While we answered a ton of questions in the P.O. Sox-only episode of the Sox Machine Podcast on Monday, we had a bunch of questions that came through Twitter that we couldn’t fit into the standard podcast runtime.
That said, they were good questions. Also, with P.O. Sox shifting to weekly Patreon-exclusive posts here on Sox Machine, I figure it’d be worthwhile to take a crack at these questions in public to give a preview of what you’ll get for your $2 (or more) a month over the course of the offseason.
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With that business out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.
Depends on how closely you adhere to the phrase “this roster.” After 2023, Yasmani Grandal, Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito are on track to hit free agency, and there aren’t yet in-house replacements for them. More generously, 2025 is the last year where Yoán Moncada, Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert are all under some form of team control (guaranteed contract or option), so that’s probably the more common definition.
That said, I’d caution against trying to define any window of contention until we see what the White Sox are willing to spend now that they’re reaping some of the rewards of contending. This winter should define their appetite for reinforcing the notion of sustainable success with spending. There’s a chance “this roster” doesn’t change in meaning, but let’s give them the next several months to show one way or the other.
Overall, probably Jerry Reinsdorf hiring Tony La Russa while supposedly keeping everybody in the dark about his DUI charge, which does a lot to cast considerable doubt about how freely Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams can pursue things that might require a bit of sacrifice from the ownership suite.
At the roster level, rushing to sign Adam Eaton instead of letting the market play out. It was such a bad idea! Say what you will about Joc Pederson and Eddie Rosario, but they stood a much better chance of being rosterable all year.
I thought it was a little weird that the strides made by Carlos Rodón and Dylan Cease were chalked up as Ethan Katz success stories, but the failures in the bullpen — Evan Marshall, Craig Kimbrel, the early inconsistencies of Aaron Bummer and Liam Hendriks — were chalked up as “relievers be volatile.” Both of those interpretations could be largely correct, but it still feels like “success has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan,” especially when you rope in the lack of development victories in the high minors. Also, the White Sox had plenty of first-hand knowledge of what Cease and Rodón had done wrong, which might give everybody a better idea of what needs to go right.
The Katz administration is still in search of its first external success story, without even modest victories of previous seasons like an immediately useful Jimmy Cordero. Fortunately, a fair amount of that can be chalked up to the incumbents being far more talented now, but I think it’s in everybody’s interest to keep tabs on what kind of results Katz’s pitchers are getting. He gets a point for being somebody besides Don Cooper, but just like a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon, it loses a chunk of its value after the initial window.
Still, the White Sox should feel comfortable giving him projects he deems worth his time. There’s a reason he’s the pitching coach, right? And, if over time, he shows that he doesn’t have much of an eye for talent, there’s value in knowing that, too.
It already isn’t. Tatis plays the left side of the infield, and can even move to the outfield. Tatis has outhomered Madrigal 79-2, and out-stolen him 52-3. Madrigal’s hit tool allows him to do some cool things at the plate, but I think the way his secondary skills failed to materialize made it easier for the White Sox to trade him. I think it’s spiritually closer to the Jon Garland trade, where the Cubs felt stupid for giving him away for Matt Karchner with every commendable big-league performance, but it doesn’t define a franchise the way Tatis can.
If you can stomach the risk of feeling bad, it’s going to be fascinating to track Madrigal next year. There’s a chance the Cubs could unlock his defense and make him a real contributor on both sides of the ball. There’s also a chance that the hamstring tears are just one of a series of injuries that erodes all of tools besides contact and keeps him from ever making a real impact.
This is why I caution about making the enjoyment of every season hinge on October. White Sox fans can’t yet take the postseason for granted, so prematurely fearing what might happen at the managerial level in the postseason seems a few steps beyond that. Sure, I’ll keep it in the back of my mind, and it’ll move to the front if and when a division title becomes more bankable. For the time being, it can’t be assumed, so I’m compartmentalizing and paying more attention to what kind of roster tweaks are made.
It seems like the ideal role for Reynaldo López is the role he occupied this season: a swingman who might be able to steal a win in a spot start, which frees up Michael Kopech for meaningful work in the rotation.
The long reliever has fallen out of favor, as more teams seem willing to rotate two-inning guys between the majors and Triple-A, but it makes sense to keep López’s four-to-five-inning abilities intact given the lack of sixth starters in Charlotte. There are better back-end starters out there than López, and there are better relievers than López, but with an arbitration projection of $2.8 million, I’m not sure you can find a better external solution who will accept such uncertainty about his role, whereas López has to take what the White Sox give him.
I’m keeping my eye on the Tigers. After Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, they don’t have any position players to worry about blocking, and I’m thinking moves like hiring A.J. Hinch and signing Jonathan Schoop to a two-year extension aren’t done with the idea of punting another year. That doesn’t mean they have to push for 2022, but there are four good shortstops on the market that could help them for 2023 (Carlos Correa, Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Trevor Story), and it’s possible that move alone could put them in the offseason lead for good. Throw in some veteran ballast to the rotation and bullpen, and I’m not sure any Central team tops that.
HOT TAKE ALERT:
I think the White Sox biggest misstep was deciding that Liam Hendriks would get the bulk of their offseason budget.
Hendriks is great, and probably will garner some Cy Young votes this season, but signing a closer to premium money should mean all of the roster spots are taken care of.
Rather see the White Sox spend $54 million over 3 years on a better bat.
(Yes, I’m still bitter about Michael Brantley. Why do you ask?)
Nah, has to be Kimbrel. Same logic as Hendriks except he cost two useful players and he also sucked.
I do wish they had spent more money on a better bat, but I honestly don’t believe giving Hendriks his big deal was a problem. They went in deciding they needed a guy who was better suited at hammering down games than Colome was. At the time of the Hendriks deal, Colome was still a free agent coming off of a great season that he made $10.5mil and the White Sox wouldn’t have been anywhere near in the wrong to assume that he may have been seeking more money. At that point, the Hendriks deal doesn’t look that bad. AAV of $13,5mil if they take his option (they will lol) may not have been much more than the White Sox may have assumed Colome was going to ask for.
At the end of the day though, I guess I can give Hahn a little criticism for setting the market like that. If it had been known from day 1 that Colome would’ve taken as little as he did from the Twins, perhaps Hendriks could’ve been scooped up for something along the lines of 4 years/$48mil or so. At that point most of the sunk cost that went into Eaton would’ve been effectively dissolved, but at the end of the day whatever, Hendriks is good and that’s the good thing.
I agree with Greg. There was a few points in the season when Liam was the only stable thing in the bullpen from night to night. I think he was well worth the money and who knows how the season goes if they’re trying to close with somebody else. Like a few years ago the Sox biggest misstep was thinking they were done after signing him.
Also, i still think the Kimbrel trade is more hindsight then a bad idea. On paper at the time it looked like a pretty good idea considering how playoff baseball is played. You could argue that he was going to have some regression from his insane first half numbers but i dont think anybody saw that much of a drop off. It might’ve helped if Cesar showed anything after showing up as well.
If Kimbrel comes over and pitches to like a 3 ERA and Cesar doesn’t absolutely crater offensively, I don’t think that changes the playoff series in any meaningful way but I think it makes those trades look a little better in hindsight. I don’t think there is anything that can make the Kimbrel trade look good though, barring Madrigal and Heuer being mediocre players and or perenially injured (which I wouldn’t wish on most any player). The best you could have ever hoped for is a feeling of indifference.
Like all baseball fans, I tend to evaluate trades long after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. I do it but I don’t think it’s really fair to GM’s making decisions in real time. I think GM’s get way too much blame/credit when things go wrong/right in ways they could not have foreseen. However in this case, not much foresight was needed to see the Kimbrel trade as a bad trade.
I think the Kimbrel trade was a bad trade because even if he was great he wouldn’t have fixed the most pressing issues and the problem he was intended to solve could have been largely addressed adequately with less given up in the trade and less money. If Madrigal and Heuer end up injured, I don’t think it makes it any better of a trade. If they greatly exceed expectations, it doesn’t make it any worse of a trade.
I disagree. I think there was sound logic that if you trade for Kimbrel and get the Cubs version of Kimbrel, you have the 8th and 9th innings locked down 90% of the time. You also free up Kopech (who had been our 2nd best reliever all season) to be used more strategically in games, especially given our manager’s rigidness with bullpen deployment and the limitations of starting pitchers in the playoffs.
And if you get that Kimbrel, shoring up the bullpen was a reasonable mitigation strategy against starting pitchers wearing down post-2020 and/or good health luck evening out in the second half.
That’s pretty much how I feel about the whole situation. The pen at the deadline wasn’t built to win a World Series, but Tepera and Kimbrel alone weren’t going to change that even if they both managed to somehow exceed expectations. Personally even before either trade, I just thought the best option was letting the rest of the season ride out and trying to get more pen arms in the offseason. Obviously with hindsight that would’ve been the better option, since you can’t do much worse than a first round departure… but even without it, idk man. If the goal was always to use Heuer and Madrigal as trade material, I still feel like they could’ve gotten more for them at some other point. That’s even taking into account Kimbrel’s 2021 Cubs stats. Seeing how badly Houston’s pitching is currently getting blasted by the Red Sox in the ALCS, I still don’t think a primed Kimbrel would’ve made this a World Series team.
Though I do think the Cesar trade was necessary, even after his performance on the Southside.
Agreed, JOS, I thought getting Kimbrel was an acknowledgement that this was the year. They pushed all their chips in only to find not only was Kimbrel a bad bet, but the rest of the team was turning into a shaky bet also.
To me, the biggest mistake (relates to Josh) was signing Adam Eaton, and the mentality of “I won’t sign good players now”, and I will fix any needs at the trade deadline. The White Sox would have been so much different with a competent RFer.
The White Sox were (again!!!) at the bottom in the major leagues at the production for their RF. There were much BETTER solutions than Eaton, and it was not that Hahn cheap out with Eaton. He signed him for close to 10M which just makes this decision the worst. I strongly believe this could have cost us the home field advantage which it might have been key.
Totally agree. Hahn galaxy-brained himself instead of letting the market play out. People bring up Rosario and Brantley, but Robbie Grossman would have been a great signing and the Tigers got him for 5 mil/year for 2 years.
Is this a pivotal year for us?
Maybe a total rebuild should be called a Mulligan to acknowledge past failures with the intent to make changes so it doesn’t happen again.
I hope that TLR’s hiring will open JR’s purse strings this winter and make the White Sox a sustainably, winning team.
This is a make or break winter, for me. If they truly show a decent commitment by making an actual splash or two in the FA market this time, I think they will be in good shape for next year and I’ll be excited. If we see more of the same, lame signings and excuses, it’s not worth it to me to keep following a team closely with a super high probability to end in disappointment, for reasons we all know.
They did a great job to get to this point in the rebuild but it means nothing if they don’t finish it the right way, as they said they intended to all along, which was with big time FA additions. They have to spend to keep parts of their fanbase loyal, I’m definitely in that camp. No interest in supporting an ownership that stands for being dishonest to their fans about their commitment, and cheap.
Seriously. I don’t even need the White Sox to be a top top team in spending, I just want them to look like they’re trying a little. The Padres have been the smallest team in baseball for the last 20 years and immediately after a pandemic that everyone *apparently* lost money during, they run their payroll up to nearly $200mil. Just prove this team is trying to ACTUALLY compete for a World Series by being in the top 5-7 in payroll this year. I don’t think that’s asking much. All it would really take to get there is one big contract, Semien maybe.
Exactly, well said. I don’t expect them to spend like Dodgers and Yankees. But Reinsdorf is an insanely rich guy near the end of his life. For them to have a 15th ranked payroll is utterly ridiculous, and the results this year reflected that. Semien or Castellanos this winter, please.
There aren’t many human qualities worse than people who are cheap – and rich.
Almost all rich people are cheap. And the old money people are usually the worst of the worst.
Top-7 in payroll for 2021 would have been over $180 million. Sorry, I have a hard time believing Jerry’s gonna go anywhere NEAR that number, but I’d be happily surprised if he did.
Would you rather be the Padres and spent a bunch of money on Hosmer and Wil Meyers and missed the playoffs?
The problem with Myers’s contract was they HEAVILY backloaded it. If it was actually just done with a normal AAV across the life of it, they might not be so underwater on it. As for Hosmer, pretty much everybody derided that contract as a bad one, but it established the Pads as serious players in free agency.
They spent a shit load of money and didn’t make the playoffs. No guarantees but that’s what makes it all fun, right?!
They still haven’t solved the Dodgers, and now they have the Giants to contend with also.
My point wasn’t that the White Sox need to spend like the Padres just for the sake of spending. It was that the MLB’s smallest team was still able to spend a bunch of money after a season where it was claimed that everyone lost tons of money.
Unlike the Padres, the White Sox actually know how to make good use of money and spend it effectively. That’s why I wish Jerry would just let Hahn spend more for once. I know spending money doesn’t automatically guarantee any level of success, but the White Sox would almost objectively be better off if Hahn was given more money to spend.
White Sox Bullpen and Ethan Katz…
Based on fWAR and ERA skill indicators: FIP, xFIP, and SIERA; Ethan Kartz did a very good job in 2021:
He did similar with the Starting Pitchers:
I mean, didn’t Rodon specifically credit him for his turnaround?
He did, and that’s great. We just haven’t seen if there’s somebody in another organization that he can scout from afar and say “I can work with that.” The Sox had a rich and detailed history of everything that went wrong with Rodón, and what was yet to be tried.
The only people from outside our org that pitched (significantly) for us this year were Lynn, Kimbrel, and Tepera? Am I missing someone?
Hendriks.
Also, the fact that Mike Wright pitched 13 games is slightly unhealthy.
No, that can’t be right. Pretty sure Hendriks didn’t pitch at all in 2020. Certainly not in the playoffs, no sirree.
It’s 2021
Carlos Martínez incoming….
The problem with fWAR is that they use FIP to calculate it and not actual runs allowed. While this is probably a better predictor of future performance, it doesn’t really describe past performance. The 2021 bullpen probably had better periphrals but the Marshall-Bummer-Colome bridge was quake proof.
But the bullpen didn’t quite operate as smoothly as the numbers indicate. If they did, they wouldn’t have felt compelled to get both Tepera and Kimbrel, paying a steep price for the latter. They couldn’t figure out Heuer, and Marshall’s mechanics basically became unsolvable after spring training, which were two big blows to their hierarchy.
Plus, when you have Hendriks posting 113 strikeouts against seven walks, that has to skew teamwide stats.
Solid point, Jim. This season’s value was heavily tied up in a single, elite performer. Last season the value was spread between multiple effective relievers. That’s why we went from having a lockdown bullpen to a thermonuclear meltdown.
Yes, Hendriks does skew the numbers positively. But Rodon & Cease in rotation; Giolito before Katz was here; Kopech, Reynaldo, and even Burr showed improvement; Bummer also improved his xERA and SIERA and kept his FIP and xFIP under 3. The Foster, Heuer, Ruiz and even Crochet do give me pause. Marshall I wonder about his arm. My major point in looking up those stats were there are some people saying Katz was terrible and should be fired. And I am not seeing that
Ah. I haven’t seen that opinion expressed at all.
I’m starting to think the White Sox main target this off-season should be Brandon Lowe. He’s starting to get more expensive and the Rays have many internal options to replace him (Brujan, Walls, Edwards). He’s under control thru 2026 and is coming off a 5 war season at 2B. He rakes against righties.
I’d trade for him with Andrew Vaughn being the main piece going back to the Rays. Depending on our budget, I’d also consider taking on Kevin Kiermaier and his contract if it means lessoning the Rays return. Keirmaier is still a solid player but is overpaid especially for the Rays.
You intrigue me, sir. I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I don’t think Kiermaier is as much of an albatross as you think he is. He’s basically on a one year deal for $12M and put up 2.5 fWAR this past season with a league average bat. Would he get that as a free agent? Probably not but he’s not really overpaid and certainly not overpaid enough for the Rays to trade Lowe for Vaughn+whatever else we can muster. I’d love to have him but we are talking Luis Robert-ish levels of value and we certainly wouldn’t trade an up the middle defender who can hit bombs for Vaughn so why would other teams?
I don’t think Kiermaier is albatross in anyway. He’d probably get $8-$10M on the open market. For the Rays though, that is albatross. Their payroll this year was $70Mish, so we’re talking about like 15% of their payroll to just one guy that’s a 2 war player.
I think the value proposition form the Sox is – We give you a high-floor, Safe 1B for the next 6 years, we get your 2B who is starting to get expensive that you can easily replace plus take your highest paid player that is meh off your roster.
I do think we’d have to throw-in more than Vaughn for sure.
Derek Lowe is starting to get expensive? He’ll make less in the next two seasons combined than Kiermaier is making next season alone. He’s exactly the type of guy the Rays can’t afford to part with because he provides tons of surplus value.
Expensive for the Rays. You know, the team that trades away star players just because they enter their arbitration years. The Rays also understand that every year they keep him, his value only decreases. The reason the Rays are able to contend every year is because they trade players when they can get max value.
It’s more of less an opportunity cost calculation for the Rays.
He’s making $4 million next season and $5.25 million in 2023. That is not “expensive for the Rays,” it’s exactly the sort of player that helps them compete year in and year out.
He’ll make $8.75 million in 2024, and unless his performance craters before then, he’ll still provide massive excess value beyond his contract. His two option years are still cheap by MLB standards ($10.5m and $11.5m), so if they want to trade him then, chances are he’ll still bring back a pretty good haul if he’s still performing well.
I’ll agree I’m over exaggerating on that end. The point still remains – The Rays have multiple top prospects that would get paid $500K to take his spot and typically tend to trade players at max value.
You’ll have to cite me an example where they traded a 5-WAR player with five remaining years of control left, with only three guaranteed at a total of $18 million. The only ones I can think of they traded with only a year or two left, typically with large arbitration raises due.
Andrew Vaughn does NOT have Luis Robert levels of value, or even close to it.
I don’t know if the Sox have the prospect capital to land him. Reinsdorf should stop pinching pennies for one offseason and sign Semien
You spelled Corey Seager wrong (Left handed bat, slightly younger). But same Story, different name. 😉
A Boras client who’s never played at second sounds like a terrible fit for the White Sox. I genuinely don’t think Semien will come back unless they overpay for him, but at least there’s the smallest hint of him being realistic. Seager will never happen.
How realistic is Semien? He seems very much like a west coast guy and he also was/is a strong BLM proponent which may mean he’s not enthusiastic about TLR. If the Sox are the best offer by a lot, maybe it happens but I think the Sox would have to pay top dollar.
That’s not even considering if he harbors any ill feelings for being traded away years ago. I never understood exactly why he, Bassitt, and Phegley seemed to be so angry about being traded (they were traded not cut) but they did seem to be angry and enjoy beating the Sox.
Am I missing something? Tim, Billy, Goodwin etc all seemed to have no problem with Tony.
And of the three, only Hamilton had any say in the matter, and even he probably would have struggled to find a job at the Major League level elsewhere. I’ll take Tim at his word that he’s fine with TLR, but it’s hard to dismiss the possibility that he’s a hostage to the situation and just making the best of it.
This is just pessimism taken to absolute silly levels. If he truly hated TLR he wouldn’t be so effusive in his praise. He can easily just say some boilerplate praise and leave it at that. There’s absolutely no indication that there’s any discord in the clubhouse.
Like I said, I take him at his word. But it’s hard to get past my own dislike for TLR, much less take anything about him at face value.
The fact that we even speculate about top free agents avoiding the White Sox solely because of Tony LaRussa just compounds the embarrassment of his hiring.
Tim was quizzed repeatedly a few months ago about TLR being set in his ways. He kept saying over and over, “We know” and said it with a smile. With TLR asking them if he could stay a few days ago, it looks like he is in charge in public and they do as they see fit in private. (much like many marriages)
I think everyone in the White Sox FO, as well as every White Sox fan on the planet, would trade Vaughn for Lowe in a heartbeat. The main question would be, what else would the White Sox have to give up? I don’t think they have enough prospect capital for him. But I do like your thinking, and I do genuinely think that if there’s any team that’s willing to do a trade like this, it’s the Rays. Vaughn, Burger, maybe Sheets and a bunch of other dimes for Lowe sounds awesome.
Baseball Trade Values says that Vaughn and Giolito is a very slight overpay for Lowe. Robert for Lowe straight up is a little bit more of an overpay but not by much. I don’t think a lot of us truly appreciate how damn good Lowe is and how cheap he is. Vaughn/Kopech/Crochet might not even get it done.
I get that Lowe has a lot of control years, but Giolito is the sixth most valuable starting pitcher by fWAR over the last three seasons and still has two years of arbitration in which he is almost certainly going to have surplus value. Given the comparative rarity of front line starters versus good second basemen, I think BTV is massively undervaluing him.
I don’t know if it’s massively undervaluing him but I do agree the valuations don’t line up. I’m just relaying an outside perspective on what level of talent would need to be included as the “+” to Andrew Vaughn in a Brandon Lowe trade. Honestly if we’re looking at people to trade for on the Rays, I’m going back to my offseason plan from last year and targeting Meadows.
The big thing to take into account: Vaughn has 2 years of pre-arb and 5 total years of team control left, and BTV says his adjusted on-field value is about $41mil. Let’s forget about salary implications for a moment and just think about that: $41mil at about $8mil/WAR for position players is valuing Vaughn at around 5.2WAR over the next 5 seasons. Are you joking? He peaked at 1.2bWar before his slide this season alone, one in which nobody had any idea he was gonna play in until all the injuries started piling up. I’m not here with any hot takes in believing Vaughn is going to be a superstar or anything, but this was the guy everyone thought was on track to be the next first baseman, and MANY people were comparing him to the last 3 (Hurt, Paulie, and Pito). I would honestly, no doubt, start with the assumption that he’s worth a BARE MINIMUM of 1.5WAR a year through these next 5 years of team control, but likely a lot more; that would bump his pre-salary value up to $60mil alone, with a significantly higher ceiling to take into account as well. But even without the higher ceiling being considered, I’d say that bumps his overall market value up to at LEAST $50mil. His arbitration salary values are definitely something that can be debated, but I still think $50mil is a more than fair valuation of Vaughn in his current state.
So that’s the start here: trade a young guy with a high ceiling and plenty of years of team control left to a cheap team in exchange for a starting-to-get-expensive guy that they have in-house replacements available for. It’s a start, that’s all I’m saying. I know Vaughn alone won’t get it done, but this is still definitely the Rays we’re talking about. Vaughn/Kopech I think would do it, but we can’t forget that the Rays do enjoy stacking dimes and may not even ask for Kopech.
Yep, we all like Lowe. Not sure about trading Sheets. He may be the next 1st baseman and we don’t know his offensive ceiling yet but so far, so great.
The other issue is that with assumed payroll limitations, we need to be looking at 1 for 3 instead of 3 for 1. And Burger may be on 3rd if Moncada gets traded. Glad I don’t have an office.
This sounds like a good idea.
About the Tigers: Is it just me or do they just empty their farm before they can get over the hump? After their big two Tork and Greene, who do they have? They got a decent starting rotation for the future with Turnbull, Mize and Skubal but are underwhelming at every other position on the field without anyway to plug them except massive FA spending.
Lotta dramatic takes in here, make or break winter etc, that I think are derived far too much from four games where they looked like doodoo at the end of the year. Those same Astros (minus McCullers) who looked so dominant are now themselves eating it. I think it’s a review of an important pair of lessons — that the Sox past roster is/was not as complete as it could/should be, and also that the playoffs are a coin flip to a significant degree.
The offseason goal is to lock down the division again, and again, and again. You want a ring, you have to keep flipping the coin until it works. For whatever reasons, our four best starters went out and stunk it up in succession, and that isn’t something any roster or manager can survive for a playoff series, certainly not a best of 5.
The core of this team is young, great, and cheap. There are moves yet to be made, but it’s looking unlikely at this time that the Central will produce another team that breaks 90 wins. Make sure the coin will be flipping once more… and also hire an ex-Astros staffer to inform you exactly how all their various sign stealing schemes worked so you can rule that out if (when?) you face them in October.
The core of this team WAS cheap. The combination of Moncada, Jimenez, Robert, Anderson, Bummer, and Giolito is probably going to cost an ADDITIONAL $23-25 million in 2022. Granted, at about $47-49 million total for six solid-to-great players, that’s still a pretty good deal, but their ability to add beyond them gets reduced every year, and I wouldn’t count on them getting another Carlos Rodon year for $3 million.
Yeah, the idea is that when an expensive player leaves, you replace him with an inexpensive player to offset the core becoming more expensive. But where are those inexpensive players going to come from? I doubt the Sox are going to place even one player on anyone’s Top 100 next year.
Yeah, this is definitely where I’m at. Our team is fun, deep, and locked up for a while. The Astros whooped us and now the Red Sox are spanking them. I don’t quiver about facing the Red Sox in the playoffs. Astros could be totally different next year if Correa leaves or if McCullers is hurt. We had a bad matchup when we weren’t playing our best – oh well.
Last year 3 of our 4 acquisitions were all-stars. We were aggressive at the deadline. I’m not going to quibble with any of that. Looking forward to this off-season and some more improvements.
The Dodgers were trailing today 5-2 after 7 innings and trailing the NLCS 2 games to none. The Dodgers had a 4-run 8th inning and Jansen came in to strike out three Braves for the save and the the entire outlook of the series changed and it may changec again. I’m sure there will be too much talk of momentum before the next game of the NLCS.
It is easy to forget how unpredictable baseball is in small samples and how that affects the playoffs.
The other game was crazy as well. I caught a 2-1 score in the 8th, Red Sox were winning and thought “wow”. Then I checked later at it was 9-2 Astros. So the two favorites with big comebacks today. Both would have been in big trouble if they lost.
A shame the Braves could not get it done, would love to see LA get ousted!
I’d be happy with another 3 or 4 consecutive division crowns. I don’t worry too much about what happens after that.
Minnesota Twins on Line 1