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It isn’t — as untouchable as Martes was, his stock fell rapidly leading up to his TJ. Could still be an interesting guy if he recovers, but that could be said about a lot of guys.

I feel better knowing the Astros turned this down and not us. Post-hype and/or injury reclamation guys are the types the Sox should be looking to buy low on.

Agreed.

I think you’re right that projection systems don’t do as well with young players, but I don’t know who doesn’t acknowledge that. Any projection will be worse with less data. And while they do account for breakouts in their aging curves, there’s certainly a lot more volatility for guys whose skills and bodies are still maturing. I don’t wanna think about guessing WARs right now. If you’re planning to illustrate they’d be different than steamer, I’ll grant that. But I don’t know if my personal biases are necessarily better informed. Just differently informed. Probably worse on average.

Right but you’re assuming the projections will all even out for the ones that have decent projections, and just saying “well they have upside” for all the bad ones.

Idk man, everyone hitting their projections is pretty daunting. They may not be 1% outcomes initially, but when you start to stack them up like that it gets there pretty quick. Even if you are talking about mean projections (50%) for everyone (which you aren’t, especially on the pitching side), if I told you you had to flip a coin and get tails fifteen times in a row, what do you think the chances are that you could do it?

Um. Go look up “top US cities by population.”

Another injury prone, post peak “good not great” player. At least this one isn’t a pitcher. I only have interest in this if he makes less than expected. Good player, wrong fit.

Good observation, but none of those teams stacked their bullpens through acquisitions — they found themselves having developed them as a by product of amassing young talent.

Haha, honestly I’m okay with it if it stops the slide to “every pitcher is a two-pitch reliever that throws exactly 9 batters.” I appreciate teams trying to win by optimizing, but it definitely makes the game slower and the batter/pitcher matchup less interesting.

The point is you aren’t Bryce Harper and so it’s weird that you think you know what is and isn't important to him. There are multitudes of factors that could potentially come into play to sway his decision. We don’t know what they are or aren’t. So if you wanted to sign him, you’d be wise to show him every benefit you can think of. To be honest, the fact that the money is so big probably makes it MORE likely he will choose based on this type of stuff. If you have several offers between $300-400M, they’re all going to provide you and your family and your future family essentially the exact same means to lifestyle — wouldn’t you start to think about where you actually want to live?

Used to be they always said TJ had about a seven year shelf life. Now that the samples of guys is drastically larger I think there’s less consistency. Some guys get it once an never hurt again, others have it 2-3 times and run out of ligaments to use.

I think that if he stays healthy, Corbin can pitch like a #2 for another year or so. I just don’t see any way it goes beyond that. Spending $100M on that right now would be unjustifiably insane for the White Sox.

This 100%

I do not approve of this. As mentioned in another thread: injury prone, velocity down, ramped up slider usage quickly this year. All signs that suggest a guy who is burning the candle at both ends to squeeze as much out of his body as possible before it’s too late. This is a guy who has peaked. Great addition for a contender who needs a good SP for the next year or two. Absolutely foolish for a rebuilder trying to add to a core.

It might not, but I’d think it would be substantially more likely than the first scenario. And if the window is closing, then it makes Eloy a more valuable trade asset.

Certainly. But would you sell a year of prime Eloy for the less than 1% chance that both (1) the White Sox defy all odds, hit on all cylinders, and make a historic run at the playoffs, and (2) Eloy goes bananas in his literal first taste of major league action, to the extent that he has a two weeks period as productive as any two week period in history?

Even Trout doesn’t add two wins in two weeks.

But is that team really any better than the pre-rebuild Sox? Maybe? It’s arguable. The only reason Machado/Harper even make sense for us is because of their nigh unprecedented youth and upside, such that they can be expected to remain at peak performance for years to come. Otherwise, we shouldn’t dip into the free agent market at all other than to buy guys that fell through the market. This team still needs a TON of talent to emerge to even be considered a real competitor. To do that, we have to give ABs to kids to let them learn, and spend as gratuitiouy as possible on adding more long term talent to the development pipeline. To push in on good-not-great 31-year old pitchers with short shelf lives is akin to the Melky Cabrera/Jeff Keppinger Mired in Mediocrity(tm) strategy that got us all here in the first place. It hurts to watch this. But we are two years in now and two years closer to the promised land. Stay the course!

How are people angry about this? Eloy Jimenez is a millionaire, based entirely on the fact that people think he will one day be good at his job. If he does his job well he’ll become a hundred times richer. His employer, a company that spends between $70-150M on employee salaries each year, is choosing deploy Eloy in such a way as that they maximize his productivity under their employment, in accordance with the labor rules collectively bargained by the employer and the players’ union. If you are angry at teams trying to keep production cost low, you should also be angry at players when they hold out for the most money. Both parties are acting selfishly! I wanted to see Magglio Ordonez play for the White Sox longer, how dare he abandon me to make more money in Detroit? But really you should be angry at neither of them because you’d do exactly the same thing if you were in either set of shoes.

Absolutely right. It’s not necessarily a free agency thing, it’s just a pitcher thing. Szymborski always says “pitchers don’t decline, they break.”

Significant injury history, velocity was down this year, had best year of his career by ramping up slider usage. Thin market should inflate his value. Good pitcher, but not a profile that you want to buy at market rate a year or two ahead of when you really need him.

I don’t see this as anything more than making Cruz aware that the Sox would give him a soft place to land if his market falls apart I guess we, as fans, are conditioned to think of team salary as a transient, temporal resource that comes and goes from year to year — but to an owner, I gotta believe $30M is $30M. I’m not saying there’s no situation where we could end up with him, but if you think that it won’t affect the White Sox ability or willingness to spend big later, I think you’re crazy.

Point taken. Still would like to see them do it with starters. I’m sure it’s a combination of identifying the right talent AND developing it, but some teams have done it consistently enough that I believe it’s more than luck, even if it’s very difficult.

Yeah, so we know it’s in JR’s soul somewhere, to be willing to spend to satisfy his desire for a guy/to win beyond what makes business sense. But you’re right, the money has changed drastically since then, way ahead of inflation. It makes you wonder if the revenue increase and the player salaries increase have kept a similar pace or if one is ahead of the other.