Chicago White Sox

Yolmer is the last thing in the world Boston would ever want right now. And he simply has negative trade value at his projected arbitration salary, so he’s not really a trade chip for anything.

That’s a dreadful deal for us IMO.

How can they shed much of Price’s salary?

For a similar price I think you could get Wheeler & Castellanos and they’d probably give you close to 7 WAR.

McCann has historically hit RHP very well (career 117 wRC+). Part of the reason why adding Grandal and then effectively platooning MCann & Collins across multiple positions make sense.

All depends on the price. But if MLBTR is right, you could get the three of them for ~$55M in AAV. I think the Sox could afford that if they were willing to sport a $140M payroll next year (which they should), but that’s far from a guarantee.

Fully agree, but if the big market teams focus their attention on Cole & Strasburg, there’s no reason we can’t be one of the favorites if we’re willing to strike early.

What’s Moose’s WAR if he starts 75% of his games at DH?

5 to 6 for each I agree with, I thought you were suggesting a good 18 teams would be after each one of them. I still think we should easily be able to afford all three guys, whether or not Hahn can actually execute that plan is another story.

There will be 15 to 18 teams competing for each of those guys? Sounds like the most active free agency in baseball history!

Yeah, the order would need some tweaking, but that could be a seriously good lineup.

Sign Grandal, Castellanos, & Wheeler. This lineup would be significantly better than last year: Anderson, SS Moncada, 3B# Abreu, 1B/DH Jimenez, LF Grandal, C/DH/1B# Castallanos, RF Robert, CF Collins, DH* / McCann, C Madrigal, 2B

He has a wRC+ of 126 over the past two years. If you believe that’s the level of hitter he truly is, then he’s a perfectly capable DH. Also, MLBTR rumors brought up that his defense while still not good in 2019 was significantly better than it was in 2018. If there’s room for growth, then maybe that changes the calculus a bit. Honestly, if his price is truly 4/$60M, I’m suddenly far more interested in him, but I’d still pursue Grandal & Wheeler.

If he’s a guy they like, they should most definitely pursue him right now. We can afford multiple impactful additions.

And it was 130+ the six year proceeding 2018. Players do have bad / injury ridden years Balta. He’s clearly not a 150 wRC+ guy like he used to be, but I’d be willing to wager money he beats that 117 figure Steamer is projected. And per StatCast, his xWOBA was basically the same as his WOBA, so he wasn’t the beneficiary of good luck. Anything can happen, but I’ll happily gamble $12M on him being a productive hitter next year.

In what world is a wRC+ of 129 at the DH spot a meh addition? As the third or fourth best piece of an offseason, he’d be a tremendous addition.

100% Encarnacion. I’ll take Edwin’s 129 wRC+ over Moustakas’ 113 despite the positional flexibility Moose provides.

Merkin has floated the name for whatever that’s worth.

So potentially burn another year of Moncada & Giolito control?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the Sox throwing some big offer in front of Cole or Strasburg in December. But Boras is gonna Boras and he’ll simply shop that offer around and play the slow game until someone does something drastic. I’d rather not miss out on Wheeler while we hope we’re the lucky winners for the elite guys. It sucks that MLB free agency is broken, but we can’t put all our eggs in the Boras basket and risk throwing away a year. And that really sucks for us, because I think Cole is the ideal free agent for us, more so than Machado or Harper even.

Great post. This is what I’ve been trying to articulate for a while now. We have an opportunity to take a massive leap forward with a good offseason, even if we don’t add any of the top three guys. The key is being aggressive right out of the gate. While I’d love to add Cole or Strasburg, I don’t think we can afford waiting around until February and risk coming out empty-handed (which is the likely outcome). We need to go hard after guys like Wheeler & Grandal from the get-go and try to close out deals during or just shortly after the Winter Meetings. I don’t care what anyone says, there is zero reason we can’t land both those guys and Hahn needs to finally deliver. If he does, I think we’ll actually competitive baseball in 2020.

I appreciate you confirming. Maybe it will finally put the debate to rest now.

There is zero chance Puig gets anything close to that figure. MLBTR is predicting he gets 1/$8M and while I think that’s light, I honestly don’t see him getting more than 2/$24M max. Dude is just not very good and has a cancerous attitude on top.

No offense taken, would rather have a deal get done than risk it falling apart as a result of it getting out early. Speaking of which, do you think that’s what happened with the rumored Joc deal? I know a lot of posters on this site with quality connections felt that deal was close to completion and maybe even you hinted at that as well. Just curious to get your thoughts on that, because while believable to me, many here seem to think it’s far-fetched a deal could fall apart of a leak.

And I disagree with 90% of what Balta says, so now it’s all making sense ?