WestEddy

He's also a contributor at FutureSox.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to make fun of Baltimore. My wife's family is from the Eastern Shore, and the governor, in 1991, referred to it with that quip. It's pretty famous there, I'm told. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/02/11/Irate-residents-deliver-outhouses-to-governor/1448666248400/

I refer, of course, to Governor Shaefer's quip about the Eastern Shore, when he called it a shithouse. I've driven over the Bay Bridge many times. Beautiful. I'm regularly attacked by large ravens. I believe all y'all call them "mosquitoes".

Yeah, @Frobby is cool. I was probably a little salty 3 weeks ago when all this started. @Sports Guy seems to just be here for the argument practice, at this point. Any of you guys hail from "the shithouse side of Maryland"?

Wow. 4 pages of Baltimore fans arguing that their #90 ranked prospect is better than our #30 ranked prospect. Intangibles? I can just imagine them on some Brewers board, s%*#-talking Burnes and expressing they'd much rather trade for Cease. LOL.

That's not true. I think Getz purposefully asked for a pie in the sky package from the Reds to stop talks. Sure, if a team gave the White Sox their entire minor league system that had 3 top 10s in the game in it, sure Getz would have made that deal. But you're not making some constructive point to say something won't happen because it hasn't happened yet, when the seller purposefully kept that something from even getting underway. Getz probably solicited offers, gave ridiculous counters, then regrouped to figure out how they would proceed when they got to the part that seems to be starting. The bidding. It's a market. And Cease will be traded for market value. Either now, or July. That's great that you don't want your team to trade certain guys for Cease. It's not accurate to say because he's not worth that. If those guys or better are traded for Cease, then he will, indeed, be worth that.

You're obstinately ignoring what's actually being said in the press. Getz asked high, then said they would wait until the major free agents came off the board. Of course nobody's met that price, yet (that we have a pretty good idea what the pie in the sky price was from the Reds' leak). Now that the market is down to pretty much Snell and Monty, talks are heating up again, and we're starting to get rumors again. That's not really an answer to the good doctor's question of how you seem to know what teams are offering and how high they'll go. You keep accusing people of misrepresenting what you've said, but you've said so much in the last week, I couldn't really tell you what you actually are saying. You're arguing with everybody on everything, even stuff I seem to remember you previously conceding.

The doctor's just made a house call!! And it's TERMINAL!!

I can understand Baltimore kicking the tires on the next lower tier of pitchers if Cease gets too rich for them. Nothing says "taking it to the next level" like hoping Shane Bieber can get to the all-star break in one piece. And if the top 5 prospects are off the board, maybe Corbin Burnes could record a happy birthday message in exchange for Joey Ortiz.

Can we all agree that Houston isn't going to trade Framber Valdez to the Orioles for prospects so that they can potentially face him in the ALCS? I wouldn't say Cease is a unicorn, but he is one of the most attractive of a rare opportunity. That's the whole point, then, isn't it? While some are drooling over Baltimore's prospects, it doesn't have to be their prospects that get a deal done. At this point, I don't even care, I just want it to end.

But then there's that flaw in human logic where we start arguing with points that we fundamentally agree with, just because of somebody's conceited tone, or whatnot, and we have to make them wrong.

I agree with Sports Guy on the greater metaphor. Home buying generally doesn't go more than a couple volleys. And the emotions involved with an insulting low-ball might just eliminate that person from further consideration. Because that guy has exposed that he might be an a-hole over every single detail, and the selling family just doesn't want to have 3 months of war. Add to that, to avoid breaking the law, the Realtor is going to have to be careful on how much they coach buyers on their negotiations. I don't know how a situation like the Cease trade market works, in essence. I also agree with Sports Guy that at some point, they're talking to a couple of teams about their prospect packages, and the teams who have no way of matching are just out and not wasting time.

I've been in Real Estate, and if you know you're getting multiple offers, you inform everybody that there will be multiple offers, and you hand them back, and tell them to come back with their best, most serious offer, then you pick the best situation. Dude who thinks he's going to low-ball, then spend 3 weeks back and forth may get serious. I can't imagine that Getz has fallen in love with one prospect on one team, and will keep going back to try to get them to up their offer.

I'm not sure who's arguing what, any more. Yes, Cease had a 2023 that was down from 2022. I think we agree that the talent is there to get back to 2022 Cease. I don't think you're wrong. I don't know the WAR models as well as you do, but you sure sound like you know what you're talking about, and I don't have the wherewithal to disprove you. But I think the disconnect comes in intrinsic value vs. market. Yes, if a team decides they don't have enough pitching, Cease is the answer, and decides to do whatever it takes to make that happen, then that's his market value. Dylan Cease has not had as tight a floor and ceiling as [insert agreed-upon ace, here]. But I get the distinct idea that everybody here will argue that the White Sox had horrible culture, their leadership was for s%*#, pitch-coaching, catching, conditioning, stats support was all spotty, at best. So take Cease out of the chaos and drop him in LA or on the Braves, or a team who can nurture their pitching, and I think we agree he can tighten up. Nobody's going to get a discount because they have to buy him an iPad, and their pitching coach has to fly to his hometown a few times in January.

Nobody? Balta has explained at least a few times, and I've read each one. Makes sense. It has been explained back that other GMs have leaked that they don't consider whatever issue Cease had in 2023 to be uncorrectable. Balta has even said that if Cease has another 2023, that pitching coach should be fired, leading me to believe that he thinks Cease certainly has the talent to produce another 2022 type season. I think a few of you are stuck on being contrarian, which is fine, but it doesn't really go anywhere when the attitude is "I said a thing, and therefore, must never move off of that thing." I think Cease will be traded for a package most of us like, and there will be a bunch of face-saving comments, like "of course Baltimore wasn't paying that", or "well, yeah, the Yankees were desperate".

Other teams have leaked to the media (or Getz called reporters imitating a couple other GMs) that they fully believe that Cease's issues are not physical, don't look like an injury or age, and are most probably a mechanical issue that their staff can work on. I imagine teams that consider themselves contenders have faith in their coaching and training staffs to make the correct adjustments. You, yourself, even said that if Cease has another 2023, the pitching coaches should be fired, because he has the talent. (Or something to that effect.) I'm not sure where the disconnect is. I'm sure GMs posture about a player's floor and ceiling, but at some point, we all realize that a stats department can map out best and worst case scenarios, and if the worst case scenario is still an effective, durable pitcher, as Cease is, then the acquisition is a go.

He won't make the major league team, because he's blocked. But he's a perennial All-Star who will have to ride the bench because every player on that team is so much greater. It's really sad that Baltimore has advanced all of their prospects to a point where they can't even trade them. It's like wanting to buy a sandwich, but all you have is $1 million gold pieces. Oh well.

And I'm wondering if the definition of "good" has changed. It seems our Baltimore friends are using good to mean barely adequate. We're all acting like GMs bank on a pitcher having a Cy Young season, and are sadly surprised when they don't. A player has a floor and a ceiling. Cease's ceiling is a CY contender. His floor is an above-average durable innings eater, one whose projections put him at the front of Baltimore's rotation. Seriously, if we're so stuck on the most recent season as the harbinger going forward, I'm not sure why the Orioles aren't signing Blake Snell, because he will surely win the Cy Young every season going forward, since he just won one.

https://theathletic.com/5180684/2024/01/05/dylan-cease-trade-market/

Bannister should probably be first on my list. It's a clear step in the right direction for the organization. While some of the AAA signings and bullpen guys are yawners, I think Maldonado is the only signing I don't like.

1) Fedde 2) Bannister as director of pitching 3) Soroka 4) shuster 5) stassi 6) drohan 7) Lopez ? deJong 9) flexin 10) Drew Butera, catching coach

Fedde and Soroka, for sure. I think I'm more hyped on Drohan, and Maldonado could drop off the list.

He'll close out game 7 of the WS for the Astros, won't he?

At this point, teams in the lottery are pretty much all rebuilding teams. Perhaps a team bereft of prospects might trade their first rounder for a package of guys who might represent "quantity".