daggins

I know its hard to tell from footage but what's the possibility? Patella fracture? Something less bad? ptcac? Bet they're glad they didn't trade Kluber now.

If I was the Brewers I would be hoofin' it to sign Kimbrel and Keuchel. Money be damned, the window is now.

If he can hit I don't care where he plays

He was really good last spring, it's just that as soon as the games counted, he wasn't. I can't explain Lucas Giolito but I definitely don't have much faith in him.

Is his velo really "back" ? Last I heard he was still low 90s on the FB most of the time.

He'll be 25 this year and he was the one of, if not the, worst qualified starters in baseball last year.

Yeah, Rauch is who I was thinking of. Tall guy, inconsistent mechanics, former top prospect as a starter. Rauch was able to become a decent reliever, but I think that ship has sailed for Lucas.

They also don't have to worry about Super 2 now. Hope he's good!

I mean, he did just hit like .150 with a 400 OPS this spring. Keeping him down for a couple weeks when his extended salary this year is probably like 1MM is not a big deal.

Olive branch for last season, it seems. That's a lot of money for a guy with no service time.

Controversial opinion - he should have taken 10 million less.

Not sure if its been posted but it's stark to see it laid out so clearly - it's us, the Royals, and the Cheapest Teams in Baseball https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/03/largest-contract-each-mlb-team.html

The White Sox don't know how to evaluate catcher talent, and Smith is marginal at best.

yeah this would be the end

Honest Q - what does being a Sox fan mean anymore? Does it mean having a chip on your shoulder all the time? Is it just being antagonistic to the Cubs fans? It sure doesn't mean stanning a winning ballclub. I'm not sure anything in that post is true. Why do we exist?

To be clear, I don't think its part of any grand conspiracy, or even mass collusion, I just think that other clubs have created an environment that encourages this by overvaluing pre-arb talent and drastically undervaluing free agent talent.

I think the thing that best explains what has happened so far is that Jerry is more interested in artificially suppressing player salaries than in building a winning team.

Well now that Palka is hurt, maybe they'll decide Span is worth it.

Actually no, the chart I was looking at was out of date. I know the usual suspects are down at the bottom - Pirates, Rays, Marlins, A's. The Sox have about the same projected payroll as the Royals, according to Cots - about 105M. But the Orioles have cut so much salary that they are below us now. So, the Sox should come in around 24 or 23. So not bottom 5. But damn close.

The Sox ahould not have a bottom-5 payroll, full stop.

Right, I believe that is where his head was at on Dec 4th. Then they cocked up the whole "adding premium talent" part and now they have to scramble to field even a mediocre squad.

The main thing Palka did is not be good. I'm fine with Span, it's not going to change the way I feel about the org right now (hint: its bad)

That was fast.

Yeah seeing him sweat isn't going to change who is in charge. It won't even make me feel better, just more hopeless.

This is dumb as hell but expected. If they wouldn't do 10/300 for Manny, they aren't doing more than that for Harper. As gross as the rotation is, i'd like them to sign Keuchel.