Balta1701

For the White Sox - the offer Baltimore was giving doesn't seem like 97% of the way there. The White Sox need guys to reshape their system. They need guys who can come in and be all stars, because they don't have that. That's different than Milwaukee's needs, where they have a strong system already so any depth they can add is helpful to them. For the White Sox, the Orioles offer was more like being offered $35k on the car that you want $80k for. It's not a terrible offer, and it's better than nothing, but you're probably not in a hurry to take that offer out of the worry that you'll crash the car.

The Commanders could absolutely put together a package to trade for the #1 if they wanted to. Their 1st this year and their 1st next year.

I would suggest skepticism over anyone claiming that this is knowable for certain. Daniel Hudson was a guaranteed injury risk, the White Sox gave him up because the pitching coach said so, he pitched well for a year and then got hurt...and since then has had a 10 year career and made over $40 million as a reliever.

If the comps have to be former Sox, I am getting a Conor Gillaspie vibe so far.

I feel like with the number of NRIs we’ve seen, guys like Colas and Sosa don’t have long.

The year is 2044. The White Sox trade for Michael Kopech’s firstborn son. Soxtalk: “could this be the final piece before a Dylan Cease trade?”

I’d imagine that several of the NRI pitchers and so forth will make the roster early.

Exactly, so when he makes the roster in April he’s an extra roster spot.

Not only was Eaton putting up a .790 OPS in his best years with the Sox, but it was an OBP heavy .790. This guy put up a walk rate in his 2nd year at AAA that was comparable to Eaton in the big leagues; for that comparison you’re counting on him being super patient in the big leagues, matching his AAA repeat numbers.

I was just wondering about this in the context of churning the roster, with guys like Pillar and all the other non roster invitees aren’t they about to need a whole bunch of roster spots?

I’m thinking specifically of his arm. I wouldn’t deal for a guy whose season ended with elbow soreness. Good luck with that to Seattle.

Fine, I was wrong, but I probably wouldn’t do this if I was Seattle.

Is Fletcher out of options? Trying to ask why the DBacks would do this deal when they could use players available now rather than a few years away.

Apparently he can pass a physical now.

This should tell us that there's more to building a successful culture on a baseball team than importing a bunch of free agent veterans though.

I think that as big of a part of it as any were the head coaches. Obsessed with certain veterans, happy to play favorites, outraged at the notion that baseball is different today than it was 20 years ago. If you put veterans into a toxic place like that, they usually turn just as toxic - and the same manager is still here. If we are wondering why Montgomery has been benched for DeJong 4 times in a week in August and are complaining about how poorly he’s treating his roster and how they still are playing favorites, remember that part of the culture, because that’s who our manager was last year.

To stress, they had plenty of so-called character guys the last few years. The situation wound up terrible because the org was terrible, not because they were missing these guys. Veterans getting special treatment because they’re veterans and the manager is a twit, veteran players expecting special treatment and whining when they don’t get it, young players who don’t get fair treatment because they’re young - these kinds of things sabotaged the org the last couple years also. The high character veterans were as much or more of a part of the problem than anyone. We should be bloody skeptical about the notion that importing veterans can import leadership if it is missing or even sabotaged internally.

Aside from the stupid Maldonado deal it’s hard to question any of these individual deals, but when you back out - they spent $30 million on this and have likely $12 million in 2025 commitments already (assuming Fedde isn’t traded), that’s a ton of money to spend on “improving character guys” when it’s hard to see almost any of it making any kind of difference long term. Amd for reference, I hate the idea of calling these guys character guys. Dallas Keuchel was supposed to be a character guy and a team leader when he was signed, KW praised him for being a leader repeatedly. He got here and called things BS that frankly were BS, and now we vilify his attitude. Lynn was a character guy until he wasn’t, and then again ripped the org on the way out. Importing culture from the Royals is a dumb strategy. Some of this money was needed for filling holes, but we should watch closely whether we get anything useful long term out of any of these moves or whether any of these so-called character guys rip the org behind the scenes. The last batch of character guys did that all the time.

How exactly do they envision this working? A completely new ballpark in Bridgeport but some of the current parking lots demolished? That still doesn’t make this a walkable area with transit options. This sounds too much like the sunk cost fallacy to me - we screwed up royally last time so we can’t just abandon our screwup.

Part of the problem for the White Sox is the mess that they’re in. Milwaukee is in a bad spot this year with Woodruff out, but they regularly have a supply of solid young players and pitchers coming up. If Ortiz is a good player for them for the next 5 years, that’s a big boost for them. Plus, honestly the White Sox can afford more mid level free agents than the Brewers. The Brewers need decent, cheap starters more than the White Sox do right now. If the White Sox get a decent SS and a reliever for Cease, that barely moves the needle for them. The White Sox have time to spare and need guys who make a big difference if they break out. They need a guy who can be an all star in 2027, more than 1 in fact. They are in a spot where they are better off waiting and gambling on a big first half from Cease than taking an offer that doesn’t reshape their org.

So if we count Fedde they’ve spent nearly $30 million in new money? Ugh that’s more than I realized. Better hope At least one of them is actually traded for something useful.

How much money has Getz actually committed to these guys? I know it depends on who makes the roster, but the comparison is always 2019, where Hahn spent over $40 million on veterans that offseason, with an extra $20 million in additional commitments for 2020, and all that did was push his team up to just over 70 wins.

These veterans are totally going to mutiny against Grifol and things will be as nuts as ever.

Days since my brain said “wait the guy from the Red Sox 20 Years ago?”: 0.

They have clearly decided it was a mistake to have Charlotte end the season with 1 starter every year. I agree and compliments to them on fixing this.