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Point is you aren't adding all those resources and still stay within payroll budget. You are getting either of Moose or Grandal, and if you add Gardner you'd like have to sacrifice in SP or RP help. With how bad the bullpen has been, you'd have to spend more than $6M to upgrade. We likely have $60M (upper limit) to spend after extending Abreu. Unless you're projecting based on 2010 salaries, you have to cut corner somewhere. While people are against trading from the farm you have to trade a few of the top 15 prospects if you want to address all the holes in the offseason.

Use BBRef payroll projections, it's your friend. Rodon and Leury are also Arb eligible. Even if we nontender Yolmer, they're at around $48M before an Abreu extension. While I agree the final payroll will be between $120-130M, you've also estimated severely underestimated what these guys would get. Unless there is no one else offering these guys contract, you have to bump all your projections up by 25% at least. And in Grandal's case, he's not opting out of his deal to take less money than what's he's guaranteed, especially after a 5.2 fWAR season.

So your takeaway from this article is rather than BoSox sending prospects you’d send two young pitchers plus a Top 20 prospect for Sale, while the article suggests otherwise.

Ya, as I alluded to they might be away to get away with this major flaw because they have built up a lot of talents through trades and Robert signing. It’s a testament to help freaking talented Moncada, Eloy, and Robert are. Going forward they do not have that luxury if they don’t start emphasizing on plate discipline. What the Twins are doing right now are the exception, not the rule. It’s no coincidence most of the top 10 “plate discipline” teams are playoff teams.

On the flip side, if you teach the minor leaguers to refine their approach and be more selective early on, you are giving them a better chance to succeed. If a guy like Sosa or Bush are better plate disciplined, they’d rank a full grade higher as prospects. I think they need to do that in the long term, short term I agree you have to seek MLB guys who could take smarter ABs to balance out guys like TA or Abreu who are notorious free swingers. Though with success teams are having with advanced statistics, guys who have strong plate discipline won’t be cheap to acquire.

I think that's the hope, I just don't know how much they would improved in this system. Last 3 years, Sox ranked among the worst in K%, BB% and O Swing% and has actually gotten worse each year. Some of it is personnel because we were fielding such a shitty team, but the holdovers like Abreu, TA, Leury, and Moncada (this one is understandable) has gotten worse each year as well. Even Avi has gotten worse progressively worse in 2017 and 18 before bouncing back slightly this year. At some point, we have to pinpoint and find out where the issue is coming from, especially since the same issue is happening in the low minors, and it isn't always just the players.

I would be down with Grandal and Nimmo addition, but think Nimmo should be leading off with TA in the 2 hole. Part of the reason for my post was also I’m not sure how much emphasis this team places on plate discipline, which is why I’m skeptical they would go after the Grandal/Nimmo type. It would be so White Sox to go after Puig/Dickerson, making it the worst disciplined team by far.

It’s no secret that Sox as a team and as an organization are terribly disciplined on offense, but looking at the underlying numbers makes it even more scary. 2019 YTD rankings (Low rank = bad) BB%: 30th K%: 27th O Swing (out of zone swing): 27th O Contact (contact on out of zone swing): 29th Z Swing (zone swing): 15th Z Contact (contact on zone swing): 23rd Swinging Strike: 29th BABIP: 1st (highest) In summary, Sox are taking a lot of bad swings and are unsurprisingly missing on those swings. You could call them aggressive, but their swing % in the zone is right around league average. An aggressive team would be swinging at those pitches at a higher rate. It’s seems more like the case they’re swinging at pitches outside of thezone because they couldn’t read if they were. They also are pretty poor on making contact in general, as evident by a less than ideal Z Contact rate. And despite a league best BABIP they’re still a bottom 5 offense in terms of runs scored. I said as an organization because the same K/BB issue is prevalent in the low minors. AZL, GF and Kanny are among the worst disciplined teams in their leagues. Looking at ahead to next year, you’d expect Eloy and Moncada to make some improvements due to natural progression, but the case against it is this team hasn’t helped Anderson, Avery and Leury improve their plate discipline over the years. Madrigal should be a welcomed change with his sound hitting approach, but as talented as Robert is, his approach still needs a lot of work. Is this an organizational philosophy and Sox just don’t care about plate discipline, or they just haven’t emphasized plate discipline to their “young” hitters yet. I think if unaddressed, they may still have enough talent to overcome this weakness and become a playoff caliber offense if they bring in a big bat or two, but they have potential to be a much better team if they emphasize more on strong plate discipline.

If double play combo in the sense when Adam Dunn is coming up to bat, then they’re a pretty good double play combo.

Sign both for RF and DH. All. the. Japanese. Hahn.

We need LHH period, not just slugger types. The bigger need is someone who could lead off and get on base (his OBP is .375 with a .208 BA for pete's sake). Nimmo fits all those criteria and plays all 3 OF positions. I don't see what's not to like if we could buy low on him.

Betts is a universally better player and you'd get him for a full season rather than 2 1/2 months. It's gonna cost you.

I thought about Merrfield as well but their ask will start with Madrigal if not Robert. I personally have Nimmo as target #1 in the trade market for RF, but even him won’t come cheap.

The point is getting someone who could also play the field rather than a traditional DH, plus he’s a LH bat and could handle 2B if Madrigal needs more time or struggles out of the gate. I also couldn’t imagine a scenario where he doesn’t play 1B over Abreu once Madrigal is settled. If we get JDM he’d almost certainly DH, keeping Abreu at 1B. I’d be interested to see who Jose could do at DH not having to worry about the field as much. All in all, Moose will be a nice fit for his likely reasonable contract.

He took a bad hop on a grounder recently but was otherwise healthy all year. Far cry from someone who is breaking down physically and couldn’t only play a position unless it’s emergency. His versatility and LH bat fits our needs and is within our price range (though he’s a Boras guy). I do not advocate playing him there long term, but play him there for month or so until Madrigal gets call up. At that point shift him to 1B and have Abreu DH.

Because?

We have scoffed at Moustakas in seasons past but I think he looks like a fine option for now. LH bat, and could fill in at 2B until Madrigal gets the call. For the $5M he's likely getting in Arb, I'm would be fine to let Yolmer go or see what I could get for him on the trade market, Mendick is ready for the backup IF spot and Leury could also play all IF spots in a pinch. I'd rather spend the Yolmer money on an RP arm.

I don't see Abreu leaving and JDM would be too costly of an upgrade at DH. That said, I'd rather sign Moustakas to 2/$30M, play him across 1B/2B/3B and shift Abreu to DH. Use the remaining money for Cole, or 2 mid rotation SPs in the Wheeler/Odorizzi/Keuchel tier.

Rodgers passed for 70 yards and 0 TDS in the 1st, 3rd and 4th quarter combined. I love cherry picking stats to write your narrative.

Jesus - it was only the first game on the season, NFL opener with no preseason reps. The hot takes are insane. I still remember all the crap Parkman said about Trub early last season and had to eat a big fat crow at the end.

Wouldn’t surprised me if Robert suffered a mysterious case of food poisoning during the last week of spring training and has to take a week off to recover. Hey LuBob, don’t let Rick Hahn take you out to dinner.

Fair point on injury but he’s a lefty bat and is still a .240/15/20 player this season and could give you 3 WAR by just being even a below average offensive player. Maybe the injury concerns and the increasing salary would knock the asking price down a notch or two.

Reading up on potential players on the block it seems like Kevin Kiermaier could be available with his contract becoming more expensive. He will cost a fortune prospect wise but him and Robert manning the OF would be awesome to watch.

Going for but low guys is my #1 preference, otherwise even in house guys like Mendick (who takes over the utility spot and left Leury play RF) or Cordell would even be preferred over the $5-7M I’d need to spend on Gordon, and then spend that money on an RP.

I am not a fan of signing a career LF to play RF, and Gordon is a flat out downgrade from an in house option in Leury.