Bruce Levine is the top local reporter in the Chicago baseball market. He is on the radio right now stating that the White Sox will trade Chris Sale and that the Nationals and Astros are the two teams taking actively with the White Sox. He also said that the thought is that the Nationals will be more willing to gut their farm system than Houston to get Sale. The Nationals have increased their offers and seem intent on getting Sale. Levine said the issue for the White Sox GM (Hahn) is to know when enough is enough, to know when the offers are not going to get any better and to take the best deal before teams look elsewhere. If the Nationals decide to look elsewhere, the market for Sale will dip substantially. Off point but he discussed the Cubs and Rays discussing Baez and other pieces for Archer.
Man, it's so tempting to "go all in" for an ace and have a 2 -3 year window with someone like Sale, Keuchel, McCullers, Musgrove... and the line up we have.... the concern of sustained success though makes it hard to trade the farm.... idk what I'd do.... good thing I'm not in charge.
Trading the farm is a problem if (and only if) you have a front office/owner that is both incapable of drafting well and incapable of investing resources into the draft to entice players away from college commitments. The fact remains that even with trading the farm, the Astros are pretty set at more than half of the "key" positions with club-controlled players... and the ones they aren't set with, they've now attempted to acquire via free agency and trades. There is enough time to allow this window to declare itself, trade key farm pieces for "win-now" type pitchers, let the window play out, and then (if the drafts continue to go well), supplement the big league roster with guys who by then will be further developed. The Cardinals traded top prospects for years to acquire key pieces when needed (McGwire, Edmonds, Rolen, Holliday). There's also the fact that no matter how much young MLB talent you have... you HAVE to have quality starting pitching as well. The lack of an ace-level starter could effectively render this 'window' null and void.
Question for you old geezers: What was the consensus on the '98 prospects in the Big Unit trade? Carlos Guillen, Freddy Garcia, and John Halama had solid careers, but what type of haul would that be today? Obviously it was only a half season, but would they be synonymous to Martes, Reed, Fisher, + 1 more? Or is it not comparable because the price just gone up astronomically?
He won't get that much from anybody for just 10 years... even more doubtful with new CBA tax limits. Being discussed in the MLB thread.
Well if they get Sale I'm sure someone in the everyday lineup will traded. My guess is Springer since I just can't the the Astros trading Bregman. But if the White Sox want to raid the farm system only so be it
Yeah. I actually don't think it's that crazy considering he'll be a FA at age 25. That, and it accounts for inflation somewhat because the deal is so long. I could see NYY or LAD signing him to something in that ballpark...maybe not 400MM, though. But yeah, that's absurd. He would absolutely MASH with the short porch in RF in NYY.
The Nat's are as strong at the top of the rotation as any team in the league. Wonder why they've got such a hardon for Chris Sale.
Very tough indeed. People argue like there is a right or wrong answer, but its all based on opinion. My opinion is that we did not endure such a long and brutal rebuild period for just a 2-3 year window of success. That being said, the team is good enough to win right now, and the ultimate goal is to win a championship so you gotta spend big at some point. I like what the FO is doing thus far. Being aggressive while not sacrificing the farm system, AKA your future, in the process.
Word is they think they'll lose Harper in two yrs, and they're going all in to try and win it all while they have him.
Infatuation with starting pitchers. One Tommy John from being worse off than year prior. I've always liked teams that were more balanced.
That's a different argument. Again, if there's a better option at DH, great. The question here was whether, in general, we're willing to play the backup C at DH and risk the chance of an injury to your starting catcher. A better comparison is last year, when we didn't have a better DH. And the Astros were more than willing to play Gattis and Castro at the same time, for good reason.
from what I remember, Guillen and Garcia were regarded as absolute studs. I felt like it was a stud who was still a kid in Guillen (K Tucker?), and a stud who was ready to prove it in Garcia (Martes?), and Halama felt like he was a very solid middle guy with upside (Musgrove?). Halama didn't pan out that way at all, but I remember thinking he was going to be way better than he turned out to be. That seems excessive for a rental, esp because I think K Tucker is regarded a little more highly than Guillen was, but I don't know if I see the right comp at the right age otherwise.
Tolliver has two options left, so he can be shuffled back and forth from AAA. I hope the Astros still sign/deal for an elite LH reliever like Boone Logan. Make an open competition for the second LH relief spot with Sipp, Chapman, Guduan and Tolliver.
Halama was a very good slop-balling AAAA lefty. Garcia was a bona fide stud, Guillen was a great talent without a definite position (could he play SS? was he a 2B, LF?)
