Chicago White Sox

Oh that makes total sense.

Why would the Marlins use the Sox as leverage?

Well in his scenario Engel comes in “cold” and strikes out. Remember, no other teams in baseball use platoons and none certainly use pinch hitters, so we’re basically doomed with Mazara in the fold now that opposing teams have learned they can simply use a LOOGY in the 4th to win games.

Zobrist would really be a perfect fit for what we need.

Lol...if the opposing team wants to play for the win in the 4th inning by pulling their starter to get Mazara out I’ll happily take my chances against their bullpen for five innings with a lineup that will still have Moncada, Eloy, Grandal, Abreu, Encarnación, Anderson, Robert, & Madrigal in it.

He hyped up Bumgarner right after we missed out on Wheeler and it seems pretty obvious he wasn’t in the plans. I don’t doubt he talks with Jerry from time to time, but I don’t believe for a second the front office is flowing leaks through Stone.

Just for the record, Stone isn’t even under contract with the White Sox at the moment. I don’t think they’re using him to message the fanbase and I don’t believe he has real time info on what they’re doing. I think he has a high level understanding of their broader plan but most of what he tweets is just educated speculation.

So are you suggesting Betts then? There really isn’t anyone else that makes sense.

The problem is he has much less of a track record offensively.

If Castellanos never played for the Cubs would you still want him?

Definitely an area we’ll need to invest in next offseason, but we do have a ton of guys in the upper minors who could fill roles in the near future.

My buddy who is friends with a member of the Cubs front office is not optimistic about the Cubs’ chances to land Nick and while his source doesn’t typically provide him with player specific details he has made it very clear that they’re operating with zero financial flexibility. Sounds like the new TV deal is not going to bare the fruits many in the org were expecting and there have been some changes in their go-forward operating plans as a result. I really can’t see them adding Castellanos unless they move Bryant and even then there are other guys that will need to get paid in the near future like Báez. Seems like a total long-shot to me unless Nick is willing to take a pretty soft offer from the Cubs.

The Cubs have zero money to work with right now. They’d have to move Bryant in order to add Castellanos and I really don’t see that happening for a while given the grievance if at all.

I was literally about to post this. I still think the Sox have interest in Castellanos and my guess is we have something like 3/$48M on the table while Boras / Nick are holding out for a number closer to 4/$80M.

IIRC, when you click on positional totals on Fangraphs it includes the total fWAR for anyone who played that position. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it actually splits each player’s contribution by position.

Sums up my thoughts as well. Part of extending Abreu was keeping a high character guy in place & happy around Moncada & Robert. Throwing a selfish guy like Puig into the mix could quickly destroy that goodwill.

The Sox’s clubhouse may very well be the best for him at this point in time, but I think Puig is beyond fixing. I personally don’t love this idea and am hoping this is simply a front for something else.

Theoretically he’d platoon with Mazara and then backup Eloy. So let’s say he gets 50 starts in RF plus another 20 in LF? If you assume Abreu & Encarnación start 140 & 125 games respectively, that opens another 55 games for Puig & Grandal at 1B / DH (with most of these going to Yasmani if I had to guess). So short of a major injury, Puig get close to 90 starts all things considered. That may be closer to 3 to 4 starts a week, but still seems bizarre why he would take that role and to your point a huge risk that he’d end being not happy with it in hindsight.

Agreed, not sure about the seriousness or retirement with him but given his age and divorce situation it wouldn’t be overly surprising.

I don’t think you understand how shitty his attitude / personality is viewed around the league. Why would teams put up with that when he hasn’t been very good?

How are they mentoring him if he’s in AAA?

Seems like an odd fit to me, but despite reverse splits he’s still better than league average against LHP and just as good as other option like Pillar. I just can’t imagine they’d want to add him to our clubhouse.

I think you got to wait and see what you have in Kopech & Cease while allowing some of your prospects to increase their value. This is something you potentially revisit next offseason.

He also retweeted Y2Jimmy’s recent post about Puig:

I’d rather take a chance on Zobrist as interim 2B and then versatile bench piece who can play RF against LHP and fill in a little at 2B against tough righties. Puig is just such a douchebag and not worth the risk.