Eminor3rd

Works for me.

Reading the Athletic article that came out today, it really sounds like Benintendi’s decline in power was an intentional approach thing, a reaction to having trouble hitting balls out at Kauffman. He seems to at least attempt to take a very customized approach to the ballpark he’s in.

We’re reading too much into this. This is nothing. Why wouldn’t he prepare to play defense? Depth and versatility are important.

I don’t think I the headline is really all that reflective of the key quote: "If, in the end, we're choosing from Romy and Lenyn, with Leury as a potential backup – that's something we certainly feel gives us an opportunity to win, but at the same time isn't going to necessarily preclude us from looking at ways to get better." That’s not really saying they’re satisfied, and it’s also like, you’re not going to go on record saying these guys are s%*#. This is a classic Hahn interview where h says absolutely nothing; I’m not reading into it.

This was my thought as well — it’s potentially a good sign that they deferred it because it may mean they’re still committed to filling the roster out.

I made a post a few weeks back about why I didn’t understand what the Blue Jays were doing, having traded most of their OF away before suddenly aggressively trading FOR OFers, but then several posters pointed out that they actually got a whole lot better, at least potentially, in the process because in shuffling those pieces around, they improved the defense drastically while also rebalancing the handedness in their lineup. That’s the type of front office work that makes it hard to accept what the Sox have done at catcher. You’ve done your best to steelman what Hahn has done, but unfortunately the argument comes down (as it so often does) to “well if these guys just stay healthy and play up to their potential, it’ll be alright,” which just doesn’t cut it when you’re talking about guys that are over 30 and (in this case) piling up chronic injuries. I mean, I was equally confused with the Murphy trade talk because, before we learned about Grandal’s health situation, it seemed like there were positions that should have been higher priorities. In retrospect, it made a ton of sense to be aggressive there and, once again, they just didn’t get it done. And, man, we can come with excuses about why it was hard or maybe not even possible in this instance, but at the end of the day, this is a remarkably consistent pattern of results that becomes more glaringly unacceptable when you watch another team pull off something similar in the same timeframe.

No doubt, MLB administration over the past couple decades has acted like the purest example of everything that every fan hates about the business of sports. They truly are a movie villain-style caricature. But I think the players are adjusting pretty quickly. I'd put a lot of money on Ohtani being the last Asian star to come to MLB before age 25, to dodge the "international amateur" spending rule. I don't think it's an accident that Yamamoto, who has been on MLB scouts' radars since he was 20, is getting posted the moment he turns 25. Also notable is that the best hitting prospect since Ichiro, Munetaka Murakami, who just had the best offensive season the NPB has seen in at least 30 years (arguably 50), just signed a three-year extension that comes with a clause that he HAS to be posted at the conclusion... when he'll just happen to be 25 years old.

Not at all, but you can rest assured they’ll have “a seat at the table.”

Got a tip from a connection of mine that Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been told he’ll be posted next offseason. If that’s true and he stays healthy, this’ll be the biggest story out of Japan since Ohtani, and one of the biggest free agent pursuits of the offseason overall. He’s very easily and clearly the best pitcher in the NPB, is coming off of two consecutive MVP seasons, and is only 24 years old. This will be every bit of a Tanaka/Daisuke/Darvish type of hype and pursuit, and he’s every bit as good as those guys.

I just think that the Sox will get more out of a Duvall-type (especially in the power dept) than they will out of Andrus, and I think it’s fair to assume that the budget likely only supports one or the other (if it supports adding anyone at all).

This was the year that I felt my perception of the team shift significantly, from "exciting championship window/this is our time/rebuild is over/can they get it done" to "oh, this is just KW-era White Sox business as usual now/pre-rebuild constant shuffling and retooling and hoping that everything breaks right every year." I've been a really negative poster the past couple years, and I apologize for that, but they way this "contention window" has been handled, to me, is the most damning evidence I've seen in my life that this ownership/management group is simply not capable of competing in the current MLB metagame. It isn't about Reinsdorf being "cheap" -- it's totally reasonable to flex into and out of the upper third in spending for a team of the Sox market power -- it's about him (and/or his invincible hand-picked braintrust) being utterly incompetent in evaluating the types of investments to make. Time and time again, they've chosen to allocate their resources into the most risky, short-term, and low-upside types of talent acquisitions that are available (veteran relievers, high floor/no-upside corner players/stars with polarizing evaluations around the league, pitching-heavy prospect pools) while seemingly every other team has figured out a better playbook (prioritizing depth, developing average payers while paying for stars, bat-heavy drafting strategy, diversified international spending). The type of strategic knowledge that they lack has been obviously and readily available for many years at this point, and even the most rudimentary competitive analysis would reveal it. It's almost unbelievable that they are continuing to invest actual money in this type of strategy. I was a strident supporter of "the rebuild," because it gave the team chance for a sorely needed clean slate. They filled that clean slate with the same dumb s%*# it had before. I will always root for this laundry/these players to pull it together and give me another 2005, but I will not be fooled again that real change will occur as long as this group remains in charge.

No team has ever been better at shooting itself in the foot.

For the fifteenth year in a row, the Sox don't have enough SP depth. I don't expect it to be addressed directly, but I'm hoping for at least one veteran minor league signing as camp gets closer.

Join me on the dark side and start streaming NPB lol. It’s all new, no previous loyalties, you get to let your fandom develop organically, and then there’s tons of history to mine. They’re twenty years behind MLB in terms of strategy, so you get to see lots of burning and slashing like people keep saying they want over here again. The talent range is twice as wide as MLB, so the superstars are extremely exciting. The worst players, though, still find a way to be useful by focusing on one thing like defense or contact at the plate. There are less than ten significant free agents every year and they all sign by thanksgiving. High end prospects see top team action often the very next season (draft occurs after the regular season). The only thing is you have to watch all the games on recorded delay and you can’t understand a god damn word anyone is saying.

I don't know if this was mentioned elsewhere, but it looks like we just lost Mark Payton to the NPB (Seibu Lions).

Jake Marisnick or something.

Yeah I’m not sure what the Jays are doing. First dumping OF for any value they could find, then moving into acquiring similar level OF with real prospects.

That's a brutal writeup on C Perez

FWIW, I don’t see Fujinami as a significant contributor. Throws hard but has absolutely no clue where it’s going. Breaking stuff is okay but he has even less control over it somehow. Thrived for a good stretch this year by adding a cutter. He’s one of the most famous NPB busts of all-time. He was actually drafted in the same year as Ohtani and teams were split on which was the better talent. He’s had a lot of people try very hard to get him on track, including Yu Darvish one offseason, but doesn’t seem to be able to apply his instruction to results with any consistency. It’s possible that some MLB org evaluates him and thinks they have the key to unlock his potential, which at one point was considered vast, but that’s a long shot. As is, he’s a generic reliever in MLB.

I think there’s a good chance he ends up in Asia. The NPB, at least, hasn’t seemed to care about bringing guys in with controversy — Roberto Osuna just got his second contract.

You’re right on McCann, I was really more commenting on the realization that the Sox may be trying to force the DH role open for Grandal, and fearing the Sox wouldn’t upgrade enough around the diamond to make up for that.

I would be a lot less confident in this season with Grandal as the primary DH instead of of Eloy. Losing Hendriks too — all to upgrade from Romy to Escobar and Seby to McCann. Even assuming there’s prospect value coming back, I think there’s a lot more to lose than to gain for the Sox in that scenario.

I don’t disagree with you at all, just trying to make a somewhat objective take about his effect on the team/community for those who believe that he has been exonerated or whatever.

I’m on record for believing the Sox need this type of player, so I’m for it. Victor Reyes does not count. Billy Hamilton really shouldn’t either.

We have not forgotten this. We spend 80% of our board space bitching about it. But there’s 20% remaining for discussion of what actually can happen on the field/in the lineup at this point. No one is letting them off the hook for building a bad roster, but we are understandably happy that they decided to reallocate Abreu’s salary instead of using it as an opportunity to cut payroll, which was reported to be the plan by several legitimate sources.