I’d say the White Sox need to give Ken Rosenthal something, but he broke the Mike Clevinger signing (which still isn’t official, by the way), so he shouldn’t be jonesing for a White Sox bulletin the way he did in his Thursday notebook.
Rosenthal engaged in idle speculation about a White Sox connection…
Salvador Perez is close with new White Sox manager Pedro Grifol, his former catching instructor and bench coach with the Royals — so close, it stands to reason that the Sox might at least think about asking for Perez in a trade.
… only to spend the rest of the segment showing why it’s not worth thinking about.
Perez, 32, dealt with left-hand issues and regressed offensively last season from his spectacular 48-homer, .859 OPS campaign in 2021. He will earn $20 million next season, occupying about one-fourth of the Royals’ payroll. He also is guaranteed $20 million in 2024, $22 million in 2025 and a $2 million buyout on a $13.5 million club option in 2026.
And:
As a player with at least 10 years of service, five with the same club, Perez would have the right to veto any trade. Teams are not even bothering to ask the Royals about him, major-league sources say.
But you gotta admit it’d be pretty funny if the White Sox’s idea of spending past the final year of a four-year deal for a catcher in his 30s is by trading for a catcher in his 30s with three years on his deal.
Spare Parts
The White Sox are giving away an Eloy Jiménez bobblehead (May 13), a Luis Robert bobblehead (July 8), and hockey (April 29), basketball (June 24) and football (Aug. 12) jerseys, among other things.
Matthew Boyd is getting $10 million for the 2023 season even though he hasn’t thrown 100 innings since 2019, and managed just 13⅓ innings over 10 appearances for the Mariners last year, so I’m going to hit “pause” on what Clevinger is worth next year.
Maybe every team getting an extra $30 million for completing the same of what used to be MLB BAMTech is causing some kind of inflation.
The city of Chicago issued a buiding permit that will transform two sections of the 500 level by removing eight rows of seats. My guess is that it’d be on the third-base side, because the skyline would be a big draw.
The Royals are about 20 wins or so from having a legitimate shot at the postseason, but it seems like the talent up top is still consolidating, and the pitching part of the equation is lagging behind.
Rosenthal must have needed filler or something, because that was a whole bunch of words to say nothing.
However, Wong drawing interest from the Dodgers and Giants is interesting. I imagine he’s probably moved before the winter meetings end. He fits the profile of a veteran player who comes here and just falls apart, especially since there’s already signs of decline . So I won’t be too upset if the Sox don’t land him.
I find it fun to read MLB Trade Rumors, and pretend like the Sox are interested in what they should be. For instance, there have already been articles, “Mariners Looking for Left-Handed Hitting Second Baseman” and “Astros Eyeing Left-Handed Hitting Corner Outfielders.” They are relevant to the same options the Sox should be exploring.
I need an app where it replaces Dodgers or Astros with White Sox for whatever article I’m reading. I lose my sense of belief when I do the switch mentally.
We could call it Contender Pretender or Sports News Deluder.
Now you can pretend your team is actually serious about getting a ring! Tired of your favorite team breaking your heart with misguided front office decisions? See what it’s like to have your favorite team appear to be credibly connected to bold moves that winning teams make for a change.
I love Contender Pretender
The board game doesn’t count.
And that’s where their inflexibility (not in even in terms of money, but not including opt outs for example), lack of depth and weak farm put them at big disadvantage against other teams. It’s how you end up with Jake Diekman, The ghost of AJ Pollock and Josh Harrison.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/brewers-trade-kolten-wong-mariners-jesse-winker-abraham-toro.html
The Clevinger deal looks better after yesterday. Not only Boyd, but Eflin got 3/$40m. Though the FG crowdsource had 3/$30m on Eflin, Ben Clemens put him at 1/$9m and FG ranked Clevinger higher than Eflin in their top 50. The Clevinger deal could look even better if $2m of that $12m guaranteed is a buyout for a 2024 team option.
That’s the good news. The bad news: the early returns suggest the costs of FA are way up and the Sox are… quite budget constrained.
I guess on the “bright” side – with contracts soaring it makes the trade values of some of our guys a little more inviting. If things go south to start this year, its pretty easy to envision a mini rebuild happening when you have guys like Giolito, Lynn, a host of bullpen arms and maybe with a bounce back Grandal all on the last year of their deals.
Who’s gotten something back besides the odd BP arm on those 2 month rental deals? It seems like the prospects are only ever just that.
I think each of Hendrix, Lynn, Giolito could bring you back a top 100 prospect
I think Bummer or Gravemen, could bring you back an interesting piece
I think with the prefix that Grandal returns to form, or Kelly returns to form they could get you a lotto ticket type prospect.
Its not gonna be some loaded 5 prospect hauls, but they could make some waves at the deadline quickly flipping free agents to be to beef up the system.
I think all that is possible now, but I’m doubtful on July 31st.
I’m sure there’s a trade or two out there where So-n-So was traded for Future All Star You Now Know that has kept the myth alive but I can’t think of one atm.
I suspect the GMs at their winter meetings get big laughs from their stories of how their sheeple bought into their do anything trade that was bringing back gold, gold I tell ya. Yea, big laughs.
I think it was a lot more common around 15 years ago or so for big prospects to be included in a deal near the deadline. I think the Mets got Zack Wheeler for Carlos Beltran around the deadline. I don’t remember when the Brewers traded for Greinke, but they gave up Lorenzo Cain and a few other highly touted prospects. But those trades were a long time ago.
Doh! Chapman for Gleyber Torres and Adam Warren!
They’re there but it hard to remember them.
A mini rebuild, I like that concept. It is exceedingly unlikely that in 2023 this team will be good enough for a deep playoff run even if a few guys improve year over year, and they somehow manage to pass Cleveland and hold off the Twins. It’s not high probability that they win the central in the first place.
They are set to lose Lynn, Giolito, Grandal, Kelly anyway. Hendriks and Graveman have just one more year after 2023, and would definitely get you good prospects. I think they should dangle all of the aforementioned, to shoot for getting some young talent that might be able to help them from 2024 onward. After 2024 Moncada will be gone as well. It goes without saying that they should deal him if any team wanted to pay him 40M the next two seaons. But after 2023/2024 there’s just a ton of money coming off the books.
And in the meantime hire some player development people from the Dodgers or Rays as others have mentioned. They need to get much smarter as an organization. Find a much needed replacement for Hahn. Keep Cease, Kopech, Robert, Vaughn, Eloy, Colas, Sosa, Montgomery and have that be their new “core”. Get a stud 3b who can actually hit. And add talent around that.
With the big money going out to relievers, I would think the Sox relievers would be in pretty high demand if they let teams know they were on the market. Even if they don’t get much in return, just clearing some of the reliever payroll out would allow them to spend money where they really need it, at 2nd base and in the corner outfield. If they offered to pay $2-3M of Kelly’s contract, I’m sure there are teams that would take a shot with a guy that throws 98. And they could easily free up Graveman’s $8M this year. The bullpen would still have Hendriks, Bummer, Lopez as the three high-leverage guys. They need to start allocating the money properly, but then again, that would take a knowledgeable FO, which we obviously don’t have.
My preference would be just to trade Hendriks, since his trade value is probably much higher than the others now, and you could clear more space and/or get useful players back. But I wouldn’t mind your plan at all.
I’m just not sure that Lopez, Graveman or Bummer could handle the 9th inning. Yes Hendriks frees up the most salary and probably gets back better prospects/players, but I think it really weakens the team. But I would be ok if they traded Hendricks and used that money for someone like Nimmo.
Kopeck would work for the closer.
He’s been here for a number of years. His name ends in an “h”.
A mini rebuild next year makes a lot of sense. As for 3B, ZiPS likes Bryan Ramos quite a lot there— the scouting report on him will be interesting this offseason. So they should load up on 1-year deals or trade cheaply for expiring contracts this year, to try and meander into the playoffs with ~90 wins, and then reload next year with younger talent coming up and a lot more money freed up to spend.
Well, what they should do is just spend that money now. Sign Nimmo and Rodon, and trade for Brandon Lowe, or something like that.
Then, if they are bad in 2023, you can still flip all the expiring contracts for prospects and be in a good position to contend in 2024 and beyond.
The question is whether Clevinger’s deal reflected the market or set the market.
As for “budget constrained” the Sox just got a $30MM windfall. According to Cot’s they are at $187MM with $45MM headroom before they hit the CBT threshold of $233MM. $30MM of that $45MM was just paid for.
On the other hand, looking at trades Kopech has huge value at only $1.8MM. If a starter is worth $12MM market value he could get us 2 bona fide MLB position players (or 1 more expensive MLB and prospects) from a cash strapped team who wants to dump salaries, provided that the Sox were willing to go up $10MM in salaries.
I don’t think that’s the question because the answer seems to be “neither”—if you grant FG’s supposition that Clevinger is preferable to Eflin and *much* preferrable to Boyd. Clevinger’s deal looks like a steal compared to theirs.
To be clear: I don’t think they should be constrained. It’s an unnecessary, stupid self-constraint.
It’s only unnecessary or stupid if your priority is actually winning a championship. If you’re an owner who is more concerned about finances and merely giving the appearance of competing, that seems totally reasonable.
I have a hard time believing that the BAMTech money gets invested back into the roster or business in general. My assumption is that it is immediately distributed to Jerry’s ownership group.
Right. It’s not even baseball-related revenue. Who knows how much, if any, of Jerry’s preceding $86MM from the sale was reinvested in the team? Sure, the money will be spent, but likely not for several generations, and nowhere near a baseball diamond.
There is as much chance of their team payroll approaching the $233M CBT threshold as there is of them signing Abreu.
The only preseason metric I’ll be using to judge the price of Clevinger’s contract is if it keeps the Sox from addressing other needs.
A Grandal for Salvy swap is just dumb enough for me not to dismiss out of hand.
Budget constrained isn’t the right term when the owner is setting arbitrary limits.
Gotta say, FAs getting paid more than expected in this cycle (at least according to Fangraphs crowdsourcing) brings a smile to my face
I surmised in an earlier thread that the Sox might have struck on Clevinger before everyone else realized prices were going up. My reasoning was more spenders (and big ones), a higher luxury tax threshold, and a return to normalcy after pandemic lockdowns and the lockout. I didn’t factor in an extra $30M in Disney cash.
I think the Eflin deal is going to work out for the Rays. The Boyd deal is a real head-scratcher.
I pray the Perez talk is just lazy speculation. “These 2 guys know and respect each other; therefore…”
I’m sure it is just speculation, as is any notion that this team is going to make moves to actually improve. You can’t improve by making trades with prospects you don’t have, or by signing free agents with money the owner won’t spend. If they make any trades they will probably be yawners, for nobody who will change the fate of this team in the slightest.
We all hope not the case, but I think very likely that Clevinger is their big addition this offseason and that they will do little else other than trades for nickel and dime type improvements or signings that won’t matter. All of it a big middle finger to fans from Ebeneezer Jerry.
Reinsdorf is like the owner from the movie “The Natural” who sat around with the blinds closed. Essentially the same in character.
Jerry and the Boys will assure us that this team can be a legit contender if they can just stay healthy! I am fully convinced that Jerry believes this is the “right way” to run a franchise – don’t go crazy spending huge money on FAs or over-invest in scouting and development. Just put an average to above-average team together and hope for lighting in a bottle (again).
A buddy and I used to joke about how Ryan Pace and the Bears would spin Kevin White’s return from various injuries as “like getting another 1st round pick on the roster.” That’s basically how the Sox feel to me at this point. They’ll say “hey, getting Robert, Jimenez, Moncada, and Anderson all healthy is like adding multiple great players to the team – that’s better than overpaying for free agents!”
I think you give Jerry too much credit. I don’t think he’s even hoping for lightning in a bottle. He just does not care – at all.
You could give him another billion dollars tomorrow, and he still wouldn’t sign a damn free agent of any real worth.
There are similarities between Boyd and Clevinger— both former ALC central starters returning to familiar stomping grounds, both haven’t been good since 2019, both are 31 turning 32 in a couple months– but the comparisons stop there. Boyd was finally kinda good in ‘19, 3.3 fWAR, while Clevinger was genuinely actually good as part of that lethal Cleveland rotation. Boyd threw all of 13.1 IP last year, and even though it was disappointing Clevinger at least threw a decent chunk of a starter’s expected workload 114.1 IP.
Either the Tigers are worse than the Sox at FA contracts— which with the old regime was actually somehow true, not sure yet about the new— or the FA market is going to be heavily inflated, in which case Clev over Boyd being $2M looks pretty good.
I see a healthy Boyd and Clevinger having roughly similar ceilings for 2023, and truth be told, I would have erred on the side of the lefty. (Though I never viewed Boyd as an option given that he is a Boras client.)
Similar ceilings? I think Clevinger’s is clearly higher. Even in Boyd’s best season by fWAR, 2019, he put up 3.2 WAR, with an ERA (4.90) much higher than his FIP (4.66); for his career, he underperforms his FIP by .24 R/9 relative to ERA. In Clevinger’s 2019, he put up 4.5 fWAR and an ERA slightly above his FIP, but for his career his ERA (3.39) is much better than his FIP (3.79). Neither is coming off a good year, but Clevinger’s history of performance is considerably stronger.
Boyd’s stuff is less reliant on velocity than Clevinger. I don’t think a healthy Boyd matching his 2019 WAR is out of the question, but Clevinger matching his own 2019 WAR as a 32 year old definitely is.
Somewhere around 3.2 WAR sounds like a reasonable best case for both, and that’s me being more bullish than the projections — ZiPS just gives Clevinger 1.7 WAR as an 80th percentile outcome for 2023.
I notice the conversation has centered around Jerry being “cheap”, but I think that’s dispersing blame in the wrong place (partially). Sure, the lack of big ticket FAs significantly hampers the team’s success, but it isn’t like they didn’t spend money.
Problem of course is that they’re spending a ton of bad money and used the strategy of paying home-grown players that haven’t panned out as expected. A strategy I can honestly understand given it worked out so well with Q and Sale. Unfortunately they have a pretty dismal history with position player projections. Even given that though, I think in 2019 if you would have told people that Eloy and Moncada would combine for 2.5 wins in 2022 no one would have bought it. These guys were supposed to be good to great. They just aren’t, or haven’t been to the degree necessary. And if you aren’t going to spend your way out of it, there really isn’t much to be done except wait it out and reload. Couple that with the variability in baseball flight trajectories and poor approach and I think most of this is on the front office rather than Jerry.
They put their eggs in some baskets that had holes in them. And then refused to identify enough talent to make sure they had multiple ways to win. A competent GM should know that Sheets and Vaughn should be nowhere near an outfield, and that Jake Diekman is a bad use of resources. A good GM should know that the team is too right handed. A good GM should know that closer win projections mean nothing when you don’t have a lead and you hire a manager that doesn’t understand leverage. A good GM should know that you can’t stock your team with below average defense at almost every position. A good GM should know that teams need to get on base and hit home runs. A good GM should understand the market for Leury Garcia and Joe Kelly, and not allow multiple players to rehab on your MLB roster while actively competing for a World Series (in theory)
In sum, I don’t think they’re cheap, although I’d love to see a decade $300 million+ contract for a superstar. I think they’re bad. They’re fantasy baseball managers that look at individual stats and think “positional flexibility” means that a player can physically stand in that position. They’ve heard the names Sal Perez and Mike Clevinger and Joe Kelly before so they’re gonna draft them in the first couple rounds this year. There’s no need to think about the sum of the parts, or when closers matter, or that Leury Garcia is good in few plate appearances spread across an entire season, or that a relief pitcher with arm problems shouldn’t get multiple years and money you don’t want to spend.
They’re not good at their jobs. And haven’t been in quite some time.
This team has had some bad injury luck and players not doing as well as hoped, Moncada being the poster child. But still, teams like the Padres have had guys not turn out, and yet they don’t quit. I would not go so far as to call Hahn blameless, I think he is a pretty weak GM. But to blame Hahn more than Reinsdorf is way off base.
With a good owner willing to spend for free agents, this team might have Springer and/or Semien. With guys like that, maybe they can withstand injuries and poor years from a couple guys and still at least have won the central last year. As it is, they have no depth, and even if healthy this team still has no 2b/RF, can’t hit righties, and can’t catch the baseball well.
The Phillies were in the WS entirely because of Schwarber, Harper, and Wheeler. Without any of those 3 they probably would have lost in the playoffs somewhere. They needed ALL of them. The Sox could have signed any or all of them, and instead have NONE of them. They have Grandal. That’s how far Reinsdorf’s “commitment” to winning is. He’s a fraudster, does not care about anything but his bank account balance. Hahn may not be a good GM, but any idiot would have signed Springer and Semien for this team if their owner allowed, like other teams like the Padres, Mets, Phillies would do if they owned the Sox. The failure of the rebuild (and the degree of failure) is 80 percent Reinsdorf, probably more. A short term payroll limit that is high still doesn’t allow a GM to get very good players. Hahn couldn’t sign Semien, so what was left… Harrison, basically. Jerry is a chump, and forces his GM to do his job like one. Sorry, to blame Hahn more then Reinsdorf is misguided and completely misses what’s going on here, which has been the case for 4 decades. They need higher quality players, and those cost money, which Reinsdorf won’t part with under any circumstances. Multi year deals are the only way to get really good players, and they are forbidden under this disgrace of an ownership.
I think it’s silly to attempt to dole out percentages of blame. That said, in your Jerry -Deserves-All-The-Blame screed you didn’t even mention anything about his incestuous hiring practices, all around insularity, failure to evaluate/address organizational weakness by exhibiting and undying loyalty to undeserving employees etc etc etc
LOL my apologies, i am sorry that I left out so much. Points noted, TLR being one of the worst of his sins.
I am not here to defend Jerry- I think he is cheap and meddles way too much (see LaRussa). But the Sox did have a $190M payroll last year with no one making more than $20M. We don’t know for sure that Jerry won’t pony up for expensive free agents- though that is very likely the case. The fact that the payroll was $190M last year with so many flaws certainly makes Hahn look like a complete idiot. His allocation of funds is just so bad- spending all that money on relief pitching while ignoring RF and 2b for years. One of Jerry’s biggest faults is continuing to pay Hahn to be GM of this team. He is just so bad at his job, yet has no accountability. For all we know, Hahn may have told Jerry that adding Leury, Kelly, Graveman and Harrison is much better use of funds than paying for Semien or even Schwarber. We won’t ever know for sure if Jerry won’t spend for big free agents. They supposedly had $100M offers for Tanaka and Wheeler and well over $200M for Machado. Were those actually concrete offers? I don’t think we’ll ever know.
I think it is inconceivable that Hahn or anybody would think that Leury, Kelly, Graveman, and Harrison is much better than Semien, or that Hahn made that choice. The “choice” had to do with the fact that to sign Semien they would have had to commit $175 million dollars to a single contract, more than twice what they gave Grandal, and Jerry pees in his pants at the thought of contracts that large because he’s never given one out for even $80 M. We all know Jerry is cheap, they haven’t signed a really good free agent since Albert Belle. I respect your opinions Roke, but I mean come on, when it comes to the Sox not getting any good free agents, it’s not the GM.
Astros and M’s have made good moves, now the Rangers adding DeGrom. It’s really tough for the Sox to make progress when during the offseason, basically every team in the league that is better – or worse – than the Sox is a better bet to improve than they are.
Again, I’m certainly not trying to defend Jerry- we all know he’s cheap- but they did have a $190M payroll last year. A competent GM would have at least added a guy like Joc Pederson or some lefty that can hit righties well. I don’t think Jerry told Hahn that he had to spend all his money on relievers. Let’s face it. We are saddled with one of the worst owners and one of the worst GMs. That’s a bad combination.
They could have added Starling Marte last yr who got almost the same contract as Yaz so within JRs supposed contract wheelhouse. They could’ve signed Schwarber to 1 +opt in 2021 when everyone in Chicago thought they were going to but instead handed fulltime DH to someone with only one year of minor league experience and then compounded the problem by moving him to the OF where he had never played beyond t-ball. They could’ve not tried to be the smartest guys in the room and trade your 2B for a closer when you had already signed the best closer on the market and leave the team with no 2B 2 years running and stifle your ability to build the team the following year. They could’ve not spent $50+ mil on a BP when their offense couldn’t score enough runs for the BP to hold. I know, we all know the list and that’s just from the time when the rebuild phase was declared complete and we were moving “into our contention window”.
I’m with you, I give JR no quarter but you have to hold the guys accountable for the decisions they did make.
Yep, Hahn has so badly allocated the funds that were available to him. The roster had glaring holes, but he chose to use his two biggest contracts on a bullpen that was pretty good in 2021.
But at least our training staff was….oh, nvm.
Wong to the M’s.
Damn.
Brewers did ok with that. Wouldn’t be surprised if they turn around and flip Winker to someone else.
A potential 2b upgrade for the Sox that winds up with another AL team instead. One of the 7 or so teams that are already better than the Sox, no less. Shocking.
Chris Martin gets 2 at $17.5, yea it might get expensive this year.
If I had a middle reliever as a client, all I would have to do is float “the White Sox are interested” and instantly the going rate is $16-20MM/2.
A question to the Sox Machine community: how much should we as a fanbase care about the salaries in FA transactions? Im just saying there are valid reasons to hate the Clevinger signing without taking the salary into account!
My genuine feeling is that the more we focus on salaries, it lets Uncle Jerry off the hook. He should spend more, period!
I just don’t get why someone at the end of his life, worth like 2 billion dollars, would want to hoard rather than spend a few million more to bring happiness to a city and fans that made him rich in the first place, and enjoy the entertainment of a great baseball team himself as well while he enjoys his last years. He can’t take a dime with him. I mean the number of millions he has to work with is two thousand! For an additional 50M per year over a 5 year period, this team could be a championship contender. And he wouldn’t likely lose money on the deal at all. It’s never, ever been about him losing money or not. He would only make a little less than he’s used to. And hell, if he loses a few bucks, why would he care anyway! His aversion to spending in the free agent market makes him seem like a selfish bastard, basically.
It’s an undiagnosed illness that has yet to be named. Why hasn’t it been identified to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) yet? Because money and power control that realm as well. Can’t have billionaires being labeled as mentally ill, even though they sure as shit should be.
1 million seconds = 11.5 days
1 billion seconds = 32.7 YEARS
I mention it every now and then—probably annually— in response to a comment like this one. Jerry does not own 100% of the team; he probably now owns about 15-20% of the team, and has a fiduciary responsibility to the other owners. To act as if the only issue with spending for free agents is Reinsdorf’s wealth and the value of the team, as if that value all accrued to him, is silly. But I know that some fans want to act as if they know the guy personally and know that he is cheap vis-a-vis the White Sox, so these comments will continue. But the personal attacks on Reinsdorf are ill-informed and ridiculous.
They’re not *that* ridiculous. He may not be the sole responsible party, but he is the primary one. This is like someone complaining about the President but then you saying, “well, the executive branch is a lot bigger than him, so don’t blame him.”
However you want to dole out the blame, a—if not the—primary problem with this team is the spending constraints. Not just on the 2023 payroll, but on major, long-term contracts (like Harper and Machado). If you want to interpret complaints about Reinsdorf as “the Sox ownership collective,” fine.
That’s not to deflect blame from Hahn. Other GMs have tighter constraints than he and perform better. But it’s important to recognize that he *does* have constraints.
Reinsdorf/Sox ownership collective, well put. It’s Jerry’s team as much as anybody’s. It’s not like Jerry wants to spend and the other owners are preventing him via “fiduciary responsibility”. It’s all about GREED. Period. Attributing it to the “other owners” to try to insinuate that Reinsdorf is different from them, and that his choices are only representing the collective to somehow remove his responsibility is nonsense.
Well, when you use capital letters, that changes everything. Your response underscores why I do this only one a year. Some commenters want a simplistic answer with no nuance, and are incapable of understanding complexity. When confronted with reality and complexity, they call it “nonsense”. We may interact again on this subject in a year or so..
And others may invent “complexity” to contradict a simple explanation that tells the truth. To each his own.
We have all assumed that Jerry has constraints on long-term contracts. And that is probably true to some extent. But we don’t know that for a fact. By all accounts, the Sox have had at least 3 $100+ million offers to players in the past (Tanaka, Wheeler, Machado). A few years ago I paired up with a guy on the golf course down here in Atlanta who used to work in the Sox front office, but became an agent because he saw no possibility for advancement with the White Sox. He knows Hahn, Jerry, Kenny and everyone else in the front office. He said that the Sox thought they had Machado and expected to get a counter-proposal from him after he met with the Padres. But Machado signed with them without going back to the Sox. He said that the Sox were really pissed that Machado didn’t let them counter offer. I think the assumption that Jerry has a limit on how much he will offer is not entirely accurate. Yes, Jerry has constrained Hahn to some degree. But a $190M payroll should be better allocated than it was last year. I think a good GM could have done wonders with that “constraint”. Like I said above, I think Jerry’s biggest problem is he continues to employ an idiot as GM. Which goes back to what this agent said to me. He said Jerry is fiercely loyal and he knew he had no chance to move up in the organization. That’s why he left. And that’s why Hahn continues to be employed in the same job for the last 9 years.
You’re right that we don’t know the inner dynamics for certain. But there’s little doubt that JR/the owners are to blame that the Sox haven’t signed a premium FA. I mean, think about it: what conceivable reason would Hahn have for not offering Machado 10/$300m? It’s not his money and it makes him look better.
The long and short of it is: not all $190m payrolls are created equal. It’s seems pretty clear that the Sox refuse to hand out 7+ year deals, which means they won’t sign premium free agents. It’s not Hahn’s money, so I don’t understand why he wouldn’t sign premium FA, if he were free to do so. P
My comment largely is in response to the simplistic “Jerry is cheap” narrative without recognizing that the White Sox are not his sole plaything, and without recognizing that he has a financial obligation to his partners. The federal government comparison does not work. The President appoints his cabinet and is responsible for them. Jerry is responsible TO his partners. The “ownership collective” does not work since it implies uniformity among the owners as to how to proceed, when that is undoubtedly not true. But there is a problem. As you say, Hahn has performed badly, and he is not held accountable. As to the constraints he is operating under, my theory is that the sandbox that Jerry is playing in has changed over time to his detriment. I believe that Jerry is afraid of rich, long-term contracts because if they go bad over multiple years, the team will be dramatically limited in what it can do, given its limitations, going forward. But the landscape has changed such that pretty much any team has to be willing to take those chances to succeed. (A team like Tampa Bay may be run intelligently enough to be an exception,) Jerry needs to sell the team to someone that does not operate under those constraints, either because he owns 100% of the team or so, or to a small group that can operate much more nimbly, without a concern for their (very) limited partners.
This ownership blows, Jerry is the front man for them and part owner himself. I think it is a crack pipe conspiracy theory that Jerry wants to spend on good free agents and the other owners are what is preventing him from doing that.
In any case this team has one championship in the past century, and that isn’t going to change until they spend money on high quality free agents like the Phillies and other teams that are serious about winning do.
The “conspiracy” theory that you attribute to me is not what I said. But I decline to explain (again) what I did say, because you undoubtedly will not understand it yet again. Maybe next year.
You make a good point, but now you are condescending a little.
I don’t mean to condescend and try to avoid it. On occasion, however, as in the case above, I feel compelled to say that my position has been misstated, but am unwilling to go to the lengths that would be necessary to both respond and explain, given the audience. But I’ll try to be better.
Very well said gibby
Point taken. It’s not *all* Jerry’s fault and the frugality can’t be placed squarely on him.
My point, though, was that the complaints are still justifiable, even if there’s more nuance to be had. I mean, do you really think JR isn’t pulling the strings on TLR? Or do you really think JR couldn’t have signed off on a 10/$300m offer to Machado? I find it hard to believe that JR—and JR alone—couldn’t have changed the course on both of those decisions.
Yeah, I think some complaints are justifiable.. There is no question in my mind, and I have said, that Jerry is wholly responsible for TLR, and that that decision was disastrous. And I also believe that he could have signed off on a 10/300M deal for Machado. But as I said previously, he likely worried that, if it had gone south, the team would have been severely financially limited for the years that the contract was under water. Think the Pujols contract with the Angels, for example. (By the way, personally, I doubt that Machado would have come to the White Sox in any event. Although he may have used the White Sox to get the Padres to up their offer.) My position kind of boils down to the fact that the White Sox are separate from Jerry Reinsdorf, and attempting to equate them and their finances is simplistic and misleading.
Let me take one more, simple shot at explaining my position: Jerry is empowered to act on behalf of the ownership group. If he hypothetically makes a decision that costs the team 200M, it costs him 30-40M. It costs his limited partners 160-170M. And while I doubt that any tag days will be required for his limited partners, they are less able to withstand the loss than Jerry is. That is what I have been talking about as the ownership structure limiting the team’s flexibility. I believe that Reinsdorf takes that responsibility, or fiduciary duty, seriously as any moral person would and that fact contributes substantially to him being unwilling to take substantial risks. It is why I push back against the simplistic “cheap” narrative.. And it is why, as I said above, I believe that he needs to sell to someone who is in a position to own 100% of the team or a small, cohesive group that can do so. But I have no illusions that this explanation will satisfy those who wish simplistically yell “cheap”.
But aren’t you acting like you personally know him and the inner workings by making these claims?
I personally know a number of his investors, which gives me some insight as to the inner workings.
Do you think Jerry’s plan still is to hold on to the team until he passes away? Do you think he can be compelled to sell sooner?
I think Jerry’s plan is to hold on to his money after he passes away.
Ole Jerry is a Viking
I believe that over the past couple of years, some questions have been raised as to how long Jerry wants to hang on to the team. But I have heard nothing definitive and I believe that there are tax ramifications which could affect the decision.
From what I’ve read and generally understand, selling before death is unlikely due to the affect on beneficiaries in his will.
Tax laws are weird, but apparently capital gains tax disappears when someone dies and passes the investment on to someone else. At least that’s the practical explanation. I think a more technical explanation is that capital gains tax is based on the value that has been gained over the tax “basis,” which should be what the asset was worth when the it was acquired. It also isn’t triggered until the investment is sold. So if he sells, there would be capital tax on the entire investment from 1981 (or whenever) until now. But if he passes away and someone else inherits his interest in the team, then the tax “basis” is suddenly considered the value of the asset at the time it passed to the beneficiary — and no one ever pays tax on the capital gained between 1981 and now.
I believe that is accurate. There has been a periodic push to change the tax laws to eliminate that inexplicable treatment of inherited wealth as to capital gains, but so far no luck.
Respectfully disagree. Who was the manager the last two years?
And why on earth would you defend Reinsdorf?
My gosh there was a documentary about MJ on Netflix detailing how he did the exact same thing with those Bulls teams. Cheapskate. MJ was pissed about him not opening up the checkbook to keep that team together for as long as they were on top.
Charles Barkley said it was well known around the NBA how much of a cheapskate Reinsdorf is, so it’s not just those close to him. Not complicated to understand why the Sox have not had much success the past 4 decades, or why this rebuild is a farce.
Blame the other parties in the ownership group, fine, but Jerry is as much a part of the “why” of this team’s sordid failures as any of them.
Why on earth would anybody? It’s not just the complete void of free agents, but the phony media narratives, “the money will be spent”, Nightengale tying the Sox to Verlander or other players. Jerry is a rich phony! I’ll take the word of players who know what’s going on over some poster claiming otherwise because they know Jerry’s associates. I will call bs on that. Give me a break.
See my comment above as to TLR. And I don’t understand anything else that are purporting to raise.
And how funny, you said you have this convo annually. Haha it’s probably with me! 😂😂
Could be. See you next year!
Now that I feel more enlightened about ownership structure, I still feel the same. That it’s incompetent and proves almost annually that they’re really bad at running a winning MLB franchise.
Have they done anything that would lead you to believe otherwise?
I would not argue that they have been well run. The day that LaRussa was hired I said to friends that I had never been so pissed at the team. They wasted two years of an alleged “window”. Since then, the Leury contract was inexplicable. But there’s no need to go on and on. They are in a far worse position right now that they should be and the blame for that is shared.
You seem to keep trying to make the point that there is nuance and subtlety in how the Sox ownership operates. That’s hard to believe because it contradicts the classic H.L. Mencken quote that “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and correct.”
Very well put. If you could go back in time at what the Sox should have done, the answer would have been to sign Springer and Semien. It is not complicated. Nor is the reason they have done nothing since 2020 instead. To believe that it is complicated is to justify excuses for the obvious. On behalf of greedy billionaires no less.
Absolutely, I’d argue go back a few more years and Bryce Harper was the answer to all current problems with this roster. Now I know you saw this comment from me last year, Gibby. Please know, I mean no disrespect. Sometimes it’s difficult to convey tone through written word. If I ruffled your feathers, then at ease fellow Sox fan 🤙🏽. We’re all trudging through this shit show collectively, despite our differing opinions!
No offense taken.
I agree 100% on that one. The Sox were handed Harper on a silver platter and they said no. All the big boys sat out on the Harper sweepstakes. He didn’t want to go to the Phillies. He only cost $23M per year, which is a bargain for an MVP- even though the length of the contract was problematic. He checked every box they need. Lefty- check. Right field- check. Power- check. High OBP- check. And they said no. Inexcusable.
Juxtapose it with Machado who is not only a RH free swinger but the positions he could play were either taken by TA (SS) or the positions (2B and 3B) that you had just used high 1st rd picks to address. Then there’s the immediate term issue of having to keep Moncada at 2B and the serious concerns that would be. This could have been the worst Hahn choice in a long list of bad choices. The problem is clear and simple, the GM or President of Baseball Operations or both are very bad at their jobs.
I hate to sound like I’m backing JR but the primary problem is not Jerry’s cheapness but the continued tolerance of the ineptness in the organization.
No, but there are limitations in how they operate stemming from the ownership structure. Understanding that fact requires that one eliminate bombast and understand the relationship. Love the quote though. And I appreciate your comments generally.
Based on some of the replies to my post, I feel I have to explicitly state that I was being ironic. I do believe there is nuance and subtlety in how the ownership group operates. I believed (apparently mistakenly!) that the actual Mencken quote (“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”) was well-known enough that my intent would be clear. I apologize for the confusion.
I like the accurate quote even better. No apology necessary.
I’m pretty sure the business judgment rule would shield him from any realistic liability from a suit by the other owners: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/business_judgment_rule
If he’s concerned at all (or if his attorneys are concerned) about a free agent hiring and whether it violates any fiduciary duties to other owners, he can protect himself pretty easily by doing things like commissioning reports or analyses that project the investment to be good in the long run (increased fandom from winning, increased attendance, increased merchandise sales, whatever). He would likely also have a meeting or two if possible — I don’t know who else, if anyone, might be on the Board that he could meet with — to show that he was really considering the financial impact of the signing and paying attention to commissioned reports and/or the analyses of his advisors (management, accountants, etc.).
I’m assuming the suit by other owners would be a duty of care suit — a suit alleging violation of duty of good faith would be particularly difficult because he has an obvious financial interest in making signings that do, in fact, improve the bottom line.
Maybe we’re not talking about lawsuits though, and just his own internal moral duty of care. Is the reason they don’t spend on major free agents b/c Reinsdorf is concerned about this moral duty, or b/c Reinsdorf is just generally cheap? He certainly seems to have been just cheap with the Bulls before: telling people that the Bulls in 1998 could not afford to sign Scottie Pippen at market rates (see The Last Dance) and therefore the team that had just won 6 of the prior 8 Championships (and presumably was making quite a lot of money among NBA teams at that time), could not realistically keep the team together for another run — it would be too costly.
Of course, I can’t look into the man’s soul. But I do feel like cheap seems like a pretty fair charge given Reinsdorf’s ownership history.
I do like your stuff! I don’t agree with all of it, and the Bulls are a whole other issue, but you are rational, thought-provoking and insightful. Kudos.
I much appreciate your posts as well. It’s funny, after posting this one I thought maybe I was being a little harsh. But already posted, lol
As an aside, I do not think that Jerry is worried about being sued by his partners. Mu guess is that his written partnership agreement is pretty air tight in the absence of something like embezzlement. It is the second of your alternatives that I think affects him: as you put it, his internal moral duty of care.
I never give a fuck. Not my money and you are supposed to be contending/spending now. Your farm system should be empty, they’re playing for you and your draft position should suck.
I hate that I love this team. I hate that Josh and Jim rule, otherwise I might be able to completely ignore this organization.
To finish off being overdramatic, being a Sox fan is like following Moses into the desert.
Huzzah!
And DeGrom goes down….
5 yrs $185 mil to the Rangers.
Bryan Harper is starting to sound cheap.
The Sox just missed on DeGrom.
And the subtle impact of DeGrom to the Rangers is that he is a right handed starter, and the Sox will probably face him once or twice. So that probably means another loss or two for the Sox, and their “do nothing and hope for rainbows” strategy.
Wondering if the cubs would trade Madrigal back to the white sox for moncada, straight up?
If not , the Sox could throw in Giolito, Anderson, and some cash.
Based on my post being misunderstood above, I’m concerned this one was misunderstood as well. I was being sarcastic in saying the Sox could add Giolito, Anderson, and cash to Moncada in an offer for Madrigal. Again, I apologize for any confusion.
Madrigal has been hurt like 2/3 of the time since his MLB debut. And was mediocre at best last year when he did play. I wouldn’t be more that luke warm if the Sox claimed him off waivers. An (very) oft injured guy with no power and average defense, whose main selling point is that he hits for average while he doesn’t walk much? I will say this, that does sound like a player with the kind of profile and upside that the Sox would be likely to invest in!
The Sox invested the 4th pick in the draft on someone with the same profile.
No, this isn’t fair to Madrigal. Pre-draft and debut, he was supposed to be durable: his only real injury in college was from HBP. He also walked plenty; in college + the minors he had above-average BB% rates, much better than his strikeout rates. He was also supposed to be a plus to double-plus defender and runner per all scouts; in the majors he’s been not that good, just a little above-average on balance in both.
If he’d stayed healthy and played a full season in ‘21 at the level he did before getting so badly hurt, he’d have ridden that draft profile to a robust 3.6 fWAR. That terrible leg injury drastically changed his outlook. It’s totally reasonable to blame the incredibly incompetent White Sox training staff for that injury, but it’s not fair to Madrigal to say he never had a bright outlook.
Very true. Madrigal’s profile now is not the same as when they drafted him. His future looks pretty bleak at this point though. I never liked him as having much upside due to the lack of power, and when I saw that he wasn’t that great defensively, I was not upset when they traded him. Even a perennial .300 hitter who doesn’t walk or hit home runs, and plays only average defense isn’t worth all that much. Not on a team pretending to compete for a championship!
Now that the Sox have brought back Payton we can all quit saying that Hahn isn’t doing anything to push the Sox over the top!
I’d much rather see Payton, who is a lefty hitter with good numbers at AAA last year, in left field than some hapless throw away veteran like they are likely to get. He has power and hits lefty, why not give him a shot? Better than throwing away 5-8M on some scrub when they aren’t going to win anyway. Payton might prove decent and better than who they would get otherwise, who knows.
He could be their 2023 Nicky Delmonico. Success unlikely but I agree they should stop throwing away money on mediocre players that are not difference makers. Either step up and get somebody good, or in this case Payton might be a better choice than throwing away money on a nothing upside junk player.
Are you two the same person? Do you live together? Your comments are always almost identical. It’s weird.
Payton’s projected for 1.3 fWAR in ~420 PA by ZiPS, which is 6th (ouch) for all Sox position players, and Steamer’s even more confident in his bat. Scouting reports and projection systems agree with ZiPS that he’s a perfectly fine 4th OF type. I don’t really see a reason to kvetch about any minor league deal, let alone one for a guy who could be actually somewhat useful— given the generally horrendous depth across the board for this squad— for absolute minimum salary.
If we’re talking left field, Bryan Reynolds has requested the Pirates to trade him. I sure hope Hahn is already on the phone. I wonder what it would take to trade for him ?
Probably Vaughn, Colas, Crochet, Montgomery. Sox don’t have the prospects to make trades that would not take away from their current roster. I hope they don’t make any big trades actually. Would be easier to see Hahn doing something stupid than anything that would be truly beneficial.
I could warm up to the idea of Payton in left and Colas in right. Both left handed hitters who are real outfielders. Improves the outfield defense immediately, by a lot. At no cost. Better than throwing money away on veterans with no upside that we want them to cut by mid season. My biggest fear is them winding up with Gallo. God no.
I like Payton much better as a plan B. Gamble on a one-year for Conforto or Gallo or whoever you like best in that category; if that doesn’t look like it’s working by June, cut bait and hand LF over to Payton. I’m pro-Colas for RF, but he needs a legit plan B dude behind him too, as does Robert for health reasons. If he’s a solid plan B for all three OF spots, then we just need 2/3 of Robert healthy, Colas not struggling, and vet LF not being toast true for a good starting OF– Payton in LF immediately, even if he’s 100% an average MLB OF, means they need 100% of Robert healthy/Colas decent.
We can approximate a number for it. Statistically, if we presume a ~65% chance of each of Robert/Colas/vet LF outcomes being acceptable or better at any one point in time, then a good OF outcome, i.e. no black holes (3/3 good or 2/3 good + Payton) comes out 72% of the time, with a 28% chance of 1/3 or 0/3 good + Payton. Just Payton in LF means a good OF outcome just 42% of the time. This difference looks even worse if we’re more realistic and assume Payton’s going to play acceptably in 80% of scenarios: with a vet LF, they get Good Outfield 63% and Bad Outfield 37%, but without, they get Good Outfield only 34% and Bad Outfield 66%. So signing a vet LF, even a fairly risky one, just about halves their chance of having a black hole in the outfield for a big stretch of the season.
I’ve said before, god no to Gallo. He’s hit .160 the past season and a half in the loaded Yankees/Dodgers lineups. No more players whose last good season was 3 years ago.
I honestly don’t care about their record in 2023. I think so unlikely that they will have a great season, whether they win 75 or 83, it makes no difference to me. Unless they get somebody good with real upside who would be worthwhile to have for multiple years, like Nimmo, I say why bother. I doubt they will outbid other teams for Conforto or Bellinger, which leaves the lowest tier guys for the Sox (as always). Give Payton a shot, he might surprise. I’d rather see him than Gallo for 8M any day. Payton’s upside is higher than what they might get from Gallo, if Gallo is anything like he’s been recently. He has been awful. And Payton costs them nothing.
The Astros gave their SS job to Pena and it worked beautifully. I say give RF to Colas, LF to Payton, and 2b to Sosa. If any of them work out they will know what they need for 2024, and won’t need to address. With Lynn, Grandal, Giolito, Kelly leaving they should have the payroll flexibility to do something smart/meaningful next winter for once. You would hope so, at least.
I’m sorry but the idea that Payton has more upside than Gallo is ridiculous.
Gallo just turned 29, and his WAR over the past 6 years was: 2.8 (2017), 3.1 (2018), 3.2 in only 70 games (2019), 1.0 in 57 games (the short 2020 season, that pace projects to 2.6 in 150 games), 4.2 (2021), 0.6 WAR in 2022.
The man was consistently in the 3-4 WAR range every year from 2017 to 2021. He had a bad year in 2022. You decide because his last year was bad, he doesn’t even have upside anymore. No GM in the history of baseball has ever thought like this or made decisions like this. He will be 29 during the 2023 season, still during his prime years.
I’m taking your “no more” rule and saying the opposite: No more posts where only 2022 matters when evaluating a player, and 2022 alone, no matter what. It makes much more sense than your rule.
What was Payton’s WAR during the past 6 years? Looks to me like he was in the majors for a only a few games in 3 seasons. With a grand total of 40 games played, his overall WAR is -0.5. Negative. Below 0. And Payton is going to be 31 in 2023, two years older than Gallo and two years past his prime years.
Gallo isn’t my first choice for the outfield. But the idea that he’s a worse bet than Payton — it’s hard to know what to say.
I said Payton’s upside might be higher than Gallo if Gallo is anything like he has been recently. His WAR during the last ~ 200+ games since being dealt to the Yankees in 2021 was under 1. Payton has more upside than that. If Gallo performs like he did prior to that of course he is better. If he doesn’t, they wind up spending 8M on somebody who winds up being worse than a guy who they never gave a chance to and who costs them nothing. I’d like to see them get somebody with a WAR higher than 1 in his last season and a half, and who doesn’t seem an awful lot like the ghost of Adam Dunn.
Gallo put up 4.2 fWAR in 2021 while hitting .199! You just gotta avert your eyes to the first part of his triple-slashes. Otherwise, when he’s right he’s basically a healthy LHB Grandal: walking a ton, hitting a ton of dingers, and adding above-average running & corner OF defense. That .199/.351/.458 line from ‘21 isn’t exactly pretty, but it’s effective, and 38 long balls to boot don’t hurt.
I kinda like the idea of signing him bc next year depends extremely on the new hitting coaches getting the lineup to tap into power, which is also what Gallo needs; if they’re successful at it, he adds big lefty pop they need so bad. If they can’t do it, it’s moot.
I am sure Gallo is on the Sox radar and is one of the only guys in their price range. Those of you who would like the Sox to get him could get your wish. I only hope they would do so for left field only, Colas is one of the primary players I’m looking forward to seeing play if they give him the chance.
Yes, I agree with that, I also want to see Colás play pretty much every day so long as he doesn’t look totally overmatched. But I think sticking a former All-Star looking to rebound in LF is perfectly fine as a gamble… given that they’ve already basically announced they’re not doing something actually unilaterally good like signing Brandon fuckin’ Nimmo anyways.
Gallo is so polarizing. If you want him, you can point to the fact that he has elite barrel ability and walk rates at the plate as well as a fantastic jump and arm in the outfield. If you hate him, you just point to the fact that the barrel rate hasn’t resulted in even a mediocre average, his K rate is worst in the league, and his arm/jump didn’t really translate to good defense last year.
It is so infuriating and sad to see Sox fans actually having to talk themselves into this kind of scenario you’re describing during a supposed contention window. A rookie RF that has to produce immediately like what was expected of our other star rookie LF, erm, 1B asked to play a position never played previously. So many stupid f’n decisions- putting players in the worst possible position to succeed on a team in their title contention window. To me if we’re seriously considering this to be the plan for serious contention in the ALC, then it’s time for another rebuild. Tear this shit down. How many years in a row are we gonna bang a head against a brick wall hoping for it to topple over (in regards to hoping for solid play and good health)? Sooo many ‘if’s’ and question marks for a team that should be a perennial powerhouse title contender with the core that was in place. There’s nothing good about how this organization handles any of their business top to bottom. I’m taking my talents (hehe) to a respectable logo to follow if this style of jackassery bleeds into the next regime. Literally the only reason I still follow this logo is hope for the future sans Reinsdorf and his yes man cronies he’s brought aboard over the decades.
Respect the call for the rebuild now. I still think it’s worth a shot before that. In part, I think they still have a shot to compete. But I also think most of our biggest trade value players are either coming off a bad year or finally playing the positions at which they’re most likely to do well, and a strong 1st half would recoup/add a lot of trade value.
But if, after whatever slipshod attempts they make to construct a 2023 roster, the team limps towards the trade deadline below .500 — then it probably will be time to tear it down and trade for prospects while we still have a lot of trade value on the team.
Long rebuild #2, and maybe Reinsdorf and Co. are not here if and when the team starts to have a chance again. I’d feel a bit sorry for Pedro Grifol, but them’s the breaks.
And now that I mention Grifol, it suddenly occurs to me there’s a good chance this scenario has crossed his mind. Maybe he’s thinking, “OK, Pedro, you’ve got the offseason and 3 months of actual play to prove this team can win. Get to work.” Almost inspiring when put that way.
Well put.
I’d be willing to wager the players are no longer inspired to play for the logo across their chest after the last two years. They aren’t blind to the bullshit either. I wouldn’t get too excited about a new year, fresh outlook narrative. Would guess it has turned from a family feel to a: me, myself, and I approach from the players. That never turns out well in organized team sports. Maybe Grifol can relate well with the players, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this goose is cooked and already started to spoil.
Love they finally went outside the org for a shake up in leadership at the field level, but why the hell do we have to source from another unsuccessful organization to succeed the disastrous 2nd stent of TLR? Very apparent they truly give zero fucks about their fan base.
Also, just found out the other day they’d cancelled Soxfest!!?!? Hahahaha hilarious! No accountability. Yet another indicator we fans need to ‘strap it down’ for another uninspiring approach to this offseason. If they had true intentions of making a splash, then arguably they wouldn’t have pulled the plug on the annual event. Writing is on the wall. 😥