Chicago White Sox

They weren’t clever…the star that wanted to sign with them himself offered to defer 97% of the contract. And it doesn’t just help them in the short-term, the PV of this is like 30% less as a result of Ohtani’s proposal to do this. But hey, the rich get richer, which I’m sure casual fans will love.

MLB should just take the best 26 players, put them on the Dodgers, and then award them an automatic World Series appearance. At this point, who the f*** cares as all fairness in MLB is out the window when the Dodgers are not only entitled to the best player in the world who comes with numerous marketing advantages, but also don’t have to pay him for 10 years and are allowed to f*** over the CBT system because said unique talent is making so much money he doesn’t care that he’s basically accepting 70 cents on the dollar.

There should be no CBT impact outside of the contract period. They are simply discounting the total dollars of the deal to reflect these deferrals and then are dividing by 10. This really isn’t a 10/$700M deal for the Dodgers, who make out like bandits both from a CBT and cash flow perspective.

100% agree.

$46M per year CBT impact.

Not years paid, but years of the contract. My guess is they PV adjust the dollars beyond the contractual period to account for his AAV. And this is absolutely horrible for baseball. I think it’s cool as that Shoei wants to win this badly, but from a parity standpoint this is an absolute disaster.

I could desperately use a legit a Cease rumor right about now, but unfortunately it feels like there won’t be traction until at least Yamamoto is off the board.

Oh f*** no!

Oh f*** yeah!

Oh I don’t necessarily disagree with your point, but was just pointing out that fact.

You realize Stassi didn’t play last year right?

Strange week for sure. Go read this article from Bob Nightengale where he rips MLB insiders (including himself) for basically reporting anything that agents will share with them and even acknowledges how they then promote the final deals to help market the agents providing the oftentimes untrue info. Cool that he is calling this out, but also completely hypocritical given he’s unlikely to change. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2023/12/10/shohei-ohtani-rumors-free-agent-mlb-reporters/71867634007/

No, I think some of us are just being realistic with expectations. 2024 will likely be ugly and that’s ok as long as we see progress from some of the young guys in AAA and eventually the majors. But if you’re expecting a much better year than last season from a W-L perspective, then I’d prepare to be disappointed.

I’m not sure any of these are foolproof upgrades. Maybe DeJong/Montgomery is, but that’s only because Anderson was god awful last year. DeJong’s ceiling is legit a 0.5 win player. That isn’t moving the needle and I’m not convinced Colson will be ready until the 2H and will likely experience some growing pains. Grandal was bad last year, but Stassi didn’t even play in 2023 and he was awful in 2022 (in particular, check out his defensive metrics on Statcast). Hopefully that was a one-year aberration and perhaps his ability to handle a pitching staff can offset some erosion in framing, blocking, & throwing but there is a reason he was basically free. And you must not have watched Lee last year if you have any faith that he represents an upgrade over anything. Beyond that, Nicky Lopez is the only positional player we’ve added. Again, he can be a useful little player, but doesn’t move the needle. Meanwhile, we have a massive hole in RF and zero OF depth. It’s hard to imagine that Benintendi, Eloy, Moncada, & Vaughn can be worse than last year. Any real improvement right now on the positional side will need to come from those guys and they are huge wild cards at the moment. However, the part you really ignored is the pitching. How can anyone with a straight face say the pitching is better. Giolito & Clevinger actually pitched well for us last year and both are gone max. Cease is almost certainly going to be traded. Fedde & Soroka are fun little additions, but to expect them to replace the production of aforementioned guys is wild to me. And behind an incredibly questionable rotation, is an equally questionable bullpen. If you put a gun to my head right now and said predict the worst pitching staff in the majors, it’s going to be the White Sox. And it’s probably not even close. Right now, the pitching staff is almost certainly a large downgrade vs. the 2023 version and will get worse once Dylan is traded. Unless the underperforming positional guys really improve this year and stay healthy, 100+ losses seems highly likely.

Jarred Kelenic may end up a bust, but the talent is obvious. And Bummer has tremendous stuff even if the results lately have sucked. These guys may not ultimately work out, but the price was a bunch of garbage. Given the insane team he already has in place, these are smart gambles to take. Meanwhile, we’re pretending that “defense” is this magical thing that will cure all our problems even if it comes at the expense of offense.

The Kelenic thread

I’m sure the Braves are eating $3M or $4M of this. Just for the record, I don’t necessarily hate this move in isolation (depending on the cash coming back). I just hate that a team was selling a young player for bad money and we could have executed something like this ourselves with some balls and little bit of cash, but instead it’s the loser the franchises like us, the Pirates, & Angels helping the elite Braves accomplish that.

Salvy wasn’t in our “means” most likely, but yes, at least he’s not an option now.

We just traded for him him so 26 man roster

You could see this move coming a million miles away. AA is fucking feasting left & right on premium talent while Getz is pouncing on the has-been scraps falling off AA’s table. Jerry Reinsdorf isn’t a serious owner and the Sox aren’t a serious baseball organization.

@Bob Sacamano - I called it!

Unfortunately Jerry living another 10 years is probably going to happen. Ohtani to the Cubs will prevent any kid in Chicago from ever choosing the Sox as their team which will eventually have an impact on attendance / interest and ultimately revenue. I can say this with certainty as I have a nine year old son who loves Ohtani and would immediately become a Cubs fan if he signed with them.

I honestly can’t think of anything that would more negatively impact the Sox than Ohtani signing with the Cubs. Basically just kill off any pipeline of future Sox fans for the next 5 to 10 years.

Why no? Have you seen the roster?

Probably to us…lol