Chicago White Sox

I’m not sure what you mean by “budget money doesn’t just appear & disappear magically each year”. We have no idea what the Sox do with their excess cash. You are making the assumption that it’s just sitting in the bank waiting to be used in future years. Ownership may very well be cashing out their profits. The other factor you’re ignoring is investing in the team should generate some economic return. Improving the quality of the on-field product will improve interest in the team and lead to increased revenue. This is especially important when we have our local TV deal expiring and have bottomed out in terms of ratings. Donaldson alone may not be a game changer, but if combined with other additions it might provide an economic benefit.

Agree 100%.

The 2008 Rays lost 96 games and then won the AL pennant the next season.

Why does Seattle care that much about removing Cano’s contract at this juncture?

? What trades are you referring to?

He’s got the raw power and pretty good plate discipline. He’s really the perfect test case for our organization’s ability to adjust players’ launch angles and do so in a productive manner. I’m skeptical since I don’t recall many examples of us doing so in the past, but the player and development staff are both aware of the issue and have an entire offseason to work through it.

Much appreciated Northside. Some of these I also noticed, but definitely overlooked a few of these.

I’m one of the bigger supporters of adding a starting pitcher to a multi-year deal on this board and even I don’t understand the logic behind adding Corbin. Just too expensive / risky of an option for us at this stage.

Just to be clear, you’re proposing we trade Yoan Moncada plus other minor leaguers for a 29 year old Giancarlo Stanton who will be paid $26M the next two seasons, followed by an opt-out, and then a guaranteed $218M over seven years ($31M AAV) instead of strictly using our significant financial flexibility to buy a 26 year old star?

Would you mind elaborating on the factual errors & subjective stuff that you disagree with? Just kind of curious what those specific things are.

Lol...that 2017 draft not looking so hot for the 49ers. They actually traded away the 4th round pick we gave up in the Mitch trade to move up & select Foster at the end of the 1st. They also traded away our 3rd round pick that was eventually used to select Alvin Kamara. And the #3 overall pick we gave them was used on a guy far less impactful than most selected at the top of the draft. When all is said & done, I don’t think the 49ers will have much of an argument for winning the Mitch trade.

I’m sorry, but Vinnie Duber’s opinions don’t reflect those of the front office. Furthermore, we know the Sox are high on Machado and are planning to pursue him aggressively in free agency. As for this career year nonsense, his offensive results were better than his 2015 & 2016 seasons but not substantially. To think a young, talented player won’t continue to improve as he enters his prime is quite frankly absurd. It’s clear that your dislike of the player has caused you to be unobjective.

We’re talking about 20 total plate appearances. I strongly disagree with the notion they had any impact on his value at the time. Benintendi simply had a higher floor, was going to take less development time, and filled an immediate major league need. It just made more sense for them to trade Moncada at the time.

Baseball has to be the cheapest sport to attend out of the big four. Young fans are losing interest because they have limited attention spans and the game admittedly is slow as fuck.

I don’t think Moncada fits this narrative whatsoever. He was available because they got arguably the best pitcher in baseball to a ridiculously cheap contract and either him or Benintendi had to be the centerpiece for it to happen.

Yes, odds are money will be the biggest driver for both of them. While I do think Philly is the biggest threat to sign one of these guys, there have been rumors that their front office is a bit uncomfortable spending what it would take to land a whale. Obviously the owner supersedes all and we know he’s prepared to spend stupidly, but maybe we get lucky and the front office holds their ground at a certain point. I do truly believe Jerry & Hahn are prepared to offer record breaking contracts for both of these guys, just not sure how far above that they’re prepared to go if a bidding war happens.

The Rockies need offensive help, don’t have a ton of money, and could use a right-handed hitting OF. This is probably a huge long-shot, but I’d float Avi Garcia for Jeff Hoffman and offer to take on one of their bad relief pitcher contracts. For example, Bryan Shaw is going to make nearly $9M per over the next two seasons, posted a -0.3 WAR last year, & saw his velocity decline in the second half of the season. Again, probably a long-shot, but I’d be willing to throw in a small sweetener to make the deal more attractive to the Rockies.

If we non-tender Avi, I’m hoping we add a more established OF than this guy so I kind of jump lumped him into the Palka role. It does sound like this guy can actually play a solid RF, so maybe his skill-set is a little different than Palka’s in that sense. I’d definitely take him on the 40 man roster over Tilson though.

How is he different than Palka? I’d rather just keep developing him than start from scratch with a similar player.

I don’t agree with that at all, but then again these guys are super high on Madrigal so it makes sense from their perspective. I also thought it was interesting how low they seem to be on Collins. We keep hearing about no one believing in his defense (and they cited his framing to be the worst in the Southern League), but they seemed far less optimistic about the bat than Fangraphs. I tend to believe his batters eye and raw power will translate well enough with the juiced ball to make as a 1B in the majors. Will be interesting to see if/when the Sox pull the plug on him catching, because I do think that’s slowing down the development of his offensive game.

Very interesting read with more insights than what BA provides in their lists IMO: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/article/43950/2019-prospects-chicago-white-sox-top-10-prospects/ Also, this is a great article if you want to get hyped for Nick Madrigal.

I don’t think anyone on this board actually thinks this.

No doubt Joss has no one but himself to blame, but Paulie didn’t even win the money as a result of his betrayal. He simply cost Joss half a million dollars. In some fucked up way I think that’s even worse.

No, I’m trying to point out that your theories about Jose Abreu were wrong and it appears you’re using similar logic with Nelson Cruz now.

Are you actually trying to get credit for realizing Jose Abreu didn’t suddenly become Adam Engel with the bat?