Balta1701

Eh giving up a 2nd round pick isn't that bad to me.

De'Aaron Fox to the spurs, Zach LaVine to the Kings. Not sure what else yet.

Lavine is going somewhere!

Since the Lakers clearly need size, is there a match for Vucevic?

Thorpe could wind up a perfectly cromulent pitcher and calling his changeup one of the best pitches you’ll ever see would still be pretty embarrassing right now.

He was listed by Jim Callis as “also in the running” for best changeup in the minors in their pre 2024 list (along with 3 other guys) but Dylan Lesko was listed as the best several times in a row. I would buy that you saw him listed as the best changeup in the White Sox’s system, maybe best pitch in the white Sox’s system because Schultz hasn’t moved up the lists on tools yet. Not league wide though or on all pitches, Paul Skenes exists.

Eh for this one I’m gonna give the Bulls a pass because who exactly like have thought to call and ask about Luka? There’s some level of sanity you expect otherwise you are just playing with the trade machine.

Can’t read the insider content right now but here’s a free one with the same grades https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/los-angeles-lakers/news/luka-doncic-anthony-davis-trade-grades-lakers-mavs-dumbest-trade-nba-history/3ebb24efc0a4bf72941707fe What struck me in this one is outlining how the Mavs could and should have gotten more. The Lakers had a first rounder in 2031 the Mavs could have insisted on. The Mavs gave up a 2nd rounder when the Lakers had those available. Had they looked elsewhere the Spurs have 9 first rounder picks that could be available for trades. I do like that people believed Shams was hacked as more likely than this being real.

Oh you want Hoffman’s changeup? First year where there is data on FG is again 2007. 200 changeups that year, 29 strikeouts on it, 1 walk. 11 wRC+ against it. Over the last 4 years of his career, ages 39-42, overall wRC+ against his changeup was 29. Tommy Kahnle’s changeup so has been more effective than Thorpe’s, but Thorpe’s is “one of the better pitches we’ve seen”? Seriously how did you guys get hired for this, I could use the extra cash for posting stuff.

Last year in the bigs, Thorpe’s changeup had a K rate of 25%, a walk rate of 10%, a BB/K of 0.42, and a wRC+ of 73. Johan Santana’s change had a 34.3% K rate, a 4.1 % walk rate, a BB/K of 0.12, and a wRC+ of 49. That’s a legit pitch. In his best seasons these go nuts. In his first year on Fangraphs, 2007, Santana threw 267 changeups and this led to 52 strikeouts. Last year, Thorpe threw 256 changeups and it led to 17 strikeouts. I don’t even want to bother with his best seasons, it becomes vomit inducing. And that was in a league with a massively lower strikeout rate. Best pitch I’ve ever seen? You do NOT want me to post Chris Sale’s slider stats. You just don’t. Humans shouldn’t do that to other humans. If it’s that important to Getz and Bannister that no one compares Thorpe’s changeups to a legitimate pitch, he can put me on the payroll like his defenders. I’m open to offers.

Well I did not expect this.

There has been a lot of “attitude” talk with him the last couple years for whatever that means.

I said it above, but to make this clear - if the market is weak at the time, if the #2 pitcher on the market can't get the type of deal he's looking for and has to take a 1 year deal, that's a bad market for starting pitching. A normal market is better than that. This year, all of the top 5 pitchers have their deals, and several teams have done trades for pitching. This is a normal market, maybe even a good market, for starting pitching. Literally everything last year said that it was a bad market. You had one guy who got a good deal quickly, Nola, and that was because the Phillies said they were keeping him. Everything else was teams looking for value.

For that deal yes, everything said hold the guy. If Dylan Cease just had a similarly inconsistent first half, he would still have been the most valuable pitcher on the market at the deadline. Every indicator said his stuff was still there, with just a velocity loss - so teams would still want him as a strikeout guy and you could certainly see teams paying more for him even if he just repeated his weak 2023. The odds of him losing value based on performance compared to that weak deal was low. The upside of a better deal if he had a strong first half was obvious. Furthermore, it was obvious the pitching market wasn’t there in January 2024. You had Snell available on the market and no one was paying. Teams were trading for and signing undervalued guys, like the Braves did with Sale and Lopez, rather than paying full price. Teams were not paying full price for starting pitching at the time, simply waiting for the market to correct would have been smart. The 2025 pitching market has been much more normal. At the deadline, the number of players available also drops dramatically and you may well have more teams bidding after guys got hurt in their rotations or their team surprised in the first half. The only way he would have lost substantial value is injury, but you were also looking at the guy who had made the most starts in baseball since the start of 2021. If you’re betting on a guy to stay healthy, that’s a lot better of a gamble than Kopech or Clevinger. Holding was clearly the right move all last offseason.

Apparently someone tweeted about Tucker not being able to go to massage parlors as far back as 2021.

For once not just a white Sox criticism - I wonder how much 2020 contributed to the poor results of that 2018 first round (2019 looks great, so it’s not just a simple answer, but with thinking about).

Bloody Mahomes disagrees.

Thank you for adding the links, I did not know about that.

The Rays have a stadium deal already done.

The message that of course the White Sox couldn’t pay a couple million to significantly improve a prospect return because the message that the White Sox need money and are poor poor poor and deserve all the bailouts and a tax cut and a new stadium is a message we could never hear anywhere else.

With the payroll so high who could blame them right?

If it looks bad for the front office if published, of course our insiders “wouldn’t buy it”.

They have? Are we talking about the Guardians?

If you’re dumping a guy for salary relief, you are dumping a guy for salary relief. If you thing you can demand a strong return for Robert then you have to hold him. You only get to insist on a better deal If you’re willing to say no, wait for it, and get the player better this season. The Phillies 4 and 6 prospects is better than paying him $15 million this season and nontendering him next November. Do you have confidence you can fix him and get him his first healthy season? I’ll hang up and listen.

Eh…if you’re not sure if the guy is going to stick at SS then the thing you want for him is time to focus on being a SS. Reps at SS, drills and practice at SS. Play him there until you decide you’re moving him, because once you move him, he should spend all his time improving at that position. Id also worry that playing 3b even part time might be an issue for his back, if that is the problem.