Balta1701

Just to see how a different scenario could go: The White Sox go to Flaherty, Maeda, Severino with offers in the $8-10 million dollar range, not understanding that teams are going to have to pay a premium to sign these mid level pitchers this year because there are few options and tons of cash available (they stay away from Stroman and Giolito for personal reasons). There is a run on these guys signing $12 million+ offers with other teams, leaving us complaining about how most of them are gone (we have seen this before, in both 2020 and 2021 offseasons). The White Sox are left with no choice but to sign guys to become depth, and they become their first actual signings - guys who otherwise aren't wanted. Carlos Carrasco and Jake Odorizzi thus become their first signings.

1. The White Sox cannot afford guys who have the record of being quality starters at the positions they need to fill. 2. They still need people capable of filling these roles, so they default to utility infielders because they are affordable. 3. They do such a terrible job at developing their own players that they have zero depth. This leaves them with many more openings that need filled in the offseason and also requires them to find additional players during the season because they have no internal options to replace the guys who do get hurt. Utility infielders are the only ones available on waivers or as free agents, without a big cost in trades. 4. They do such a terrible job at developing their own players that they come up and are some of the worst baseballers you have ever seen. When you replace those guys with someone who is "tolerable and putting the ball in play", they look like revelations. (See: 2022 Danny Mendick). 5. Every so often, you roll the dice on a seemingly washed up veteran, and you get an incredible performance that could never be predicted, but it happens. (See: 2022 Elvis Andrus).

The caliber of defense these teams are playing compared to what I’m used to watching is mind boggling.

True but he was also a factor as he was never as good as you hoped. The entire time he was there, the Bears were in the top 10 of scoring offense once, in 2013 - and that was the year Josh McCown played 8 games and had a 13-1 TD/INT ratio. You can win with a guy doing what cutler did, but you have to pair him with a truly elite defense, which is tough when you gave up 2 first round picks and a ton of cap space for Cutler.

"How dare Bears fans want to win a Super Bowl!"

You left the part where Reinsdorf said that he had to do that because of the fans!

IF the Bears are taking Williams, I would take the best draft pick I can get for Fields and be content with it. Depending on his stats for the rest of the season, that could be a 2nd or 3rd round pick. Should be worth a little more than Rosen was at this point, right? That's not likely to be there next year, given the way the options and contracts work.

Tony wasn’t fired. And Ricky probably wouldn’t have been fired if the owner wasn’t already planning to bring in LaRussa.

Then get the deal done before the option decision deadline.

There are some potential issues with a clueless manager. Failing to properly treat or develop or coach actual talent - this can permanently damage young players. Allowing veterans to get away with things because they’re veterans - ,could hurt their performance and trade value. Creating a permanent reaction among players because you were too dumb to know why “he’s so well spoken” isn’t a compliment to your African American assistant GM, generally “I’m just staying away from that medal bad.

Oh lol so it's that "Church of Satan", and you haven't bothered to educate yourself about them. I like them even more now. Fascinating that you went with the pejorative of calling them "Satanic" or whatever word it was rather than saying anything about their actual group or even giving their name. And yes, the idea that I need a conversion ad during sporting events from the same people who were caught looting artifacts from the Middle East bugs the hell out of me, to use an appropriate phrase.

Well this started with a post saying that the Dodgers had endorsed "Satan Worship" and you explained to me that was because of an LGBTQ+ group. Are you saying there's a difference between those?

The "He Gets us" campaign is funded by an organization that includes the Hobby Lobby ownership (heavily lobbied to get the Supreme Court to rule against contraceptive coverage), has donated to a church whose website states "“all people who do not have faith in Jesus Christ will spend eternity in hell,” and to another group that has been labeled as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.

Then I have a team they can look at as a good glimpse for how the future will go.

That's Satan worship to you folks?

Then their targets should be Blake Snell, Sonny Gray, or Aaron Nola.

Satan worship? The f***?

As far as I can tell, Lance Lynn on the Cot’s page shows as having a tax value of $19 million, which is half the value of his $38 million contract. However, the Dodgers only paid 1/3 of that amount since he was only there for 2 months. It doesn’t look like Cot’s has a step in there to prorate the value of contracts acquired midseason when adding up the tax total. Joke Kelly similarly shows up at $8.5 million.

As far as we know, nothing serious. The White Sox met with him and had a presentation at the winter meetings. Then, they met with Machado at the end of the month, weeks later. There were zero reports of the White Sox negotiating with Harper at any point after the winter meetings, which stood in huge contrast to the repeated leaks and reports that they were constantly trying to sign Machado and the in person visit. Rick Hahn did publicly say at Soxfest that they were looking to "add middle of the order bats", while stressing the plural. Once Machado signed, it seemed like they went on angry rants about affording their next core and then gave up. There were reports of other teams after Harper, notably Philly, San Francisco, and a couple others, but the White Sox were never discussed, and Boras usually leaks detailed descriptions of how these things went down to guys like Passan to keep them on his good side. My guess was always that the White Sox believed they could sign Harper for $200 million and Machado for $175 million, and that's why the 8/$175 offer was leaked to Bruce Levine in January - the Sox thought it would intimidate other bidders, instead it brought the Padres in. They thought they could afford "middle of the order bats" at those prices, hence why Hahn would say that. When Boras made it clear that he was looking for a fair deal in the $300 million range, the White Sox scoffed at it and thought Boras would come crawling back when he got no where near $200 million. Once Machado hit, they realized they were off on the dollars by a lot, and they didn't bother reaching out about Harper.

I totally understand the Dodgers limiting spending this year. I still do not understand them being $6 million over the tax line. Save a few dollars and get out of the multi year penalties. Unless there is some partial credit against the tax line for Bauer’s deal that set of decisions remains baffling to me.

He was -4 rWAR lower than 2022 last year though. Decreased velocity and a notably down K rate. His exit velocity shot up, and was as bad as in 2020 when they benched him for the playoffs. A lot of this was the slider being hit harder. Is that just bad luck, or were people able to stay on it better with a weaker fastball? His expected ERA last year was 4.07, which is 50th percentile in the league, because he was really bad on exit velocity. I’m not risking a huge bet on it being bad luck alone if I’m an opposing GM, not unless I can see things work better next year or I get a huge price drop. Since fWAR doesn’t take exit velocity into account, it is probably seeing a jump in his BABIP and thinking it’s bad luck, so small difference in fWAR. But the exit velocity jump would cause a higher BABIP, so the higher hit rate last year wouldn’t be all bad luck, it was significantly performance driven.

Dylan Cease is coming off such a bad season that if I were an opposing GM I’d expect him at a large discount. You are not getting anywhere near two top prospects and additional pieces for him right now, especially since his down season also saw a drop in his velocity. There’s almost no harm in waiting to the trade deadline with him right now, he might not be as good as he was in 2022 but he probably will be better than he was in 2023.