Chicago White Sox

How do you know what year they put the signing bonus into budget?

Betts, Wheeler, & Grandal combined for 16.5 fWAR last year. If they come even remotely close to those numbers next year, it would be absolute insanity for a team coming off 72 wins and with a talented young core in place (including the addition of three top 25 prospects) to not compete in the shittiest division in all of baseball. I’m sorry, but teams do NOT need to be perfect to be legit playoff contenders.

Why would we not be realistic contenders with Betts & Wheeler?

If we’re serious about pursuing Betts or Springer next offseason, then by all means go the stop-gap route. But if not, we should be exploring other long-term alternatives. I’m not convinced any of our minor league guys are the answer and RF is the last spot we can add an impact player to the lineup.

Getting an extra year of control of Moncada & Giolito would be huge as we’d have a legit five year window. I think there’s a possibly both accept deals that push out a free agency a year.

We tried signing Brantley but he preferred a contender, hard to complain there.

Mancini is RH and is arguably a bigger liability in RF. Given those factors, I’m taking Castellanos for cash only.

Sprotrac is a pretty great resource IMO and they show our committed salary for 10 guys to be ~$71M. If you allocate all of Abreu’s signing bonus to 2020 we’d be sitting at $74M plus we owe $1M for Alonso’s theoretic buy-our. All in, that puts us right at $75M. Assuming we add two starters, one reliever, a RF, and a bench piece, that means we need to include 10 pre-arb guys as well. At $650k per, that puts us at right about $82M with five roster spots to fill. My guess is we have a payroll ceiling ~$135M next year. Adding Wheeler at $20M per would put at $102M, leaving a good $30M to work with. Give me either Wood or Gonzalez for the rotation (1/$8M or 1/$6M respectively), a guy like McHugh for the bullpen (1/$5M), & Gennett for the bench (1/$5M) and we still have $15M to $17M left for RF. That would likely be enough for any free agent OF (including Castellanos) and way more than what would be required for any realistic trade target (i.e. not Mookie). To me, it’s absolutely critical we land Wheeler, as otherwise we’ll struggle to take advantage our remaining financial flexibility effectively.

I’ll take our end of the Olivo for Bradford trade.

I’d be interested if Dynasty and if there’s some form of buy-in. I’m going to wager a buy-in over $100 will be hard to find the necessary amount of people.

Lol...what a god forsaken franchise.

Very against the Pillar idea, he’s not a 2 win player in RF IMO.

Also forget his beer which is / was fucking disgusting.

I will never understand the allure of being a fake baseball insider.

The one in Berwyn has gone through multiple closing / rebrandings. He also had a failed music label amongst other things. His reputation as a business man is pretty poor.

I certainly wouldn’t be using Big Hurt as a business consultant.

Poop

Oh fuck, shit is finally happening!?!

My bad, thought he had already gone unclaimed. Regardless, my point still stands, someone would have given up a C caliber prospect if they thought he was a 4 win player.

Guys - If GMs thought Villar would put up 4 wins next year, he would have been claimed. Clearly they don’t project him to be worth that much (my guess due to flukey base-running value) and FWIW Steamer has him at 1.8 fWAR. That doesn’t mean he can’t be a useful player, I just think people see this big fWAR and unrealistically believe that’s his baseline going forward.

Yeah I think so, his bat is major league ready. Unless they want him working on swing changes to generate more power (which I don’t think is the case) there is zero reason for him to be down in AAA once the service time manipulation is complete.

This is a horrible idea. What exactly would you be trying to accomplish with this plan?

He’s right although I really don’t like Eno.

I guess is very few clubs project him to be worth 4 wins in 2020. That being said, I’m shocked not a single team would take him for 1/$10M.

Why not just get a natural RF?