White Sox Sign RP Joe Kelly (2yrs with a club option; $17m)

[elrockinMT]

Kelly is a solid addition. We need good bullpen arms so our starters stay fresh enough to get us into championship play

[Jack Parkman]

What happened when the Sox played the Astros in the playoffs again? Oh yeah.....

[mac9001]

The overallocation of available capital to the bullpen does look like a poor value strategy. But the risk with paying a premium for a TOR is likely to yield an equally poor value outcome. They can still find decent value for OF ABs, but they needed to fill bodies at 2B and a bullpen role and they did. The White Sox never have a strategy based on aggressively presuming a legitimate title contender. It's always a half assed approach that mainly yields lower risk investments. Since they're not willing to commit the resources to build a legitimate contender these half ass moves will suffice for now.

Edited March 13, 2022 by mac9001

[thxfrthmmrs]

1 hour ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Kimbrel is getting traded, but keep on trolling bro…

Even if he’s getting traded, overspending on BP is the reason why we lost Madrigal. We’re being managed by someone who is about a decade or two behind in baseball who insists on throwing all the resources at BP and paying for past performance, while successful orgs invest in scouting and pitching development to develop their BP arms (see Rays’ spending on BP).

I’m more ok if we threw the money at someone other than Kelly. Kelly was decent with Dodgers last year but was used in low leverage situations, and yet we’re paying him like an 7th or 8th inning high leverage arm. For comparison, Raisel Iglesias, who is arguably a top 5 reliever in baseball, got $14.5M AAV, which is basically what we’re paying Harrison and Kelly (longer contract and all).
 

Also FWIW the Dodgers who have unlimited payroll could have kept Kelly for $8M this year, yet they declined the option. We’re paying him $17M for next 2 years.

Edited March 13, 2022 by thxfrthmmrs

[chw42]

https://soxmachine.com/2022/03/12/joe-kelly-white-sox-signing-analysis/

I had no idea Kelly got hurt in the playoffs last year. Apparently, the injury was not bad enough for him to miss the 6 month time that it might have required. We'll see how it goes I guess. 

[ptatc]

15 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

What happened when the Sox played the Astros in the playoffs again? Oh yeah.....

The Sox pitching got lit up.

[Chicago White Sox]

32 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Joe Kelly gets as much in 2 years as Kimbrel gets in 1: “this totally shows Kimbrel is being traded.”

White Sox sign Harrison, showing who rejected the Kimbrel for Segura concept: “Kimbrel still has plenty of value!”

Every day goes by with no Kimbrel trade: “This just means Hahn has so many offers for him that he’s unwilling to choose and obviously is willing to let suitors go other places because there’s no possible risk, not that he has no one willing to absorb that whole contract.”

There is obviously no commonality here that would magically make them all make sense. Not at all like they all totally fit with “no one will take on that whole contract and they’re waiting to see if someone comes closer once Jansen gets like $12 million.”

People will be insisting Kimbrel will be traded tomorrow on June 15.

As I posted earlier today, but let me add some dollar figures to these guys:

• Player A:  2.54 ERA | 2.34 FIP | 14.3 K/9 | 1.4 HR/9 | 99th percentile xwOBA (4/$54M)
• Player B:  2.26 ERA | 2.43 FIP | 15.1 K/9 | 0.9 HR/9 | 98th percentile xwOBA (????????)
• Player C:  2.57 ERA | 2.83 FIP | 13.2 K/9 | 1.4 HR/9 | 97th percentile xwOBA (4/$58M)

So players A & C are somehow worth $13M+ per year on four year deals, but player B (who is obviously Kimbrel) is lucky to be worth 1/$10M per yourself.  🤔

[Chicago White Sox]

24 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Oh come now he isn't trolling. I don't get it why people cannot be critical of the FO and management without everyone telling them how critical they are or telling them they are trolling. I consider Ray Ray and 2 Gun knowledgeable guys . I never agree with everything they say but they do know the front office history of never quite finishing things off.

Yes the team has a record payroll this year but as we can see lately there has been a lot of older vets picked up. Kelly, Kimbrel, Harrison, Lynn, Keuchel, Hendriks with lots of youth jettisoned with likely more youth jettisoned to find a starting pitcher. Kimbrel alone cost the Sox Madrigal and Heuer and the $7M used for Harrison and Kimbrel's salary. They decided Rodon wasn't worth a QO even though he's 29 and coming off the best pitching his career. SF wants to win . Do the Sox because the next move better be trading Kimbrel or you can kiss your dreams of Conforto goodbye. Might as well kiss Vaughn goodbye too because now the Sox are under the gun to make a trade for a starting pitcher who will probably have just as much injury risk as Rodon without the really high upside and probably also approaching his mid 30's. But hey the Sox might keep Vaughn and sign 38 yr old Zack Greinke ,39 yr old JA Happ ,or Danny Duffy or Zach Davies .

If the Sox get Castellanos instead what happened to getting more LH ?

Are they making any attempt to fix the farm ? At least with my trade proposal with the Mets it was getting some good young talent while taking on a bad contract while also dumping one and made us more left handed and younger and got us decent defensive catcher for backup. It wasn't realistic but I'd like to see something creative instead of the same OLD schtick.

Of course he is.  The Sox aren’t signing Joe Kelly to 2/$17M deal if they plan on keeping Kimbrel and you know that.

[Jack Parkman]

3 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

As I posted earlier today, but let me add some dollar figures to these guys:

• Player A:  2.54 ERA | 2.34 FIP | 14.3 K/9 | 1.4 HR/9 | 99th percentile xwOBA (4/$54M)
• Player B:  2.26 ERA | 2.43 FIP | 15.1 K/9 | 0.9 HR/9 | 98th percentile xwOBA (????????)
• Player C:  2.57 ERA | 2.83 FIP | 13.2 K/9 | 1.4 HR/9 | 97th percentile xwOBA (4/$58M)

So players A & C are somehow worth $13M+ per year on four year deals, but player B (who is obviously Kimbrel) is lucky to be worth 1/$10M per yourself.  🤔

Do the same stats from 2019 to now instead of only 2021. 

[Chicago White Sox]

17 minutes ago, thxfrthmmrs said:

Even if he’s getting traded, overspending on BP is the reason why we lost Madrigal. We’re being managed by someone who is about a decade or two behind in baseball who insists on throwing all the resources at BP and paying for past performance, while successful orgs invest in scouting and pitching development to develop their BP arms (see Rays’ spending on BP).

I’m more ok if we threw the money at someone other than Kelly. Kelly was decent with Dodgers last year but was used in low leverage situations, and yet we’re paying him like an 7th or 8th inning high leverage arm. For comparison, Raisel Iglesias, who is arguably a top 5 reliever in baseball, got $14.5M AAV, which is basically what we’re paying Harrison and Kelly (longer contract and all).
 

Also FWIW the Dodgers who have unlimited payroll could have kept Kelly for $8M this year, yet they declined the option. We’re paying him $17M for next 2 years.

I’m 100% fine with anyone preferring us sign another reliever.  My beef is with people acting like it’s dumb to sigh more relievers from a capital allocation perspective.  The same people bitching about this move would be bitching about our shitty bullpen in May if we didn’t sign Kelly & Graveman.

[CeaseAndExist]

11 minutes ago, thxfrthmmrs said:

Even if he’s getting traded, overspending on BP is the reason why we lost Madrigal. We’re being managed by someone who is about a decade or two behind in baseball who insists on throwing all the resources at BP and paying for past performance, while successful orgs invest in scouting and pitching development to develop their BP arms (see Rays’ spending on BP).

I’m more ok if we threw the money at someone other than Kelly. Kelly was decent with Dodgers last year but was used in low leverage situations, and yet we’re paying him like an 7th or 8th inning high leverage arm. For comparison, Raisel Iglesias, who is arguably a top 5 reliever in baseball, got $14.5M AAV, which is basically what we’re paying Harrison and Kelly (longer contract and all).
 

Also FWIW the Dodgers who have unlimited payroll could have kept Kelly for $8M this year, yet they declined the option. We’re paying him $17M for next 2 years.

Everything in this post is wrong, everything.

Also, this board would have imploded if Hahn gave $68M guaranteed to a RP as inconsistent as Iglesias, and you would have been leading that charge. 

[maloney.adam]

7 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Of course he is.  The Sox aren’t signing Joe Kelly to 2/$17M deal if they plan on keeping Kimbrel and you know that.

Yeah Kimbrel is going to be traded. Maybe within the next 24 to 48 hours, maybe sooner. I don’t get why some people think they won’t trade him. 

Edited March 13, 2022 by maloney.adam

[Two-Gun Pete]

28 minutes ago, mac9001 said:

The overallocation of available capital to the bullpen does look like a poor value strategy. But the risk with paying a premium for a TOR is likely to yield an equally poor value outcome. 

This is a fair argument. But let's take the example of the (non-TOR), but recently departed Carlos Rodon:

His QO was what, $18.9MM?

Even if he suggests a 50% loss of production, thats still 2.45 fWAR. At today's $/WAR cost in the FA market, hed still easily be worth the $18.9MM. 

"But what if he gets hurt," you say?

Easy: You insure the contract, so you get some of the cash back, and start the year with Kopech in AAA to slowly get stretched out. (You could also have possibly recovered the year of lost control, if memory serves.)

Then, you could have later brought Kopech up to replace Rodon if Rodon got hurt. 

 

That said,you are correct. A TOR SP does come with a premium that could erode cost-efficiency if things go sideways. (See: Keuchel, or Bauer)

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Two-Gun Pete

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I’m 100% fine with anyone preferring us sign another reliever.  My beef is with people acting like it’s dumb to sigh more relievers from a capital allocation perspective.  The same people bitching about this move would be bitching about our shitty bullpen in May if we didn’t sign Kelly & Graveman.

…waits for your response when someone else signs Conforto…

[Chicago White Sox]

6 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

Do the same stats from 2019 to now instead of only 2021. 

Didn’t you say Kimbrel was terrible last year?  Because those are his full year numbers and they don’t look much different than two dudes who got $50M contracts.  🤔

[Chicago White Sox]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

…waits for your response when someone else signs Conforto…

Did someone else sign Conforto?

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, maloney.adam said:

Yeah Kimbrel is going to be traded. Maybe within the next 24 to 48 hours, maybe sooner. I don’t get why some are saying they aren’t going to trade him.

November 3 2022: “the White Sox will finally trade Kimbrel tomorrow, I swear. He has tons of surplus value it’s crazy that you think no one will give up a top talent for him for the next 13 minutes.”

[CeaseAndExist]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

…waits for your response when someone else signs Conforto…

Conforto sucks

[maloney.adam]

Just now, Balta1701 said:

November 3 2022: “the White Sox will finally trade Kimbrel tomorrow, I swear. He has tons of surplus value it’s crazy that you think no one will give up a top talent for him for the next 13 minutes.”

You read too much into it. 

[chw42]

5 minutes ago, maloney.adam said:

Yeah Kimbrel is going to be traded. Maybe within the next 24 to 48 hours, maybe sooner. I don’t get why some people think they won’t trade him. 

I don't think it's a matter of why the Sox won't trade him. It's a matter of lack of interest from other teams for what the Sox are asking in return. 

[Chicago White Sox]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

November 3 2022: “the White Sox will finally trade Kimbrel tomorrow, I swear. He has tons of surplus value it’s crazy that you think no one will give up a top talent for him for the next 13 minutes.”

Not one person has argued Kimbrel has a ton of surplus value.  If you want to make that claim, show us the posts…

[Chicago White Sox]

1 minute ago, CeaseAndExist said:

Conforto sucks

Weird take

[CeaseAndExist]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

November 3 2022: “the White Sox will finally trade Kimbrel tomorrow, I swear. He has tons of surplus value it’s crazy that you think no one will give up a top talent for him for the next 13 minutes.”

Ok

You've guaranteed Kimbrel wont be traded. Let's see if you're right

[mac9001]

5 minutes ago, Two-Gun Pete said:

This is a fair argument. But let's take the example of the (non-TOT), but recently departed Carlos Rodon:

His QO was what, $18.9MM?

Even if he suggests a 50% loss of production, thats still 2.45 fWAR. At today's $/WAR cost in the FA market, hed still easily be worth the $18.9MM. 

"But what if he gets hurt," you say?

Easy: You insure the contract, so you get some of the cash back, and start the year with Kopech in AAA to slowly get stretched out. (You could also have possibly recovered the year of lost control, if memory serves.)

Then, you could have later brought Kopech up to replace Rodon if Rodon got hurt. 

 

That said,you are correct. A TOR SP does come with a premium that could erode cost-efficiency if things go sideways. (See: Keuchel, or Bauer)

 

I would have been fine with Rodon at the QO, but we correctly assumed he would likely find enough of a market to surpass the QO. At roughly 44M the risk is almost absurdly high given his health history. I'll take a league avg 2B and RP over Rodon any day.

[Balta1701]

3 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Not one person has argued Kimbrel has a ton of surplus value.  If you want to make that claim, show us the posts…

I’m betting I can find someone who thought the Phillies would take on his entire contract and give up a pre-arbitration reliever with a solid 2019 season for him.