SoxBlanco

Ha, thank man. I’ll make sure to enjoy these next 363 days.

Thanks for doing these, @Lip Man 1. I noticed you didn’t have anything for January 5. If you’re looking to add something, you can say that legendary SoxTalk member SoxBlanco was born on that date in 1984.

Are there three of them?

Why are you saying “should have been” brought in, instead of “should be” brought in? It’s January 4th.

When did Hahn say he had to make trades? I thought he just said trades were more likely than free agent signings.

And yet, almost every expert, fan, and projection system had the Sox as the better team going into last season. Why were they all so wrong?

This may seem like a dumb question, but why do you think Cleveland is a better team than the Sox?

Are we gonna get a last minute Adam Engel signing?

The Engel drop and the 6 run collapse against Cleveland are two of the worst losses of the last decade. F*ck 2022. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and I’m optimistic about our chances in 2023. Cheers, fellas.

This entire post is predicated on the fact that the Sox are NOT a perennial division winner during this stretch. I believe they are, and 2021 is the outlier. If the Sox win a World Series within the next few years, they will fit right in with several other teams on your list: “won the division every year from 2020 through 2024 (with one exception)”

Stop what? That’s exactly the nature of the MLB playoffs.

I’d rather have Clevinger.

Why the Christmas deadline? If Hahn is trying to get the best package, he might wait until late January or into February. If teams start to think they really are keeping him, they might offer something more.

Yep. This is why none of these rumors make sense. We’ve heard that the Mets want to shed salary after signing Correa, but we’ve also heard the Sox might want to trade Hendriks to shed some salary. It doesn’t make sense. That’s why I came up with the unrealistic three-team trade earlier.

Maybe if we throw in Cease, it’ll get finalized.

Bullpens arms are so up and down…so unpredictable. Nobody has any clue how Diekman will look this year. Same with Kelly. Same with Bummer. Same with…you got the point. Sure, you could say that about other baseball players too, but it’s especially true for relief pitchers.

That’s surprising to me. My memory (simply by watching him last year) is that he has one of the worst arms in the league. I thought we were getting an above average defender with a horrible arm.

You hearing something? Or just speculating?

That’s why I proposed that three team trade. It was the only way I could figure out a way to give salary relief to the Mets and the Sox.

Well the perk that you didn’t mention is that we are unloading Grandal. If that’s not valuable (honestly, I don’t know if it is), then the deal is horrendous for the Sox.

How about something like this: Mets get: Hendriks (and they save $8M) White Sox get: McCann, Escobar, Dylan Smith or another random Tigers pitching prospect (and they save $10M) Tigers get: Grandal, Baty (and take on $18M). This is a first attempt. Let me know why it sucks (because it probably does) and we can adjust it accordingly.

Any chance we can get a third team involved in this that is rebuilding and is willing to take Grandal along with a prospect or two?

Thanks for the info. At least we know Benintendi will be leagues better than what we’ve had out there the past few years. Anybody who makes this play is ok by me…

I looked at zero of his advanced stats. I just assumed when you get an award that says you are the best defensive left fielder in the American League, even though there is always some politics involved in the voting and your offense plays a role when it shouldn't, it would at least mean you are above average that year.

He wasn’t clearly above average two years ago when he won a gold glove?