Balta1701

Then their targets should be Blake Snell, Sonny Gray, or Aaron Nola.

Satan worship? The f***?

As far as I can tell, Lance Lynn on the Cot’s page shows as having a tax value of $19 million, which is half the value of his $38 million contract. However, the Dodgers only paid 1/3 of that amount since he was only there for 2 months. It doesn’t look like Cot’s has a step in there to prorate the value of contracts acquired midseason when adding up the tax total. Joke Kelly similarly shows up at $8.5 million.

As far as we know, nothing serious. The White Sox met with him and had a presentation at the winter meetings. Then, they met with Machado at the end of the month, weeks later. There were zero reports of the White Sox negotiating with Harper at any point after the winter meetings, which stood in huge contrast to the repeated leaks and reports that they were constantly trying to sign Machado and the in person visit. Rick Hahn did publicly say at Soxfest that they were looking to "add middle of the order bats", while stressing the plural. Once Machado signed, it seemed like they went on angry rants about affording their next core and then gave up. There were reports of other teams after Harper, notably Philly, San Francisco, and a couple others, but the White Sox were never discussed, and Boras usually leaks detailed descriptions of how these things went down to guys like Passan to keep them on his good side. My guess was always that the White Sox believed they could sign Harper for $200 million and Machado for $175 million, and that's why the 8/$175 offer was leaked to Bruce Levine in January - the Sox thought it would intimidate other bidders, instead it brought the Padres in. They thought they could afford "middle of the order bats" at those prices, hence why Hahn would say that. When Boras made it clear that he was looking for a fair deal in the $300 million range, the White Sox scoffed at it and thought Boras would come crawling back when he got no where near $200 million. Once Machado hit, they realized they were off on the dollars by a lot, and they didn't bother reaching out about Harper.

I totally understand the Dodgers limiting spending this year. I still do not understand them being $6 million over the tax line. Save a few dollars and get out of the multi year penalties. Unless there is some partial credit against the tax line for Bauer’s deal that set of decisions remains baffling to me.

He was -4 rWAR lower than 2022 last year though. Decreased velocity and a notably down K rate. His exit velocity shot up, and was as bad as in 2020 when they benched him for the playoffs. A lot of this was the slider being hit harder. Is that just bad luck, or were people able to stay on it better with a weaker fastball? His expected ERA last year was 4.07, which is 50th percentile in the league, because he was really bad on exit velocity. I’m not risking a huge bet on it being bad luck alone if I’m an opposing GM, not unless I can see things work better next year or I get a huge price drop. Since fWAR doesn’t take exit velocity into account, it is probably seeing a jump in his BABIP and thinking it’s bad luck, so small difference in fWAR. But the exit velocity jump would cause a higher BABIP, so the higher hit rate last year wouldn’t be all bad luck, it was significantly performance driven.

Dylan Cease is coming off such a bad season that if I were an opposing GM I’d expect him at a large discount. You are not getting anywhere near two top prospects and additional pieces for him right now, especially since his down season also saw a drop in his velocity. There’s almost no harm in waiting to the trade deadline with him right now, he might not be as good as he was in 2022 but he probably will be better than he was in 2023.

The Twins played Don’t Stop Believin in the mid 9th.

This is literally the right thing to do to the letter. They desperately need pitchers to fill innings...and if any of them are remotely successful, they will be tradable for greater value at the trade deadline. Not all of them will be successful, but the end result is that this restocks the team somewhat more quickly than waiting for the draft. If it takes $15 million for each guy, you kinda have to pay it, you need the warm bodies. Same thing with relievers, grab a couple and take advantage of the fact that you have playing time, trade any that do as well as Middleton last year. For position players, it is harder to be sure that guys will be tradable at the deadline because you don't know for sure people will be shopping for that position...take the guys you need to fill a lineup, clearly we need infield help especially if Anderson is cut loose, find someone to give Robert some actual time off next year, add a cheap veteran catcher, and maybe clear out a bad contract or two where possible. Don't waste money and time bringing in guys for 2024 unless you're confident you can trade them. Look forward to 2025, and see where you're at - if you get a good pitcher or two out of trading Cease, if you get a developed Montgomery, and a couple of prospects show promise, maybe at least you've found a path out of the hole even if you're not all the way there yet.

Regardless of anything else, I still can't get over the fact that this would take the 2023 White Sox and make their OBP worse.

And yet, the rumors haven't stopped, rather they seem far more certain to happen with the new GM.

The reality with this player hasn't changed since the trade deadline, when we're pretty sure they asked about him, and where we believe the Royals had several interested parties but with the price being too high. What has changed where this could happen now - have the Royals gotten more desperate to move him? I can't see why they would, they were content holding him at the deadline and there are no obvious new reasons why they just clear payroll. The only thing that might conceivably change to get this done would be the price the acquiring team would be willing to pay going up.

So given that the Royals actually have a fan base who likes Perez way more than Benintendi...you've just justified well why the Royals wouldn't do this unless you pay for him.

Why on Earth would the Royals do this?

I've said before and I'll say again - KC has very little money on their roster committed for next year, and they haven't stripped their payroll down to A's levels. They also had several suitors interested in Perez. They have zero reason to give up Perez without getting a tolerable return, and they have zero reason to eat any money at all unless they're getting a serious prospect for him. The White Sox are not talking about a free agent and they're not talking about a guy whose team is desperate to dump his money. They can easily hold him until the trade deadline this year and just see what happens if the best they can do is a middling prospect and they're still stuck eating $10 million of his deal.

I'd be more afraid that he would be...Salvador Perez, as seen the past 2 seasons, with the $44 million remaining on his contract, and a high prospect price paid for him.

This isn't the NBA. Practically no one cares about MLB playoff ratings, nor should you. They make up a tiny slice of MLB's overall revenue. There's probably like 1 commercial marketing guy who cares about that. Frankly, MLB is better off when different franchises make the ALCS other than New York or Boston fairly regularly, because spreading the success around leads to those teams selling more season tickets and building stronger fanbases long term. It is good for MLB that the Rangers are back in the playoffs in a big population center, that will help grow the game in that area and it will help create new long term ad sales and purchase agreements for that franchise. It isn't bad for MLB that everyone hates the Astros, either, although there is less excitement here than there was before their run began. It would be good for MLB if this turned out to be a good, competitive series, with few blowouts and it running 6 or 7 games, but still, the impact of getting a team that missed the playoffs for a decade back in the ALCS is bigger than pretty much anything else.

Jose Abreu's regular season OPS in 2020 was .987. Very few first basemen win MVP awards with .831 OPS's, even in virus-shortened seasons. His playoff OPS was not higher than his regular season OPS.

1. Clearly they are going to have to spend some money. Their starting rotation right now is Cease, Kopech, Toussaint, Zombie, Dracula, Scholtens, Lambert. Even if they decide to alienate their fanbase with a domestic violence issue, they still need arms here. Further, their bullpen is tolerable from the LH side, but if Santos has a serious injury (which seems likely), their best right handed reliever is, I guess, Bryan Shaw? They need people here just to fill out a roster. 2. I have no problem having a weaker hitter at DH for now. However, I absolutely want it to be someone who can play a position, and Gavin Sheets can play no where on the diamond other than 1b. Go spend the money on a Duvall or something like that, so that he can play the OF part time, DH part time, and you have a backup for Robert on the roster for at least part of the year.

Keuchel was on the mound in the game where Danny Farquhar caught em.

You can say this all you want but in the end the right decision was to turn down Kimbrel’s option and look elsewhere. That was true in November 2021, March 2022, and September 2022. You’d be complaining louder if the White Sox’s organization wasn’t so awful that Pollock turned down money to leave, too.

Well, it would certainly appear difficult for the division to wind up worse than this year, that seems true.

I seriously doubt that $170 million leaves them with a projection that is any better than in the 70s. But really, is Cease, Kopech, Toussaint, Unknown, Unknown, maybe Davis Martin midseason, with that bullpen, going to get you 70 wins? Maybe if there's some miracles out of the callups. If you had some balance to it, you spent $30 million on the hitting and $40 million on the pitching, maybe you've got a shot. Or, you have to push to $250 million, note that you didn't say you were willing to do that.

Catching the reference? Picking up the option on a guy who you think can be traded, but who turns out only to be worth a bad contract coming back - that was the Kimbrel set of mistakes.