Balta1701

What exactly are you calling a permanent DH? Frank Thomas played a total of 131 games at 1b in his final 11 seasons, never more than 49 games at 1b per year. Over that time he accounted for 23.4 fWAR. This included a 5.9 fWAR season where he was 2nd in the MVP voting to a guy loaded with steroids.

You were listed as a "Follower" of this thread, there's a button at the top right of the posts for "Follow" and you were the only person listed in there. I'd imagine you hit it at some point, possibly by accident, and it looks like that might trigger an email alert for new posts? This is what it looked like to me when I clicked on that box, showing 1 follower in this thread. I "removed" you as a follower, hopefully that stops the emails. If you would like to re-subscribe, please click that button again.

The woman who alleged the abuse case tweeted that it was the case, I believe.

Am I allowed Davis Martin? Does he count?

This is a great question actually, because my answer is literally "I don't have a F***ing clue and I'd rather go have some whiskey". Worse yet, we could easily have this discussion at the all star break about his 2nd half, and about his 2026 numbers next offseason, and all we're going to do is make me want better quality whiskey. In 4 seasons he has 1 season of 4.9 fWAR, 1 season of 3.5 fWAR, 1 season of 2.2 fWAR, and 1 season of 0.5 fWAR. How the bloody hell do you project that?

Here's where you and I disagree - I think he was an oft-injured player most of his career. That's how I describe his 2021 and 2022. He was a star in 2023, until he was injured. He was oft-injured in 2024, and for the first time - really bad at baseball. To put this in another view, in hindsight, if the White Sox had traded Moncada for those 2 level of players in 2022, would that make the White Sox better today? I would say yes. And fwiw, the utility guy also stole 40 bases last year, so there's some other skill to that player too.

He's suddenly a sub 1 win player because...he put up a sub 1 win season. 'm sorry this is personally offensive to you, but he was worth 0.5 fWAR last year and played 2/3 of a season. You can look at fangraphs yourself, I'm not making that up. And no, I don't believe a "lack of protection" makes anywhere near that much difference. Robert put up much better numbers with little protection in 2023, most of the time that year I was stunned people pitched to him. With all the literature on how "no protection doesn't matter except a tiny bit", it doesn't turn him into a 0.5 fWAR player. Is he that for the future? I'm not sure, with his injury history it is possible, and you cannot say it's impossible to believe Robert could only put up a 0.5 fWAR season when he just did. Can you tell me how Robert put up a 0.5 fWAR season last year and why it won't happen again? If that happens, and the White Sox don't trade him, then either 2025 or 2026 he leaves with his option not picked up, and that's the situation right now. In terms of the trade market, if you are asking for super high level prospects for that player, I wouldn't give it up and you'd hate it if the White Sox did that move. Instead, you would do exactly what the Yankees did - find a player who is also up and down, but who is available for a 30 year old reliever. As I said in my last post, what you have to hope for is recovery, fully. However, if teams can find options who are available for a 30 year old reliever and cash, they aren't going to pay a high prospect price for a guy like Robert unless he can clearly establish he's back onto an all star, MVP level pace. And even then, his injury history is going to weigh on the offers you get for him. If the best you can do for him right now is a 30 year old reliever, then yes hold onto him. If you could get an offer like the hypothetical Mets one we were talking about yesterday, taking that makes the White Sox deeper and removes a lot of downside risk on Robert.

I think a particularly interesting part of this is that he doesn't land with the Yankees. I was figuring that Bellinger + Walker + Fried is basically Soto's money, maybe a little more, but a lot better of a team.

Rick Hahn signed Clevinger without doing a background check on him, and had to admit he wouldn't have done that signing had he done his due diligence. He got fired. Literally all of Clevinger's performance came from Rick Hahn. Chris Getz signed known domestic abuser Clevinger for $3 million, at a time when no one around the league other than Chris Getz would touch him. He was a full free agent again, so the White Sox could have gone elsewhere, he could have gone to Korea, whatever. He was worth -$0.9 million. I will take $2 million to produce 0 War sitting on my ass and that would make me a better signing than Clevinger was for Getz.

When 2 guys play the same position, have nearly the same performance over the last 2 years, and one of them is traded for basically salary relief, I see no reason why people can't discuss whether this is a reasonable comp. Yes, Robert is younger and I'll buy that he has a higher ceiling. He also has an extra year of affordable control. These things push his value up. BUT - if a team can fill an OF spot by taking on $20 million and trading a 30 million year old reliever as literally the only return, they will not part with much in the way of prospect value. Other teams will learn from that - and this will stretch into the season. If teams think they can fill roles without paying prospects, they will consistently do so - that's how the starting pitching market shaped up last offseason, and that is a clear statement about this OF market. For $7 million more this season (plus tax bill) the Yankees got a guy who has matched Robert's performance the last 2 years, who is also a lefty and thus fits their lineup, in exchange for a 30 year old reliever. If that's market price, will Luis Robert ever return the kind of trade that y'all want? The only situation that seems to fit that setup is if he's back onto his 7 WAR player pace and fully healthy at the trade deadline, and even then it's iffy - teams will clearly look for other options if available, and teams will still hesitate because of his injury history.

Chris Getz signed Clevinger for $3 million as a free agent and got -0.1 fWAR out of him. How exactly is that a good signing?

So $3 million for -0.1 fWAR is surplus value? With no ability to trade him and thus not even a reliever coming back for him? Explain to me how this works I'm confused.

No I will not and I have no interest in this. It's a baseball discussion, I'm discussing baseball. Some interesting points are made here, including: Bellinger's performance is way closer to Robert's than I thought Bellinger's return was really bad Robert's defense is still strong so even without his offensive performance in 2024 he wasn't awful, but that was relying entirely on defense Some people still believe that "protection in a lineup" is a key factor in players' performance The prospects on the Mets are being looked down upon more than I would have thought for 1 year of performance. This is the point of discussion. My level of sarcasm here has been "Yeah but Robert gets hurt even in the seasons people are pointing to." What exactly offends you so much about the idea that people have different levels of hope for Robert than you do?

First of all, 2.1 fWAR. Secondly, he was -0.1 fWAR when they boldly resigned him when for some reason no one in the league would trade for him the previous year and for some reason no one would sign him at all despite him putting up a 2.2 fWAR season the previous year.

Actual answer: yes I think this is likely. His approach at the plate is terrible and he has been uncoachable for years. Now that the injuries are piling up, that tiny bit of decreased athleticism would be enough to basically kill his performance unless he can take some coaching. Sarcastic answer: the big time player who averaged 103.667 games per year across those seasons (ignoring 20 which would only make this lower).?

A player who regressed tremendously and who arguably was not worth his salary? Gosh I’m not sure what this has to do with Luis Robert.

Robert was on pace for a 6 WAR ceiling, but of course, he got hurt.

He has thrown 125 inning with an ERA over 5 the last 4 years combined.

Has anyone noted that Cody Bellinger produced more fWAR than Robert over the past 2 years? Narrow win for Robert in 23, bigger margin for Bellinger in 24.

The White Sox's pythagorean record last year based on runs scored/allowed was 48-114. They were 7 games worse than that and underplayed their projected record by the biggest amount in baseball.

Removing Luis Robert doesn't remove too many wins.

Not even close. I said they wouldn't get good value for him in the market in 2023 because he had a down year and pitching wasn't returning a good value due to a saturated market, the right move was to hold him to the trade deadline and let him have a better first half. And yeah, I am pretty down on the return. They should have held him to the trade deadline. He was healthy, the market was bad last offseason, they spent the entire offseason leaking that they'd get a great offer and took a meh deal that hopefully gets them a couple relievers.

Nicky Lopez was being paid $5 million and was clearly there for leadership. That is clearly not the case with someone like Acuna. That comparison is bizarre. You could say you don't need another Eloy and then tell me why you think that's Acuna's future. Or Colas, whatever. At least make the comparison fundamentally similar.

You're right, but losing Robert for nothing also does nothing.