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@Jack Parkman @CWSpalehoseCWS @Ross Gload Fan There was an article about Eloy (which I cannot find) and in it his jersey number was discussed and he said he's going to wear 74 because, something to the effect of, no other player has made it famous and he wants to. Edit- @Sleepy Harold found it for us

Also weird is how a guy who joined December 13th is talking about what specific people were posting in October.

It isn't that clear cut. Harper's career OPS is eighty points higher. His career OBP is higher than Manny's best single season. There are arguments to be made both ways. Positionally Manny fits better. But as a LH hitter with exceptional OBP skills, Harper is a better fit in the lineup.

Because of ST? A guy is going to decide the fate of his baseball legacy and future bases on the location of the teams spring facility? My god, someone just make it end. The takes are getting so bad it hurts.

But if another team is only involved at a lower price than the player wants to accept, nothing has really changed. If the White Sox were TRULY never gonna go higher than 7/175, they were never gonna win in the first place. I remain convinced they’re just waiting for someone to force them to bid higher, which was always gonna happen. You don’t win the free agent unless you bid higher than every other team. We’re just waiting to see what that number looks like.

This thread

At this point I'm just hoping to wake up tomorrow and "I got you babe" isn't playing on the alarm clock.

Nope.

Moncada hasn't had a career yet. He's had 1 year. Calm down bud.

You could call this the “Moncada at the plate” of posts.

Amazing. I have no idea how anyone could argue it's not close. By the way, acquiring arguably a top 3 defensive 3rd baseman ever is probably a part of the sox thinking beyond a middle of the order bat. Just saying...

SD was out originally because Machado was too expensive. If they beat our bid, Lozano calls us right away and we beat it back, and then the Padres bow out. This is what Alonso, Jay, and a great pitch bought us - rights to the last bid. Unless NY comes sweeping in, I think the Sox are Machado's preferred destination. We have no incentive to bid against ourselves because we will always be given a chance to make a higher offer.

Good point. To me the difference is that the Sox were in on these guys from day one. The Sox had an idea of what it would take to get involved and are still in the mix. The Padres jumped in because they thought they thought they could get an all star player on blue light special. Trying to look at this objectively based on rumors and quotes from both teams, I do feel the Sox are willing to go higher than SD. SD is the perv that purposely shows up late to the party looking to score a drunk chick.

Reminds me of when college recruits post "i'm so confusssed" and fans go nuts and they were talking about ordering fast food.

Summertime Chicago cannot be beat. And if you have hundreds of millions of dollars in your bank account, why not work in Chicago during the summer, and live wherever your heart desires during the offseason?

I already have hakuna matata memorized... my 1.5 year old loves lion king right now (me too) and that's her favorite song... "its our prollum fweeeeee, fuhwasafeee"

If you don't want to believe them, don't, but lets not restart this.

lol stop man, you were talking about drafting players to rush them up for contenders and that is clearly not the case here nor was it the case with any of the players you cited (other than Burdi which I agreed about). Collins was seen as around that slot in the draft, where the Sox took him, and it was known there were deep questions about his defense and therefore he might not move as fast if a team was going to try to keep him there. And we are debating here whether or not to promote a guy after a full year after AA, or maybe a couple months later. I'm all for pointing out it is a mistake, but this is not some "so White Sox" thing to do to draft Collins. Your perception is like 5 years old on this topic. Don't try to turn a single, IMO poor, developmental diecision into something unrelated about draft philosophy.

This x infinity. Nice post that sums it up nicely. Madrigal is just an MLB regular unless he turns into the 2B version of Ichiro Suzuki. Moncada's ceiling is Jose Ramirez. He probably won't get even to Ramirez, but if he does.......He'll be 2nd in MVP to Trout every year. I think Jose Ramirez is the ceiling for him.

The NBA just sucks.. I can't think of a scenario where the Bulls will be championship material in the next 7-10 years.

Projection systems are also whack on young pitchers who struggled in FIP/xFIP in their first full season, so you have to take that with a MASSIVE grain of salt.

They are 180 degrees of different players. Complete opposite.

Under that assumption, you don't want either because the Sox are absolutely loaded with OF prospects. You get Harper or Machado because you want to accelerate the rebuild. If they land either, I wouldn't get attached to any of the Sox young players because they're all trade bait at that point.

Left handed and I think he'll be hitting for more power over the next seven years than Machado. The Sox really need some guys who can put the ball over the wall.

This sums up my feelings perfectly, to all involved

I agree although I don’t think it’s that close. Harper is way better or at least a way better fit for our team needs

Also keep in the mind the Sox are not potentially paying these guys for what they did in the past, but for what they are going to do in the future. Its easy to look back on each respective player's career and argue about who was marginally better, but the Sox aren't paying them for that necessarily.

I dont want to pretend that defense isn't important but the Sox are after these guys because of their ability to drive in some runs and form the anchor of a middle-order. I would still take Harper over Machado overall even though its very close, but if I'm the Sox for what I'm looking for specifically Harper is clearly the better fit.

I agree with this, and approve of this message.

I dont think its too controversial to say Harper is a better player from a purely offensive perspective. The number I know are close, but Harper has a noticable edge.

Well that's partially true: if we don't outbid the Padres we won't get him. On the other hand, I doubt that outbidding the Padres assures that he signs with us.

My favorite part is the front office saying that they operate specifically to keep flexibility for moments like this but they always pass them by. Part of it historically was falling in love with their own players, but now it's because they've become such a joke nobody would re-sign long term.

There are about 60 to 70 million reasons per year to believe him. It has never worked well for mid to small market payroll teams to tie up so much of their payroll into a couple of players.

I know that trades are never that good for stars but...that is weak for NYK especially targeting Mavs who couldn't get a pick. Before draft I was hoping to trade a future first to trade up for Doncic. For hawks to take it, maybe it couldn't have been done, and then signed capela. Hoiberg with Doncic Lauri Lavine. Killer. Oh well we suck haha sigh.

If you need an example of the shifting landscape look what's happening in the NBA today and how it's taken over social media.

I think you're missing the biggest point of the screenshot. Manny wont even meet with SD without an offer on the table.

Check out what Theo’s wife posted https://mobile.twitter.com/prince___28/status/1091041366874996737

The fact that 2 reporters broke the meeting time at the same time meant someone wanted the story out. We see you Boras. You're better than that.

Even if the Padres are serious and can spend, that park is just too huge a hurdle. Manny might go for playing there, but Harper is looking at where he's going to be statistically when he retires and how he'll be viewed among the all-time best hitters. Dude is going to get paid over $300 million anywhere he goes. I can't see him agreeing to play in San Diego where he'd be extremely lucky to hit 15 HR at home a season.

CC: Lozano & Machado

But those teams are all at or near the tax and penalty threshold. The problem here is that the PA agreed to the current system which for all intents are purposes is a salary cap, but without getting the benefit of revenue sharing. They can't blame the huge market teams for not breaking rules they agreed upon.

Sorry gotcha. I get caught up in re-enforcing that the best teams in the league have redundancies that they aren't scared of. There is consistent discussion here about trading a guy because someone else is there, when these teams would just keep both. It may not guarantee a World Series as we've seen, but it pushes odds in your favor for competing for division by not seeing big dropoffs from injuries and slumps.

The counterpoint is they've dealt with "overload" like this every year and made it work. What you are pointing out isn't terribly different than last year, and Verdugo having options to go back and forth makes it easier.

4-3 without him in the lineup. 👀

Also, it's almost impossible to play a 9 inning game in 4 plus hours. It's embarrassing and it happens. The length of the postseason games were embarrassing. So many problems in the game, but one of them is the proliferation of the relief pitcher and it's only going to get worse. I think baseball is over when the teams copy the Rays and have guys pitch two innings max. These "reliever" starters are going to be throwing 100 mph and blowing away the hitters. There will be little action and games are still gonna take forever. I agree with the poster who said there was glamor in starting pitchers who could go deep into games. Now unless you are a nasty veteran like Sale or Verlander who refuse to come out of games, you go 5 innings max, or 6 innings max. I personally feel very very few starters will be going through lineups more than 2 times in the future. Analytics is not going to allow pitchers face hitters a third time in a game IMO.

Verlander made a huge mechanical adjustment after joining the Astros raising his arm slot almost half a foot, which like Giolito after he did the same, resulted in his fastball picking up another 2-3 mph. As for Giolito, there was talk in 2017 about the Sox changing his mechanics, but I see no evidence of it. His 2016 and 2017 video looks very similar. I think all the WSox were working on at that point was trying to get him to develop consistency in his mechanics, which he never did. He finally made some pretty major changes starting around July 2018.

Would it shorten the life on their arms though? Take the top 10 guys in innings pitched in 1985, and it's 270 average. Take the top 10 in 1990 and it's 240. Looking at the leaderboard from 1990 has guys like Frank Viola, Dave Stewart, Bob Welch in the top 10. I'm not sure these guys are "freaks of the generation". Take the top 10 in 2018 and they average 209. No one in 2018 threw more than 2 complete games. In 1990, 2 CG would have ranked you 84th in baseball. And I don't know if I buy that guys back then, in the era of booze in the clubhouse, cocaine, and greenies, were better and more durable athletes than the guys today who are trained by sports science from the time they can walk to throw a baseball. Granted, we are seeing an era where velocity trumps all, but that in itself may be one of the biggest problems. Guys are max effort guys for 4-5 innings. Why develop a second, third or even fourth plus pitch when all you have to do to make the big leagues is throw 101mph to 15 batters and your day is done.

Game time is a problem, but there are some 3 1/2 hour games that are a joy to watch, and some that seem like it started 2 days ago. Limiting the mound visits was a great start. The number of pitchers used is only going to go up, unfortunately. With the emphasis on being selective, ABs are going to take longer. It generally takes someone longer to strike out than ground out to SS. So basically it's just find some way to eliminate as much of the dead time as you can.

Well if you say Laz Rivera fast enough three times you get Diaz ...... right ? Yes my fault I meant Rivera