Your 2023 Off-Season Plan

[Lip Man 1]

10 minutes ago, Quin said:

I still have no idea why people keep bringing Wheeler up as a failure. The Sox didn't land him because Wheeler's wife is from New Jersey.

There is something to be said for the Godfather philosophy if you really want a player bad enough, "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse..."

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

3 hours ago, SoCalChiSox said:

That's the issue though. I fear we would be blowing our wad at one spot and then they'll go super cheap to address SP, 2B etc.

I'd rather have Conforto on 1 yr deal in LF and add a more premium 2B or SP rather than 100m+ for Nimmo. 

They're not going to sign Nimmo and they are going to go super cheap no matter how you slice it. They have too much money on the books and too many players no one would want because of bad years, injuries and future salary obligations. Anyone expecting anything to improve the team this year, outside of a new manager and his coaching staff, is in for a long long winter.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

10 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Maybe Schwarber is even less valuable as his hitting coach encourages him to bunt against the shift. 

Seriously though, yes, his power hitting wasn't worth that much. That's what bad OF defense does. That's how Andrew Vaughn could be one of the White Sox's better hitters and still be a below-replacement player. The White Sox simply don't need DHs right now, adding another one to the mix would have made them slightly better because a couple of their DHs were really, really bad in the field, but Schwarber still isn't a good fit for this team on defense. The Phillies wound up having enough problems with their OF Defense that they went out and traded for an above average CF at the deadline, and it cost them a top 100 prospect to do so.

Imagine that the White Sox signed him, but their OF defense was particularly bad, so they traded Colson Montgomery for Adam Engel who happened to have several years of control remaining. That's almost literally what the Phillies did. 

And in order of events, Leury Garcia was signed in November 2021, Joe Kelly was signed March 12 2022, Kyle Schwarber was signed March 20 2022. So your post involves some time travel.

I did say if they committed to attempting to sign Schwarber early enough that they altered their thinking on other signees. So the time travel comment means nothing. The Sox early commitment to Kimbrel and Leury were head scratchers to begin with as was the Kelly signing later. The whole off season was a WTF from the start including not giving Rodon a QO.

LaRussa , Menechino and Hahn or the whole front office or Reinsdorf letting LaRussa influence things so much collapsed the window beyond repair.

I'm just saying that the only way to possibly  to have prevented it was either not sign LaRussa in the 1st place or not give him so much control. But Hahn made it much worse by never prioritizing the LHH bats or starting pitching we needed.

Trying to dissect how a Schwarber signing would've made things is a debate no one can say for sure how it would've turned out considering how many things went bad in 2022. It's disgustingly bad given they actually thought they made the team better doing what they did for the last 2 years. Hahn shouldn't have a job .

[Balta1701]

 

The article doesn't have a paywall, he suggests that the Rockies will try to go after Nimmo and he isn't sure whether they'll get him, then he says estimates have Nimmo getting $115-$120 million but notes it could go higher. 

[Jack Parkman]

Also, Carlos Rodon isn't coming back so everyone can STFU about that right now. 

[ShoeLessRob]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Um no it won't. And I'll go so far as to say that over 50% of his contract will be guaranteed money vs your 20%. It may or may not get $100M but the majority of it will be guaranteed.

 

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

The joke was that is how the White Sox would get to a $100 million offer for him.

Ya joke flew right over ya head skipper. 

[Chicago White Sox]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

1. That assumes that what was a self-serving leak from the White Sox was 100% true. 

2. His wife's hometown mattered when the White Sox's offer was narrowly ahead of the Phillies offer. What if the White Sox had put 6/$140 on the table? 6/$150? 

It’s really not as simple as you’re making it out.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

14 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

 

The article doesn't have a paywall, he suggests that the Rockies will try to go after Nimmo and he isn't sure whether they'll get him, then he says estimates have Nimmo getting $115-$120 million but notes it could go higher. 

hard fucking pass

[Balta1701]

12 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

It’s really not as simple as you’re making it out.

Of course it isn’t but it’s not as simple as “the White Sox did their complete and total best and deserve to be constantly praised for the effort forever” either, which is what that leak has seemingly accomplished.

[Balta1701]

10 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

hard fucking pass

I know we got used to the owners keeping salaries down for 5 years totally without illegal collusion, but it doesn’t seem like we are in that era anymore. If there are teams like the Rockies and Giants bidding on the top two outfielders in addition to the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers, then even the weaker outfielders will be expensive.

Maybe something weird happens like with Conforto but this guy is a 5 win OF when healthy who only turns 30 next March. I could easily see it taking 6/$140 to sign him with how this market is shaping up.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

19 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I know we got used to the owners keeping salaries down for 5 years totally without illegal collusion, but it doesn’t seem like we are in that era anymore. If there are teams like the Rockies and Giants bidding on the top two outfielders in addition to the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers, then even the weaker outfielders will be expensive.

Maybe something weird happens like with Conforto but this guy is a 5 win OF when healthy who only turns 30 next March. I could easily see it taking 6/$140 to sign him with how this market is shaping up.

He's been healthy twice in his career though.  That's the problem.  Not the skillset.

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

He's been healthy twice in his career though.  That's the problem.  Not the skillset.

Even when he has played partial seasons, he has produced at the same level though. You can’t blame him for 2020 not being a full season either, that wasn’t his fault.

If he had no injury in 2021 and had put up 12 WAR over his 3 arbitration years with one of them being 2020, what does his salary look like? I’d say we’d be talking about a 7 year deal similar to Semien’s as the baseline for that player. Not as high of performance peak, but younger.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Even when he has played partial seasons, he has produced at the same level though. You can’t blame him for 2020 not being a full season either, that wasn’t his fault.

If he had no injury in 2021 and had put up 12 WAR over his 3 arbitration years with one of them being 2020, what does his salary look like? I’d say we’d be talking about a 7 year deal similar to Semien’s as the baseline for that player. Not as high of performance peak, but younger.

"If he didn't have X injury" doesn't work because he did have it.  The guy gets majorly hurt every other year.  If we were a team that always had great health then it would be different.  But we already have 5+ major contributors as guys you can count on missing 40+ games.  I'd prefer to not add another at that outrageous price.  $80million? sign me up.  But it doesn't look like that where he will be, so I'd spread that money out.

[Quin]

7 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

He's been healthy twice in his career though.  That's the problem.  Not the skillset.

Left handed centerfielder with a career .269/.385/.827 slashline isn't a good skillset?

And if you're counting 2016 (limited at-bats), he has 4 healthy seasons, because 2020 was 55/60 games.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

Just now, Quin said:

Left handed centerfielder with a career .269/.385/.827 slashline isn't a good skillset?

And if you're counting 2016 (limited at-bats), he has 4 healthy seasons, because 2020 was 55/60 games.

I'm saying his skillset isn't the problem.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

I loooove his skill set.  He is exactly what we need.  BUT for 120+ million, I am fine passing on him due to his vast injury history.

[ChiSox59]

As someone who’s been on the acquire Nimmo train since like 2017, I don’t think I’d be mad if Sox pass if bidding gets up to 5/$120M. Just grab Conforto on a 1 year deal instead. 

5/$100M is the upper limit I’d feel alright with. Guess we’ll see what the market bears. 

[Quin]

8 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

I loooove his skill set.  He is exactly what we need.  BUT for 120+ million, I am fine passing on him due to his vast injury history.

That's just gonna be the going rate at this point.

Which we all know is why the team should have shelled out for 26-year-old Harper, but Jerry had to Jerry.

[ChiSox59]

42 minutes ago, Quin said:

That's just gonna be the going rate at this point.

Which we all know is why the team should have shelled out for 26-year-old Harper, but Jerry had to Jerry.

If $120M is the going FA rate for solid but not great players, the separation between the big market and mid and small market teams in MLB is going to continue to get away from the game.  Basically would render over half the league as non-competitors in free agency.  That's already been mostly the case for elite FA, but if it extended to mid-tier FA, that is very bad for the competitive balance of the game.  

[Jack Parkman]

41 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

If $120M is the going FA rate for solid but not great players, the separation between the big market and mid and small market teams in MLB is going to continue to get away from the game.  Basically would render over half the league as non-competitors in free agency.  That's already been mostly the case for elite FA, but if it extended to mid-tier FA, that is very bad for the competitive balance of the game.  

I don't think MLB cares. Big market teams draw ratings and at the end of the day, those are the teams they want in the playoffs. 

If the Yankees and Dodgers played in the WS every year that is MLB's wet dream. 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Jack Parkman

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, ChiSox59 said:

If $120M is the going FA rate for solid but not great players, the separation between the big market and mid and small market teams in MLB is going to continue to get away from the game.  Basically would render over half the league as non-competitors in free agency.  That's already been mostly the case for elite FA, but if it extended to mid-tier FA, that is very bad for the competitive balance of the game.  

We probably talked about this last year, but it's not the going rate of these players that render these teams noncompetitive in free agency, it's their own profit-taking.

Just to put an example on this, let's go back to 2002, 20 years ago. Forbes shows baseball's estimated total revenue in 2002 to be $3.9 billion. An official statement from MLB's Chief Revenue Officer basically verifies that in 2022 it's going to be above $11 billion. That's nearly a tripling of revenue, on average. How many teams have tripled their payroll since then? (the white sox actually currently have done so, FWIW). 

The Cleveland Baseball Franchise had a payroll of $78 million in 2002. Now maybe that was a high point for them, but it was $63 million last year. Come on now, you can't possibly tell me that with what has happened to MLB's revenue that the Guardians can't afford a $125 or $140 million payroll. The Pirates were at $42 million in 2002, and $37 million in 2022. 

They're noncompetitors in free agency because of profit taking, plain and simple. We laugh at the Rockies signing Bryant and bidding on Nimmo, but that's exactly what these teams should be doing; spending some money to try to increase ticket sales and build rosters that compete at least for the Wild Card. Cleveland winning a division and then selling off a player like Rosario or Gimenez would not be a particularly good thing for baseball, but that might well happen this offseason. 

Refs:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2014/12/10/major-league-baseball-sees-record-9-billion-in-revenues-for-2014/?sh=514cfafb29c1
https://www.outkick.com/major-league-baseball-mlb-revenue-records-2022-season/
https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/payroll_year/2002/

[Chicago White Sox]

9 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Of course it isn’t but it’s not as simple as “the White Sox did their complete and total best and deserve to be constantly praised for the effort forever” either, which is what that leak has seemingly accomplished.

That’s fair, but in a blind negotiation you have to cap yourself at some point or else you are simply bidding against yourself.

[bmags]

On 10/28/2022 at 5:46 PM, Chicago White Sox said:

That’s fair, but in a blind negotiation you have to cap yourself at some point or else you are simply bidding against yourself.

I just remember at the time people being like “well $125 would have been ridiculous overpay” when it was like $1.25M more per year, and, as we learned, a much smaller gap than the gap in production between him and our number two FA option Dallas Keuchel.

It was our last shot to use the excess budget space to allocate to a star since Hahn then after went after his comfy b/c free agent classes, covid, etc soaking it all up.

Truly a devastating moment for the rebuild. Not a doubt in my mind we are in ALDS with wheeler in 2020 at least, hopefully more.

[GreenSox]

I remember a people saying/posting that the Sox, to compensate for being such a clown organization,  needed to offer at least 10% above the market to get FAs.

And, frankly, that's basically what the Sox did for most of the the FAs that they signed.

Edited October 30, 2022 by GreenSox

[Chicago White Sox]

54 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

I remember a people saying/posting that the Sox, to compensate for being such a clown organization,  needed to offer at least 10% above the market to get FAs.

And, frankly, that's basically what the Sox did for most of the the FAs that they signed.

Who did they pay 10% above market for?