notin

Until they rise up and enslave us all...

With a lot of snow outs...

What is the fascination with Jake Marisnick? He topped a .700 OPS one time in his career and needed to cheat to do it. The Sox would be better off with Albert Almora or Kevin Pillar...

No but we still could make it more fun...

The L-R-L strategy was always silly, and a negative contributor to game pacing. But it could actually be important now. It used to have the effect of having the LOOGY come in for one hitter and then leave the game. Or two hitters if they were both lefties. But now he is in for 3 batters minimum, so having a RHH in there makes sure that LOOGY has to face a right handed hitter in between the lefties...

The Sox won in 2018 without a healthy Sale for the entire second half...

They appear to be going for it in 2021 as they acquired short-timer Lance Lynn, but (yes, the unofficial) Roster Resource lists their starting LF as Adam Engel, whose only real attribute is CF defense, so he brings very little tothe table as a starting LF. Eloy Jimenez is listed as their starting DH, and while they could easily move him to LF and fill thatthe DH role with someone like Renato Nunez or Jose Martinez or Yoenis Cespedes or any of a few other options, they have not exactly done so, despite having an otherwise aggressive (by 2020-21 standards) off-season. Maybe that is their ultimate plan, but upgrading LF over the weak-hitting Engel is certainly another possibility. Other potential DHs on their current roster are actually very weak as their bench (again, per Roster Resource) apparently has Danny Mendick, Leury Garcia and someone named Micker Adolfo, whose minor league stats indicate he is not an MLB bench candidate due to his offensive prowess. Adding a LF (or DH) and replacing Adolfo on the bench with Engel seems like a better solution for a better overall team. No idea on their budget, but with Kyle Schwarber going for $10mill, Benintendi does look like a cheaper alternative. And they have solid SP depth with the very underrated Reynaldo Lopez slated for the bullpen. A swap centering around Benintendi and Lopez does work for both teams...

Reportedly the Astros and A's are still in. And I would think the White Sox and Cleveland Baseball Team also make a ton of sense....

The Sox shouldn't let Sale make more than 12 starts and maybe 60 innings. Of course, there is no guarantee he joins the rotation immediately after coming back, either.

Chavis has played all of 421 innings at 2B, or roughly a little over a quarter of a season, spread out over 2 years. It seems a tad early to call his defense there "horrific"....

It's ok with me if you want to...

God I hope not. It took the guy five weeks just to get on a mound and throw a few pitches. Think he is going to mull through 15-20 offers faster than that?

I was thinking that is crazy, but probably not true. In a market where Kyle Schwarber can get 1 yr/$10mil, Pederson should be get a deal with a similar AAV. Both are coming off bad years at the plate. Schwarber is younger (albeit not much) but Pederson is the better overall player. But the good news for the Sox is Benintendi is younger and cheaper than both of them, which does help his trade value in the face of his awful performances lately...

Also Rosario. Since August 19, 2019, Benintedi is slashing .136/.267/.189 for an extremely unimpressive .456 OPS. Granted, this only covers 161 plate appearances, and is maybe about a quarter of a season's worth of games. And Hunter Renfroe, the current in-house replacement, was not much better last year (.156/.252/.393) in 139 PA's. Maybe the Sox get a lefty platoon guy like Joc Pederson?

While true, we don't exactly know what the return will be, if there even is any...

So think this is a subtle campaign for his own return?

Well he is clearly invovled in this whole Benintedi scenario.

It eould not be shocking at all. I would say a spending/trading spree from Bloom is far, far more likely than a trade of Devers. Trading Benintendi is not really a rebuilding more to me. Maybe Bloom, who probably knows Benintendi or has met him, and has a vastly different opinion of him than we do, sees this as more of a sell now as opposed to a sell low. Chris Archer was not exactly peaking when he dealt him away, and it certainly proved to be the right move.

So far the interested teams list is: Houston Astros, Oakland Athletics, Pittsburgh Pirates Teams that were in or rumored to be in but are not anymore: Texas Rangers, Miami Marlins Teams that should be in but are not mentioned anywhere: Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins, Seattle Mariners, Atlanta Braves, and Chicago Cubs. Maybe half of those teams will get (or have been) involved in talks. We shall see what goes anywhere...

It would not surprise me if Barnes was dealt this off-season. But I hardly consider moving him to be a fire sale. The thing is, when GMs build, they appear to me to have "foundation players" and "supplementary players." (My terminology, probably not theirs.) Foundation players they build a team around, and they do so with supplementary players. As Devers is a controllable foundation, why move him just yet? Bogaerts? Probably a wait and see approach, but dealing him is probably unwise because of the pending shortstop FA market. Why would anyone unload the farm system in order to acquire a player for what will probably be slightly less than they can sign Trevor Story for a couple months later? His value won't really exist until after the "Shortstop Free Agent Bonanza" (also my terminology) of 2021-22 has settled and some teams are still looking for one. (And if not for the opt out, Bogaerts would also be a foundation player himself.) I could see Bloom unloading a few players, notably Barnes and (obviously) Benintendi. But the other short term expendables like Eovaldi and Martinez are going to be too difficult to move anywhere, due to their lucrative deals. So if Bloom knows he is going to be stuck with these players, and because Henry clearly does not like rebuilding, I would not expect Bloom to unload all his talent for prospects as some ego-building venture. I think a lot of this specualtion was that the team did basically nothing before 2020 in an atetmpt to reset the tax. But this was not a new thing either, as Henry had Cherington do basically nothing prior to 2012, an off-season where Ben was so hamstrung by the finances, he had to trade away Marco Scutaro just to accommodate career 4th outfielder Cody Ross. But that lasted all of one off-season, and BC had a spending spree before the 2013 off-season...

If that is the case, the Sox would be looking to move ERod and Barnes ASAP. Much higher priority than Devers or Bogaerts. But more than likely, that is not the case. Even when the Sox were a bad team in 2012 thru 2015, the team did not rebulld, and Henry saw firsthand how quickly they could go from worst to first. And Bloom did not even use that approach in low budget Tampa with any success. He traded away Wil Myers for nothing much, and probably regrets not holding on to Trea Turner in that one. And Odorizzi for nothing much, but Odorizzi was entering his second arb year and might have been getting too pricey. He dealt a year and a half of David Price for Willy Adames, Drew Smyly and a then-highly rated Nick Franklin. But Price was also going to cost a lot and everyone knew it. (Especially Sox fans.) Adames has cetainly worked out, but Smyly was another mega-talent who could not and still cannot stay on the field. And he made a great deal for a declining Chris Archer, getting Glasnow and Meadows. Archer had a very favorable deal, but there was no denying this was a great move. And the "prospects" he got for Archer had all already reached MLB. He dumped the Longoria deal, which was a good thing, and managed to at least get a former first round pick (Christian Arroyo) out of it. But this was a clear salary dump...

Which is all relative. Reynaldo Lopez is the 6th starter for the White Sox, but he might be the second starter for the Sox, at least until Sale comes back...

Roster Resource has him as their DH. But really, only Tony LaRussa knows for sure. And with LaRussa, anything is possible...

I am not saying he isn't. Just saying I have no idea how in-depth any of the Vazquez/Tampa rumors were.

Yeah I think anyone who wants Velasquez might find him easier to get. This deal would be two teams selling low. Now also on BTV, the Sox could deal Benintendi to Miami for Cory Dickerson and Elieser Hernandez. Hernandez is one of those guy I listed way back when as an undervalued starter who could break out in a big way. That deal I would I jump at. Of course, Miami might value Hernandez even more than I do. Thje White Sox might be the best place to look as they have a surplus of starting pitching and Adam Engel slated to play LF. And Reynaldo Lopez is another pitcher who could and should break out soon and is not even in their opening day rotation...