caulfield12

“If Venable’s task is more normally confined to commanding respect in the dugout on the strength of his professional resume and comfort with communicating the schematics and realities of modern baseball to his players, then it’s a lot easier to say he looks the part with the reputation to match. Serving as the front-facing figurehead of a functional organization is a much more typical ask for this job. The White Sox have many miles to go to convince the public that they are such an organization, but Venable’s hire is supposed to be just a signal, rather than the solution.” Seems like a shot at Grifol/Haber, haha.

This “successful” argument will sell exactly how many 2025 season tickets…?

Albert Belle was signed to deliberately point out the foolishness of such contracts to other owners…luckily they found a sucker in Balt. Thomas’ came after the best 7-8 year run of a RH hitter in modern baseball history and also had the infamous “diminished skills clause” attached despite that aforementioned run of greatness. 7 years/$64.4M (1998-2004), plus club options for 2005, 2006 99:$7.15M, 00:$7.25M, 01:$10.375M, 02:$10.3M, 03:$10.3M, 04:$10.3M, 05:$10.3M option, 06:$10.3M option White Sox invoked “diminished skills clause” 10/02, allowing the club to defer $10.124M/year if Thomas did not make the All Star team, win a Silver Slugger award or rank in the top 10 of MVP vote for 2002. Thomas filed for free agency 10/02 before agreeing to re

How Cole Ragans Built On His Breakout Season October 14th, 2024 at 9:38pm CST • By Mark Polishuk "Ragans turns 27 in December, and still has another full season remaining before reaching salary arbitration. Locking up Ragans to a contract extension would help the Royals get some cost certainty over a pitcher whose ceiling only seems to be rising, plus the rotation could use some solidification since Wacha will surely exercise his opt-out clause and test free agency again. On the flip side, since Ragans is under team control through his age-30 season and already has two Tommy John surgeries on his resume, the Royals might well hold off on any serious extension talks and just go year-by-year with Ragans for now. Deciding how to best deal with the unexpected windfall of a frontline pitcher is a nice problem for the Royals to have, and in hindsight the Ragans trade was the first sign that K.C. was going to able to rebound from its 106-loss disaster. An inability to develop homegrown pitching prospects stalled the Royals’ rebuild for years, so there is some irony in the fact that the team’s emergence has now been led in part by another team’s seemingly stalled prospect." https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/10/how-cole-ragans-built-on-his-breakout-season.html

Just substitute Freeze and Gundy.

Not legitimately going after Harper was equally dumb...

You'd think the AL East teams would almost strategically prefer to improve the White Sox so as to improve their WC odds by the Chisox not getting run over by the entire AL Central. Without two 1-1's it's tough to push the rebuild along quickly...there would be more pressure on JR to spend in FA OR at least sell it to someone who's committed to competing ASAP.

Basically they are back down to around $60 million and looking to trade all their big names (Gray Helsley Arenado and even Fedde) to go back into "retooling/retrenching" mode for 1-2 seasons. Still one of the most loyal fanbases in the sport, though. There has to be a lot of frustration with the stranglehold the even smaller market Brewers have on the division.

Why would his wrist injury make him one of the worst outfielders in baseball the last two years? On a White Sox team soon to be without Robert...you're really expecting 2-3 fWAR seasons again despite his defense only being slightly better than the likes of Vaughn and Jimenez out there. He has routinely been run on probably as much as any LFer in the majors. We keep forgetting corner outfielders are expected to hit 30-35 homers if offense is their only tool.

2006 was the only Top 5 payroll. It didn't last long. Just like 2021. Losses immediately sent those payrolls falling back into the much more comfortable mid-teens in the MLB picking order. https://tht.fangraphs.com/a-look-inside-the-2006-open-day-payrolls/ $103 million...

Bengals breaking fantasy football at 4-6.

Makes me miss the days of Lance Johnson even more. What a trade that was... Ofc ended up with the Mets just like Ventura Torborg and Manuel.

JR.

For the same reason the Braves are one of the few franchises with a viable RSN model after all the fall out.

Who exactly is replicating the numbers of Pasquantino and Sal Perez on the White Sox? Most importantly...the co AL MVP extended in his early 20s? Is Montgomery actually still a SS? And we have been over one million times why they won't extend Crochet... Just like KC will be very careful with Ragans having either two TJ surgeries depending on your revision outlook...for the second right on top of the first surgery. And KC already had to go out and spend even more on Wacha...which is an iffy proposition if you look carefully at his last five seasons. He could be the pitching version of Benintendi.

Rojas probably...rotates into a utility role. Then you have Edman that can play almost anywhere. Adames and HaSeong Kim are your only two legit FA's. If Teoscar's getting 3 years and $69 million, the Dodgers will likely let him go. (Probably too late for Chris Taylor to go back to second. Maybe his contract finally expires.)

Reminiscent of the Adam Frazier love affair over the last 2-3 years.

The only thing that makes ANY sense is moving Lux back to SS...which still only makes sense to the White Sox. That still gives you Montgomery/Ramos at third, Vargas/Sosa at 2B and not sure what you do with Baldwin. Probably put him at Charlotte and wait for his health and bat to return. In theory, Ramos at 1B/DH saves $6 million on Vaughn, and with a Benintendi/Crochet trade...you put Vargas in LF How that's ANY better than 2024???, well...it's definitely NOT. Because Lux isn't a SS, but neither is Amaya, because he simply can't hit his way out of a wet paper bag.

Fine for the Braves, but that's the BEST, ultimate example of success. Out of 30 teams. 2% growth isn't even keeping up with inflation. Certainly going to see a lot more than 2% growth in the average MLB contract for players in arbitration and FA in terms of a year on year comparison.

At $110 a year that's only $4.4m in revenue. Very, very long way away from replacing the cash flow the RSN deals provide. Fangraphs in 2020 estimated that the Padres made $46m from their RSN deal (not accounting for the Padres 20% ownership stake). They'd need 800,000+ subscribers to make back the RSN money at the current price point, which would be like 25% of the metro population (or they'd have to set the price point at $95 a month which consumers obviously wouldn't tolerate). What's truly crazy is that the Padres are STILL #1 in all of MLB considering SD is one of the smallest media markets for a professional sports team in the entire country. But still only a drop in the bucket compared to the $46 million they were previously receiving through their RSN deal.

Hostetler said he would have taken Collins at 1-1, lol.

So they barely improved with one of the best built-in markets in the US and coming off the 2023 season where they looked like the best team in baseball with Acuna Riley Strider all of the way...

Why? He's already in arbitration...because they can't afford a FA shortstop? To play second? Then there's no place to play Sosa, unless he's going to third and therefore blocking Montgomery and Ramos. He's definitely not a SS. Just like LA decided Grandal wasn't a catcher before we spent almost $70 million to determine that for ourselves.

Two years…