What’s next in the Dylan Cease trade talks? 3 questions for Chicago White Sox after the winter meetings.

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The Chicago White Sox chipped away at their offseason plans during the winter meetings.

“We were able to get some things done,” general manager Chris Getz said Wednesday. “We got someone for our rotation and we’ve got a weapon here with our Rule 5 pick. We laid a foundation for the potential of bringing in guys in certain capacities.

“I know a lot of people are disappointed more business would have been conducted here around the league. But we’re still moving the needle.”

Right-hander Erick Fedde is the addition to the rotation after coming to terms on a two-year, $15 million deal Tuesday. On Wednesday the Sox selected lefty Shane Drohan during the Rule 5 draft.

Meeting with reporters shortly after the Rule 5 draft, Getz addressed how close the Sox were to their next move.

“I wouldn’t say that we feel like we’re knocking on the door of something,” Getz said, “but it’s more getting a better idea of where we stand, whether it be acquiring a guy through free agency or trade.

“I will say we’re very organized. We’ve done a nice job this offseason with setting out a plan and feel really good about where we’re at so far. We want to continue to capture the momentum.”

Here are three questions after the winter meetings.

1. What’s next in the Dylan Cease trade talks?

The Sox weren’t going to rush into making a trade, such as moving Dylan Cease.

They left the winter meetings with one of the top pitchers mentioned in trade talks still on their roster.

“Everyone knows how impactful Dylan Cease is in this league,” Getz said. “But you have a certain threshold as an organization on a return on someone like Dylan Cease. And if there’s an opportunity to strengthen our club and plug some holes, which we need to do and continue to look for opportunities to do that, we have to consider it.”

Getz knows trade speculation can be challenging for players.

“I know he’s been reading his name in there, and that at times can be a little bit different feeling,” Getz said. “But he’s been traded before (going from the Cubs organization to the Sox in 2017). But he’s at a different stage in his career and Dylan’s really grown up, and he knows how I feel about him. He knows how the organization feels about him.

“He’s one of the stars in our game and we’ve really enjoyed having him. There’s certainly a chance he’s back with us and we’d feel pretty good about that too.”

2. How does the Erick Fedde signing influence the rest of the offseason?

Last month the Sox acquired Michael Soroka and Jared Shuster as part of the trade that sent reliever Aaron Bummer to the Atlanta Braves.

On Tuesday the Sox signed Fedde. Getz said starting pitching remains a “high priority” this offseason.

“We’ve got some innings to cover,” Getz said, “and we’re going to try to get the best pitchers we can within the means that we have.”

Fedde earned MVP honors in the Korea Baseball Organization after going 20-6 with a 2.00 ERA in 30 starts in 2023 for the NC Dinos.

Getz believes Fedde has the chance to aid the Sox in multiple ways.

“Makeup, work ethic, the awareness that he needed to make a change,” Getz said. “And not only did he understand he needed to make that change, but he went out and did it. We’re talking about a former first-rounder, a guy that has made countless starts at the major-league level (with the Washington Nationals from 2017-22).

“So he understands what it was going to take, and he was very intentional with the changes he made. And most importantly, he was able to execute.”

3. What made Shane Drohan an attractive option in the Rule 5 draft?

Seventy-three of Drohan’s 77 career outings in the minors have been starts.

Getz said the lefty wouldn’t necessarily have to be in the rotation.

“There’s also versatility there. That’s what made him attractive,” Getz said. “There are enough weapons there with his pitch mix — and that’s something we identified as well is his attack plan. We feel like there’s some tweaks to it to really optimize what he has.”

Drohan went 5-0 with a 1.32 ERA in six starts for Double-A Portland in the Boston Red Sox farm system in 2023. But he had a 6.47 ERA while going 5-7 in 21 outings (19 starts) at Triple-A Worcester.

“At Double A, he was off and running pretty well, and then when he got up to Triple A, he slid a little bit,” Getz said. “Whether that was a fatigue factor — I know we dealt with it, a lot of pitchers going from Double A to Triple A with the ABS (automated ball-strike) system, it kind of altered their performance just because it was a different pitching environment.

“Obviously these things are bets, but there’s enough support and indicators to think that there’s potential here.”

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Coon Rapids pedestrian dead after being struck twice while crossing roadway

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Authorities are investigating after a pedestrian was fatally struck Wednesday night in Coon Rapids.

According to the Anoka County sheriff’s office, rescuers were summoned to Coon Rapids Boulevard Northwest and 111th Avenue Northwest shortly after 8 p.m. on a report of a motor vehicle-pedestrian collision.

Investigators believe that a female pedestrian was crossing Coon Rapids Boulevard when she was struck by a westbound vehicle. The victim was then struck again by a second westbound vehicle.

The victim, who was not immediately identified, was later declared dead at an area hospital.

The men who were driving the vehicles were not injured and are cooperating with investigators, the sheriff’s office said.

The incident remains under investigation by the Anoka County sheriff’s office, Coon Rapids police, Minnesota State Patrol and Anoka County medical examiners.

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3 things we learned from the Chicago Bears, including Robbie Gould’s retirement and DJ Moore on wanting Justin Fields to stay

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Chicago Bears coordinators spoke with reporters Thursday at Halas Hall as the team prepares for Sunday’s game against the Detroit Lions at Soldier Field.

Here are three things we learned.

1. Special teams coordinator Richard Hightower congratulated kicker Robbie Gould on ‘a hell of a career.’

Gould, 41, announced his retirement Thursday after 18 NFL seasons in a letter in The Players’ Tribune. He’s the Bears’ all-time leading scorer with 1,207 points in 166 games over his first 11 seasons.

He also played one season with the New York Giants and spent the last six years of his career with the San Francisco 49ers, playing for current Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower.

“Great competitor. Clutch in big moments when we needed him to be. Consistent,” Hightower said. “(He) means a lot to the city of Chicago. … Wishing him the best in the next phase of his life. And I know if he attacks that the way he attacked his career, he’s going to be super successful at that as well.”

Gould made 86.5% of his career field-goal attempts and 97.5% of his extra-point attempts in the regular season. He ranks eighth in NFL history with 447 field goals and 10th with 1,961 points.

He never missed a kick in the postseason (29 field goals, 39 extra points) and played in two Super Bowls with the Bears and 49ers but didn’t get a win.

In his letter, Gould said his favorite kick came in January 2022 in a playoff game against the Green Bay Packers. He made a 45-yarder as time expired to send the 49ers to the NFC championship game, which Hightower called “a special moment.”

“To hit a huge kick like that, on the big stage, to continue my streak of never missing a kick in the playoffs and to also make all of Chicago happy in the process by taking down its rival?” Gould wrote. “It was the best of both worlds.”

An undrafted free agent out of Penn State, Gould received the call to join the Bears while working a construction job in Pennsylvania in 2005. He went on to become a key figure on some of the better Bears teams of this century and ranked 74th on the Tribune’s 2019 list of the 100 best Bears players.

Gould’s time with the Bears came to an end in 2016 when former general manager Ryan Pace cut him before the season. While Gould went on to have two of the best seasons of his career in San Francisco, the Bears struggled to find a reliable kicker for years after that until Cairo Santos arrived in 2020.

But despite the rough ending to their marriage, Gould spoke in his letter of his love for the team and the city.

“From start to finish, I loved everything about my time in Chicago,” Gould said. “Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo created a team-first culture by assembling a locker room full of future Hall of Famers. To be able to go to work every day surrounded by guys like Brian Urlacher, Julius Peppers, Olin Kreutz, Roberto Garza, Charles Tillman, Lance Briggs and dozens of other first-rate guys — it was the best football home imaginable. We had some deep playoff runs, and we made a ton of memories.

“The McCaskey family gave me the opportunity to live out my childhood dream, and it was an honor to play for them. Ultimately, I hope that we made Bears fans proud. They deserve it.”

2. DJ Moore said of Justin Fields: ‘We want him here.’

Moore was asked about how Fields has handled the speculation about his future in Chicago.

Fields addressed the topic of the Bears potentially moving on at quarterback Wednesday, saying he is “just focused on what I can control, and the rest is in God’s hands.”

Moore, who has 70 catches for 1,003 yards and six touchdowns through 12 games, offered a similar sentiment.

“You really can’t do too much but go out there and be yourself, and he’s a dynamic player, dynamic quarterback,” Moore said. “We want him here. I’ve been having a great year with him, so that should speak volumes. Just leave what they do upstairs, upstairs at the end of the day.”

Despite the offense’s inconsistency this season, Fields and Moore haven’t had trouble connecting. Moore is on pace to have the best season of his career. His high was 1,193 receiving yards in 2020.

“It’s just being on the same page with him week in and week out as best I can,” Moore said. “And when he scrambles, get open and just doing what I do after I catch the ball.”

Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said Fields has brought the same passion and leadership every day, in spite of the speculation about his job.

“He’s an extremely humble young man that has purpose and passion,” Getsy said. “The consistency that we bring into the room every single day, he takes that and leads that as much as anybody.

“That’s extremely important that he stays that way — the kind of man he is first, but the kind of teammate he is no matter what the circumstances are.”

3. After suffering post-traumatic amnesia after the Bears game, Carolina Panthers tight end Hayden Hurst returned to practice this week.

Hurst posted on social media Thursday that he suffered a “nasty concussion” against the Bears on Nov. 9, apparently when his head hit the ground after a fourth-quarter Jaquan Brisker tackle.

Hurst said he doesn’t remember up to four hours after the game and called it “a scary situation.” Hurst’s father posted Wednesday that Hurst was diagnosed with post-traumatic amnesia.

“While it was scary, it is NOT career ending,” Hurst wrote. “I’m starting my return to play this week, so fingers crossed I make it back for the last few weeks! God Bless & Keep Pounding!!!!”

Hurst missed the last three games and has been limited in practice this week.

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Paul Ryan calls Trump a ‘populist, authoritarian narcissist’

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After already blaming him for repeated Republican election losses, former House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday didn’t mince words and blasted former President Donald Trump for what he characterized as acting like an “authoritarian narcissist.”

“Trump’s not a conservative,” Ryan said at a virtual event hosted by Teneo, a consulting firm that advises CEOs. “He’s a populist, authoritarian narcissist. So, historically speaking, all of his tendencies are basically where narcissism takes him, which is whatever makes him popular, make him feel good at any given moment.”

“He thinks in an authoritarian way, and he’s been able to get a big chunk of the Republican base to follow him because he’s the culture warrior,” Ryan said.

Ryan’s comments amount to some of his harshest words yet for the former president and now frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, whom he has decisively characterized as a losing hand for his party in elections, past and future. That contrasts with Ryan’s pulled punches when he was House speaker and learning how to work with Trump.

In fact, Ryan did not start speaking out against Trump until he left office — a change of course he has since attributed to a good-faith effort of wanting to work with the former president when Ryan held the speaker’s gavel. He served as speaker for two years during Trump’s term, before leaving office.

“We needed to make it work,” the former speaker told The New York Times Magazine in March. “That was my strong conviction. Did I think he was going to improve and grow in the job? Yeah. He didn’t. It was after I left when he really went off the rails. He was getting rid of the people who were telling him what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear.”

Other Republicans in Washington, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have had similar on-and-off interactions with Trump. While they have hidden, to various degrees of success, their distaste for Trump’s personality, Ryan, McConnell and others have backed him on matters of political importance to ensure a win for conservatives.

In the 2016 election, Ryan waffled on offering support to the then-newfound populist presence, forgoing an outright endorsement when Trump clinched the GOP nomination. (He then endorsed Trump in an op-ed that talked more about the possibilities of a Republican president than Trump himself.)

Then, after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, Ryan publicly said that he was “sickened” by the party’s nominee, while at the same time telling Republican lawmakers that they needed to do “what’s best” for them and their districts on how they handled Trump.

Ryan held his position as House speaker while Trump helped usher in a Republican trifecta in 2016, but largely refrained from criticism as the new White House resident brought in his trademark aggressiveness and disregard for political norms.

When Ryan eventually declined to run for reelection less than two years later, Trump offered praise for him on what was then Twitter, which he had made a de facto digital White House press podium: “He will leave a legacy of achievement that nobody can question.”

Things started to sour when reporting, much of it from POLITICO at the time, began to reveal Ryan’s disdain for the then-president — that he couldn’t stand the idea of two more years of working with him. Trump, in turn, lashed out, saying that Ryan “didn’t know what the hell he was doing.”

And now, as the former House speaker has increasingly spoken out, Ryan is just another “loser” to Trump.

“Paul Ryan is a loser who left Congress in disgrace after he, along with Mitt Romney, failed miserably,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s campaign spokesperson, told POLITICO on Wednesday night, lumping the former speaker in with the Republican senator from Utah who has repeatedly defied Trump while in office.