, but that was a risk they did not feel like taking given the lack of interest in him at the time. I’m still not sure what Matz has to do with anything here…seems pretty clear they chose to use their limited dollars on a LH swingman instead of Fairbanks based on need priority.

I believe we’re at $61M with a full 26 man roster of pre arb guys. However, let’s say we plan to add four more players (1B, OF, RP, SP), we’d also shave off $3M of salary out of that $61M. As such, I think you could say we have $32M to work with if you assume an exact $90M payroll. Theoretically this would be possible with that space: 1B: O’Hearn = $13.5M (2/$27M) OF: Bleday = $2.5M (1/$2.5M) RP: Fairbanks = $10M (2/$20M) SP: TBD FA = $6M

Interesting that Paez cracked Longhagen’s Top 100 list prior to the 2025 season but he fell off after a change in release point and injury.

I’d say ~$90M is what I’d expect.

Depends on the additions. A legit closer would provide far more value than their projected WAR given who they’re replacing. Regardless, the bulk of improvement needs to come from the young guys. I’m happy with smaller scale additions in FA this offseason to improve the floor and take some pressure off the kids.

Last year led to losses?

Getz listed off a pretty big laundry list of items including high leverage relief help, more SP depth, a LH bat at a corner IF spot, and possibly another corner OF. Throw in Kay and two Rule 5 picks and that would be quite a bit of activity. Likely small stakes financially, but could / should make the team better and more fun to watch.

They didn’t have a TV deal for a large chunk of last year, hard tot believe the payroll wouldn’t go up.

The org acquired and developed Crochet into a starter but decided to trade him for three positional prospects. The org acquired and developed Cease and then decided to trade him for a top 100 prospect in Thorpe who would have been part of our rotation if not for TJS. The org acquired and developed Lucas Giolito and then decided to trade him for top 3 org prospect in Ky Bush (and Quero) who would have likely been in the rotation mix if not for TJS. The org selected Mason Adams in the 13th round and turned him into a legitimate SP option for last year if not for TJS surgery. If you look at the data, the amount of TJS’s that impacted our org last year is a major outlier. If self-inflicted, then our front office has done something truly unprecedented and we should see another wave of injuries this year. Candidly, I think it was just bad luck just as the years & years of good fortune under Herm Schneider was partially good luck driven. I also don’t blame Getz for not having the budget to go out and sign veteran FAs better than Martin Perez (who also got injured, but admittedly also is old). At the end of the day, there is plenty to rip Getz for, but just don’t believe Shane Smith being our best SP last year is one of them. He is the dude whose front office went out and actually identified Smith as the best talent available in the Rule 5 draft and successfully turned him into a quality SP. If anything, the Brewers should be ridiculed for not protecting one of their best 26 players.

Unfortunately many here refuse to accept that Getz has made some structural improvements to the organization and that the fruits of those labors will not be seen overnight. As such, it’s easy to blame Getz for a lot of the shortcomings he inherited with the major league roster and focus on the bad. And don’t get me wrong, he’s certainly partly to blame for our PD failures but he also didn’t get to set the budgets and make the investments in data & technology needed to modernize his function. The reality is Smith & Vasil should be viewed as huge wins and early signs that the foundational work is starting to pay off.

I mean, they had a SP in Crochet that is leagues better than Smith, but we are rebuilding and traded him in the offseason to add multiple positional pieces. We also had three major league ready SP’s go down with TJS in spring training, which is super fluky and certainly hurt our SP depth to start the season.

Who are the undeniable options at 1B & DH?

Fully agree.

Which I find bizarre, but the point is Taylor isn’t going to go much beyond 100 innings this upcoming season and there is a way to do that in a primarily bullpen role.

Ryan O’Hearn at 2/$26M and Peter Fairbanks at 2/$20M aren’t “big money additions”…they are affordable short term stop gaps. Not one single poster here thinks they are going to sign a big free agent.