YourWhatHurts

It's a shame because Marcus Stroman really was **the** prototypical Sox FA target: quality, not the most expensive in money or years, attitutde fits the team, age window fits, kind of under the radar good player, not the hottest chick at the dance but still a top target, etc. I think signing Stroman to a good on-paper deal this offseason would almost feel like a bit of vindication on missing out on Torii Hunter all of those years ago. It's almost like it was meant to be. But it won't be.

^This post should stick around a lot longer. The dorf likes to take his own high road. Of course he's a rat in the bottom of the sewer, but that's his road and that's as high as it can get.

Also, if Fangraphs were to chart the public perception of this organization in line graph form, starting at the beginning of the rebuild and the Sale and Eaton trades, all the way through this season, and then until now, what would that graph look like?

How much better or worse is the position which this organization, as a whole, is in now, with TLR with his age and his myriad public image problems, vs. where we were with Ricky?

I really do not want to trade Kopech, Cease, Stiever, Crochet, or Kelly. Not all will develop into aces, and maybe none of them will, but IMO any one of them could develop into an ace, and because of that, all of them are worthy of back-end auditions in the Giolito/ReyLo model to see if any/all can stick.

IMO Javy Vazquez > Yu Darvish People really seem to have a short memory about players on other teams even with much longer memories of players on our team. I know Javy did not have as many "pitches" as Darvish but he had plus to plus-plus FB, CB, CH, SL and at times looked like a guy who could win a Cy Young whenever he wanted to. Mostly he stayed healthy and ate up innings. But mentally? Mush. Yu Darvish is mental mush. He's also had an injury history. Back in midseason 2019 he was still a bad contract. Back in early 2020 he was still in the "what do we really have here?" kind of boat where he felt a whole lot more like a reclamation project than an ace. I'm not wholly against Darvish but no way in hell I give the Cubs a couple of blue chippers for this guy. I don't even give them 1 blue chipper. The best player they can take is Madrigal. Madrigal, Collins, and Dunning, there you go, that's the best deal I'd offer the Cubs. Darvish is the most talented player in the deal but the other 3 could all be decent MLB regulars for 6 years, and Darvish can just as easily turn back into mental mush as he can front our rotation in any one of the years he'd be under contract with us. I still wouldn't really love that deal however. If we're going outside the org for a P we really should hit FA.

Here we are however many days later and I still can't believe the Sox hired LaRussa as manager. Seriously WTF.

Again, it is completely senseless to trade Vaughn for a SP. Potential mid-rotation to TOR SP depth chart (in house): Cease (5 years IIRC); Kopech (5 years); Crochet (6 years); Stiever (6 years); Kelly (6 years) Potential mid-rotation to back end SP depth chart (in house): all of the players above would make this list, plus maybe Lopez (3 years); Dunning (6 years); Vera (6 years); Thompson (6 years); Dalquist (6 years) OTOH re: position players, who do we have who **actually** looks like he can be a MLBer in a full time role? I count Vaughn, Collins, maybe Burger, Madrigal, Mendick, maybe Rutherford, maybe Yolbert Sanchez, maybe Ben Bailey, and the rest are too much of a long shot to plan on IMO. Vaughn is the only guy who looks like he'll be an All-Star. The others except for Madrigal all have an uphill battle just to get playing time. If you trade for any of the P mentioned, you keep Vaughn and you trade P in the deal. If you trade Vaughn in the deal for a SP, you need to get back a position player with a Vaughn-like ceiling. This org is way too light on quality position player prospects. And again the only reason I think about trading Vaughn is that, on paper, it would make sense to swap out a long-term 6-year stud at 1B with a similar player at another position where we don't have so much depth.

The only reason jerry hasn't fucked the entire Bulls offseason is because he doesn't give a shit about basketball or the Bulls as a franchise outside of it's purpose of making him money. Unfortunately he is a big Sox fan so that means he has to fuck the whole thing. I do not anticipate a big issue with the players not responding to LaRussa, etc., but I do believe that at best the Sox are going to be at a strategic disadvantage with LaRussa basically running the show, and you know he'll be running the show. At worst he's basically a bad GM. On the surface I don't even mind the idea of LaRussa managing the players. In the right situation (he has absolutely no power beyond the dugout and he has a younger staff underneath him who he is grooming to be his replacements) it could work well. But you know it's not going to be that kind of situation. He's not here to be the guy who gets told what to do.

First off I want to say that I do not want to trade Vaughn, but I do keep seeing ridiculous trade ideas on here where the Sox let this guy go for packages that do not even represent half of his actual value. On the surface, with Grandal the blockhead behind the plate, Abreu aging at 1B but still viable for now obviously, and Eloy the defensive potato in LF, it actually does make some sense to trade Vaughn **if and only if** we traded him in a deal for a very young, cheap, and under control for 5+ years RF or CF who could play RF. One could argue also for a huge bat IF of similar description who would displace Madrigal at 2B or someone who would play 3B and move Moncada to RF. I think there is some kind of argument for an ace level SP but it's a weak argument compared to our position player needs, given all the ceiling that exists in Cease, Kopech, Stiever, Kelly, and Crochet who are already here. OTOH we really have like Jake Burger and Zach Collins as our best and most realistic options ATM who are capable of providing some level of impact at the MLB level within the next 2 years, and obviously that is not going to excite anyone. We really have a bare cupboard in terms of position players outside of Vaughn. So again, this is not really about trading Vaughn just to trade him, but who are some names that actually make sense? Arozarena? One of the ATL OFers Pache or Waters? Frazier in NY? Would the Yankees make some kind of deal involving their prize Dominguez? Etc. I think if Vaughn goes it has to be something like that. We can't just act like he's expendable for some guy with 3 years or less control remaining who is already getting paid, no matter who he is, unless of course we're talking about Trout.

After the year he had last year, the b****ing about the Rockies, the opt out and the contract years and dollars, Arenado should come at a price of Reynaldo Lopez and a bag of balls. I bet he would clear waivers outright right now. There's no way I'm giving up Vaughn and Cease for any one player. Ok maybe Trout. Who else? I think Vaughn is going to be another Paulie and Cease's ceiling is the kind of guy we need to take our chances with. He could be a top-end starter.

Remains to be seen. I'll go ahead and bet that water is still wet, even in a different container, and 2+2 is still 4, even when you type it into a different calculator. Bulls/Sox ownership I bet have all modern infrastructure in their buildings. They upgrade the tech with the time, but the general philosophy remains the same. We'll see, but the Bulls moves never started at the top, they started at really the 3rd level of the organization.

LOL the Sox hire TLR and you think this??? Really?

Really, the last time there was even a somewhat thorough managerial interview process was when Ozzie came in. I know he had at least 2 interviews and maybe 3. Robin was hired before he walked in the building and KW said it was going to either be him or Paulie as a player coach. RR was hired as soon as he was brought in to be a bench coach. It was clear he was there to replace Robin. But even the Ozzie hire wasn't the result of all that deep of a search. Again, Sox gonna Sox, and they make a managerial hire without following any proper process almost as if they're trading for Mark Teahen again, where they traded 2 pieces for a non-tender candidate shitty 3B who was moved to RF and then extended immediately after at a rate above his likely FA price for 1 season. Just because. The Sox just traded for Nestor Molina again, just traded a prospect they gave 6 figures to for James Shields before even seeing him play, etc. Once again a total lacking of proper due diligence. It's the Bulls.

Since it's a funeral brunch I'd say broasted chicken is more appropriate.

I am immediately reminded again about being a White Sox fan. Reminds me of how KW brought in Robbie Alomar, Carl Everett and a couple others in 2003 and then none of them came back and D'Angelo Jimenez was out there instead. Reminds me also of not bringing back Charles Johnson, missing on ARod, the Machado fiasco where they just didn't offer the most guaranteed money, etc. Reminds me of KW's constant tongue-fingering of the dorf's asshole while admonishing the fans for not showing up and saying he can't spent a dollar when he only has 50 cents, etc.

lol I posted the same thing same time

This is true. Can't wait til the 'dorf is dead.

Because Indians, I wonder if CLE would do Carlos Carrasco for Grandal in some sort of framework. Normally they just like to dump bad contracts on us and I know they love Carrasco as a teammate but he's still making money and they still have to pay him through his age 35 season. Meanwhile Carlos Santana is a FA after a $500K buyout and they have nothing at C. Seems like it would be a fit on paper if they were in another division. Edit: Trading Grandal for Carrasco, reupping McCann, and that makes us a better team for probably about the same amount of money that it would cost to keep Grandal and sign a 5th starter type.

Great post. This reminds me of all the nuthuggery around Darvish as of late. 1 year ago he was a shit contract that the Cubs would have given away in a waiver claim. Remember the bullshit statement about how he didn't want to opt out of his Cubs deal because he was finally "comfortable?" No, he didn't opt out because no one would give him anything like that on the FA market after his recent seasons. Then even this time about 6 or 7 months ago -- remember the Sox teeing off on him in ST? -- he was a guy who was coming off a quality 2nd half of the season that had more of the feel of a reclamation project than a top-end starter. But I've seen mentions on here that the Cubs wouldn't give him up for Cease, etc., and more, like he's really that great. It's been one season in a row with him. Likewise, Bauer has had his ups and downs. Sure he pitched like an ace for the brief 60 games season this year. He also pitched like shit in Cincy the year before. I think he's a great target and the best FA guy out there but let's seriously pump the breaks when it comes to comparing him to the guys who have been at the top of the league for several or many years. He's not that guy and he hasn't been that guy.

This entire thread just rolled between Grandal's legs. I love the idea of trading Grandal and bringing back McCann or bringing in Realmuto.

Lower the mound wtf? Raise the mound and protect the pitcher. I agree with moving the fences back. I also like the idea of a lot more foul territory. I love watching athletic defenders and there's really no reason to put them out there if everyone is going to play in a bandbox.

Manfred is such a giant bag of shit. I'm not going to rant on about this but I can't stand these damned rule changes that eliminate portions of the game which have evolved naturally within the proper context and spirit of the game. Example, the 3 batters rule. You give a manager 25 players to roster and he is likely going to pick 2 specialists, a lefty and a righty. If you give him 5 or 6 less players then he won't, but with 25 or 26, you allow him to specialize and devote specialist players to specialized roles that are important enough to designate as being so special and worthwhile. The lefty and righty specialist evolved naturally out of good competitive spirit. But of course everything about being a commissioner is about revenue and specifically appealing to a seemingly increasingly idiotic generation of people with constantly decreasing attention spans. So of course the desire is to cater to these people because they have money. But I don't give a shit about these people. They're bandwagoners anyway, and for hardcore fans like me, I think the long length of the game and the long length of the season has a lot of appeal. I like to work while having the games on, or put the game on the radio in the car. It's a nice chunk of my day that is made more enjoyable by baseball, and I'm not going to b**** about the length of it. I think a lot of people are like that. Eliminating the shift or trying to is trying again to eliminate another element that evolved naturally within the spirit of the game. Put a bunt down you stupid oaf if you don't like it. Oh you can't bunt? Ok fuck you then, hit the ball on the ground to the 3B playing SS. Grab some bench. That's excellent baseball and IMO isn't doing anything different than before. People just record more information now and use it better but they could have spent all of the 1940s shifting if they wanted to. Eliminating cheating is great. Improving accuracy of the umps by replacing them is great. Making the game more fair for all teams is great. A pitch clock is a great thing. I would love for technology to be added that allowed the pitcher and catcher to communicate wirelessly by their own signals, but ONLY the pitcher and catcher, because adding the dugout into the game allows for micromanaging of everything and really ruins the spirit of the game of pitcher and catcher vs. hitter. But adding tech to the game to make it more fair is great. A pitch clock is great, but must be reasonable. The pitch clock should be longer during the AB. E.g. for the first 5 pitches it is X seconds between pitches, then for pitches 5-8 it is X+2 seconds allowance, and pitches 9-11 it is X+4, and pitches 12+ it is X+6 or something, to allow for extra thought to exist in moments of greater need for strategic thought. But simply b****ing about the length of the game just because a bunch of dumb bandwagoner fans don't like and a bunch of people generally with the attention span of a fly can't handle it is really ruining the game for pitiful benefits. Think about these Yankees vs. Red Sox games that take like 4 hours because the lineups are stacked and every hitter is a tough out and every pitcher has to make a great pitch in like every AB. When you stack a lineup full of great hitters then you are doing a great job as a FO. And as a hitter, if you can survive deep into counts routinely, that makes you a great hitter. As a P, it is one thing to fiddle with your hat and your ass for about half a minute off the rubber before getting back on it but also in the spirit of the game, the P should have the ability to set himself up mentally to make a tough pitch in a tough situation. Really, these long games are often the result of some of the best of the best of the game playing each other. This is a good thing. I wish Manfred was a fly on the wall and I could just swat him. He doesn't care about the game at all. As far as the man on second rule, I actually don't hate it as much as I thought it would, but I would prefer a normal 10th, a man on 1st in the 11th, 2nd in the 12th, and a man on 3rd in 13th and beyond, or something like that, if the rule is going to stick. And in this case I do not believe it harms the spirit of the game because it's about keeping players healthy and members of the pitching staff available for future games. And I believe it should only apply in the regular season and should not apply in any game 163 or playoff game situations. But anyway fuck Manfred with a rusty flag pole.

lol at Grandal on there. Mendick didn't play enough. Seriously, why no Jose? I'm not sure what is going on when Jose played the best 1B of his career and he doesn't get mentioned but these other guys do? Robert and Moncada only really deserve it. McCann maybe also would be too many interference calls. Both he and Grandal racked up too many of those. We got like 4 seasons worth of C interference calls in a 60 game season.

lol what a completely idiotic idea