SomeGuy

They were in 1st place when one of those signings season ended with an injury.

"They basically won 72 games last year (69 pythag) with career years from Anderson, Moncada, and Giolito that could all see some regression. Expecting them to make the jump to the Twins level is unlikely. It’s not impossible, but they are nowhere close to being the “favorites” to win the central. An 18-win jump to get them to 90 wins is where I would put their ceiling for 2020 and honestly that should be the Twins floor." They got "career years" from players that are 26,24, and 25 years old. I think Breakout Season is a more accurate term for these 3 white Sox players than a career year in their 2nd or 3rd full seasons. Anderson, Moncada, and Giolito should be main cogs for them going forward. A lot of people are saying the Twins aren't done adding yet as the big reason why we shouldn't worry but are the White Sox done? They are still heavily connected to some pretty good outfielders and I wouldn't be surprised if they focus on their bullpen next. Seems like they are connected to more rumors than we are. I don't think the White Sox are favorites to win the ALC but the big wild card in this is their next potential breakout players like Luis Robert, Dylan Cease, Eloy Jimenez, and Michael Kopech, etc. They still have a lot of players on their roster that have the "future star" projection. It seems likely that this group's progression will far outweigh any regression from last years breakouts. These are the players I worry about more than any they have or could add in Free Agency.

Hard to tell how many would be on board to transfer to this service. Seems like a lot of casual fans I know land on the Twins when nothing else is on cable. I just don't see that group of casual fans going out of the way to get the Twins game. What would happen with Wild games and all the other MN sports related content that FSN viewers want? Wouldn't this force everyone to decide what subscriptions they want more, Wild, Twins, Twolves, Gophers, etc. Seems more logical for FSN to make a subscription service tailored to all MN sports. Imagine how many people would abandon the service when the Twins aren't contending too. Or how many people would wait and see if the Twins are good before paying for the year. Would advertisers be okay with such a variable audience number? Plus FSN has 24 hour content, are the Twins going to pay for additional content like the Twins recap programs? Would bars even want this if they can only use it 3 hours a night during the summer. At least with cable they can leave it on FSN all night or switch to Sports Center, etc. I doubt the Twins are the ones to experiment with this model. Maybe someday MLB.tv can get around the local restrictions. Until then I think local cable cutters are out of luck (I am one of them).

I liked our deadline moves in 2018 and still like them now.

The Twins had a 20-12 (.625) record against the AL East. That is right in line with their .623 winning percentage. I think they would be okay. 2nd to the Yankees probably.

Toronto is still a 4th place team in ALE. I believe they will trade pending Free Agents like Giles and chase Anderson at the deadline when the Yankees, Red Sox and Ray's are ahead of them. Aside from Ryu all of their moves are geared towards 20-21. I dont see them making the playoffs in 2020 with the current group. They still have a ways to go. Reminds me of the Reds last year, cool that they want to put a decent team out there but they still aren't good. I think Bichette and Vald jr are forcing their hand when the rebuild wasnt complete.

The Indians won 93 games without Kluber while this improves their bullpen (maybe significantly if Clase can harness the Chapman like velocity/spin) and gives them much needed outfield depth. This frees up 17M for this season, Santana probably leaves next offseason freeing up another 20M. The Indians suddenly have some spending money. I don't think they are rebuilding judging by how they insisted that they get 2020 ready players in return. They probably could have gotten a much better prospect who was further out from being ready. I think they keep Lindor for at least one more season. It will be interesting to see what happens next. The Indians can compete with this team and some additions are likely. "With the way the finances in this deal work," Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said, "we will have more resources available to re-invest in our team and that's our expectation here as we head on into the rest of the winter is that we will continue to look for avenues to improve our Major League team, both in trades and in free agency." the team sits just north of $90 million for next season. Last offseason, they decided to open the year with a $119.6 million payroll, which they felt was a more sustainable figure. If that is the sustainable mark, Cleveland now has some wiggle room with its budget and the club has indicated that it isn't just going to sit on the extra $17 million it now has lying around.

The starting pitchers did their part. Odorizzi left at 82 pitches by the way, being pulled in that situation is out of his control. Saying that we can't win with those results from our starters is false.

But we got nice starts from the returning Berrios and Odorizzi in games 1 and 3. Combined 3 earned runs against the best offense. And our hottest starting pitcher was serving a suspension.

The A's have 2 guaranteed contracts for 2021 for a combined 22M. If they want to trim payroll for the 2020 season they won't do it with a player making about 580K. They just trimmed about 11.8M by non tendering 3 players and another 5.8M with the Profar trade. Do they need to do more? They were already pretty close to last years payroll before this, if anything they can probably add a couple players now. I don't see them trading a player who was top 10 in MVP votes 2 years in a row when he is on a minimum salary. Might be a different story for years 2 or 3 of arbitration. I think he is in Oakland for 2020 and probably 2021 too.

Giolito only has one other full season to compare last season to. He was drafted 16th overall (called the best pitcher of his draft but had a recent injury) and was once the #3 prospect in MLB. He hasn't been meh his entire career, he just had a minor adjustment period. Ace has always been his projection.

Alex Wood would be my pick for a rebound/underrated candidate. Injured most of 2019 but has been consistently good for 6 seasons before that. One of the younger free agent starters and a lefty. 2013-2018 3.29 ERA and 3.36 FIP 2016-2018 3.29 ERA and 3.39 FIP

Where do they go from here? In my opinion they still need at least one veteran SP and one OF. They could also stand to upgrade at 2B (or 3rd if Moncada moves to 2nd) and a semi full time DH would help too even if its another cheap Alonso type signing. The bullpen had a 4.69 FIP and xFIP in 2019 so a signing or two there wouldn't hurt either. Pretty long shopping list. They might not go full contender in 2020 but this was a nice signing that definitely helps. Something like Ryu, Puig and a few budget replacements elsewhere (or a similar combination of talent) would put them in a decent spot though.

Grandal played 1B for 20 games last year and has DH as an option for the first time in his career. I think he contributes to more than 2/3 of the games. He had 632 Plate appearances without the DH last year. And with the way McCann wore down last season, he could be very good in a limited role. 1st half .316/.371/.502 2nd half .226/.281/.413

Is it possible that Lynn was still rebounding from the missed season? FIP 2015 3.44 2016 Did not pitch 2017 4.82 2018 3.84 (4.72 with Twins) 2019 3.13 xFIP 2015 3.90 2016 - 2017 4.75 2018 3.98 (4.49 with Twins) 2019 3.85 And technically the Twins did fix him before the Yankee turnaround. According to Alston, Lynn moved a little closer to the third-base side on the pitching rubber. He also made slight alterations in the way his right foot contacted the slab -- "so he can get into his glutes a little bit more" -- as well as the way his left foot moved toward home plate. Stride length wasn't the issue, Alston and his team determined, so much as the way Lynn's hips worked. "What it allowed him to do was make sure he was connected properly from his top half to his bottom half," Alston said. "That allows the ball to stay on plane just a little bit longer." That should be easy enough to track with Statcast™ data. Did Lynn really move on the rubber in the way that he and Alston said? The answer is yes, noticeably so. With the Twins, Lynn was releasing the ball an average of two feet to the right of the center of the rubber. With the Yankees, that increased to 2.6 feet, so an increase of nearly half a foot. https://www.mlb.com/news/lance-lynn-changes-make-interesting-free-agent-c301119518

"We didn’t know that Major League Baseball was going to juice the pill for 2019, but it helped a guy like Schoop to launch dingers at a relatively significant rate." I don't think we can say Schoop hit 23 homeruns solely because of the baseball. He hit 23 in 433 AB. That is pretty much the same as his 2017 32 in 622 AB (5.3% vs 5.1%). The "juiced ball" is a crutch that isn't really used in a balanced matter. Schoop hit homeruns at a close clip to what he has done in the past but he is seen as a juiced ball beneficiary. While Garver more than quadrupled his homerun rate from his previous high (2.3% vs 9.9%) and the baseball is never mentioned in describing his breakout. I'm guessing the baseball had very little to do in either case but it seems to only be used to enforce beliefs that people already had about players..."At the time of his signing I wasn’t too terribly interested in the pact."

We don't need to sign multiple starters every year. We just don't need to set our 2021-2023 rotations now. My plan had one multi year signing this offseason and one next offseason. Actually pretty similar to the Astro's plan of getting one starter per season, Verlander in 17, Cole in 18, Grienke in 19. Or the Yankees getting Happ in 2018 and Paxton in 2019. Can you find an example of a team acquiring 3-4 good starting pitchers on long term deals in one offseason? We already got Odorizzi on a 1 year deal. Look for us to add or acquire one multi year deal and another 1 year deal.

Technically they can afford to be in this position again next year since they wouldn't be hampered with the multi year deals. Hopefully by this time next year we will know if any of Dubnak, Smeltzer, Graterol, etc. are going to be reliable rotation pieces. We could sign 2 one year deals (probably a multi year deal in there too) and reevaluate this issue again next year when guys like Paxton, Bauer, Robbie Ray, Stroman, and Tanaka are set to be available. Maybe grab one multi year deal now and another multi year deal then. It could be a rotation of Berrios, Multi year deal, one year deal, one year deal, Prospects. Something like Berrios, Wheeler (or Odorizzi or Bumgarner), Hamels, Porcello (or Alex Wood), Graterol.

Your argument that they already have Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray until 2024 and 3 of their top 4 prospects are pitchers doesn't really do much for 2020. Only one of those prospects (the worst ranked one) has pitched at AA. Their top prospect missed all of 2019 with Tommy John and has a career 6.12 ERA between Rookie and A+. The other prospect has 18.1 career innings between rookie and A. The Reds shouldn't go into 2020 (or 2021) with plans to use any of these prospects. They can get a poor fielding/decent hitting outfielder without losing a rotation piece, there are a bunch of these players in FA. I doubt they would be excited about Gordon or Blankenhorn and neither player helps their 2020 win now expectations. I don't really want us to pursue Bauer but I think the Reds would pass on this offer.

He's had one good season. It was his lone sub 4 ERA and his FIP supports that. From 2014 -2017 he was a 4.30 ERA, 4.04 FIP pitcher and 2019 was 4.48 ERA, 4.34 FIP. With one year left and about an 18M price tag, I wouldn't give up anything for him. There are much better options for the rotation. He's like Archer, potential rarely matches results. Isn't worth gambling on one season.

Toronto (of all teams) has already sat down with Odorizzi's agents. If this is an indication of how many teams will be interested, maybe he won't be accepting that QO.

Nelson Cruz is an easy regression pick for me. Career high in OPS at 39 years old, highest BA since 2010, highest OBP since 2008.

Not really interested in trading that much for one year of Betts and obtaining Price's 32M per year for 3 seasons. Not that I think Price is bad, I think he is overpaid and in decline. That is a lot of money for someone that will be 37 by the end of the deal. There are better options for the rotation. I would put Boston firmly in the win category on that trade.

I do think they make a couple trades but nothing close to "fire sale" status. Epstein says they are not blowing it up. They view 2020 as a competitive season. They might trade one of Rizzo, Bryant, Contreras or Baez. My prediction is that Schwarber and one of the above are traded. They would free up some money for FA and bring a lot of talent back.

I disagree with the frugal comment. The White Sox have been a top 10 payroll team multiple times in the last decade and even a top 5. The fact that they were even interested in Machado and Harper says they have more capital potential than us. They have a much better shot at landing someone like Cole, Strasburg or Rendon than the Twins do. Saying that they had a low payroll the last 3 years, when they had no intentions of winning, is not representative of what a White Sox "trying to win" team will look like. The Astros were 29th or 30th in payroll for 4 straight seasons from 2013 - 2016. Now Houston has about 200M in payroll. Rebuilding teams don't pay for players until they are at the end of the rebuild and the White Sox have reached that point. Like the Twins, they have no long term/high dollar commitments and loads of talented youth. The White Sox are in a good position to do some major spending soon. I expect them to be serious bidders in FA this year, more so than the Twins. They might not be serious contenders until 2021 or later but they should start spending now.