daggins

Great. Hope everyone is ready for another month of this garbage.

I don't doubt that Hahn and co are going to be creative, but rarely does "less guaranteed money" win a FA battle.

Pretty sure its going to come out after this that, indeed, the White Sox never offered more than 7 years and ~200 million.

I mean, it's very possible that neither Machado nor Pederson are acquired.

They wouldn't, the reports are just guesses from twitter randos.

Sure it does. Pederson puts the ball in play more often, and since he hits it in the air much more than the average player, he makes more outs.

Well, Palka strikes out about 35% of the time, that's a pretty big difference.

Think about Carlos Quentin - very high FB rate, loads of power, lots of fly outs, low-ish K rate. Quentin's career BABIP was .255.

His fly ball rate for his career is over 40%. Fly balls turn into outs more than ground balls or line drives. His career BABIP is like, .270. That's why.

Don't forget the twitter randos ?

Tyler Johnson and Steele Walker would be acceptable. The Sox are flush with relief and OF prospects.

I think in the Sox organization, improving defense is ALWAYS on the player. If someone is naturally a gifted defender, it's hard to screw that up.

Semien was mostly talking about defense, I believe, which is what I was talking about when I said that the Sox do not care about defense.

Here's the thing about defense: the White Sox don't care. They've shown this with their player personnel decisions, with free agent acquisitions, and, well, with how prospects arrive when they first get to Chicago. The White Sox simply do not prioritize defense in their decisions. This is not entirely indefensible (heh) as one of the most valid criticisms, to my mind, of the rise of sabermetrics is an overemphasis on poorly defined and unreliable defensive metrics, but lets not pretend that Pederson's defense is going to stop the Sox from trading for him or from playing him in CF as much as possible.

Also, if we're talking peak vs. career arguments... Andruw Jones should be in the hall of fame.

Ultimately, how you feel about Bonds (and PEDs in general) is probably tied to your view of what the Hall of Fame should be. If you think it should be a shrine to the very best elements of the game, designed to evangelize and propagandize the sport among the public, then I can see how you might not want its seedier elements involved. This falls flat, for me, because baseball (and sport in general) has always been intertwined with the complexities and grey areas of our dumb species. Gambling, cheating, substance abuse, racism, even violence all are deeply rooted in the history of baseball. If, like me, you see the Hall as a museum of baseball, highlighting both the transformations and the outstanding performances of any particular era, it becomes impossible not to include Bonds and Clemens, two of the best players of all time. Even if one insists on asterisks or footnotes, they absolutely belong, and its blatant revisionism to keep them out.

He's arb 2 so he can be controlled thru 2020

Interesting stuff, I love Pederson so i'm all for it.

Happy weed page ya'll, hope the dank vibes bring the Sox good fortune.

Cool, but he already said that. Others have said it too.

Contrary to popular belief, it will not be nice.

I'm honored...not really, I wish I was dead lol. SIGN HIM!!!!

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We still don't know this to be true, btw.

Any chance this becomes too contentious for Lozano to continue negotiating with the Sox? Just cutting them out?