Eminor3rd

I think any or all of those relievers could go, but I think they'd try to bring all of them back on Minor league deals. If it was up to me, I'd just tender all of them knowing my payroll is like five million total already.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 01:10 PM) My perspective on the current FA market is a little different. Based on my view of the last few years, I think you need to understand that any free agent signing is a huge gamble, and this totally includes guys who are in their 20s who you would think have many productive years left. Jayson Heyward, Chris Davis have been utter and complete busts despite signing contracts at age 27 and 29. The difference is - if you offered both of those teams a guaranteed chance to undo every move they made since the start of the 2016 offseason, one of them would say yes and one would say "no we like this trophy". Take a look at what the Cubs did, what the Astros did. They started off by building loaded rosters from within. Multiple, home grown, young all stars on each squad. They then went out to the FA market in strong positions, looking to fill a handful of pieces rather than needing to reshape their club. The Cubs signed Lester, Heyward, and Zobrist. Out of those 3, Heyward has been a serious disappointment, Zobrist had one decent year and flopped in the 2nd year of a 4 year deal, Lester has been the best of them but he now looks like a pitcher who might be declining and he has 3 more years and $75 million more guaranteed. The Astros signed Beltran, Reddick, and Charlie Morton. Reddick and Morton probably overperformed and Beltran Underperformed. What is in common? Each of those teams was ready to go and filling holes. They were strong enough that if the guy they brought in wasn't the best in baseball, it didn't cost them a title. The Giants wasted a lot of money on a poor Hunter Pence this year, they suffered through a rough season, but you think they like that 2014 trophy? Contrast that with what the Tigers did. The Tigers were signing big money FAs as a way to stay relevant and maybe increase their window. Or the Orioles or Mariners - they're always signing big money FAs to try to fight against the tide. They don't want to wait to be competitive, they think they're just 3-4 players away from being competitive. But, if you have to go out and sign 3-4 players, you better have an answer for how you'll win if 2 of them bust. If you're trying to extend your window a-la the Tigers, you better be ready for the guys you sign to be dragging you down in only a couple years. That was the lesson of the 2015-2016 white sox. They were teams trying to piece together a contender out of one or two good players and a whole bunch of FA signings. With such a weak core to the team, they couldn't even sustain .500 records if any of the guys they signed underperformed. Melky Cabrera comes out magically weaker in 2015 after signing his contract, LaRoche flops, and all of a sudden their offense is flat and they have no solutions to how to fix it. If you want to play this FA market, you have to understand you're playing a sucker's bet. If you are going after Harper, great, but understand that you have to have a team around him ready to go. The modern FA market will not build your team, things are too expensive and there is too little value. You have to not care if you lose money on the deal, you have to expect it. If you're signing Harper, you have to expect that the last 5 years could be a complete flop and NOT CARE. If you're signing Machado, and he hits a wall at age 29, you have to NOT CARE. That is the only way to win this market if you're bidding for guys. Be ready to win a world series without them and have them be the icing on the cake. It's the only way. Great post. I'll also add that people get too caught up on length of contract. There's a reason that max AAV's essentially haven't increased AT ALL since Alex Rodriguez's original deal -- it's because it's the total contract value that matters way more to ownership. It was going to cost the Angels $240mm to get Albert Pujols -- it doesn't matter if it was over 10 years or four years. The owners HAVE the money, it's just a question of when they write the checks. Because of inflation, it's actually better to defer the payments to later, and for GMs, it helps them stay under the luxury tax too. When people say "I don't mind the $25mm, I just mind the eight years" or whatever, they need to realize that if it was five years, you WOULD mind the AAV. As a team, you might as well spread the cost out -- it allows you to benefit from inflation and gives you the chance to continue to benefit from the player longer, even in a diminished role. All the money to guaranteed was gone the day you signed the deal regardless of how long the deal goes. This is also why it's EXTREMELY dumb to say "The X team is paying him $25mm, they aren't going to bench him/they need to see a return on that investment." Once a guy's roster spot becomes worth more than his performance, it makes all the sense in the world to release him. To continue to allow the player suck wins from you actually REDUCES your ROI. You aren't "eating money" to let him go, you already spent that money long ago. There's no additional cost.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 12:12 PM) Dunt: Right, there's a way to accurately measure how a guy runs the bases, the decision making thought process for each one and factors in the decision making process of the players on defense when said player is running the bases. SIGN ME UP! Stats = narrative. Do you even know how it works? Here's UBR: https://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/ubr/

QUOTE (reiks12 @ Nov 27, 2017 -> 07:36 PM) Ohtani's questionnaire to interested teams: https://www.instagram.com/p/BcAN44IDa_4/ Honestly these are all things we excel at no? especially medicals The more he continues to insist that money means literally nothing to him, the more it becomes actually realistic for any AL team to land him. It makes me really sad and disappointed that there are no outward signs that the White Sox are really trying. Obviously that doesn't mean they aren't under the radar, but it would just be so nice to see a public effort a la the Mariners so that we could legitimately hope.

QUOTE (zisk @ Nov 27, 2017 -> 07:46 AM) Ohtani can pitch and hit in the same game . There isn't a rule prohibiting that. He doesn't even do that now, though.

We should all keep in mind that 98% of all commentary about Otani's "preferences" are complete and total speculation. He's been extremely careful and limited in his statements to the media. The only thing we can be reasonably sure about is that he wants to hit and allegedly isn't worried about how much money he will make. Everything else has either come from internet comment sections or blogger speculation pieces that get mis-reported. Someone like Heyman will write "No one really knows what he wants. It could be that he may want to go to a place where there he can establish himself as the foundation of a long-term rebuild." And then people start posting and commenting "I heard he only wants to go to a rebuilding team!"

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Nov 22, 2017 -> 07:14 AM) Yep. I still think if the Sox really wanted him, they could make a good offer to get him. Would seem to come down to going for a couple million dollars or regular at bats. Idk how many at bats teams like the Yankees, Rangers, Twins and Mariners can give him if he really wants to hit. Of those four, really only the Mariners have a regular DH that would compete for ABs. Believe me, I love to follow the NPB and I want Otani on the White Sox BADLY (I subscribe to the PL streaming service and watched all of Otani's starts this year), but this one is looking to be very, very unlikely for us. Really, no AL team has less to offer him on paper than we do. We're not currently a contender, have the least amount of money to give, exist in an underperforming media market (given the Cubs and compared to LA/NYC), and we have a guy who will likely need to compete for DH at bats going forward (Abreu). On top of that, the Sox are one of the few teams who didn't bother to send anyone to go see him pitch this year, and there have been no indications that they've contacted his agent. To me, it appears that the Sox consciously chose to put their eggs in the Luis Robert basket instead of joining the scrum for Otani, knowing that they had a much better chance of landing Robert given their ability to spend big and offer a Cuban-friendly clubhouse.

QUOTE (cjgalloway @ Nov 21, 2017 -> 12:56 PM) I don't see how limiting it to 2017 international bonus pools is fair to teams who are over it since they were unaware Maitan and others would be available.. hmm This should have a special rule where anyone is allowed in, but you'd ahve to pay the double tax if you're over (like how we signed Robert) Well, going over the pool is AGAINST the rules, so I don't think the MLB cares at all if some teams wish they had more warning. The MLB would just say "then don't break the rules next time."

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 20, 2017 -> 05:55 PM) Can't say I've truly grasped what the interests being defended are. The negotiating window thing makes sense to me -- a lot of players' fee agent contracts will be put on hold until teams know they missed on Otani. Not knowing where he's going until Feb 1 could have a drastic impact on free agency.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 20, 2017 -> 03:25 PM) Weird for me now being old enough to truly having watched and remembered most of these guys careers now eligible. You start to get some of the fights that happened previously a little better. Like first gut check, no way Rolen is a HOFer. Then I looked at numbers and it's like...hmmm Yeah, same reaction on Rolen.

Keep in mind that, given all we know about the LA amateur market and the fact that the Braves are losing him because of extra shadiness, there’s a good chance he didn’t see a whole lot of that 3 million in the first place.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Nov 16, 2017 -> 02:54 PM) Then journalists need to get their facts right. The article I read said he made one pitching appearance all year and got touched up for 4 runs in 1.1 innings. Yeah that’s extremely wrong. That was the line from his first start of the year, which didn’t happen until July. You may have been reading an old article.

QUOTE (GenericUserName @ Nov 15, 2017 -> 06:52 PM) Exactly. And for literally one game! How do we know we weren't there for every other game but our scout had food poisoning that night? We don't! Yeah, we can say its highly unlikely, but extrapolating from a single report about one game is ridiculous especially when most reporters have repeatedly said that every team will at least attempt to sign him. This isn’t true. Otani made seven starts, and there were a minimum ten teams represented at all of them. The broadcast would pan up to the scout seats practically every time he touched 98+

Lame.

Sherman now reporting that the MLB and NPB have a "tentative" agreement in place to extend the previous posting rules on more year, though nothing is final and the MLBPA has not yet been notified: http://nypost.com/2017/11/08/mlb-has-tenta...ne-hurdle-left/

I don't think they necessarily need to see him as much as I would think they'd want to send a message and begin to create a relationship with him, which I have no doubt the other teams were trying to do.

If I remember correctly the Sox were one of the teams not to have sent anyone to see him pitch this year. That can't bode well.

Looks like Yoshihisa Hirano is going to be an unrestricted free agent also. He's the closer on a bad team. I'll have to go back and watch some of his appearances if we're linked to him.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Nov 7, 2017 -> 05:18 PM) But how will one judge whether a team is "close" to competing if they only win 70 games, largely because the bullpen is awful? A bad bullpen also lends itself to overextending the starters in an effort to compensate. I'm not sure that's a good thing for the rebuild either. The same way you know the bullpen is garbage right now.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Nov 7, 2017 -> 04:01 PM) But that relatively young position player at an up the middle position = big $$$. IMO one of the cheapest and easiest ways for the White Sox to become competitivd again given their current state is to invest in pitching, more specifically the bullpen. I'd rather throw $100MM at four relievers like Reed, Minor, Shaw, and McGee than $150MM at a 33 year old Donaldson for example. Yeah I think this is the "agree to disagree" point. Pitching carries a substantially higher injury risk than hitting, especially over a period of several years. Stockpiling pitching and building just has a way higher chance to blow up in your face than doing the same with position players. It's the same reason why all of the recent successful rebuilders have consciously focused on drafting and developing positional talent and then spending big on pitching as the final piece. I agree that Donaldson wouldn't make sense for us, but he doesn't really fit the profile of what I mentioned in the first place. He's an aging corner guy that has tremendous present value but little future value. Your younger, up-the-middle guys are definitely more expensive, as you said, but there's a good reason -- they're rare and (relatively) dependable. If you lock one of them up (say Machado for a pipe dream), you can check that very important box off your list of needs for the foreseeable future, and now focus on the much easier task of filling lesser roles in whichever manner is appropriate. It's like going into a game of Yahtzee with the Yahtzee square already filled -- you still have a bunch of holes to fill to win, but your chances are much higher having already taken care of the hardest one to find. I think sometimes we forget how much of this whole exercise is about managing risk. Any player can bust at any time for several reasons, and you need to avoid that bust long enough to get a whole bunch of pieces in place at once. In order to maximize our chances of success, we need to minimize risk whenever possible. Building a foundation using the only the most stable elements allows us to maintain flexibility to spend on the more volatile elements closer to the time when we need them. You maximize your chances to win a game of hot potato by holding onto the ball for the least amount of time. If pitchers are the most likely asset to blow up, then our strategy for minimizing that bust potential is to minimize the amount of time we have to hold onto them hoping they don't blow up.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Nov 7, 2017 -> 03:20 PM) Don't we already know the bullpen is the most glaring weakness on this roster? I don't think Birmingham or Charlotte are exactly overflowing with power bullpen arms either. I don't see how this weakness will be addressed internally. I guess my bigger issue is that I view rebuilding as a gradual process of which includes signing free agents over an extended period of time rather than waiting for that "exact" window of contention. Yes, we know it's a glaring weakness, but we also know that the roster very likely doesn't have enough to compete even if that weakness disappeared. I agree that adding players shouldn't all happen at once, but you have to look at each player/player type individually. Relievers have notoriously short windows of effectiveness and are the easiest commodity to purchase at any given time, so that's not the type of free agent you want to buy gradually. A relatively young position player at an up-the-middle position, or perhaps a position that is weak organizationally? That's a different story.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 7, 2017 -> 01:33 PM) I hope your post is true. What about my post do you HOPE is true? I'm not talking about what the Sox are going to do, I'm talking about your claim that posters want to "save money for JR." It is not a matter of hope -- it IS true that no one thinks that. Why do you keep saying it? The reason people come down so hard on you sometimes, greg, isn't because you have unpopular opinions -- it because it doesn't seem like you read the posts you respond to. You're constantly putting words in people's mouths, and when they respond to correct you, you still go on pretending they didn't.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Nov 7, 2017 -> 01:38 PM) Agree to disagree. I don't view next year as a waste for Reed on the Sox. Would be nice to have a steady bullpen arm at the back end to close games for a young team full of unknowns in the pen. If one of those unknowns emerges as a potential closer in the next couple years you can always slide Reed back to his setup role. 4 years/$36MM is not a large commitment by today's standards (assuming that's his price tag). Consider the White Sox traded 4 relievers just last season alone (Swarzak, Jennings, Robertson, Kahnle), there is plenty of room to sign a couple this offseason and a couple next. I don't think signing Reed this offseason precludes them from acquiring a couple more next winter. It never seems like it, but those little things add up. We've seen this time run up against its spending walls several times. AN extra dead $8mm somewhere can make a big difference. I'm not saying Reed would necessarily be that guy, but if you start making moves LIKE these, you're going to run into one or two. It's just what happens to relievers, in general. And for what? A pretty generic above average reliever. Again, you can get that guy any year -- why not wait until you know that's how you want your money spent?

Bullpen arms of Addison Reed's quality are available every winter. No reason to buy now and burn the best year or two hoping they asset doesn't depreciate.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 7, 2017 -> 01:37 AM) Only great post in this thread IMO. Sox fans on this board overwhelmingly want the owners to spend no money, get rid of any player making a buck in pursuit of the rebuild. I can't wait to see who fans on this board someday deem worthy of a fat contract. Most of you soxtalk fans go to games. I can't believe your patience and willingness to give JR and the partners so much of your money for nothing in return (since 05). The Sox front office loves this board if they read it. You know my desires: Spend, spend spend just as fans spend 15 for a burger and 11 for a brewski. How do you STILL not get this? It's a matter of TIMING. TIMING, greg. Not being cheap. Spending money at the RIGHT TIME. No one gives a flying f*** about how rich Jerry Reinsdorf is. No one ever has. No one ever will.