Balta1701

If you put $500 million down as an offer right now I bet you could make it happen, if it’s somewhere he wants to be.

Juan Soto, assuming he makes the HOF, will likely wear the hat of whichever team he signs his 10+ year contract with.

First, the triumphant views are getting plenty of play in the thread from everyone else. Note what happens when anyone questions that. For example, Nightingale said the Braves were definitely involved and basically the whole thread shrugged off that concept because the Braves don't have enough, so the groupthink has no problem dropping a rumor from a sometimes legit source if it doesn't fit the narrative. I did not have a good read on it at the trade deadline. I'll take that. Did you think that Anderson was getting released? Do you think that Oakland came away with a positive result in the biggest trade last offseason, of Murphy to the Braves? Was the market last offseason just way worse than this offseason - if so, why is the trade market that different now? I do think it's clear the Market is less than it was at the trade deadline. Lance Lynn got $10 million. The Dodgers took on $4 million for Lance Lynn at the deadline and also gave up their #8 prospect at the time - would you trade Nastrini for $6 million right now? Giolito and Lopez brought back a top 100 prospect, are they bringing back top level money for their positions now?

Dusty Baker would still tell you he was wonderful. (He probably did a decent job of handling the pitching staff, but he was all around bad otherwise, and should have played dramatically less than he did - but again, Dusty).

Yes, positively so. As with basically each pitcher traded last deadline.

None of us ever called it a rumor, I specifically called it a "Suggested package". But a few things together - the Arizona package, Atlanta supposedly being involved, Bowden's speculation here - these are reasons to think that the White Sox fans are dramatically overestimating Cease's value. And if that is the case, that's how I get to "I have no idea why you would move him right now rather than waiting to the deadline." As I said in the first post.

Because you replied to a post where I was talking about the garbage offers posted here today so I assumed we were talking about the garbage offers being actively posted about and discussed right now, including in the post you replied to.

Cease has been generally healthy so it's not a bad gamble...and be honest, is a package centered around the guy from Arizona or a package of Leody Tavares and scraps from Texas such an overwhelming package that, if Cease did get hurt, we'd complain forever about not taking it at the time?

In general I'm not surprised at all to see people suggesting packages that are far lighter than what Sox fans have been suggesting they expect for Cease, as intolerably low as these packages would be, I think the stuff people have expected is equally over the top too high. But the bigger point - I have no clue why the White Sox would accept a deal like any of these right now, rather than waiting until the trade deadline and hoping for a better market or better first half from Cease.

Cease brings back a guy who is already in his arb years (super 2), a pitcher who entered 2023 as about the Rangers #20 prospect by both BA and MLB, and a pitcher that MLB.com has as the Rangers #15 prospect right now. That...seems low even to me.

I think we are going to have to say this daily - Santos is almost certainly untradeable.

Well I'm also expecting the Sox to have a pretty iffy pitching staff and some raw younger guys in there, and some guys who we will probably be wanting to trade at the deadline, I will grant that having a guy who calls games and can handle pitchers has some value to this team. So I'd have to take that into account here too.

I mean, how big league ready is his defense and pitcher handling? It's worth asking, he'd be better than spending a couple million on Hedges.

If Cease was garnering those packages, or hell even one of them, then this would probably be done already - or the "this will happen soon, before the winter meetings!" rumors would be right. Note that it hasn't happened yet.

And if no one offers a top 100 prospect, do you just take your favorite of the offers and call it the best you can do?

Or just making sure they put out content for clicks.

This requires some other team to come in and make an aggressive move to get him. If you put a "Reasonable but fair" price out there for him, and no team comes anywhere close, then there's no reason right now to adjust your asking price downwards. If some team comes to you with an offer that is close to your asking price, then you can negotiate with them a little bit, maybe add in a minor additional piece, maybe take a few other calls, but there's no reason to wait at that point as the offer you were waiting for might vanish.

Let's not forget the one other possible thing happening here: Clickbait. Getz may not be pushing this hard right now and we'd get the same messages. People who want clicks and followers and to be believed to be insiders re-stating things that are conventional wisdom as though they're new rumors so that their names get shared and remembered and people come back to them next time if something does happen. One person thinks the White Sox match up with the orioles, so they tweet that, a second person xeets their statement about negotiations, and suddenly everyone is convinced they've got electronic surveillance on the GM's phone. We had like 4 food based and one Steve Cishek based accounts that should have taught us to always consider this possibility.

Is it good enough to win the NL Central?

I don't know about the option for a second year, but the "$10-12 million/one Clevinger" price for starters who struggled last year and are taking one-year prove it deals seems pretty well set in.

1 year $13 million.

The good news is that if the park is as empty as it should be, there won’t be much money going there either. This brand has been completely trashed - by Jerry and company.

There is unlikely to be any report this offseason, they will do the same thing they did with Martin last year - let him rest and hope that the ligament is in tact enough to recover without surgery. I'm not going to question here whether or not that is a good strategy, but I believe this makes it extremely unlikely that he could pass a physical to get a trade approved. There is almost certainly some elbow damage and inflammation right now, there is probably still pain, he probably is completely shut down from throwing right now, they just don't know if it is severe enough that surgery is the only option. If it improves over the offseason while he is shut down, he could potentially pitch early in the season - sometimes players are able to go years after the elbow flares up or even with partial tears, but we won't know until the spring whether the pain and inflammation have subsided enough to allow him to pitch. Put all that together though, and a team trading for him basically should assume he will go down for TJS and miss 2024+.