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Cease to Baltimore, and then I struggle to find a match for Robert in my fantasy trades.

He wasn't wrong, I am going to love Joe Kelly leaving.

Lose these two games, hopefully don't take 2/3 from the lousy Cardinals, and then get our cheeks clapped by the Braves and hopefully that will be enough to snuff out any silly ideas about this team making the playoffs. They need to get SOMETHING to help for next season and beyond as far as depth is concerned. Even 2-3 interesting young players for Giolito will be better than him walking in the offseason.

Seems to be the going trend lately

Very fair point. It would be difficult to properly get the return on him that it would deserve.

The problem is, if we clean out the front office and make a hire that good organizations should be making you wont get that type of guy by telling him hes stuck with the lame duck manager already in place. I would imagine that a new front office will get to hire their own manager. I would not think Grifol survives that purge.

Even if they are unlikely to continue, the point remains that for several years now Jake Diekman has been a serviceable bullpen arm everywhere he has been, except for Chicago where he was unplayable.

Does it? It appears were throwing Lynn and a bullpen game. I don't have high hopes.

You don't trade Cease unless you are tearing it down to the studs. I have a hard time believing that they tear it all the way down again. Not in this division. Robert would need to go as well unless we want to be the Angels and have a mediocre team built around one superstar player with nothing to show for it. Poor Mike Trout, one playoff appearance and no playoff wins. He has three MVP's and two of them have come from last place finishing teams.

Yes, on the Rays he has been an elite bullpen arm. On everyone else, he was a useful bullpen arm. On the White Sox, he was completely useless and apparently forgot how to pitch.

This would also apply Some team will look at him on the White Sox and go "I can fix him"

Except most teams WERE able to do something with him, the exception of course was with the White Sox. 2019: 4.75 ERA (Royals) 2019: 4.43 ERA (A's) 2020: 0.42 ERA (A's) 2021: 3.86 ERA (A's) 2022: 4.23 ERA (Red Sox) 2022: 6.52 ERA (WHITE SOX) 2023: 7.94 ERA (WHITE SOX) 2023: 2.08 ERA (Rays)

I wouldn't count 2020, he had .6 WAR in 52 games it seems a safe bet he would have gone over 1 had it been a regular season. Either way, don't get me wrong here I am not trying to argue for Moncada he has been a major disappointment for someone who was supposed to be the superstar of this rebuild. All I am saying is, at least the money spent on him appears to be a wash when all said and done.

He's put up 13.3 WAR and if you go $5 million per WAR he has been worth $66.5 Million. We have paid him somewhere around $37 million so far if I am looking at it right. Next season were talking about $61 million and assume he is bought out its exactly $66 million. Seems like even if he is on the team next season and is what he is now, we will have at least gotten what we paid for. All things considered, I would still consider him a bust.

You continually see players come here and crater. Its not a one off, it happens all the time. Diekman threw 30 innings for the White Sox across two seasons and had an ERA over 7! Its an organizational issue, its happened too many times to chalk it up to dumb luck.

Nobody is going to want him unless we foot the bill, and if were going to do that we might as well keep him and hope he can regain some form of what he was in 2019 and 2021. Nothing would suck more, or be more White Sox for that matter, than paying Moncada $15-20 million to put up a 4 WAR season on someone else's team.

Seems like picking up his option and hoping hes back to the old Liam next season would make more sense than buying him out and paying him $1.5 million per year until 2033, but who knows.

Can’t wait to pay this guy $24 million next season

I would love to make trades with the Orioles. That's a deep farm.

It will depend on how many suitors there are and who they are as well. Hopefully, it lines up right for us.

Chapman is a bad human being who nobody wanted in the off-season when he could have been had for peanuts. He does not compare to a front of the rotation starting pitcher. I would expect to get more for Giolito than the Reds got for Mahle last year.

Joe Kelly has a 2.77 FIP and can either be a 1 year rental or kept for an additional year at a reasonable price for a high end bullpen arm. There should be plenty of interest.

To be fair, his 76 at bats weren't really that far off from the results of a lot of the regulars in the lineup. Like you said though, getting that control back was worth it alone.

Yeah, I agree it was ridiculous. He went down there and performed though so I wouldn't be too worried about his confidence.

Probably just cursed for firing Ricky after the 2020 season for no real reason.