Balta1701

A minor league deal with an invite to spring training would be my setup. Doesn't take up a roster spot, leaves you the option of finding someone better (say, in a Robert or Crochet deal, or as a free agent in February or March). Basically for me, the motivation is not having Abreu around, it's using him as an excuse to not pay Vaughn in arbitration. If they're chopping the payroll down to $80 million or less, whatever their motivation for doing so is, then spending $6.4 million on Vaughn just isn't smart money any more. He isn't playing up to that, and if he were to break out with the White Sox this season (which seems admittedly unlikely), he's not going to be worth enough in a trade to justify the money spent on him given they have limited control left of him and he has a long history of struggles. If the payroll is being slashed, then slash it.

We didn't have every specific detail like "Wow somehow they hate Liam Hendriks of all people", but a lot of the ones written in the postmortem articles this season - "Reinsdorf is obsessed with loyalty and prefers sycophants to quality staff, Reinsdorf is obsessed with playing the game the way they did in the 1990s, the analytics office has been a mess and they have no idea how to use any of the information from it, the players on this team do not get along well together at all" - we've had those figured out for years.

And as soon as he has any sort of hint or recommendation, it becomes “oh God what do I do if I lose this player here take Fedde and Kopech I can’t afford to lose this guy”. Slater could absolutely be fine, but there is zero reason to think that a RH platoon OF is a must have player in mid November. When Hahn would go after a guy in November, it would be Wheeler or Grandal, a guy who genuinely wouldn’t have a replacement in two weeks if he waited. Getz does that for guys who might make a big league roster.

If there a narrative here it’s not that this guy is a big mistake, it’s that domestic violence enthusiast Chris Getz panics. You give him a recommendation on a player or a guy who he likes for some reason and he will ignore all other possibilities to get that player, because he’s scared of losing him. And this isn’t for elite players like Ohtani, it’s for the 28th man on his roster. -The Bummer trade to the Braves. I get the concept of acquiring depth, but the Braves GM literally told Getz he was going to nontender two of those players. Getz was too scared of losing them to try to negotiate lower prices on the FA market, despite the fact that there were tons of other similar options. -The Cease trade. Getz panics, he’s too scared to hold Cease into the season so he accepts a mediocre deal. -The Fedde trade - Getz gets a recommendation on Vargas, becomes scared he’ll lose him, and overpays to get him. Meanwhile, other teams (Florida) get better value for worse pitchers. -the Slater signing. Could be a decent player but the odds of a RH platoon OF being available somewhere 2 months from now are 100%. Getz panics that someone else will step in, and gives him a major league deal when his profile suggests he’d sign a minor league deal with an option in a month or two. This is an actual pattern, Getz isn’t willing to wait on any market and instead panics that he will lose a guy he thinks he must have, no matter how replaceable that guy is.

Naw, the White Sox actually stepped in and paid Fedde more than NY was offering.

Here’s the thread. a few people thought he’d flop, a Lot of people liked the gamble. One person wondered if it had to be finalized before the Rule 5 draft because the roster slot wound have value - no it didn’t it seems (cough). In terms of accurate evaluations I do enjoy my post in there quoting domestic violence enthusiast Chris Getz saying he expected to be better in 2024 than 2023.

That’s about 40% of the starting pitching market, for players notable enough to be listed on ESPNs FA tracker. I say about because I’m not sure if Ohtani counts.

Or Austin Slater…

For the rule 5 draft? Yeah, kinda. If they don’t need to protect someone, select someone. Or see who gets nontendered. This isn’t a bad player to add, but you could plausibly find a platoon guy with years of control remaining and that alone would be a win. If you have to go dumpster diving for guys like this, mid December is fine. Mid November is rushing ahead because this is the top guy you want and you will make sacrifices to have him.

Charlie Morton, Aaron Nola, Reynaldo Lopez, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, Kenta Maeda, Luis Severino, Nick Martinez all agreed before Fedde.

Oh ok so it was during the winter meetings. Who said that was early?

The time that Lopez felt something in his elbow, Renteria went out to the mound, Lopez said everything was fine so Renteria went back to the dugout, Abreu walked to the mound, asked him what was up, got a different answer, and Abreu called the trainer back out and Lopez wound up with a short preventative 15 day IL trip was a pretty good day of out-managing the coach for Abreu.

How do the rules work on this?

Please do not give him the Maldonado contract.

Non-tender Vaughn, sign Abreu to a minor league contract with an invite to spring training and a minimal salary if he makes the big league team? I'd prefer that to keeping Vaughn. Gets rid of vaughn, who just hasn't worked, and keeps options open for others to come in.

Yeah but they might be less willing to trade an OF prospect if they don’t land him, or less desperate for a starting pitcher for example.

Erick Fedde was signed on December 14th of last year. This was more than a week after the winter meetings, after the rule 5 draft. I would like to know who thought this was too early.

It only takes 1 team determined to get a deal done for a deal to get done. If Boston and LAD want to wait, but Dombrowski says "We're getting this done", someone will get it done. Boston could easily want Crochet either way, if they don't land Soto, they could land Alonso and it would help their lineup a lot too. But, every team can find reasons to delay. If several teams are waiting on Sasaki, that's something that could delay things.

How many guys need added to protect them though? Usually even with a bad organization there's guys you want to protect who take up some of those spots, that usually brings teams up to like 37-38 with no problem, and then they'll leave a spot or two open for the Rule 5 if they want to add someone. For the White Sox, it could get tougher if they trade Crochet for 2 or 3 guys who are close to the big leagues.

If you really wanted this guy and liked this guy, I'd probably still say "Wait until after the rule 5 draft you don't know what will develop as teams assemble rosters". If you signed this guy to a big league deal on December 20th, at least you know what has been available in the roster shuffle. Plus, this limits the type of guys you could get back in a Crochet deal too, because it's another roster spot. It's not as bad of a move as others we've seen, but it's also an unnecessarily negative one, even if the player works out well.

Just in general, it's still odd to be signing guys like this to contracts that are: 1. Big league contracts rather than minor league deals with spring training invites 2. Contracts so early in the offseason. This uses up one of those 40 man roster spots if he's actually signed to a big league contract, before the Rule 5 draft happens.

Baltimore is at least somewhat bringing that crazy LF wall back in.

I’d like to note that the NL comeback player of the year is one Chris Sale. This has nothing to do with a Crochet trade I just liked this.

I agree this seems likely but that doesn't mean I buy the leak at all. It's possible that the Phillies or someone like that are after Crochet and a market develops early. It is similarly possible that the Crochet market gets hung up by something like Sasaki. The Dodgers, for example, might really like Crochet, but they may also not want to pay a high price for Crochet if they think there's a good chance they land Sasaki. So, this could EASILY be Getz doing the same thing and trying to push a market to exist early.

Just to remind folks, we saw this article again and again last year about Cease. In the end, it was basically all coming from Getz, leaking to try to drive a market when one didn't exist.