Great. Sounds like either he is too expensive or the White Sox want to wait for the deadline when he will probably cost more. It is a risk on their part considering his attitude last year. He or Lowe would make us WS contenders for the next 3 years in my opinion.
Also, Ryan Pressly has a no-trade clause which he would almost certainly invoke to block any trade to the lowly White Sox
Almost sure? The payroll for the tax isn’t set until the end of the year, and I thought it was based upon who was on the roster at the time- but it could be an odd hybrid.
Warmly welcome Sam Haggerty to the outfield? The Astros offered him a contract last week (Rangers too).
Well since you brought him up, I thought you might be kind enough to answer, but I looked him up and still don't know why you even mentioned him. Is he your brother or a friend of your nephew's friend?
To me there are 5 free agents that still make sense for Houston given their assumed remaining budget: Joc Pederson: one of the 10 best hitters in the league against RHP; is a liability in LF Alex Verdugo: very good career #s against RHP, doesn’t k much, solid defensive LF; coming off a bad year Jorge Polanco: very good hitter against RHP and offers some ability to play IF; coming off a bad year and would need to learn LF on the fly Jesse Winker: extremely good hitter against RHP; below average defensive LF, potential attitude problems Justin Turner: still crushes righties, can probably serve as backup to 1B and 3B, good clubhouse influence; 40 years old, no experience in LF I will be interested to see how much each of those guys signs for and how they perform next season. Pederson may end up outside the price range but I bet at least one of those guys will sign for <$8m/1yr. I don’t see any other free agents as a good fit, so if they don’t sign one of those guys then hopefully they make a trade.
As much as I hate him, Turner would be an interesting bench bat. I like Polanco and Winker of the ones you listed.
It would be great if Dana could sign either Pederson or Verdugo and trade for Robert. They can make enough salary room to do these two things.
Verdugo was bad last year, and even at his best is only a 110-115 type hitter. But he plays a very good defense in both Left and Right. As long as he's the 6th -9th best hitter on a team he's worth a shot at a prove it reduced cost.