Balta1701

It looks to me like Fields's numbers have improved each year. His passing numbers improved from Y1 to Y2/Y3, his passing numbers have been steady in y3 but he has also fumbled less as a runner in Y3. I would like to have seen more growth from him as a passer this year, especially early in the year as I still haven't figured out what the bloody hell happened those first few games those were awful. But, I do think you've seen an improving player overall, especially since the KC debacle.

I mean, we all know why the Orioles aren't signing Snell, it's because Snell will earn $20 million a year and the Orioles seem overly hesitant to pay those prices. If the Orioles were willing to pay free agent prices, presumably this discussion would have ended long ago.

His decline in 2023 was real, and is somewhat covered up by Fangraphs. Dylan Cease has a high K rate and a high walk rate - the high walk rate prevents him from being an elite pitcher unless he can also produce weak contact. Because Fangraphs doesn't take contact quality into account very much in terms of calculating FIP/WAR, Fangraphs drops this as a factor in how it evaluates him. In 2022, Dylan Cease was elite at preventing hard contact. This makes sense given his K-rate, he generated a lot of swings and misses and no one hit him hard. In 2023, Dylan Cease lost 1 mph from his fastball and dropped from the top 10% of the league in hard-hit rate to the bottom 50% of the league. That's a big change - Dylan Cease was allowing a ton of hard contact in 2023 that he avoided in 2022. He kept up the K rate, but when people made contact with him they hit him hard. Because Fangraphs doesn't take this into account, it decides that "allowing hard/weak contact" is all lumped into BABIP, Fangraphs underestimates how good Cease was in 2022 and says "Dylan Cease was only a top 10 pitcher in MLB" when we all saw a guy who was deserving of the #2 spot in the Cy Young race. Fangraphs says that Cease's best season was 2021 since it had his highest K-rate, and we all know that's wrong. However, it also then over-evaluates his 2023 performance by saying the hard contact he gave up was just bad luck, when he really took a big step back last year in what made him elite in 2022. The 5 year track record to me shows a guy with a high K rate, a high walk rate, a very reliable starter in taking the ball, but a pretty high variance in what I will get from him next year in terms of performance. If you think you can get the 2022 Cease out of him, then he's worth everything you trade for him and more. If you don't....well I'll stop there.

Turn it around the other way - the Bears draft Williams and he behaves like a young QB and struggles. The Bears take a step back from 7/8 wins to 5/6. Meanwhile, the Bears trade Fields for a 2nd round pick from the Saints or Bucs and Fields wins 11 games and is in the playoffs next year. Does anyone get fired?

How many games have the Bears lost this year where they had 90% odds of winning? More than 1 right? Some of that is coaching fine, that part might not change, but that is hard to pull off, almost impossible to do worse, and in the NFL one loss is a pretty high fraction of your yearly performance. This is not true in baseball, where 2 or 3 very unlucky losses are a much smaller fraction of the season, and there's a much higher chance that they will be balanced out by a couple of freaky wins over the next 150 games.

Want to specifically address this. First of all, let's consider the trade-down scenario - how different do the Bears look in this scenario? The Bears trade down, they will add either MHJ (if they trade with the Pats for example) or someone like the 11th pick and Maxx Crosby if they did a move comparable to what they did last year. They will then be adding their pick, maybe around 10-12, so two first round picks. They will have Sweat for the full year. On top of that, the Bears are almost done clearing out the dead cap space from the last administration. They have $24 million in dead cap space this year, that money will be available to spend next year. They have less to spend than last offseason, but this is valuable money, this is the stuff that allows a roster to build additional depth. On top of that, they have Sweat for the full season, and we have all absolutely seen the improvement in their pass rush after that trade. On top of that, a couple of their losses this year have been ridiculous. You certainly can't say they have been lucky in their performance this year - this could be coaching and not change, but its hard to think about them being far less lucky next year. Given all of that...if Justin Fields is the same player as this year, they should still be notably better next year. Their roster should be deeper, they should have a pair of extra first round picks, possibly MHJ or possibly a strong extra player depending on what they trade for. If Justin Fields doesn't get worse, the Bears adding all that should be competitive for a playoff roster next year. It takes Justin Fields getting notably worse or hurt for a large portion of the year or something else going terribly wrong for them to be significantly worse than this year. Now if that happens - the Bears go 7-10 next year. Their draft pick should be around 8-10 next year at the worst. If they did this, presumably they're also holding an extra 1st round pick from the trade this year - either the Raiders pick, the Patriots pick, the Giants pick, whatever. If that is the case, the Bears are in position to get a QB next year. They are holding two 1st round picks, probably both in the top 15, as well as a pick early in the 2nd round. They absolutely would have the resources to trade up into the top few picks in 2025 if they need to trade up for a QB, and if there turn out to be several QBs available they could already be in position to get one of them with one of their first round picks. This isn't the only strategy, if Poles is ready to pull the plug on Fields I'm not angry, but trading back and having the QB spot go poorly should not sabotage the franchise.

Some positives on Getz so far: 1. He hasn’t done anything Hahn-awful. No trades for Salvador Perez. No big contracts. No “we are one player away” moves on a team no where close. Hahn always messed this up, never understood where his franchise was and thus even if he made good moves they cost him too much in the end. 2. Hard to complain about the specific front office people he’s brought in. Negatives or matters for concern: 1. The entire Jerry Reinsdorf press conference debacle. It showed a man completely out of touch and out of control with a GM who was unwilling or unable to step in. The “win soon” declarations, the CBA violation, none of this was acceptable and it was all a terrible sign for the organization. Not only did Getz not have the power to stop it, but he clearly did not have any understanding with Reinsdorf beforehand about things that needed fixed or changed - if Getz can’t control a press conference how is he going to react when the owner insists on drafting a college 1b rather than a high school pitcher? 2. Although the people he’s brought in are decent I’ve seen no sign that the organizational chaos has been resolved. They haven’t expanded their front office staff which was too small by a factor of at least two. Some problematic people are still here, just in different roles. There are signs that people in management positions don’t understand their jobs - your organizational number 2 person should not be talking about personally working with pitchers, he should have way too many other duties. There are numerous signs that the “yes man” culture is as bad or even worse - Benetti, Soxfest, the kind of fawning public statements we have gotten throughout the offseason, LaRussa somehow being an influence, the Nashville articles, Nightengale still having a role. Credit where it is due for not immediately screwing up like Hahn. But lots of reasons for skepticism.

Yes, you can always sign swingman type guys to minor league deals with incentives. That Hahn never did this was baffling. Hell, some of those types of guys were key in them getting to 90 wins once rather than 0 times in Hahn’s reign -Brian Goodwin and Jake Lamb. Weren’t used well by LaRussa, but better than “I have no idea who is playing LF today let’s try our 1B”.

I would say that the failure to do this the last couple years was a mistake that was obvious at the time. Get a Chad Kuhl or two, bury them at Charlotte, and at least you have an option in May when Kopech is on the IL, Giolito has Covid, and Lynn has a bum leg. Somehow Hahn never did this.

Ya know what’s kind of terrifying? The White Sox now have way more pitching depth than they had when Rick Hahn was supposedly trying to compete. 2022, 2023 the plan for pitching depth was “pitchers never get hurt” and then “oh hey Cueto is available awesome”. It’s not good, but hell I can list like 8 guys who might actually be able to start! It’s confusing!

Because I can put together really good offers for the Giants or Raiders and they’re stuck with over drafting the number 3 QB.

If the Bears gave up the #1 pick and got MHJ, the Patriots 2025 and 2026 first rounders, and both of those came in around #15, I’d see no problem with that.

He can be sent to the Yankees midseason as a defensive upgrade for their OF.

If Spotrac is correct about how Boston's money is being counted, this may drop it from $8 million to $2 million in 2024.

Regardless of what they do in RF, they desperately needed someone on the roster who could spell Luis Robert on occasion. We saw this last year, in the first half the White Sox played 92 games and Luis Robert started 87 of them and played in 89. Super lucky he didn't break in half. Probably not a big surprise that his production tailed off in the 2nd half and then eventually he did get hurt, although thankfully only minor. Whatever they do in RF, this had to be done.

Too bloody easy.

His life was ruined - so he’s bankrupt, the $68 million someone said he earned is gone? From the opening of this article he has a nice house in a tree lined community and multiple PR reps working for him other than just Nightengale. Calling that a ruined life seems like a big exaggeration.

You said earlier that this pleasant rehab article confirms “perpetrators will be punished.” That sure seems to disagree with your statement here.

I am unimpressed by any punishment that includes friendly profiles in USA Today.

Freedom of speech entitles everyone to a profile in USA Today? I want to read yours, when does it come out?

And we will certainly believe those guys as long as you get to tell Balta he’s wrong. After all; it’s not like any of them insisted that Cease was 90% likely to be moved this offseason and covering their precious reputation.

In other words you now realize there’s a real chance I’m right and Cease will not be going anywhere this offseason, but you need to move the goalposts so that you don’t have to admit I was right. “Sure he didn’t move but that’s because Jimmy said the Sox were stubborn so ha!” After all, the insiders have been completely right about the Cease negotiations so far, the leaks haven’t at all been self serving.