Eminor3rd

Ottavino has some of the best stuff I’ve seen in my life. His pitches move so much i don’t think he’ll ever be a safe bet to control them. He has the potential to be a disaster, but he’d be super fun to watch regularly.

If Trout reaches free agency as the same player he is today, it will blow this year out of the water, in terms of buzz/dollars/amount of teams interested. I don’t think we should plan on being able to win that bidding war.

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Well the post you quoted surely was...

Beuhler didn’t have elite velocity on draft day. He added several mph in the Dodgers system that same year

You (and many others, in the media and otherwise) are getting too caught up in trying to fit the Sox’ tactical decisions into a paradigm. There is value in looking to the past to add context to the present, but the present is unique, so it is foolish to eliminate a course of action simply because it hasn’t played out before. For example, you can look to past free agent acquisitions and conclude that it doesn’t make sense to build a winner through free agency, but in no past instance was Manny Machado available. And in no past instance was the White Sox roster in this type of a position. If it makes sense to add the guy, then it makes sense to add the guy, even if it truly is the exception to a rule. And it also doesn’t mean the strategy has to shift as a result. Sometimes exceptional circumstances present themselves, and a shrewd operator looks for ways to take advantage.

I didn’t realize Hahn refused the opportunity to sign Ohtani

Those were dark days

Wait, Klentak? Conservative? Any deal this big needs major owner buy-in. But owners dictated even the Santana signing, and have been barking about being impatient and wanting to spend for a couple years now, even before this free agent class. They DO want to spend. And if the market on the second of these players falls apart to the extent that JR thinks he can afford both, the price will also be very within what the Phillies want to pay.

Even if the Yankees/Dodgers/Cubs interest is overblown and the money isn’t there, I don’t see how there’s any way the Phillies let the Sox get both.

You are unbelievable. The mods are trying to defend you, and you poke back at them. STOP ANTAGONIZING PEOPLE.

Taylor Trammel has had a lot of helium lately. I can totally imagine a Kluber deal centered on Trammell. Fits Cleveland’s organizational needs super well too.

Honestly, I think that if they’re going to leave Wrigley, they’d be better off leaving the city. Can you imagine how angry the fan base would be if they moved to the suburbs?

This will disrupt the talent pipeline that already exists to the NPB. Selfishly, i like Japan’s access to that talent, because it makes the league better. But this is better for the players, for sure.

16 third baseman had a better road OPS than Arenado last year?

There have been studies on this, though I don’t have quite the time to find them now. Essentially, nearly EVERY player hits better at home, and the gap is significant. The gap at Coors is more significant than at other places, but if you normalize the typical split gap, you see that the difference is often very overblown by pundits. A better way to analyze a Rockies player in terms of Coors Effect would be to compare his splits with other players splits. In most cases, you’ll see a much smaller difference.

Everyone keeps forgetting that the Yankees already have a very promising, popular, major league ready SS with five years of control in their organization. Gleyber Torres. He only played 2B because Didi was the incumbent. He is Plan A if/when Didi his to FA next year.

That’s pretty much what I’m saying — the FO track record is absolutely a factor. But it’s just one amongst many, including a wide range of talent across all levels of the organization, everything that comes with choosing Chicago over anywhere else, total dollars on the table, managerial relationship, etc. some of those will change over the course of a contract he’d sign, others won’t.

How did he compare to the “road” versions of all of those players?

Choosing to look backward instead of forward would be a classically and commonly dumb way to make such an important decision. The team’s reputation over recent history is absolutely a factor in how you assess the immediate future, but it’s only one factor. If the past ten years is his primary decision driver, he’s missing the first for the trees in an epic and tragic way.

If our FO is smart, they’ll be reiterating to Machado that when you sign a ten year contract, you have a lot more to think about than contention chances in year one. I can see wanting to play for the Yankees or Phillies or trusting in one FO versus the other as potentially significant factors, but butwould be hard for me to believe that the White Sox projected 2019 record could be what disqualified them. Over ten years, you’re likely to see two complete contention cycles with any franchise, regardless of where each is at the start.

This is not a sentence.

Well I mean, I think my whole list is guys who I hated for objective, performance reasons. If it was the all-scumbag team, I’d have different answers for sure. I can see how you could interpret the OP either way.

I didn't remember KW wanting Thome back, but that's on brand, too. So sorry for that post, KW. Actually I'm not sorry, KW, because you never should have let Ozzie talk you into that dumb shit. You were the boss.

Yep, part of the famed and now meme'd "KW always gets his man" era, where he'd sign "premium athletes" when they were 34 and slow, only to put them in positions that required them still to be premium athletes.