444 replies to this topic

[TwentyThirtyFive]

21 in row!!! Go for the AL record alone tomorrow

[mdrunning]

21 in row!!! Go for the AL record alone tomorrow

From the highlights, it appeared as if maybe 400 people witnessed it in person.

[BSLRoseKatz]

They won!

[Grindelwald]

100 loss last night. Not even September.

[Grindelwald]

Guess I should have put the line at 40 wins.

[Grindelwald]

Under is officially the winner. They can’t win more than 43 games. Tied the ‘03 Tigers in the loss column.

[BSLRoseKatz]

They just swept the Angels

[BSLChrisStoner]

CBS Sports: Trade grades: Crochet an A move for Red Sox; White Sox get B return

[BSLChrisStoner]

ESPN: Why Luis Robert Jr. could be at center of MLB trade deadline

https://www.espn.com...icago-white-sox

[mdrunning]

Japanese homerun king Munetaka Murakami signs with the White Sox.

 

He had until 5 pm on December 22 to sign, so something figured to break soon. I guess the good thing about signing with the White Sox is he'll have more time to visit family and friends back in Japan come October.

[Mackus]

MLBTR and Fangraphs both had predicted huge deals for him. Seems the league had way bigger reservations about his red flags. This is basically no interest.

[TwentyThirtyFive]

Exactly. Essentially no market for him. There were apparently multiple red flags in his profile

[mdrunning]

Murakami is unquestionably the highest-risk, highest-reward of the free agents. Prodigious power, but also has an alarming 29 percent K rate over the past three seasons. That probably made it difficult for teams to imagine he'd make better contact against superior MLB arms stateside. Also barely has the adequate range and arm for third base, but he's also only 25, so there could be potential for improvement.

 

Yahoo Sports had him rated sixth-highest among the available position players in free agency.

[BobPhelan]

K rate for Japanese hitters tends to rise by 1.5x when the move to MLB so unless they’re able to do some serious work he’s looking at something around 40%. Serious power tho.

[RichardZ]

Sounds like Joey Gallo on the down slope.

[Mackus]

Acquired Jordan Hicks, $8M of the $25M still owed him and Red Sox prospect David Sandlin who was Boston's #8 prospect according to Pipeline (end of '25, not yet released their '26 list) for Gage Ziehl who was Chicago's #14 prospect.

 

We haven't had a ton of examples of the cash value of a prospect, but this is the type of trade where you can try to deduce.  Hicks was close to zero value after putting up a near 7 ERA last season.  Maybe someone would spend a few million on him hoping for a bounce back to being a valuable relief pitcher.  So the White Sox must think the delta between Sandlin and Ziehl is worth $12-15M.  Sandlin is about to be 25 and only reached AAA last year.  Strong K and BB numbers but gives up tons of homers.  This isn't a stud, but still they put a decent financial valuation on him.

 

EDIT: Baseball America recently ranked Sandlin #11 in Boston and Ziehl #21 in Chicago.

[dude]

Acquired Jordan Hicks, $8M of the $25M still owed him and Red Sox prospect David Sandlin who was Boston's #8 prospect according to Pipeline (end of '25, not yet released their '26 list) for Gage Ziehl who was Chicago's #14 prospect.

Apparently Craig Breslow has compromising information on Chris Getz.

They ate 16M of, not a guy with no value, but a guy with big negative value for about 10 spots difference (depending on the outlets, Pipeline had Sandlin at #8 and the other guy at #21).

If you think Hicks has something left, whatever, but why pay that to get that value....

Now....try to lineup something similar for O'Neill. Orioles trade O'Neill, Levi Wells (#11) and 12M to the Rangers for Daulton Pence (#25)...done, right?

[Mackus]

Yes, exactly what I said. They paid $12-15M to upgrade from Ziehl to Sandlin. This doesn't tell us raw valuations of either, but it does give us a delta. You cant get org top-30 guys for free, but by the tail end they can't cost too much. I'll venture a guess at about $8M for Ziehl and $20M for Sandlin.

[Mackus]

O's don't have a financial reason to include a prospect to dump O'Neill. We're not up against any threshold that any of us are aware of. Red Sox were over the 2nd luxury tax before this deal, now they're under it. That's why they were willing to do it.

Format makes sense, but O's don't have the same motivation as the Red Sox.

[dude]

Format makes sense, but O's don't have the same motivation as the Red Sox.

 

My motivation would I don't want him on the team.  I'd be good if they just released him, they aren't going to do that, but when you see the Red Sox painlessly getting rid of most of a terrible contract, ugh.