Hamhock

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that with the league and MLBPA having recently agreed to in-season CBA discussions to tweak a few things, the White Sox can see that the service-time manipulation dance is nearing its end. If they can reach a deal, there's no longer a reason to go through the charade any longer.

If you're referring to the Craft Kave, yes.

The latter. Your sons can still go to any of the kid-exclusive stuff.

How about an opt-out that can only be triggered by a work stoppage?

I still don’t understand the payoff of back-and-forth rumors of years/$ on twitter... at a certain point, wouldn’t the best way for a free agent to get a better offer be for them to literally tell other teams what the best offer was, so that they could top it, and then go back to the first team with the exact offer of the new high-bidder, etc.? Rather than have multiple teams vaguely guessing?

I don’t think so...Luzinski’s like the Phillies equivalent for Ron Kittle - beloved ex-player, directly involved with the team, often at the stadium. It has to be plausible at least.

Okay, I have an idea: Hahn convinces Reinsdorf that Harper is Machado’s closest friend, and that tricks ownership into acquiring both.

The slight advantage that the Phillies would have with Trout is that he came from the area and grew up a Phillies fan; as we see from the possible Machado/Yankees situation, “always wanted to be a _____ growing up” has a bit of weight behind it.

Likely just that the gap day is for travel to the East Coast, whereas Philly and New York can be back-to-back days via car due to close proximity.

Anything's possible under stress - I've seen people here (and elsewhere) all but calling Philadelphia a dinky little backwater of a town, as if it were Cincinnati or Des Moines!

They’re real, but the Phillies got the better pitcher in the trade.

*and* the Phillies don't pay any of Santana's salary.

The unknowable that I'm left pondering is: if a sore-kneed Avi was worth one TJS-needed pitching prospect, what was Avi's (presumably) higher trade worth in the preceding offseason? And if it was indeed a higher return, why didn't the team pull the trigger, if they were willing to do so when the return was a single injured prospect later on?

Several MLB teams have reduced or eliminated their online fan clubs over the past 5-6 seasons.