Chicago White Sox

Who is making this argument? Literally no one

Sure…but they can’t afford 10 of these contracts like the Dodgers can.

Yeah, Jerry fucking sucks. Have never said otherwise. But he doesn’t have an $8 billion TV deal that will allow him to spend with no limits.

Keep moving the goal posts. The Dodgers being uncapped has nothing to do with Jerry’s cheapness, risk aversion, or general suckiness as owner.

Where in the fucking world did I make a single comment rationalizing Jerry’s conduct as owner? I’m just sick of people with zero business acumen cheering on one of the richest two organizations signing a f*** load of free agents and saying “why don’t they all do that”. This shouldn’t be that hard to comprehend. And your constant “Jerry loves rebuilds” comments are just plain dumb. The dude literally went years avoiding a rebuild even though it was the right thing to do. And the only reason he’s rebuilding right now is because KW & Hahn completely destroyed the org and there is no other option. It’s wild that there are countless things to rip Jerry for and yet you still somehow need to create your own ones.

They can’t though.

Oh no doubt, but Jerry won’t spend the money up-front to build a best in class product.

Reds desperately need a CF…whether they will ante up remains to be seen. My guess is he our OD CF.

He was literally the worst defensive OF in baseball and by wide margin. I put this table together at some point during the of 2022, but he was leagues worse the next worst guy (who happened to be Gavin Sheets). I know your comment was in just, but I do think it’s important just negative his OF glove and how insane it was that Hahn kept putting him out there.

I hate Reinsdorf as much, if not more, as you. I think he is a terrible owner. That doesn’t change the fact that the Dodgers’ revenue blows ours out of the water and we could never spend what they could on payroll. Not having a real salary cap sucks and this is just another example of that. If you have a problem with cheap owners, then argue for a salary floor…they aren’t mutually exclusive issues.

These takes are absolutely hilarious to me. The Dodgers spend more because they have access to revenue streams substantially above almost every other team in baseball. They spend more because they can without going into the red. It fucking sucks for parity, but alas, the MLB could give two shits about trying to have a competitive product like the NFL.

It’s an excuse for him when someone cites his career production. And I am not a Vaughn defender, I wanted to non-tender him. Me saying he’s likely a 0.5 win player is not really strong indictment of him. I just think he’s one of many players who likely be better next year…even if still a very bad regular.

I hope the Dodgers win every championship until the Sox are good again so I keep hearing how this is somehow good for the game.

He was a negative fWAR player in 2022 entirely due to being forced into the OF half his games and being by the far worst defensive OF in the game. He moved out of the OF in 2023 and was at least above replacement level. His xwOBA last year was higher than it was in both 2022 & 2023 when he was an above league average hitter. All of this is fact based and supports the key point I was making, which is that a positive fWAR projection for him is justified. I know you get off on trying to own people for nitpicky things, but this is really taking the cake.

I said I think those projections are too optimistic, but the point I’m trying to make is we have better options to fill out a lineup card than we did last season. A Tauchman / Slater platoon isn’t sexy, but it’s leagues better than playing a 1B out there and a OF who physically can’t impact a baseball at all. Catcher will be better because no one can be worse than Maldonado was last year. As for Vaughn, I agree that 1.2 fWAR feels like a stretch, but his production prior to last year is impacted by being forced into the OF. And last year, he underperformed his xwOBA by 17 points. I don’t think a 1 win type season is completely impossible for him and would still be pretty bad overall.

Hopefully there is something there that can be unlocked, but watching him play last year didn’t give me any form of confidence of him ever providing any sort of impact with the bat.

Steamer projects our positional group to put up 14.3 fWAR next year. That would have ranked 23rd overall last year, so still in the bottom 25% of teams. However, it does reflect a 20.6 win improvement over the -6.3 fWAR we got out of our positional group last year. I keep seeing people saying that this roster is worse than last year, but I really doubt that is the case. Last year’s group was the 10th least productive in baseball history per Fangraphs. Like just getting replacement production at C, 3B, & RF is worth nearly seven wins alone. And beyond that, there are plenty of rebound candidates, Robert being the biggest and most likely one even if he suffers through some injuries. The pitching staff is definitely worse on paper and is only projected for 5.7 fWAR next year. That would have ranked 29th in all of baseball last year and reflects a 4.1 win decrease from this past season for us. When combined with the positional group, that’s a 16.5 fWAR improvement YoY despite the loss of Crochet and Fedde and no meaningful external additions. I personally think the positional group projections are too optimistic, but again, just replacing the guys who had no business being on a major league roster with slightly above replacement level talent wil make a huge difference. Gun to my head right now, I think this team wins 55+ games next year. Losing Robert would change that for me, but I think a 49.5 O/U is an absolutely absurd line and everyone should be pumping the over because it’s really fucking hard to win less than 50 games in a season.

I love reading these old threads and seeing all the takes at the time. The Fletcher stuff is probably more interesting than the Horn or Thompson takes.

My only issue is if you fire Poles, you then have to go through a GM search before a HC search and I’m not sure the top candidates are going to wait out the Bears with that uncertainty. I’d rather quickly pounce on Ben Johnson and give Poles one last chance to fix the trenches before making a change.

This seems like a very reasonable deal for Torres. That being said, 2B is the last spot we need a flip guy at. Give the playing time to Sosa, Baldwin, Meidroth, or even Ramos. Need to get at least one second division regular out of that group.

1/$15M

What’s the deal with Cruz? Is he a top 50 guy in the class?

That’s what I want to know. Doesn’t sound like this is KW Jr’s old role either.

Yeah, that’s the big question to me.

Yes, which is why we have some time before AI takes over the world.