Winter Meetings Dec. Trades FA Signings Thread

[Chicago White Sox]

7 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

https://detroitsportsnation.com/tigers-massive-tarik-skubal-dodgers-trade-proposal/jeff/detroit-tigers/12/08/2025/481399/

Glasnow Sheehan Zh.Hope

Two starting pitchers, one cost controlled, and a young starting OFer to pair with Riley Greene.

 

Makes a ton of sense.

Skubal Matsumoto Snell Ohtani the core of the rotation.

Dodgers would still hold onto four young starters (Sasaki Wrobleski Casparius River Ryan)

4 outfielders: Josue DePaula Sirota Eduardo Quintero Kendall George

D.Rushing and a boatload of infield prospects (including Hy.Kim and Alex Freeland)

Already traded the Tigers their starting SS for Flaherty in 2024 deal, so quite familiar with DET roster/system atm.

Andy Pages still in CF.

Caulfield - I have always been a supporter of you, but like what in the f*** man.  Now you are throwing out made up deal terms from Jim fucking Bowden as if they are the real thing unless you read the linked article.  You aren’t going to make it in the future world of endless AI slop articles because you have no filter and never edit your posts to clearly articulate what is fact, what is the opinion of the author, and what are your own thoughts.

[Chicago White Sox]

7 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Or perhaps get owners in place who care more about winning than profit margins. Especially those getting millions in revenue sharing money and national broadcast deals (which when you add them all up equals roughly 200 million for each team every year) That's not counting local media rights, national radio rights, merchandising, concessions and tickets sold.  

Just a thought.

Everyone thought the Dodgers would easily beat the Blue Jays to win the series. It was anything but that wasn't it?

As has been shown by folks here at the web site. MLB has had more teams compete in and or/win the World Series than the NBA has had or the NFL either for their respective championships. 

 

These are arguments have been made time & time again.  The parity of the MLB fucking sucks and is not remotely comparable to the NFL or even NBA from a market size perspective.  People are so bitter about Jerry being cheap that they refuse to accept that the sport is rigged to benefit large market teams.  Yeah, the sport deserves better owners than Bob Nutting, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Dodgers have a regional TV that allows them to spend endlessly more than half the league and it shows in their sustained success.  You trying to use the Dodgers winning the World Series last year against another major market team (#5 in payroll) as proof parity exists because it went to game 7 is candidly absurd.

[Chicago White Sox]

45 minutes ago, poppysox said:

New York and LA do not equal "attractive standards/conditions of living."
 

?

[soxrwhite]

1 hour ago, poppysox said:

New York and LA do not equal "attractive standards/conditions of living."
 

When you have that kind of money it is,

[poppysox]

33 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

?

Would you like to live in New York?  You would need to pay me a hugh premium.  Higher cost of living and taxation in both NY and LA

[PaleAleSox]

10 minutes ago, poppysox said:

Would you like to live in New York?  You would need to pay me a hugh premium.  Higher cost of living and taxation in both NY and LA

Am I making MLB player money?

[Quin]

21 minutes ago, poppysox said:

Would you like to live in New York?  You would need to pay me a hugh premium.  Higher cost of living and taxation in both NY and LA

If my wife and I do just fine on a combined salary of $170k to live in the nation's cultural capital, I think an MLB player would survive just fine.

[poppysox]

4 minutes ago, PaleAleSox said:

Am I making MLB player money?

Just because players make lots of money...doesn't mean they all crave $50 hamburgers and high taxes.  Many posters think Chicago is not an attractive place for free agents, yet many can't imagine a better place to live and play.  

[Quin]

2 minutes ago, poppysox said:

Just because players make lots of money...doesn't mean they all crave $50 hamburgers and high taxes.  Many posters think Chicago is not an attractive place for free agents, yet many can't imagine a better place to live and play.  

This shows peak ignorance of the NYC food scene.

Best burgers in the city don't come from Salt Bae, who got driven out for his overpriced s%*#. Best food in NYC comes from cheap hole in the walls half the time.

[poppysox]

8 minutes ago, Quin said:

If my wife and I do just fine on a combined salary of $170k to live in the nation's cultural capital, I think an MLB player would survive just fine.

The point is...we are all different.

[Quin]

1 minute ago, poppysox said:

The point is...we are all different.

Yeah, a lot of us deal in facts and objective anecdotes like California teams, NYC teams and Toronto signing free agents to massive deals over places like Miami, Tampa Bay and Houston.

Rangers have doled out some deals, but nothing comparatively.

[poppysox]

7 minutes ago, Quin said:

Yeah, a lot of us deal in facts and objective anecdotes like California teams, NYC teams and Toronto signing free agents to massive deals over places like Miami, Tampa Bay and Houston.

Rangers have doled out some deals, but nothing comparatively.

I am glad you are happy.

[Chicago White Sox]

Looking at our lineup for next year, I agree with Getz on the need for more LH hitting.  Over the second half of the past season when guys were finally hitting their strides, we had five hitters that were well above average against RHP in Colson (140 wRC+), Teel (135 wRC+), Baldwin (129 wRC+), Robert (129 wRC+), & Tauchman (119 wRC+).  Robert has had a few seasons like that against RHP in the past but I’d wager for some regression in 2026 and Tauchman is obviously gone.

From a 1B/DH perspective, there isn’t a great option against RHP at the moment.  The bulk of our internal options did most of their damage against lefties during the second half of last year as shown by Benintendi (148 wRC+), Vargas (130 wRC+), Quero (129 wRC+), & Sosa (121 wRC+).  For Benintendi, his splits are inconsistent each year and he’s mostly league average against both righties & lefties (which sucks for a DH).  The other three aren’t terrible against RHP (95 to 100 wRC+) but leave obvious room for upgrades.  Given the lack of options in the minors, this is a clear spot to add a LH bat and possibly one on a multi-year agreement.

From an OF perspective, assuming we keep Robert for now, Baldwin should be regularly starting against RHP and on the bench against LHP.  Pereira serves as a perfect platoon partner for him in one of the corner spots.  To me, it’s very obvious another corner OF is needed that can hit RHP, especially if you want to get Andrew out of LF where is a massively negative value player.  However, it can’t be ignored that Braden Montgomery should / could be up at some point this year.  We should still add here, but I wouldn’t go multi year on a B / C tier free agent.

As such, I’d like to see us go out and sign two free agents.  The first one would be Ryan O’Hearn to a 2/$27M deal.  He’s not a stud by any means, but has averaged a 122 wRC+ against RHP over the past three seasons and will provide some stability to the middle of the order.  The second one would be JJ Bleday to a cheap pillow contract.  While his defense has fallen off some, he should be able to provide plus defense in a corner OF spot.  Obviously the bat is the other big concern, but from 2023 to 2024 he put up a 119 wRC+ against RHP.  At only 28 years of age and with multiple years of control left, he is 100% worth the gamble as placeholder until Braden is ready.

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, poppysox said:

Would you like to live in New York?  You would need to pay me a hugh premium.  Higher cost of living and taxation in both NY and LA

If I’m a major leaguer, why not?  Better than living in a place like Cleveland.

[oldsox]

44 minutes ago, Quin said:

If my wife and I do just fine on a combined salary of $170k to live in the nation's cultural capital, I think an MLB player would survive just fine.

Be nice to her.

[southsider2k5]

31 minutes ago, Quin said:

Yeah, a lot of us deal in facts and objective anecdotes like California teams, NYC teams and Toronto signing free agents to massive deals over places like Miami, Tampa Bay and Houston.

Rangers have doled out some deals, but nothing comparatively.

While plenty of people have been trained to be scared of big cities recently, the only drawback to NY is money.   If you have a job making 10X the median salary in the US, NY would be a spectacular place to live.

[PaleAleSox]

Obviously incredible the Sox got the first pick, but overall the winter meetings have been pretty boring. Haven’t even been crazy rumors really. 

[Quin]

1 hour ago, oldsox said:

Be nice to her.

You generally do that when you're in a relationship. 

[hi8is]

Living in LA is no bueno.

that is all.

 

my entire contribution.

 

goodbye.

 

thank you.

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Caulfield - I have always been a supporter of you, but like what in the f*** man.  Now you are throwing out made up deal terms from Jim fucking Bowden as if they are the real thing unless you read the linked article.  You aren’t going to make it in the future world of endless AI slop articles because you have no filter and never edit your posts to clearly articulate what is fact, what is the opinion of the author, and what are your own thoughts.

I just wanted to put a possible set of players to the deal just to make discussions around it more interesting/worthwhile.

Someone also wrote yesterday JFC Glasnow isn't going to be traded in a million years.

They're forgetting he still possesses that original mindset of a TB underdog mentality front office executive.

Glasnow carries the highest amount of risk in that rotation, other than Shohei.

 

It still feels a bit light...but then it's allowing a decent chunk of the Glasnow contract to offset the proposed Skubal extension. And the Dodgers currently possess a ton of young pitching as well as OF depth.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, Chicago White Sox said:

If I’m a major leaguer, why not?  Better than living in a place like Cleveland.

Plus, a lot of the Asian players aren't ever going to be comfortable anywhere in the middle of the country except for Chicago and just maybe Houston and Dallas/Ft.Worth/Arlington.

Flights to the California/Seattle 3-5 hours shorter compared to US Eastern seaboard, too.

Toronto is definitely more eastern... albeit not quite Montreal winters.

Edited Wednesday at 04:10 PM by caulfield12

[WhiteSox2023]

1 hour ago, Quin said:

You generally do that when you're in a relationship. 

Not if you’re in the other ~50 percent that ends in a divorce.  🤣

[Lip Man 1]

4 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

These are arguments have been made time & time again.  The parity of the MLB fucking sucks and is not remotely comparable to the NFL or even NBA from a market size perspective.  People are so bitter about Jerry being cheap that they refuse to accept that the sport is rigged to benefit large market teams.  Yeah, the sport deserves better owners than Bob Nutting, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Dodgers have a regional TV that allows them to spend endlessly more than half the league and it shows in their sustained success.  You trying to use the Dodgers winning the World Series last year against another major market team (#5 in payroll) as proof parity exists because it went to game 7 is candidly absurd.

All I know is what the results have shown over the last 20-30 years.

More teams have made it to the World Series from different cities than teams made it to the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl.

I think the issue in baseball is awful owners, you disagree...so be it.

The bottom line is a salary cap is NEVER going to be instituted in MLB. I suggest everyone get used to that idea. Again history shows this to be the case.

 

 

[Chicago White Sox]

5 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

All I know is what the results have shown over the last 20-30 years.

More teams have made it to the World Series from different cities than teams made it to the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl.

I think the issue in baseball is awful owners, you disagree...so be it.

The bottom line is a salary cap is NEVER going to be instituted in MLB. I suggest everyone get used to that idea. Again history shows this to be the case.

 

 

A 20 to 30 year sample is completely irrelevant to the modern baseball environment.  It’s been proven there is a significant advantage in the MLB today being a large market team vs. a small market team in terms of making the post season.  There is a much lesser issue in the NBA and almost non existent in the NFL.  You’re confusing a much different issue which is teams with stars in the NBA and elite QBs in the NFL are more to make the playoffs, but that has very little to do with market size because all teams have the chance of acquiring and retaining them unlike in baseball.

[Sleepy Harold]