YourWhatHurts

Bleed Cubbie Blue thinks Devers could be coming back for Bryant. No, he could not be.

1) I don't think the Sox are serious about Bauer 2) Bauer not shitting on TLR is just a $ign of hi$ per$onal growth and maturation proce$$ as it pertains to you-know-what. When he was in arb that one year and tried to make a joke out of the oft-apparent senselessness of the process, etc. and asked for some amount that ended in some figure like 420,69.69 he lost his case and probably lost a raise that he was already looking at getting just by being stupid. Even if there's no chance the Sox sign him, he should do well for his self to make for as many suitors as possible and put as much money on the table as possible. I wouldn't read anything into comments he made. 3) I'd love the idea of (assuming we can't do Bauer + Springer) doing Bauer + Joc + Colome + reclamation project SP/RP all in FA, keep the pitching prospects, and look to develop them. I think bringing in the new coach is going to be a great move, and putting guys like Keuchel, Giolito and Bauer around the young pitching is a great move. I'm tired of seeing these deals where the Sox give up Stiever for a bag of balls and Cease for like 1/2 his value at best. These are the kinds of prospects I'd like to see develop in such a scenario. IMO this is really the best set of circumstances for the Sox.

That deep red glow he's heading for is definitely no sunset...

LOL fuck no on trading Cease for Lynn. I don't even want to give them Dunning. Let's sign Q for a year instead. Fuck the Rangers.

It was about Mazarra. 35-10 in favor of nontendering him. Pretty convincing. I am even in the "yes" group but I am also just fine with trying to replace him with a cheap trade like Calhoun, or bringing him back for less if we can, or depending on the cost, tendering him and then cutting him in ST if we have found a replacement.

They're all locked so you can't post in them anymore. Smugass jerry reinsdorf, who always draws a chorus of boos everywhere he goes and for very good reason, who knew about all of this before he made the hire, who stepped on his GM's toes and overruled a man who is -- whatever you think about Hahn, good or bad -- is definitely a much smarter baseball man than himself, who preaches about how hands-off he is only to be the exact opposite and actually run everything through his hands first regardless, who made a bucket-list hire instead of a baseball decision-hire, just wants all of this to go away. When people stop talking about it, it will just "go away" because the beat writers will not want to jeopardize their jobs going on about it. Fuck jerry reinsdorf and fuck his manager. They're both fair game and always should be.

They talked about pasta. Tim said his wife makes pasta when he hits home runs. Tony says he likes the spaghetti at the American Legion during a hard night of drinking. Tony said that sometimes he has the maid order Olive Garden via GrubHub but there have been occasions in the past where after about 8 beers and a couple lectures to the maid about what an embarrassment and a disgrace she is to him, the maid ended up leaving and going home, leaving Tony with his phone trying to figure out how to use it. He can't work those app things. So that's why he always keeps a couple cans of Chef Boyardee on the counter so that way he's always got a good meal in case he's hungry and too wasted to find to car keys. Sometimes the damn pull tab breaks off and he can't get the can open normally, but when that happens he just pounds away at on the floor with a roofing hammer like a caveman. Eventually it opens enough to shake out the raviolis. They also talked about family. Tim says he has a happy marriage and beautiful children. TLR said his wife a something-something and his children have always been a disgrace. Nobody's ever done anything for him. All of the things they have in life is because of him. They should be more thankful.

You should be his lawyer and tell that to the Mariciopa County Judge or whatever.

Ok

Can Brantley really handle RF though? I'm definitely worried about the defense out there. Not that Nomar was all that great but I don't want to get worse. I just think of Brantley as a LF/DH at this point. I'd be interested in Starling Marte if the price is right. It's the Marlins so he has to be on the block.

Also I forgot to add in the first post (was going to but then I started thinking about TLR again and forgot) that we can still DFA Mazara in ST can't we, without a substantial penalty, even if we tender him? I know teams can do that, they can sign a guy and then cut him during ST and they only have to pay the league minimum or something. Can't they do that with Mazara? If so and they can, I think you have to hold onto Mazara just in case, then plan to trade him or cut him in ST if you get another RF.

Then question: what do the Sox do if they nontender Nomar, then Springer and Joc both sign elsewhere? Who else is out there?

One of the biggest reasons why the Indians aren't going to trade Plesac (or Plutko either for that matter) is that the team trading for him is likely going to have to give up a bigger prospect than either of these guys ever were, and who has a much higher ceiling than either of these guys have, and then they'll have to add to that, most likely. I really don't think we'll see another deal similar to RA Dickey for Syndergaard + D'Arnaud plus again. A trade for these Indians guys is kind of in that mold and I know I sure don't want my team to make a deal like that.

I think they should. They should be willing to eat 1-2 mil in a trade if they have to, just to have a backup plan in the event that Springer signs elsewhere and Joc does too, or Joc's price becomes too high for comfort.

Yeah that's pretty ridiculous. How about let's not put butchers in both OF corners for starters.

Jason Bennetti cares. A lot. Re: Carlos I don't think he threw 3 straight pitches for strikes since 2019 before he went down with injury (again).

Let's take on Joe Girardi's contract too. Throw the manager in that deal. They can take back LaRussa.

Agree, the Sox have no brains if they make that deal.

We've seen a lot of RPs have success with the FB changeup combo like he uses. I don't think he's a setup guy longterm but he's probably a pretty solid or better MR. I'm not sure there is another team that will think he's more than a SU man and it's very unlikely his inclusion as a 3rd or 4th piece in a very significant deal will be non-negotiable. Personally I'd rather give up Marshall also.

Not a chance in hell. Add 19 mil to the payroll and take the team out of the running for at least one significant FA + dump 6 years of a top SP prospect + dump our UT guy + dump our best MR, all to get a mediocre at best (likely worse) defensive RF with shoulder issues who has 1 year left and who we wouldn't even try to extend for purely baseball reasons, even ignoring the fact that he's a Boras client? Yeah not a chance in hell. The Sox would be about 1000x better off just signing Joc Pederson. And trading Stiever is really not something I would want to see them do, but the absolute low end on a Stiever deal needs to be Musgrove. And there's really no reason to even do that. This is a guy who should be allowed to develop further. I'm not surprised that some people here think he's basically a bag of balls in trade value but yeah those people are fools. From the Sox standpoint, Springer > Pederson > bring back Mazara > very many other options > a Bryant deal

No way in hell I would give up Stiever for Bryant. Bryant is a non-tender candidate for one, and for two, he's not even a long-term RF so there's no reason to extend him. That move is entirely idiotic. If you add Bryant for one year, basically the cost should be Jose Rodriguez straight up, or something to that effect, so you add him to a Darvish deal to kind of save face and make it look like you traded him for more. So if the cost on Darvish is say Dunning and Madrigal, and the Sox would pay it, then you add a 4th player who isn't really a factor to make the package seem like more, and do like Darvish + Bryant for Madrigal + Dunning + Rodriguez + Burdi or something, so it looks a bit better on paper. But Bryant is a salary dump at this point. Stiever, Dalquist, Thompson, etc. these are not salary dump pieces. A Darvish + Heyward + cash deal makes a lot more sense than anything involving Bryant.

I get shit for some of my trade ideas here I guess, but I don't like trades where I feel like my team is very possibly or even probably giving up the best player in the deal. It's one thing if it's a rebuild situation or a salary/FA thing where you are trading a vet who is good as gone anyway, and/or who you can't win with without tearing everything down, but I really don't like giving up a guy that I can easily look at and be like "Yeah he can be better than the guy we're getting in less than 2 years." That's not a good feeling. Kopech is definitely one of those guys, same with Crochet and maybe Cease too. E.g. I'd rather get hurt holding onto a bust that I thought could turn into Justin Verlander or Randy Johnson than actually trade away Justin Verlander or Randy Johnson when they were fucking prearb. That is like one of the worst things you could ever do as a GM. The kinds of deals I like are where you add volume. Maybe there's one guy at the top who is a blue chipper prospect but he's limited in a lot of areas, like Madrigal is. You just don't trade Luis Robert. If you can get Wander Franco obviously you trade Vaughn but you don't just trade Vaughn for anything out there. I also like deals like the Cubs deal where we got 2 guys back with higher ceilings than the player we gave up. Other teams like the Rangers are trying to do that to us with Lance Lynn but I say they can go fuck a flagpole. I think about what the Astros did to get Verlander, and that's the kind of thing I want to do. This team should be in no hurry to go for broke / push all their chips in, so let's wait it out if necessary because we have guys coming up that have potential to be as good or better than all of these guys out there on the block now.

1) All of these guys are columnists first, tv/radio "scoops" guys second or third or so on 2) Sports media drives fan interest in the team and league and these guys are a huge part of that 3) A lot of the money that comes into the game comes in through the media channels, which use guys like these to make sports stories which sell ad space, and then that money goes into media contracts paid to the league and the teams There should be more Ken Rosenthals and like 0 of these accounts getting posted all over SoxTalk. WSD is a dork and a clown and all the rest are the same. They're like little dingle berries on the sports medias ass crack and can never be like a Ken Rosenthal. It's one thing to have a schtick on a radio or tv show to bring in viewers to drive ad sales but to try to hoard personal followers on twitter or keep some shitty assrag of a sports publication afloat? Yeah go fuck off you puds, IMO.

I agree. Trading the top pieces of the farm likely only shortens the overall contention window and lessens the potential to "retool" ala the Cardinals modus operandi after the heart of the window expires. The more top pieces that are traded away, the more likely it is that we'll be on a Cubs-like track to a crash-and-burn style rebuild. I really like the idea of a spot patching anyway. I like the idea of getting one FA with some real upside to shut down an offense like Paxton or Tanaka (if Bauer won't happen) to sit in the 3 spot in the rotation, with Cease and Dunning developing in the 4th and 5thslot. Then you sign a veteran or 2 to eat some innings and kind of piggy back the back 2. Midseason or so, Kopech will be up and can share some time. Also Stiever may be ready at the end of the year, and Crochet will be in the pen. All 3 of those guys could get time out of the pen, and hopefully Lambert as well. Then if things go fairly well, Cease has developed a bit, so has Dunning, and now there is a logjam. Depending on how things look, you might be able to trade a vet like Keuchel or the FA signed in 2020 to open up a slot. You could also maybe use Dunning with some built up value to get a hitter to open up a spot for someone else. I really love a log jam of excellent SP prospects. That's like my favorite baseball thing ever. It's about time we have the kind of situation that you see, it seems, fairly often in places like ATL. I think Springer is the best long-term FA fit, but if not him, I would not mind a Pederson/Engel platoon at all. But anyway, the time is now for Cease and Dunning. If you aren't going to develop them at the MLB level then you have to trade them and let someone else do it. They have nothing to learn or prove in the minors.