Balta1701

You think they’d let AJ do national games after throwing a hissy fit about Benetti doing them?

We've seen how well the strategy of "loudly declaring that we intend to compete" has worked for the White Sox over the last decade.

Yup, 5 hours later and I'm still annoyed and frustrated by this.

A little more modern, intelligent, understanding of stats, lack of obsession with TWTW? Yeah that all checks out.

Just to say this, there were times back in '20, '21 and '22 where I would have the Audio package to listen in to Sox games while walking my dog. I got pretty used to Kasper and DJ, but sometimes they'd give us access to a video stream that day and boy I immediately jumped over to Benetti and Stone because it was just a far better broadcast.

Lynn had more value because there was clearly limited pitching available on the market.

Letting a guy do national TV games and football games is not accommodating him, its the opposite, it is building your own brand stronger by having a well known broadcaster.

Then no, no one is trading for him. Everything is trending the wrong way, he's regularly hurt, he's positionless, a below average Dh, and a crappy performer at the plate. I might gamble on taking his contract on but you're getting no talent back for him.

They could just turn it into the He Gets Us segment where the Sox will tell us that we are all sinners unworthy of this holy franchise.

Is "offloading his contract" sufficient value?

OH COME ON.

So the solution to postseason success is first inning bunts.

Because the posts asking the question are brain droppings.

The number of cases where I find them to make sense are, for good teams, so rare that I don't care. Work a bloody count and take a walk. Put the ball in play. This has gotten more the case over time, and "we're gonna bunt more" not only gives away too many games but it also is just a seriously flawed concept. Don't give away outs in close games. It is a backwards strategy and a cover for poor actual baseball skills. Even in a world of Manfred ball, put the ball in play.

But those things are hard and take work. Bunts are easy and are a perfect substitute for hard work.

The Diamondbacks led MLB in Sacrifice Bunts. During the postseason, every team had 1 or fewer Sacrifice Bunts, except the Diamondbacks who had 9. The Diamondbacks were the first team in a World Series to have their #3 hitter bunt since Kirby Puckett in 1991. This happened in game 5, which they lost despite a great start. Therefore, there needs to be more sacrifice bunts as look how often it happened in the playoffs, look how many teams were doing it.

If there's good news out of this, it's that Getz is saying things that are realistic. "No one is untouchable" is the right tone for this franchise right now. "I don't like this team" is very different from the "I expect to win soon" we heard from Reinsdorf and the super happy talk from Barfield about how "There's a lot of talent on this team". Maybe that's a backhanded compliment, but Hell it's better than I expected, you can find me a few weeks ago saying "Boy I wish they'd just be slightly honest and acknowledge that they have work to do".

This was about Robert, not Cease. And fwiw, I wouldn’t pay that for Cease.

I think that's closing in on a fair price. There are probably only 2 or 3 teams in all MLB who can offer it, and if they don't offer it, you have a choice. Take a lower price, or hold him.

What is an appropriate prospect haul? Are you willing to take 2 top 100 prospects and a couple of filler pieces and call it a day? If I were the Dodgers, I would gamble that price, but I wouldn't pay more than that. From the White Sox perspective, I'm willing to listen, but I'd hold Robert until he could command a higher price than what I expect the market to offer right now.

2 offseasons ago we were guessing whether Reinsdorf would hold the payroll around $150 million or might go up to $160-$170 million. He went past $190, then almost did that again last year. Reinsdorf had a higher payroll in 2022 than the Astros. They were idiots about what they did with the money, but they did spend it.

You could definitely trade him, but you probably wouldn't be trading him at fair value - a 5+ win player with 4 years of control ought to return what, 4 top 100 prospects or something insane like that, but I seriously doubt anyone would actually give that up, especially given Robert's injury history and his approach to coaching or approach at the plate as question marks. Maybe at the trade deadline, someone might get desperate and put together a package like that for him, if he's healthy and doing the damage he did last year a second season in a row.

You also need to decide that the return is worth it. Because of his contract, Robert is literally one of the most valuable pieces in all of baseball. Only a few teams can actually afford to trade for him, and those who can might not be willing to do so.