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This deal pretty suggests Sox have to eat half of Benintendi’s salary to get rid of him.

I’d rather suffer through 60 games of Derek Hill starting at CF than 160.

Let me check my notes… if Sox trade Robert the next man up is Derek Hill. No thanks.

We don’t have a lot of data point yet, but the new lottery system SHOULD at least disincentivize teams for being bad for consecutive years. Pirates and ATH saw 19 and 14 win increases the following season after being ineligible for lottery the following season, and that’s without significant payroll increase. If they choose to spend and address a couple areas of weaknesses I think the likelihood of .500 ball is higher than those numbers would suggest.

That’s fair on the statistical win rate post ASB. However I do think there is a quite a bit of difference between fielding a team of rookies just getting called up and guys knowing there is not much to play for with two months left on the season vs guys who are a bit more experienced, acclimated to the big leagues, and being on a roster that could compete and play winning baseball. As for what a “competitive roster” looks like, I think that would be another impactful signing or two on SP, RP, and cutting down on the number of guys (2 Rule 5 picks, likes of Mead, Hill, Pereira) auditioning for roster spots. I made this post fully know how Jerry operates, and throwing another $30M on the 2026 team just to get to .500 may not be the best ROI financially for him and his investors, so it may just be wishful thinking.

From a WAR perspective, the collective output of some of the worst bats who saw considerable playing time - Vaughn, Rojas, Palacios, Amaya put up a whopping -6.0 WAR, while Civale and Cannon accounted for another -1.0 WAR on the starting pitching side. Replacing those with Murakami, and current projected bench players Sosa, Lee, Hill who all were on positive side of the WAR ledger, along with Kay who should at least be better than Civale or Cannon, could be a 10 WAR swing in itself. What I had noted in the OP, beyond Kay, we need a solid #2 or 3 type of guy along with another late inning high leverage arm to make this at least a respectable staff. Of course, a bit part of getting back to playing winning baseball would rely some of the other young, core guys taking another step forward, and building a winning and competitive culture in the clubhouse to maximize the talent on the roster. This to me would be the biggest factor in how fast this team can get back on track. I was using the 2022 Orioles as an example, but of course that level of win increase doesn’t happen often. However I do see the pieces being in place along with 1 or 2 more key FA additions that could make it a possibility.

Don’t see the need to trade Sosa or Benintendi. Mead, Lee, Hill, Pereira has the makings of worst bench offense in the league. Having flexibility of Sosa getting to play 5 days a week and playing matchups, getting guys days off, backfilling for injuries would be hugely important for this team.

The smirk on Getz’s face when he signed, I am hoping he slid a team option in there.

So much of the last rebuild had planned around the competitive window starting around 2020 when young guys like Moncada, Eloy, Robert, Cease, Kopech, and Dunning supplementing vets like Abreu, TA, Gio, and Reylo. But players failed to live up to the hype and/or stay healthy, clubhouse lacked leadership, team also got expensive quickly with no one from the farm ready to step up, and the window was slammed close before you know it. As for the current direction of this team, initially many had expected that this team couldn’t compete until 2028 at the earliest given the historically bad the 2024 team. Twelve months later, with the arrival of Colton, Teel, and Quero, supplemented by a couple of solid, if unspectacular young bats, in Vargas, Sosa, and Baldwin, and hitting a homerun with the Rule 5 pick of Smith, and top prospects poised for getting the call, Sox looks like they have a chance to compete by 2027. My question here is could the Sox be competitive even in 2026, play .500 or better ball and stay in the WC hunt for better part of the summer? Some of this could reactionary to having Murakami on the roster for next 2 years, and huge question mark on whether he even makes this team any better. But if say a couple of young hitters takes a step forward, the likes of Burke, Martin, and Cannon continue to put up 4.20 ish ERA despite questionable peripherals, and we get second half re-enforcements from likes of Braden, Schultz, Hagen, Thorpe, how far off is this team from being .500 team or slightly better? I’m using 2022 Orioles as a recent comp. They got a +31 win YoY (52 to 83) with arrival of Adley and increased contributions from younger guys having mini breakout (Santander, Urias, Mateo), and going from the worst rotation in the league to having a below average one. They then went on to win 101 games in 2023 with arrival of Gunnar. As it stands the 2026 Sox is sitting at $96M payroll factoring all the benefits, that’s about $40M lower than their 2024 OD payroll for context. It’s not crazy to imagine having room to spend on a #2 or 3 starter along with a late inning option to solidify the bullpen, especially with some level of financial backing from Ishbia this year. If we could do just that, this team could become competitive a lot sooner than we had originally thought, perhaps as early as this year. If there is one thing the last rebuild has taught us, expected the unexpected, the “competitive window” could come and go a lot sooner than what we’re planning for, we need to consistently accumulate assets at both major and minor league level to stretch this window and avoid spending years as a bottom feeder.

My point was more so that his trade value would only increase if we hold off on trading him this year. If he catches 60 games and splits remaining time between 1B/DH, while being a professional hitter that he is already showing he could be, you’re gonna get a much better return if or when you have a real need to trade him.

The projected slot value for 1.1 would be at least $11.5M. Skenes has the highest bonus record at $9.2M (with 1.1 pick slot value at $9.7M in 2023). Even if Roch smash that record and gets $11M, that still leaves us some room to work with.

In a perfect world we draft Roch and he’s as good as advertised and his arrives at the same time as Ishbia takes over franchise, we lock up Roch with a long term deal as he debuts then Ishbia opens the wallet to field a perennial playoff team for years to come. This is definitely a big step in the right direction for this franchise.

Harold Baines invited to all cookouts in Chicago.

I would think it helps our cause that 3 teams have low odds in the top 6

Not getting my hopes up, there is a 72% chance they don’t get the first pick.