Chicago White Sox

Again, I’m not arguing it was a good or bad deal. I’m arguing that Hahn is not an “imbecile” for assuming Kimbrel wasn’t going to fall off a cliff post acquisition like many posters here are alluding to, which is very different than justifying the price we paid wasn’t steep (which it was and I acknowledged that at the time). That being said, I fully disagree with your view on the value of elite relievers at the trade deadline. Generally speaking, there is a reason the elite guys are always expansive at the deadline and that’s because context matters. I’ve been arguing with you for years over this and the marginal value of a guy who has a high probability of getting three outs without giving up a run in the 8th or 9th of the playoffs is enormous. This wasn’t about getting to the playoffs, this was about adding a guy who should been able to pitch 11% of nearly every single playoff game and get you three high leverage outs. Outside of a legit TOR starter, nothing is more valuable during the playoffs. You cite the volatility of relievers, but any player can go hot / cold during a short playoff series or two. This high likelihood of Kimbrel busting in the playoffs vs any other player is absurd and the best organizations in baseball were prepared to make this same “bet” that we did.

Lol…only once and luckily nothing was going on so it wasn’t too big of a deal.

You were correct…the baseball gods are saving that pain for tomorrow as I fly back from Chicago to Nashville.

Has this been reported? Not challenging, just curious if speculation.

Brian Balta, smarter than Rick Hahn, Andrew Friedman, & Erik Neander confirmed. Glad you knew from 20 shitty innings in 2019 that the best reliever in baseball over the previous 52.1 innings was suddenly going to fall apart. I really hope they fire KW and hire you to be President of Baseball Operations because you literally outsmarted two of the best organizations in all of baseball. And given this was such an obvious mistake to you, what actions do you suggest they take from prevent this from happening again?

No, I want Conforto for RF and/or Gausman (or Scherzer) as a SP. Those guys will eat up a lot of salary, which makes eating part of Kimbrel’s salary very challenging.

Who are the other? And why is Morosi leaking the Blue Jays?

I’m convinced you don’t like winning and simply want to hoard prospects. We need to payroll flexibility to address our 2B, RF, & SP needs, not to get slightly better prospects from the Padres that won’t help us win this year.

Sorry, change first appearance to first inning. He pitched a total of 15.1 innings in 2020. His last 14 innings he put up a 1.12 FIP with a 18.00 K/9. His first 1.1 IP he put a 33.94 FIP with 0 K/9. Because you are dealing with the smallest of sample sizes, those first two shitty appearances in 2020 masked what was otherwise elite performance (SSS of course). Look, this argument is pointless by now. You want to believe Kimbrel sucks and that Hahn was an “imbecile” for acquiring him. I will continue to look at the fact he was elite and perhaps the best reliever in baseball during the 52.2 innings preceding his acquisition, evident by the 1.64 FIP he put up during this stretch. Given you’d rather overreact to ~20 innings during which did Kimbrel did not benefit from a spring training from his peers, nothing will change your mind at this point. For the sake of others on this board, I’m going to stop beating the dead horse as I’ve made my case by this point.

Kimbrel’s 2019 was 20 innings and his 2020 was awesome expect the first appearance. You are greatly overstating his downfall.

Maybe teams are looking at Frazier’s total track record and realizing his first half last year was a total fluke, whereas some GMs look at Kimbrel’s HoF track and saw 50+ innings of elite performance before wearing down from a massive innings increase? And no one is thinking we’ll get a “big” return, but rather something more valuable than $1M buyout.

Unfortunately you can only fake too many poo’s before people start asking questions

Lol…I did explain that free agency will be on pause for two months starting on the 2nd and she was a bit more understanding. Ultimately she knew what she was signing up for when she married me and now has to live with those hot stove consequences ?

Watcha got $7M in his deal. I feel like Keuchel should be movable at $11M or so, which means eating $7M or $8M or taking a bad contract of similar value.

Having a late Thanksgiving dinner with my wife’s family today in Homer Glen. Already have been yelled at a dozen times the last few days for “blogging” too much as she calls it and will not have access to my phone starting around 4pm. As such, I’m expecting tons of crazy Sox rumors to happen concurrently starting at this time.

I would wager something happens soon as a result. But I think it’s good we haven’t seen us make a settling move yet at 2B or RF. They need to swing big at one of those positions and right now it’s better to have flexibility. But now that positional guys are starting to move, it will create a natural sense of urgency to get things done faster for all clubs with needs in these areas.

$17M guaranteed per Rosenthal which makes three years for Graveman look pretty reasonable.

Only further increases the chances of Kimbrel to Phillies trade.

No way, unless we get one back in a Kimbrel trade. Part of the reason of moving quickly on Graveman was you can now take your time and look for value to round out the pen.

They are 100% adding a left-handed bat. So if they add Segura at 2B, they will be acquiring a LH bat for RF one way or the other. The only possible exception is if they sign Scherzer and he eats up the bulk of our financial flexibility.

I still think this all comes down to who the left-handed bat they plan on adding is. If it’s Conforto or Schwarber (i.e. pure RF / DH type), then maybe they are already planning on going cheap with someone like Kemp for 2B. If 2B is truly the focus, then maybe they’re swinging for the fences with someone Ketel Marte as a backup plan to Semien. I really don’t expect Hernandez or Leury to be options unless multiple things go wrong.

Let’s be honest though, the market for $16M relievers is incredibly small. I’d wager there is far more risk than reward by holding and if you get a solid offer you should move Kimbrel now.

With Sanchez and Frazier off the board, it seems to suggest the Semien pursuits are legit (unlikely IMO) or a Kimbrel-Segura+ trade could happen (more likely). One way or the other, they must have a primary target in mind.

The Sox have made as many real moves as pretty much any AL team…?‍♂️