Balta1701

It's a little too porous, you try swimming across that river.

When he came up, people said that his hitting approach was strong and some people almost guaranteed he'd hit well even though they weren't sure about his defense. He couldn't swing it effectively in the big leagues but that does profile as a potential hitting coach to me.

Bah, he literally couldn't sign in this signing period before Wednesday.

Alonso is totally going to wind up signing a 1 year contract with someone in March or April.

I’m trying to come up with a coach who told the other team to beat up his players after they celebrated a touchdown in a 35 point blowout and who insisted they play with leather helmets because that’s the way the game was when it was played correctly and I have no examples of this.

Pete Carroll doesn’t deserve that.

It also took only the tiniest bit of effort to understand that Maldonado was a problem in Houston's clubhouse. That effort should have been done by the GM or his people and it was not done. This is precisely why we wound up with all those tell-all articles at the end of the year, because basic checks, basic scouting is not done, guys are signed based on reputation. Homework was hard so we didn't do it.

And what's more, you could literally have called up anyone in Houston and gotten the public part of this story. The new GM waiting until Dusty Baker retired, had his news cycle, and then immediately declaring publicly "Yainer Diaz is our starting catcher next year" was bloody unusual. That was a message to that team, they announced this 10 days before they hired a manager. The GM knew that it had become messy, it was hurting his team and putting people on sides, it was hurting his young players, and he ended it.

The worst part of this might be - if you paid attention to Houston baseball in 2023 at all, whatever locker room problem there was - Maldonado was absolutely part of it. The only player on that Houston roster who people complained about more was Jose Abreu, and there were strong signs of Maldonado not working well with either their young catcher or their young pitchers. Some of this was Dusty being over the top, I don't know how much, but Maldonado was a clubhouse issue that no one fixed until they got rid of him. They also did so in very emphatic fashion.

Literally you are defending the Maldonado signing. Isn't it equally safe to say you defend every move as smart regardless of how dumb it was at the time?

Ok this is how you do trivia.

Yes it would make him a flip candidate. I'd just temper the expectations on a return. If he has a good first half - who believes he can keep that up. If he has a good year, maybe people believe he's broken out, but he has 1 year of control left before he leaves. For a 1b, that's just not that valuable.

The players actually did quite a bit for pre arb players. Over the CBA they got a 20% raise, and they also got bonuses applied for guys who win ROY along with a bit of effort to limit service time manipulation. Considering that this was one of the Owners big issues, that was money directly coming out of their pocket forever, that was a decent win. Second, it's Parity. Not Parody. Third, yes, they have yet to solve the bigger issue of the noncompetitive, non spending teams. I do not know what the answer to this is. The Owners don't want a floor, the players don't want a cap, and as of right now they've agreed to have neither.

FWIW, No I actually don't think this would be "awesome." Cute, beneficial sure. Nothing worth gawking at. Yes, it would be more wins for the White Sox. That's ok. But if we consider Vaughn's situation, if he has a good Max Muncy like first half, upper .800s OPS and 20 ish home runs, he is absolutely tradable at the deadline and that's nice, but 1.5 years of control on a 1b who is performing well but who has been super unsuccessful in his career isn't worth a ton at the deadline. You can get something for him sure, but not a ton. There's not a great recent comp, but in 2023 Carlos Santana moved at the deadline for a guy in Rookie Ball. The Orioles traded Trey Mancini and got back Jose Siri and a pitcher who might make a part of their rotation this year in 2022. In 2021, the Cubs sent Rizzo to the Yankees for their #9 and #13 prospects. Most of those guys were on 1 year deals. So you could get something for him, not a top 100 prospect very likely though. Next offseason, same problem. You need a team that can spend $10 million on a 1b, needs a 1b, but who can't buy one in free agency. That's the Josh Naylor situation, maybe Vaughn is a little better but ?? That brought back a competitive balance pick and a guy who probably will go into Cleveland's bullpen and become a legend who we hate. If the White Sox hold him to play a little better, he walks for a $75-100 million contract in 2 years, with the White Sox getting a draft pick. All of this is good, but none of it is returning even what the Cease deal did for the White Sox. It's an improvement, but nothing mind blowing or franchise reshaping.

Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.

Also since no one has said it yet “awesome another flip candidate”

That makes more sense.

This is a weirdly interesting concept for once. I actually had to think about it. The answer is no because even on July 31 if a guy could help the White Sox with a win or two down the stretch he could help your team with a win or two down the stretch as well, but getting to that actually wasn’t simple.

Do you really think either of the top 2 teams is trading down? I’d assume the Raiders are after a Darnold, Fields, something like that.

Since Lovie was fired the Bears have hired Trestman, Fox, Nagy, and Eberflus. Are any of these good coaches? Pete Carroll is a good coach. He has a Super Bowl ring and almost another. He clearly was key in developing players on both offense and defense. He dealt with the loss and turnover of players that is the modern NFL and stayed in the playoffs. He dealt with a prima Donna QB. He then had a castoff from the Jets who turned into a starting QB. He builds a good system and hires staff who go on to be head coaches. All of this is a drastic upgrade from where the Bears have been. He is not my favorite choice for exactly the reason you state. I’m not sure why he would want to get back into coaching, why he retired, or what his future plans are. At the very least he has earned an interview and fair consideration. If things go sideways with Johnson, he is a strong second option. There is a nonzero chance that the Bears hire a hotshot coordinator and in 2 years the Bears are hiring a new GM and coach and saying damn we wasted Williams’s cheap years and we coulda had Pete Carroll.

For the Bears or Vikings?

For those outside of Houston - a ton of Stroud’s issues this year have been under pressure. CJ Stroud was 25th in the NFL this year in passer rating under pressure. 24th was Caleb Williams. CJ Stroud was #1 in the NFL in total pressures applied to him this year, a couple guys like Watson and Brissett had pressure more often but in short stints. The QB who faced the second most total pressures? Caleb Williams. In Houston, it wasn’t just the pressures themselves, but expecting pressures also limited their attempts for deep balls or play action, so it made their offense run worse as a whole. You saw on Saturday what Stroud can do when he’s protected, that was their second most yards all years.

What really hits me is that I was in Houston in 2023 so I know what a complete mess Maldonado was both behind the plate and in the locker room in 2023 (maybe not all his fault, a lot of it was definitely Dusty, but clearly stuff involving him hurt that Astros team). It did not take much to understand why he'd be a problem.

God that's amazing.

After all, who would expect that we’d get derailed talking about Chris Getz in a thread titled “Could Getz Have an Actual Master Plan?”