Chicago White Sox

Hoyer can claim they’re trying to balance winning with an eye on future, but straight up you don’t trade an elite pitcher for four 17 to 20 year old lottery tickets if a lengthy rebuild isn’t in from of you. There will be a lot more moves between now and next October and it’s going to be an ugly few years for the Cubs.

The Sox will be at $140M+ at some point in the near future, the problem is Reinsdorf will use COVID in 2021 and potentially a work stoppage in 2022 to be cautious about spending.

This play alone should get him in into the HoF

Sure, but it’s incredibly high risk talent that is years away from contributing. When comparing it to the Snell package, it’s hard to say it’s not an underwhelming return. I think in a non COVID environment the Cubs get far more for the NL Cy Young runner-up on a 3/$54M deal even despite his advanced age.

In what sense? The Rangers gave up quite a bit of talent, the Padres not so much.

Are you talking about for Lynn?

While 100% true, at this point I think it’s pretty clear the Ricketts are in cost cutting mode.

This same dude compared La Russa and/or Eaton to a serial child molester...not shocking he called one of the biggest assholes in the game “mild mannered” to feed his need for moral superiority.

Not after he fucked up our Jumbotron and refused to apologize.

In all seriousness, this agreement is exactly what projections had him getting via arbitration.

Finally some fucking news! Move over Padres, the Sox are now officially in the spotlight!

Sign Hendriks and hopefully that’s not an option.

I’d rather just develop him as a starter in AA next year and call him up to serve as a reliever for the stretch run, but it doesn’t appear they’ll be going down that path. It does sound like Kopech will open in AAA based on what Merkin has been signaling, so at least that’s a plus.

100% how I took it. And my guess is those starts are opening double headers and things of that nature.

Doesn’t sound like that will happen with Crochet though.

You’re right, but the issue I have is they rushed into an Adam Eaton signing in order to save money for “other needs”. That shows they are planning to operate on the cheap this offseason, even if there are hopefully more moves to come.

Listened to the podcast and will say that James’ section was way more entertaining & informative than Badler’s. Obviously Cespedes & Colas are both hard to evaluate given time off and/or the physical transformations they’ve gone through, but Badler really didn’t bring much to the table and seemed completely off-base with his Colas take. Regarding Cespedes, I can see why there is such a big disconnect in the rankings between BA & Pipeline, as Badler clearly hasn’t given nearly as much credit to the strength increase & swing changes Yoelqui has made. He’s potentially a fundamentally different prospect than the 5’9” lanky tweener from back in his Cuba days. Also, I just what to say James continues to show that he is one of the most knowledgeable Sox commentators in the field, right up there with James Fegan & Jim Margalus. Always a pleasure to hear him on a podcast or read one of his great articles, whether it’s related to minor league or major league coverage. The LatAm coverage in particular is easily best in class and incredibly informative. Keep up the great work James!

So what would Musgrove theoretically cost? The Pirates are going to be targeting younger, high risk / high reward type prospects, so not sure Stiever would be of much interest to then. I worry they would want Kelley and to me that would be a no go. If not him, Matthew Thompson is probably the most attractive centerpiece that we might be open to trading. Does him, James Beard, and say Jose Rodriguez get it done? Is that really a better play than just signing Garrett Richards to fill the #4 spot? I’ll admit Musgrove is fairly intriguing, just not sure I want to trade more assets for a short-term rotation piece, even ones multiple years away.

I don’t see how Snell’s cost was “reasonably low”, looks like a pretty big return to me.

His last 32 starts show a 4.36 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 3.96 xFIP, 9.41 K/9, 2.18 BB/9, 1.33 HR/9, and a 47.4% GB rate. What’s so bad about those stats?

Why punish anyone for crimes since some people may have gotten away them?

Badler’s take on Colas seems very outdated despite acknowledging that Oscar got in better shape. The reported sprint times suggest he should have plenty of speed to play a corner OF.

In what world is one year of Davies worth five years of Dylan Cease?

Great post. If we had signed a couple 16 year olds instead of Yogurt and then used our pool dollars we ended up trading to the Rangers to save Uncle Jerry a few bucks, we’d probably have three of the four pieces needed right there to land Darvish. I know it’s not necessarily that simple, but the ROI is insane on these 16 year old signings and foregoing bonus pool dollars reflect an organization not optimizing its resources because of Reinsdorf’s moral compass and/or financial risk aversion.