nrockway

He's pretty much 'some guy' and I think we'll have a crowded bullpen of useful righties next season, but $1.5mil is nothing based on the comps. If he performs like he did this past season over the first half, he is an easy trade candidate. I really liked the Tanner Banks trade (Bergolla will be an MLB player) and Wilson is simply better at baseball than he is, sans left-handedness. That being said, I think we could really use a guy like Banks next season.

I figured this thread might be about the marathon lol. I can hear the festivities out my window, I live along the route about where it turns around and heads back north; I'm inspired to try and run it next year. I met up with some friends last night and we had a similar discussion. I'm not even that big a hater, I was apologetic for their loss although excited for what our friends up north might do vs the Goliath Dodgers, yet my remarks were received with "why do you hate Chicago, @nrockway why don't you just move to Wisconsin already?". Which I might. But I also asked why they never go to streets in Chicago with numbers in the name. The Sox/Cubs don't actually compete against each other, but the rivalry is very fun and analogous to a real world, omnipresent North/South Side divide. I was rooting for the Tigers, an actual rival, but could never in a million years support the Cubs. As a kid, we listened to more Cubs games on the radio to simply root for whoever they were facing.

hmmm Happy for Vaughnie and the Brew Crew. He seems like a nice guy all things considered and I’m glad to see him contributing in a big way to a winning team. Same as Kopech last year. Too bad those guys didn’t work out here like we might have expected. I don’t know that we “won” the trade though considering Civale was a net negative here and Vaughn turned into Frank Thomas upon moving north of the border. But I’m glad we moved on from him in whatever fashion. It was time for him to go. It was an interesting swap but I’m not sure it was a W. Civale actually pitched 4.1 scoreless vs the Brewers after Boyd got rekt in 0.2 and our old friend Soroka did too. Honestly funny for the cubs that they gave Soroka meaningful innings in a postseason game. That org is even cheaper than ours with worse (virulently racist, interferes with elections to boot) ownership. They’re actually competitive right now and spent the same on their roster as we did with our recent 81-81 team. Did nothing at the deadline or last offseason. They’re going to completely blow their competitive window.

That's awesome!

that's cool. doing what? I just like Wisconsin lol

The Brewers are my favorite non-Sox team, the Cubs are my least favorite organization in any sport...and I totally forgot this game was on. d'oh. Congrats to the Brewers though and our friends in Wisconsin! Very respectable organization. Might be worth taking a day off and catching the Hiawatha up to Milwaukee for one of these games. I've never been to a postseason game but I don't think I can justify to myself spending $200+ to watch a baseball game.

I think it's a reasonable point of view, I also think we have better options for the 7th through 9th in actual close games. Wikelman, Leasure, Taylor. I'd put Wilson firmly below them. Also perhaps some guys who didn't pitch out of the bullpen last year whether due to injury, because they haven't debuted yet or because they might be bumped to the bullpen (Yoendrys, Burke as examples). I just wouldn't non-tender a useful player if his salary is that low. Hill? No reason to tender. If you want him back, sign him to a MILB contract. The Tauchman debate is interesting. It's also not a lot of money and he was solid last year. But he's getting older, his bat was fading as the season went on, he's bad at defense and he's currently injured. I might rather see Dom Fletcher keeping the RF spot warm for Braden Montgomery. But I'm also not mad if Tauch is back. He's a cool dude to be sure, the young players seem to really like him.

Well, he did have nearly a 6 ERA last season and then returned to his career averages. Who knows what was going on with him but it appears to be an outlier. Relief pitchers are inconsistent anyway, Greg Santos looked like a stud with us and has posted a 5+ ERA since playing for Seattle. A savvy team that needed pitching and thought they could 'fix him' might've picked him up. The Mets probably wish they had him. My definition of 'above average' is a reasonable one that many people might look at: earned run average. Specifically ERA+ since it normalizes ERAs to a comparable scale. If '100' is average, Wilson's '123' is literally 'above average'. 8.3 K/9 to 3.6 BB/9 is pretty good. His peripheral numbers are above average. I'm not calling him a stud. I think he's a low leverage arm, hence the 'blown saves' is not really a relevant statistic. Pitchers give up runs sometimes, right? In our team's case, there isn't any run support. Hard to hold onto 2-1 leads on a consistent basis. It might be akin to thinking Garrett Crochet's 6-12 W/L record in 2024 was 'bad'.

well, the point is simply...why would you non-tender an above average pitcher making next to nothing? feels spiteful because the Cease trade wasn't that hot.

I'm thinking about Orion Kerkering, who just made a huge mistake on the highest level, but the guy is simply a really good pitcher. The Phillies will be happy to have him back next year. Wilson at $1.5mil is nothing. He's not a superstar, but he isn't being paid like one either. He's on the exact arbitration scale you would expect. If the Sox non-tendered him (which they obviously won't, no team would), some other team would pick him up and probably for more money in an instant. It's just a weird take. Personal vendetta-ish. He's not expected to be the closer, we recently paid Liam Hendricks 12 times more to fill that role. Wilson was by all metrics an above average reliever last year.

$1.5mil for a guy with a 3.42 ERA in 55 IP is a bargain in any setting. Luis Garcia had almost exactly the same stats and was paid $4.5mil last year. As did Kyle Finnegan and he was paid $6mil. Andrew "Olive" Kittredge was paid $10mil to post the same numbers. Nick Mears is on the same arbitration scale, will earn $1.6mil next year, pitched to a 3.99 ERA. This is far less than the going rate for comparable relief pitchers. It would be a poor baseball decision to non-tender him.

The only free agent in this class I’d be interested in. Or one of the top of the market starting pitchers. Go big or go home!

I felt like everyone intuitively felt that Judge homer was incoming lol. He was due.

I think relying on Shitler is a recipe for disaster. He's just a rookie, he could be touched up at a moment's notice. I'd think the same thing about Yesavage whose unique delivery probably flustered the Yankees the first time out without much scouting info on him. Can he do it again? The Blue Jays will have Gausman in either one of these games to come though. On the other hand, one wonders if the Blue Jays can keep up their offensive performance and it's hard to bet against the Yankees consistent offensive firepower. I'd still probably take the Yanks in this series even with the deficit they have to overcome. I'd hate to see another Dodgers/Yankees World Series, but I think the odds are in both teams' favor, particularly the Dodgers. It's harder for a team like the Jays to win a 5 game series if they have to score 10 runs every game. The Yankees pitching leaves some to be desired, but their offense is rock solid and I might think Varsho et al might come back to Earth. Also, quoting this post but moving it to the DS thread so as not to bring the Slam Dunk Champ's uncle's thread off topic. An interesting thread but not necessarily related to the current MLB postseason.

I think he just did this whole series to tell the twitterverse that his wife is hot

he's so tiny

good point, I'm surprised he made 21 starts last year. wasn't super effective. it is a lot of money for a reliever, but I like the guy.

Also, this commentating crew is one of the worst I've ever heard.

Yariel Rodriguez, the Sock who never was, should've been in much sooner. Why didn't we sign that dude?

also, just watched this french-language opera the other night. our man Hoffman, circa 1850, falls in love with a robot despite all of his friends trying to convince him that...she's a doll come to life. I think gen z, gen alpha could learn a lesson here.

Yeah, he's behind Wikelman, Leasure, Taylor for sure on this current Sox team. But it's basically no money for a low leverage, above average ERA reliever. I wish we had a proper lefty, maybe Ky Bush is the guy, to put in front of Wilson. Hopefully, that lefty isn't Schultz or Smith. Ellard or Eisert might improve, they're just rookies. I'd bank on Bush or Schweitzer first while hoping our actual prospect lefties remain starters. Shane Murphy is another lefty who I hope remains a starter and who I think, if he flames out, doesn't project well in a high leverage bullpen role...similar to Cannon, who might just be done as a MLB pitcher.

Vaughn produced 1.3 WAR for the Brewers in 254 plate appearances. If you were to average that over every PA he had this season, it would amount to a 2.29 WAR player. Not bad, right? Basically average. As stated, I thought he was a good addition to the Brewers. But a 2.3 WAR player is barely a difference maker for the best team in MLB. A bit better than Rhys Hoskins, I guess, but not by much. Is that the difference between the 5 games the Cubbies were behind? Stats say no. Logic says no as well. I said Vaughn was a good addition for them. But hardly better than what Miguel Vargas actually produced across a whole up and down season, I could cherry pick some numbers for him or Sosa. Non-theoretically, Vaughn was a negative WAR player this past season. Vaughn doesn't even rank on "OPS leaders in the second half" and if they never made this trade, it would an interesting take to assume the Brewers would not have won the division regardless. The Cubs unsustainable offense collapsed. Their lack of pitching depth was exposed. These were not issues with the Brewers roster. They genuinely didn't even need Shane Smith, though I bet they wish they kept him. Anyone who paid attention to MLB this season might've predicted that (hence the reference to Carson Kelly who split .899/.596 OPS from first to second half...obviously that was not being sustained. PCA has even worse peripherals than Sosa and he was not going to sustain his .850 OPS first half...et al down the rest of their lineup...the Brewers put in consistent performances that could be replicated and they were. The Brewers were a very consistent team the entire season.) To say that "adding Vaughn is why the Brewers were better than the Cubs" is strictly wrong and seems like a take from somebody who didn't watch any baseball the last season and simply cherry-picked some box score stats. It seems insulting to the roster the Brewers intelligently built from top to bottom, defense, offense and pitching, bench depth. We're seeing this play out in front of our eyes, the Cubs are entirely overmatched. Shota took 1.5 years to regress to his NPB numbers but anyone who watched him in Japan knew it would happen eventually. The Cubs expected to rely on their rookie flamethrower for 6+ innings and he got injured whereas the Brewers intelligently put their analogue in the bullpen. One team was effectively managed, the other was not. The unsustainable Cubs offense in the first half is the key thing. Their lack of pitching depth is another major factor. Did anyone really expect them to keep up their first half performance? I did not and they certainly didn't. Many might have predicted that. The Cubs cheaped out, didn't add at the deadline, and we're seeing what they wrought. It's such a bizarre, anti-knowledge take to think the Brewers are suddenly good because they added Vaughn and not because they have an incredibly solid roster mostly devoid of holes.

Many players. Aaron Judge might be one. On our own White Sox, Colson produces almost 3 times as much WAR over roughly as many plate appearances as Vaughn with the Brewers. Kyle Teel produced more. These are just some rookies on a bad team. I'm not willing to count every player on every team that was better than Vaughn. There are far too many. Not to say Vaughn wasn't good for them, he came up huge tonight, but there are countless more impactful players than Vaughn. How much better was Vaughn that Hoskins or several other guys who could've played 1b for them? He was better for sure. He was a great addition to the Brewers team, a very nice trade for them in hindsight. Saying he's the "primary reason" for the Brewers being better than the Cubs is simply wrong though. The Brewers were the team to beat all season. I think they might've preferred to keep Shane Smith instead of to do a bullpen game tonight, if we're gonna say anything else about Sox players. But the Cubs pitching is so bad and was obviously so bad at the deadline and they didn't do diddly. Shota has been a ticking time bomb since they signed him.

laisse tomber les sox fans

what simply what. Milwaukee was better all season. Cubs might've thought to add some starting pitching or not to have their offense be reliant upon a career .680 OPS catcher.