Roughneck

It's funny because now I'm envisioning Reinsdorf taking over the computer from the intern running their social media and asking "How do you do this tweet thing? I want to send something that will really tick the fans off."

Absolutely for publicity. I imagine that post ahs been liked and shared thousands of times more than an average post of theirs. I don't think this means Manny decided anything, though. He's probably leaning Sox, but this is a $300 glove for someone who is going to get a $300 million contract (and he probably gets the glove for free, TBH). He could sign with the Phillies and tell them to send him a red glove when it's ready. It's not unusual for players to switch gloves mid-season if they are traded and they had a glove in the previous team's colors. Looks like Manny used a tan glove all last year, so he didn't change after the Dodgers trade. My question, for those who are more keen to gloves, are those SS or 3B gloves? 3B gloves are generally larger, right?

In his defense, that's about a third of the number of remaining SI subscribers.

Yes. Hector reported the Sox had an offer and were likely to win. He hasn't shifted from that. Dan Clark made stuff up, guaranteed the Manny would sign with the Yankees based on "sources," and set a date for the press conference which was scheduled. Not similar. Nah, don't want to tune in to hear Kaplan ask him his favorite thing about Wrigley, if he still roots for the Cubs, and if his greatest regret in life was that he never got to play for the Cubs.

There is zero chance Harper signs with the Giants. He is going to make hundreds of millions no matter where he plays. He's already earned more money than he can spend in his lifetime unless he makes bad investments and develops a coke habit. Sure, he wants the biggest contract ever. But more than just the money, he is concerned with his legacy and how he will be viewed 50 years from now. That park is awful for lefty power hitters. Realistically, Harper might lose 100 homers off his career total playing in that park for a decade. Bryce wants to be considered one of the top 5 all-time greats. He isn't going to risk it because the Giants might be offering $50 mil more. He might not sign there for $100 mil more.

Damn. That really sucks for the Sox. I mean, more so than the injury itself.

Yes, and this is why teams like the Cubs will always have better odds than they should in bad years. Dopes will put money on them to win the world series coming off a 100 loss season just because they're so damn lovable and you gotta believe and such nonsense. Since money will come in no matter what, they give the Cubs better odds so they would have to pay out less in the instance they were to win.

If a player signed to an extension or free agent contract misses a year, he gets the full pay and the team just misses him for that year. Same for suspension, but with no pay. There isn't another year tacked on and the player still hits free agency at the same time. However, since Kopech is still under team control and playing for the minimum, the Sox won't lose a year of control. For all intents and purposes, it's like he's spending another year in the minors, contract wise.

It was thrilling, but the "Does Manny not want to play with Yonder because he'd hamper his Road Strange?" cliffhanger is my favorite episode of this season.

I think them adding Alonso and Jay makes it pretty clear that Manny is their top target. I don't see how adding them and seemingly shifting focus to Manny would give them any leverage with Harper. I just hope that the Sox have been pushing just as strong on Harper this whole time. And we have no reason to think that they haven't, since we're hearing nothing from anybody on Harper.

All we've heard on the Sox for the last month was on their pursuit of Machado. I just hope the Sox have been smart and been in constant contact with Harper's people throughout this whole thing, even if it seems like Machado is their top target. If Manny signs elsewhere, they put themselves in a situation where they pretty much have to land Harper.

Yes. A large portion of the fanbase doesn't pay close attention and everything will always come down to "Reinsdorf cheap." It takes about 3 seconds of deductive reasoning to see that if Machado wanted to play for the Yankees, the Yankees offered him $220 mil, and the Sox offered him $175 mil, Manny and his agent would block Rick Hahn's phone number. But these people don't pay close attention other than the final outcome of whether he's signed or not. This story is false, but it fits their narrative.

Hector is way different than Dan Clark. Hector is a professional who seemed respected, as he was followed by top baseball reporters. He reported info and has just reaffirmed it - that Manny had a big offer from the Sox and was likely to sign there. Dan Clark was a conman who was quickly fired from his one job covering baseball. He made up a report, then attacked and insulted anybody who questioned him. He kept making up more details - Manny was sure to sign with the Yankees, he had a contract offer which we learned the team never even made, they already scheduled a press conference. Hector likes the attention Sox fans are giving him, so he keeps responding and retweeting "Manny to Sox" stuff because he needs to keep giving content to stay important, but he's not lying like Clark did. Not even close, to me.

wut

Dammit, guys. I went to lunch for an hour and got excited when I saw 5 new pages upon my return. All of those pages were arguing about Aroldis Chapman and the Sox market share. Damn you all.

It's the offseason, was during football season, and the media hasn't been beating the drum of "this is a huge deal" as they would if it was the Cubs with Harper. Honestly, other than message boarders and people following a bunch of Sox-related accounts on twitter, I'm guessing most people aren't following and will either find out when they hear screams of joy or anger coming from the diehard portion of the fan base.

The world we live in, where Bryce Harper is really the only "household name" currently active in baseball. People who are legit fans and follow the league closely know Machado. But that's not the majority of the people. If you went into the park last year and asked 20,000 fans about Machado, how many do you think would know about him? 8,000? With another 2,000 just knowing that he's good and we're supposed to sign him?

Wait, this dude is named Sixto? Wasn't that Antonio Alfonseca's nickname?

Yeah. Machado is not a household name, and unlike the Cubs fans with Harper, we haven't been told by the media that Manny was going to sign here for the last two years. Rabid message boarders will be furious, but most fans will go on with their lives.

It's either a BS story or the Sox are going to introduce him at a public rally outside the stadium and expect 5,000 people to be there. Imma clear my schedule.

Yeah. The whole thing seems far fetched. Like I said, I could buy that they went elsewhere because they normally give their security the schedule weeks in advance, and this was a sudden thing. But that doesn't explain why they need all this for a press conference.

Yeah, I could reason that *maybe* those officers aren't planning to work until April, so the Sox went elsewhere. But why the heck would they need a bunch of security to hold back Chuck Garfein?

Yeah. I'm sure Hector does have a real source. So he checked back, and the source is saying the same thing as before - Manny will probably sign with the Sox. Nothing to see here. People can get excited if they want or blow it off if they want, but I think it's accurate that as of now, Manny will likely sign with us. I'm not getting excited about anything until I see a tweet from Rosenthal, though.

Yeah, and I think he has Parkinsons or something, but it's the internet so someone turned that clip into a jack-off meme.

Yeah. I don't know why they would need a security detail for a presser, let alone enough that the security company would have to put out an APB for all available security. The only thing that would necessitate that much security would be if they had an outdoor Miami Heat-style rally to introduce him.