almagest

“To make such a deal happen, the White Sox almost certainly would need to include cash to make Robert more affordable. They are open to doing that as a way of enhancing the return, according to a club official.” It also talks about how the Mets don’t want to trade any of their good prospects and would likely only offer a marginal return for Robert.

The numbers don't lie!

Worlds tiniest violin begins playing

As long as he doesn't end up at the center of a gambling scandal like the last 100 mph cutter guy I can think of.

Not in favor of policing anyone's thoughts, but some of you could sure use a helping hand based on some of the posts here.

Yeah, fair, and neither of them spent much time in the minors here. I'll call that "talent evaluation" then.

I am absolutely going to be watching UCLA baseball games this year

We've got some of that on the offensive side. Montgomery and Teel look like potential fixtures. Quero and Meidroth came up and showed some promise. Sosa looked pretty solid for a guy who swings at everything. Baldwin could be a nice bench piece. They've got some potential reinforcements coming from the minors and the draft, too - they might still lack that big time, Bobby Witt Jr. type, but maybe that's Cholowsky. The pitching landscape is rougher, but there's still a lot of guys to work through. One or two of the current starters (Smith? Burke?) could end up being long term answers, there's still hope with Smith and Schultz, Oppor looks like a potential dude, there's some other positive pieces throughout their top 30 as well. I feel better about their system now than I did in 2019, for sure. They had more top flight talent then, but absolutely nothing behind it. If they can add/develop some of that top flight talent then I'll really be encouraged.

Yeah, and an fWAR of zero wouldn't have led the 2025 White Sox either. Once Santana figured it out he led the 2002 Twins with an fWAR of 3.4 (which is not some insurmountable ace-like number), so by your own standards that 2002 team was terrible, because a rule 5 guy was their best pitcher. Probably even worse than the Sox, because it was three years after he was picked. If Shane Smith is leading the Sox staff with a 3.something fWAR in two years you guys are gonna have an absolute FIT.

People are encouraged we got some pretty solid, potentially projectable value out of a rule 5 pick, and a waiver claim from a rule 5 pick that didn't work out. Hopefully that bodes well for their talent selection and development in the future, even if rule 5 claims are a total crap shoot and they never hit on another one. I also don't see how this indicates a major talent gap in the Sox system. They were a top 7? system that's now middle of the pack because they just promoted a bunch of talent to the majors. I'll give you a major lack of talent in the majors pre-promotions, because we all know the Sox are an objectively terrible team. The hope is that we're moving in the right direction.

Maybe we should give them more than one season to do so? Shane Smith may end up being lightning in a bottle, or he may end up being a consistently solid starting pitcher. Some of the hurt pitchers might come back and be good. Some of the guys on the staff now might end up being good. There's a long way to go with a lot of young players. Johan Santana was a rule 5 pick by the Twins. I doubt they were too torn up by him being their best pitcher by fWAR in 2002.

It's good that he wasn't actually the best player on the roster by b or fWAR, then.

How stupid are the Guardians, to guarantee a roster spot to a guy that a 121 loss team wouldn't even protect? Worst run organization in MLB.

Might be overextended and need to pare back, yeah. No idea what they have in their system on the 1B/reliever front to provide similar value to those two though.

Mets lost Alonso and Diaz. Rough offseason so far.