Eminor3rd

Morton would be next of course but he's signed. I think Tanaka and Paxton are both better if totally healthy, but they probably aren't healthy. Chris Archer looks broken by Pittsburgh, but he could rebound with another org. Kluber basically hasn't pitched in two years at this point, so it's hard to assume he's what he used to be. So yeah, I think he's in the conversation for next best, but that's more about how weak the class is than it is about how good Sugano is. http://www.espn.com/mlb/freeagents/_/type/available/position/sp

FWIW, Sugano has made his money, and seems like the type to pick his destination based on either legacy or chance to win. He famously refused to sign when originally drafted because he only wanted to play for the Giants, sat out a year and re-entered the draft where the Giants got him. Which, I guess means he's probably going to the Yankees lol. BUT, I think it means that an exciting young contender like the White Sox could conceivably have a chance if he prioritizes multiple WS shots above all else -- and decides he doesn't want to go to the Yankees...

Team needs several pitchers

Looks like RP Hirokazu Sawamura is going to be available as a true free agent: https://www.sanspo.com/baseball/news/20201126/mar20112605000001-n1.html To be honest, I haven't seen a lot of him -- it's much harder for me to watch CL games than PL games, so I don't get a read on RPs except during interleague play, and he spent his whole career with the Giants until they let him go for cash in a midseason deal to Lotte. He was considered an elite closer about 4 or 5 years back, but he's just been a MR guy since then, and he was basically waived. He did pitch well for Lotte, though. I think he's a cheap flyer for someone, but I don't know enough about him to have an opinion on whether or not he'll be good.

Patrick Newman is legit, looks like Tomoyuki Sugano is going to be posted for sure: Sugano is arguably the best pitcher in Japan, and is certainly the most polished. He sits low 90's but can touch the mid-90's when he needs to. Like Darvish, he has a lot of different breaking pitches that are variations on sliders/sinkers. He's got elite control -- he gets lot of strikeouts by tunneling his various pitches and making the hitters guess which way they'll break. He's extremely competitive, carries a lot of swag and he's earned it. The raw stuff is a tick below where Tanaka was when he came, but the control is better and the arsenal is wider. He's been the ace of Samurai Japan for a while now, and has performed well against international competition, including the relatively stacked 2017 Team USA squad. The downsides: he's 31 years old, missed most of last year to injury, and has apparently been pitching with a partially torn UCL for many years. It hasn't been a performance problem for him, but you have to wonder if the TJ could come at any moment. I think this guy is a solid #3 in the MLB with less performance risk than the typical NPB import. Ohtani notwithstanding, he's the best to be posted since Tanaka.

1. The new evidence would be the lack of positive tests. 2. Nelson Cruz's best seasons were in 2010 and 2015. The fact that he was pacing better production over 53 games in 2020 is not the same thing. 3. You're acting like the only explanation for his production is steroids, which is not true. A simpler explanation would be that Cruz has been a one-dimensional player his entire career who was underrated when he was younger because the baseball metagame was different, and it has just so happened to shift to favor his skills EXACTLY. You might also notice that his wRC+ tracks remarkably well with his BABIP each year -- the past two seasons have been the highest full season marks of his career, roughly 50 points higher than his career average. The two other seasons where he managed a BABIP essentially that high were... 2010 and 2015. If a couple dozen balls landed differently, the story would be way different. If his BABIP was hard-hit fueled and thus NOT luck driven, his career numbers would show it. Further, sabermetric research has shown that the typical career arc for a successful player involves an increase in walk rate over time in exchange for an increase in strikeouts as the bat slows and the approach must become more disciplined to make up for it -- and lo, his walk and strikeout rates have gradually increased over the course of his career. Where is the evidence that he IS a steroid user? What do you know about how steroids affect baseball players? Even the experts will tell you that we know very little. We know steroids can help athletes build muscle mass quicker -- but strength and power are the one thing Cruz has NEVER lacked, and there's been no sudden change in power production at any point. We also know steroids can help players recover from injury faster, helping them spend more time on the field than they normally would as they age. Nelson Cruz has been remarkably healthy throughout the bulk of his career -- until last year, when he had multiple stints on the IL due to wrist issues. When you look at his career arc, it tells a story of an all-or-nothing slugger who has the same season over and over with one exception -- his batted ball luck determines whether he has an okay year, a good year, or a great year. It's all tied to his batting average. It's POSSIBLE that he's a steroid user who has simply been able to trick MLB's testing over the course of a fifteen year career -- despite the fact the so many other players with the same resources have failed to do so, and if it were possible, those with the knowledge and technology would be heavily incentivized to sell their services to as many players as possible -- but Occam's Razor strongly suggests otherwise.

If your Bayesian prior is that all old players that are elite are steroid users, and a particular player repeatedly fails to test positive despite others testing positive, you should shift your prior based on the new evidence. Assuming that there must be something wrong with the testing is a refusal to consider that your initial hypothesis could be flawed.

The fact that you know MLB is catching players, meaning you know they are testing and that it's working, and that hasn't affected your hypothesis that Nelson Cruz is on steroids at all is almost a textbook example of bad logic.

Sugano's secondaries are better and more numerous and he has way, WAY better command/control. Arihara throws a bit harder consistently, but they top out around the same.

Sugano >>> Arihara

Some will, certainly, but I'd bet that the combination of a broader acceptance of the "modern bullpen" and the uncertainty of the COVID version of free agency will make a bunch of guys happy just to have a solid guarantee.

My opinion is you pack the bullpen with upside arms and let a closer emerge. Too much risk of injury and inconsistency to go into the season needing to rely on one guy. If the options was available, I would choose "Budget Closer x3."

Looks like Kohei Arihara's posting is pretty much certain: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/11/nippon-ham-fighters-to-post-kohei-arihara.html I don't see him as a difference maker, personally. The stuff is solid, but pretty average as far as MLB starters go, and the control/command comes and goes frequently. When he's locating, the slider and splitter are deadly, but you could say that about pretty much anybody. He's famous because he was a highly heralded prospect who finally "put it all together" in 2019, but really he just had a fantastic first half and fell off hard in the second. It's the longest stretch that he's pitched really well in his career, and he looked like pretty much the same old streaky guy this year. He's one of those guys who will often look unhittable for the first half of an outing and then just meltdown in like the 5th. I can't see him as more than a back-end guy in MLB. Anyway, figured we could put these all in the same thread since teams tend to have philosophies/strategies for dealing with NPB imports, so a lot of the team rumors on these guys will probably look similar. Expecting to find out if OF Haruki Nishikawa and SP Tomoyuki Sugano will be posted soon, especially if the Hawks continue to clobber the Giants and end the Japan Series in a couple days.

Thanks -- it hits home because I've been on furlough since September. And while I'm told that "the plan" is to bring me back in January, it's abundantly clear that if some unforeseen event that reduces revenue far enough (such as substantial loss of corporate revenue due to an unpopular managerial hiring decision) were to occur, we furloughs will be fully let go. So I'm just imagining what my counterparts in Chicago might be going through.

How many people will be laid off because of the fans reaction to this? Depends on what that reaction is and how successful it is. If their reaction is pressure corporate sponsors to remove revenue, and they are successful enough that they get enough sponsors to jump ship that JR actually feels like he has no choice but to comply -- I imagine it will be a pretty significant number of layoffs. Is it worth it? Another way to frame it: How many innocents do you think should lose jobs in order for TLR to lose his? I'm not gaslighting -- I'm firmly on the remove TLR bandwagon, but if doing so means any number of innocents have to go down with him, I'd rather he stayed. Put another way, I would rather try to find a different way to put pressure on the team, one without people's livelihoods as potential collateral damage. Anyway, I think that's Texsox's point, and I would at the very least urge everyone to consider it before trying to cut the team's corporate revenue.

It's so easy to say "short term pain, long term gain" when you can de-humanize the people it affects. Understand that, given the current landscape, most of everyone who is getting laid off in sports right now will not be able to find another job in the industry, despite having sacrificed substantial amounts of time and income to get where they are. These jobs are flat out disappearing. I'm not saying you can't argue that you're doing the right thing -- but I don't think you're putting adequate weight on what TexSox is pointing out: that you seem to be very willing to throw a ton of people's livelihoods under the bus to send a message to a couple rich dudes who are just doing this as a hobby at this point -- which I don't read to be your intention at all. And this isn't at all to argue that the org isn't completely in the wrong, and that you shouldn't try to tell them, but we should all be thinking hard about what the actual net consequences are for what we're threatening.

Wondering how much of Hahn's obvious displeasure in the announcement of TLR's hiring was because he knew about this as opposed to just having his authority undermined with the decision.

Voted today for the first time in my life.

Does this mean JR is entering the Little Caesar's "spend all my money chasing a championship before I die" phase?

That is not what I was arguing at all, I must not have been clear. I was/am operating on the assumption that we all already know it was NOT thorough -- by "could" I meant that they hypothetically could have done a thorough search and ended with TLR. I was trying to make the point that it is not guaranteed that he is a terrible choice; he DOES have virtues, he just also has more baggage and risks than nearly anyone else to go along with it.

What I meant by that was that he might be exactly what the Sox need (whether or not they have enough talent), but it will have been achieved by essentially a guess (or JR's emotions or whatever), instead of by a process designed to define and find what the Sox need. So we're relying on luck for it to work out.

I've seen a lot of Sugano. Some thoughts: - "The Giants don't post players" is true, except when it isn't -- Shun Yamaguchi was posted just last year, and it turned out it was because it was a provision in his FA contract, but it also turned out that a lot of people in the Giants org DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT the provision. It's entirely possible Sugano also has such a provision, whether it came before or after we all learned about Yamaguchi, as he has been clamoring to be posted for years. Also, there is a near consensus perception among people that cover NPB that the Sugano situation could be viewed as an outlier for the Giants because the guy has been such a hero for them; he's been perceived to have "paid his dues" to the organization. Not only has he been massively successful for them, but he actually got drafted initially by a different team and refused to sign because he wanted to play for the Giants. He sat out a year and got drafted by the Giants the next season, which has become a sort of legendary tidbit in his story to show how much he respected the team. The Giants understand that two-way success stories like Hideki Matsui help their brand. Also, the Giants have clinched their pennant and a trip to the Japan Series, and especially if they win it all, it could be seen as an appropriate "final contribution." All in all, I give it even odds that he's posted. - "He should just wait until he's a free agent next year" makes sense in the context of MLB ball, but less so in NPB. Filing for free agency is actually seen as a bad look in NPB, or at least as casting shade upon your team. Unlike here where it's a default and seen as "just business," there's an expectation to have loyalty to your club, and as a result, almost literally everyone who files for domestic or international free agency ends up leaving their team, because if they were gonna stay, they would have negotiated an extension already. Given the mutually respectable dynamic between Sugano and the Giants, being posted could be a much more desirable outcome for his legacy than resorting to filing for free agency. - Sugano is legit. I would describe his pitching style as a poor man's Roy Halladay, in that he relies heavily on a slider and a split/change that tunnel extremely well but slash diagonally in different directions. He sits low 90's but can go to the mid-90's when he needs to. He is definitely a command control guy, but commands like five pitches, so he strikes guys out. The raw stuff is a tick below Tanaka when he came over, but the control and polish is equal or better. The velo is a tick below Kikuchi, but the arsenal is wider and the control is two ticks better. He's substantially better than Yamaguchi ever was. The ONE thing that really gives me pause is that, like a lot of NPB pitchers, he throws a lot of high breaking balls. It's possible that with the current uppercut meta, that isn't as dangerous as it used to be, but I can't help but be worried about that. - He has been pitching with a partially torn UCL for many years. Take that for what it's worth. He has started to become injury prone in non-arm ways over the past few seasons. - Dude is an absolute gamer. Tons of swagger and a major competitor. I would love to see this guy on the White Sox, though I have to admit that part of it is that I'm an NPB fanboi. I agree with the #3 projection, and I think with the wide arsenal and expert control, it's safe if he's healthy. That said, there's injury risk, he's on the wrong side of 30, and with any NPB transfer, you have to remember that the ball is different and that can affect different guys in different ways. Also, the best pitching prospect in the NPB is Yoshinobu Yamamoto. I don't know why no one is talking about him.

Late to the show but here's my take: I think it's entirely possible that the White Sox could have executed a thorough, objective search and interview process and still ended up choosing Tony La Russa. I don't think there's any way it wouldn't still be understood as a risky, potentially polarizing move -- but he clearly checks some of their boxes more strongly than any other candidate available. I don't think I would have LIKED the move even then, but I would at least admit that I could see that there was logic behind it, assuming I knew they really did all their homework and considered all options. However, the fact that I KNOW that such a process did NOT occur -- that the decision was entirely emotional, made by the one guy that was NOT hired to be a baseball expert, and from all accounts left no room at all for any other possibility -- makes all of the risks and cons seem much more likely and substantial, because now I can't even believe that someone did the due diligence necessary to find out. I mean, for example: what if Rick Hahn or KW took the time to get input from the leaders in the clubhouse, like Abreu and TA? I'd have to think that even just the gesture itself of seeking input would cause the players to be more willing to accept such a jarring change, and it would, at the very least, have given the administration an opportunity to sell the move. But the fact that it's being reported that the clubhouse is in disarray suggests that such a thing either could not have occurred, or if it did, was so obviously a ruse that it didn't convince anyone. I can see why Jerry Reinsdorf would feel the impulse to take the reins in this case -- I'm sure he really does understand that this is his last real shot at another title, and the instinct to be the author of your own fate when everything is on the line is common and not necessarily a bad thing. But you'd think, of all people, Reinsdorf would have learned the value of "hiring people smarter than you" to make the decisions you aren't qualified to make. Except, of course he hasn't -- this is the guy who just rides the SAME group of executives through decades of failure, as if no amount of evidence could convince him that the problem is stemming from the process. This move certainly might work out, there's even a decent chance -- but if it does, it will be because it was blind luck, not because it was a smart move. And THAT should bother all of us.

You're 100% right about this, and the landscape is terrifying right now for whoever is left. I will say, from what I understand the White Sox are one of the few teams to have made either no cuts or VERY limited cuts so far, and that is a credit to JR.

Yeah that's a narrative that is popular, but I'm not sure where it came from. Maybe it used to be that way decades ago before the media explosion in the 90's, not sure. First of all, tickets themselves are a MASSIVE revenue stream, despite what a lot of people think. For many teams it's actually still the largest single stream. It isn't just people like us on the board buying individual game or season tickets -- the group sales department is a substantial portion of the ticket revenue, as are the premium sales. Just think about how many luxury suites are in the stadium. Companies pay mid six figures to lease them for the season. and the sales department fills the rest of the inventory with group sales. When no one is allowed in the stadium, pick a number between $300 - 800k for each suite and multiply it by however many suites are there, and that's a ballpark of how much revenue is completely gone JUST from that source. And even if you think that there will be fans in the park in some number next year, smart money is the fact that enclosed spaces are going to be accessible LAST, so that money may not be back in 2021 at all. The other thing people don't understand is how much of the value of corporate sponsorship is tied to fans being in the park. Essentially every team has had to renegotiate EVERY corporate sponsorship contract based on how much value can be actually delivered. All of the value that is tied to tickets, in-park experiences (think batting practice viewing, dinners at bars/restaurants, which are commonly sweepstakes prizes passed along to consumer brands), all kiosks and concourse facing signage, retail co-branding, etc. is impossible to collect on. This year, the ONLY signage worth anything is TV visible signage, and even that is inarguably LESS valuable because it loses all of its impressions from in-park attendance. Also, you can't forget about concessions/merchandise. People forget about it because that stuff is typically low margin in most industries -- but remember how much a beer costs at a stadium. The margins are NOT small in event settings. When Ricketts was railed for publicly estimating their losses and everyone thought he was exaggerating -- I can tell you that the numbers he was throwing out passed the smell test. Basically, the extent to which these revenue streams return in 2021 is going to depend on what happens politically with regards to the virus over the next six months. And without that knowledge, it's a fool's errand to create a meaningful expense budget. Say what you want about the share of the revenue that you think players should get, but it's as high as it is nominally BECAUSE teams have expected to rely on these revenue streams for a long time. No one is going to know how much money they can actually expect to collect until the offseason is over, so I think it's going to be a lean one for free agency.