Chicago White Sox

Why?

I’m certain both sides have models for a proposed international draft ready to go and simply need to be refined based on proposed assumptions. Should they have a couple of days to work through in a perfect world? Probably, but it doesn’t take weeks.

What numbers are you talking about?

Dude, the Sox needed a high leverage reliever. If you want to argue Kimbrel was overkill, that’s a debate worth having. If you think we had a playoff caliber bullpen without a major addition beyond Tepera you must not have watched the games like everyone is saying. The bullpen was a real problem and citing reliever fWAR doesn’t change anything as that stat is heavily by the production of Liam Hendriks.

This is absolutely absurd. No one, not you, not Andrew Friedman, thought Kimbrel would go from the other best reliever in baseball to absolutely terrible post acquisition.

Kimbrel had a 100th percentile xwOBA at the time of the trade and was one of the most coveted players at the deadline with both the Dodgers & Rays in hot pursuit of him. Rip the price we paid or the decision to pick up the option, but the best baseball minds were trying acquire him and it wasn’t just because of his ERA but rather him being the best reliever in baseball at the time.

Good call there…could see it happening

I don’t understand this at all.

Agree fully. This idea we can’t play one or two regular extra innings is crazy to me.

Usually you don’t have weeks to assess these things when working on major deals and have to evaluate in real-time. That being said, I you’re right that Manfred is purposely introducing certain things late in the game to make it harder for the union to reject.

Why is this so bad for the players? I guess I don’t get Tatis’ beef with the concept.

From what I can tell, it seems like the the pre-arb bonus pool and then the international draft in exchange for a QO are the biggest two sticking points at the moment. I don’t think the latter is too much of a problem, but rather something that was introduced late in the game. But a $30M gap in the pre arb bonus pool is challenging. My guess is the players eventually concede down to $50M or give in to a 14 team playoff format.

Yeah, we got to hope of these youngsters pan out and keep the window going. At least there is quite a bit of talent in Low & High A that can hopefully help three years from now.

Yes, I think our window is realistically 2022 to 2024. Doesn’t mean we have to completely blow everything up in 2025, but there will need to be some serious retooling given how expensive the core youngsters will be by then and the fact we could lose Abreu, Giolito, Grandal, Anderson, Lynn, & Hendriks by then.

I think 3rd division winner getting all three games at home makes sense. I’d have WC1 winner just get normal HFA so there is some benefit (even if small) from winning the division but not getting a bye.

This appears to have some fucking legs…don’t stop now boys!

So just to jinx to any hopes of a CBA being agreed to in the next 24 hours, below is a new offseason plan that pushes our payroll to the absolute limits of the new CBT. While I'd rather not trade Andrew Vaughn, this plan assumes he's moved in a package for Ketel Marte with the Sox then rolling with a Sheets / Burger platoon at DH. How happy / mad would you be with this offseason? To me, this firmly places the Sox as the best team in baseball heading into Opening Day, but feel free to rip away if you disagree!

Yeah, it appears the owners are actually making their best & final offer for real this time.

Normally I’d feel that way, but with Ken Rosenthal providing updates and not Bob Nightengale I feel like there’s real legitimacy here. Plus the offer looks good at face value.

Just wait for to the owners to slip in uniform costs counting against the CBT to blow this up last minute.

True, but there are small market teams that can probably only afford a payroll in the low $100M’s. I think having some defacto cap is good to certain teams from striving toward $400M payrolls.

It really seems like there is a light at the end of the tunnel here. Crazy it took the owners this long to make real concessions, but this seems mostly fair from what I can tell. Also, overall this is a pretty decent CBA for the Sox. The luxury tax is just high enough to not be a major deterrent for us during our competitor window (2022 to 2024). The draft lottery rules should hurt whichever teams in the Central plan to tank. And an international draft is a game changer when your owner refuses to pursue 14 year olds. Get this shit done so Hahn can add a RF, 2B, & SP next week while I’m on spring break!