Black_Jack29

If the Sox could find somebody to replace his production at that price, then great. But then they need still need offensive production at RF and DH. They're not filling all three of those offensive holes, so I don't see that happening.

I would absolutely lock him into two years. They already have holes at DH and RF, and they're trying to compete next season.

So they're going to knock him down from $16M per year to $15M per year? After the performance that he put up this year? I doubt that.

The Sox are going to have to pay him more than $16M per year. So if not $20M, you can count on $18M per year if they want him back.

Dude put up an .834 OPS and led the league in RBIs this year. He's also the face of the franchise and has been the only consistently good hitter on this team over the past five or so years. I wouldn't want to commit more than three years to him, but you have to pay him reasonably.

I'm guessing they'll offer him 2/40 and a mutual option for a third year at $23M. They may cave and give him a guaranteed 3/55. Given that he'll probably be a .770–.830 OPS for the next two years, I think that's reasonable. Jose is worth more to the Sox than he would be to any old team on the FA market.

I don't know how Lopez is going to pan out over the long run, but he's 25, he's under team control through 2023, he's dirt-cheap, and he's shown flashes of brilliance. I'm totally fine with a guy like that at the back of the rotation. If he can overcome his inconsistency, he'll be a tremendous asset going forward.

That sounds about right. Personally, I don't have a problem with that because he's a good clubhouse guy and has been a good mentor to guys like Moncada and Jiminez. He's sort of like our Derek Jeter, where his value to this team is higher than it would be to any other team.

That is true, and that's roughly what Nova made this season. Rodon would be a decent insurance policy for 2021/22. Outside of Lucas being the ace and Lopez being an acceptable back-of-the-rotation guy, there's a ton of uncertainty there.

I don't know. Tommy John surgery is not the career-killer that it used to be, but some guys are never the same after those injuries. If the Sox had given a deal like that to Danks after his shoulder surgery, they probably would've regretted it. That said, the Sox are going to save a bunch of money by having Lucas, Cease, Lopez, and (presumably) Kopech in their rotation. While JR is unlikely to pay out the wazoo for Cole, they're going to pay for at least one veteran starter and having $3M cover 80% of the rotation fees up a ton of cash. If you added a $5M buyout to 2022, the contract offer that you outlined sounds reasonable. Then again, isn't Rodon a Boras client? I'm not sure how that'll affect things.

Depends on what Rodon's arb numbers are going to be in 2020 and 2021. If he's costing $5M/year and the Sox still have a massive hole in their rotation late next season, they may want to take a flyer on him and see how he does in 2021.

Except that they're going to need to pay the veterans that they trade for, and don't have a ton of payroll flexibility. We're also better positioned to sign free agents because of our greater payroll flexibility.

Ditto. Abreu.

My first thought was, "Yeah, he's failed to get results for years, but why now *after* he's finally managed to results from young players?" I guess this is the answer. Whenever I think to myself, "Hahn and Kenny are professionals, they have to have some sort of plan," I remember the Semien and Tatis, Jr. trades. They should've both been fired after Tatis-for-Shields.

The Sox are in their current position relative to the Cubs because of Reinsdorf/Einhorn's failure to keep the Sox on WGN in the early 1980s. When Reinsdorf/Einhorn put the Sox on a proprietary (pay) cable channel, people stopped watching. Meanwhile, the Cubs were on national TV via WGN. They got all the popularity because they got all the air time. Nobody alive today cares about the Black Sox scandal.

Even if the Sox had won 3 WS titles in the 2000s, the Cubs still would've been the more popular team in Chicago at this point. Hardcore Cubs fans wouldn't have switched allegiances because of it. The casual fans that would've become Sox fans would've gotten distracted by the Blackhawks in the early 2010s and then probably would've jumped on the Cubs bandwagon a few years ago.

"Please don't shoot!"

Alternatively, they could take Leury to arbitration and get him for relatively cheap as our RF, with Engel as the utility OF. That would give them more flexibility at finding a (preferably left-handed) DH. (I'm guessing that Palka's 2019 performance removes him from consideration as our 2020 DH.)

I never thought that the Sox were serious about shelling out $300+M for either Machado or Harper, and still believe that the Sox's reported contract offer(s) to Machado were either planted by the Sox front office to give fans the impression that they were trying to sign him or by Machado's agent as a bargaining tactic. JR has never spent more than $69M on a single contract, and the idea that he'd suddenly spend $300M seems really unbelievable to me. Given how this organization's young (and not terribly expensive) position players have developed, our current need for starting pitching, and the reality of the organization's payroll limitations, I have to say that I'm really happy that neither of these two are in a Sox uniform. If only the Sox front office didn't beclown itself with the stupid Alonso/Jay signings, I'd say that they did the right thing. I really enjoyed watching this team this season and am looking forward to 2020.

Right, and blow out the elbows of the guys who just pitched in the previous two games and you're looking to trade in July because your team is likely to finish in fourth place. You're catching on now.

Given the amount of rope that JR gave Manuel and Ventura, I don't see Renteria going anywhere this year. Probably not next year either, unless they're absolutely horrible and there's no progress in player development at all (the latter seems unlikely). Remember that RR was deliberately brought in to replace Ventura because he had a track record of successful young player development with the Cubs. Vizquel doesn't have a managerial record of anything at the ML level. But, yeah, I could see Vizquel brought in at some point (2021?) if the rebuild doesn't turn the Sox into a competitor.

"This season" is not even four games in length yet. Maybe give them a full week of games before declaring them trash?

I don't see JR firing RR when the Sox fail to perform in a rebuilding year. I don't see RR on the heat seat until next June.

Yeah, I don't think that Palka will lose his job due to poor performance on April 1st.

Well, now I know who Ryan Cordell is...