Eminor3rd

Haha yeah, idk. I really haven’t seen much of Meidroth actually playing so I’m just reacting to the stat line and the physical projection/reputation. Probably not totally fair. But, how much better is Meidroth than Romy Gonzalez, really? Very different players for sure, but if you are the Red Sox and trying to find a significant net gain out of that slot, I’m just not sure Meidroth is the target.

I feel like I’ve seen a couple writers recently say that Campbell looks really out of sorts and bad at the plate, to the extent that they are worried about his actual future now. Logenhagen said something similarly alarming in a chat the other day too. So, idk, if that’s the case and the Red Sox agree, it’s not insane that they’d be trying to dump the extension, especially since they don’t have a place to play him this year. Now, that doesn’t mean they want to move him for Meidroth lol, but just that he may actually be a nearly underwater or at least substantially diminished asset with the contract attached. I also remember one Red Sox writer saying that they’d teams absolutely loved Abreu and sees him as a cornerstone piece, which is why they’ve been trying to move Duran instead. Based on that, I don’t think Abreu is on the table at all.

I’m guessing Bryan Ramos DFA trade

Soxtalk willed this one into reality. Good work. I admittedly did not watch Sox baseball much last year, so I’m probably missing something. Can someone explain why we think Brooks Baldwin makes sense as a corner OF? I know it’s time to look for upside anywhere, but if Baldwin isn’t at 2B, it just doesn’t seem like there’s enough bat there even in a good year. I ask this because it seems like Hays should just take Baldwin out of the OF mix entirely, except as a utility.

No one disagrees, this franchise sucks.

One thing to note regarding the rotation: thanks to fangraphs/roster resources fancy new contract incentive tracker, I noticed today that Sean Newcomb has a ton of incentives tied to number of games started as well as IP numbers that are well into the range of a full time starter. I have got to imagine that he signed his deal with the understanding that he’d, at the very least, be considered strongly for a role in the rotation out of spring. While I don’t think that guarantees him anything, I do think it gives me some hesitation toward the idea that they’re going to go and sign another veteran, at least to a guaranteed mlb deal.

Good move, clear need, tradeable if things go well. Bonkers that it needed to wait until Robert money was moved.

I’ll also add that I don’t necessarily have a problem with Getz having held Robert this long. Obviously I’d have to see what the offers were to be certain, but the reality is that he’s been at least a reasonable bet to have a way better season than his last every year of his career. At the end of the day, he just never bounced back. It didn’t work out but the gamble was always defensible. The issue I have is being cheap when you still had one more chance to roll the dice. $20M is a lot of money, sure, but the payroll even WITH him was set to be in the $80-something range, which is borderline malpractice to begin with. Serious question, as someone who doesn’t follow anything but baseball really: Is there a major sports franchise that’s less fun to root for?

And notably, Acuna’s value was substantially higher at that time.

There’s nothing here at all. A utility player that’s already out of options. The Sox will use him, but not to win games. From a baseball perspective, if this is the best return, you roll the dice on a deadline deal every time. Which unfortunately supports the idea that this was a financial decision. All that crap about getting Jerry onboard with the Murakami vision looks made up. Really it was that Getz got permission to reallocate the money to Murakami instead of straight up save it. 2026: White Sox OD payroll trending to just a hair over $60M

This was where they got the Murakami money.

Precisely

With caulfield gone, we’re finding ourselves tempted to post like caulfield. Is this Stockholm syndrome? Is this a new psychological condition, first incubated on soxtalk.com? Caulfield syndrome?

The fact that Getz apparently had to talk Jerry into a 2/$34M for Murakami by making a revenue generation-based argument suggests two troubling things: (1) Getz doesn't have the autonomy to add a 2/34 to his sub-$90M payroll, and (2) Jerry doesn't seem to currently feel like "making the team better" is worthy of monetary investment on its own I just can't quite imagine that we're going to see them taking on any bad money for anything so frivolous as acquiring talent.

I’m not talking about the tedium of basic job responsibilities.

I know enough people that have worked there to call this point into very serious question. Modify your parenthetical to be "loyalty and protection for a select group of executives" and you can imagine how "very good owner to non player employees" becomes its exact opposite for everyone outside that select group, in ways ranging from frivolous to extremely problematic.

wat

The Sox would be one of the few teams that could feel good about giving him a rotation spot of out of the gate. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him get like 1/3m or something. He could be a useful back end starter on the high end, but there just isn’t any real upside barring some transformational change to his arsenal. He's big, strong, and stable, which has allowed him to develop good command, but his stuff is maxed out and just not that exciting.

Kona is fringey, definitely at least a tick below Imai. The sad thing is he peaked two seasons ago and looked ready to get at least what Imai did, but Seibu wouldn’t let him go.

I mean if you put it that way, every players floor is “dies in plane accident tomorrow”

Imai has a much higher floor than Murakami. Would have been very surprising if he fell to the Sox the same way.

Alright, viable then

Blue Moon is a Molson Coors product. Is rate field a Miller/Coors venue?

lol

This would be bonkers, but awesome, assuming it’s another one where the deal is smaller than initially expected. I’ve seen a TON of Imai; he has really blossomed the past couple seasons after being really wild at the start of his career. I don’t see him as an mlb ace by any stretch, tbh, but I do see him as a #3/4 with youth on his side, which would be a boon for this team of course.