ChiSox59

For a team dearth of power, trading the one guy with very real power, while also far from his peak value, seems like questionable decision making at best.

Elvis 2B, AV 3B, Sheets 1B, Perez C, Engel CF, Romy LF, Leury SS, Harrison DH, Payton RF That probably about as goofy as it could get while resting all the regulars.

Cairo was really pushing the bizarre lineup tonight. Hope its as entertaining as he was leading on.

To be honest, you could use the bolded for pretty much every single player on the Sox besides Cease. Hence the Sox predicament...

$9.5-10M range probably. He’s better than anyone they’re getting for that amount on the FA market on a 1 year deal.

He’s not gonna make anywhere close to $14 million

He’s also a dude that’s already bet on himself and he cares deeply about his performance. I personally would expect Gio to bounce back in a major way next season.

If he has minimal TV, why in the world would you trade him when we already have an opening in the rotation? The trade Giolito take continues to make less than no sense.

This. It will really suck. While it’s a no brainer decision, it’s still a bit of a I’ll believe it when I see it situation. Could definitely see Sox bringing back Abreu and trading AV for SP (would prefer a 2B if you go that route) or pretending like Eloy can play LF. I don’t think that’s be an optimal move, but definitely could see the JR override.

Well there is stat called OPS+ and wRC+ that tell you this very thing. They average 114, meaning he’s 14% above average. Those numbers were in the 120s before his recent slump. He’s a very good hitter. He’s also not an OF. He needs to play 1B or DH, and we have a DH who is our best hitter when he’s on the field. Which means AV needs to play 1B.

Perhaps? It’s fully a product of playing the OF. He’s a well above average hitter even with the cold streak the last few weeks.

Sheets and the soon to be FA 36 year old.

I disagree that it’s not logical to let him walk. What’s not logical is paying Jose Abreu 50% if the money we have to spend on the 2023 roster and continuing to act like this roster as contracted is one that can compete without major improvements to defense and lineup balance. Retaining Jose makes that improvement nearly impossible without a major increase to payroll, which we all know isn’t happening.

I don’t think he’s the best player nor was he much of a leader this year. If you can’t see that Abreu causes this roster major issues, I don’t know what to tell you. I love Jose. It’s nothing against him. AV is 10 years younger, cheaper and needs to play 1B. Sox need to invest Abreu $ in an actual corner OF that bats left handed. It’s pretty simple, really.

Jettisoning Abreu doesn’t create a hole. It solves a major problem.

Certainly don’t forward to having to read this tired BS in every single thread all offseason. Such a broken record.

I literally said I have no idea if they'll spent $30M on 2023. Try reading before responding.

It is definitely an open question. I have never denied that. I have no idea if they'll actually spend $30M this offseason on the 2023 payroll. Nor do you. The difference is you state it as fact as if there is no possible way they could ever exceed $197M as if it some magic threshold that if exceeded, the universe will combust. In reality, there is no meaningful difference between $195M, $197M, or $200M. Just like there is no meaningful difference between Cease, Kopech and Giolito shaking out at $13.75M in arb like my off the cuff arb projections stated in the OP, or $17M. Its largely insignificant in the scheme of things.

Rewarding a guy that put up an awesome season in Charlotte, like they should do in a lost season. Payton has a .908 OPS is Charlotte. Compare that to .716 for Haseley on the same team in the same park. So yeah, he's probably quite a bit better than "Helseley".

I don't even think Cease should be that huge for an arb 1 guy.

I feel like buyouts on 2023 options should count towards 2022 payroll. They may not for CBT purposes (not sure off hand), but if Sox buyout Harrison they own him $1.5M in a few weeks, not in 2023.

Not as appealing as they were 2 years ago, but the Sox are still in a far better situation that most teams looking for a new manager historically. They'll have more competition this offseason than an average one, though. That is for sure.

Cairo did a solid job. I have much more respect for him now than I did when he was the invisible bench coach. I’d be more than fine retaining him as bench coach. Cairo and Katz are only 2 current staff members I would even consider retaining. Everyone else has to go.

I loved his smirk when stating that. The question posed was something to the effect of “who gets the final vote between the three of you when there isn’t agreement?”. Everyone knows the answer to that is JR. It’s always been abundantly clear that consensus was never achieved with respect hiring TLR.

Starting Colas in the big leagues would be an awful decision. If that was the plan, he should have been called up 5 weeks ago. It’s like 15 games, wait. Pollock is a perfectly fine fill in for 3 weeks in April.