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Am I only the only 1 uneasy about this off season?


TheFutureIsNear
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Uneasy? Don't know but I don't like prioritizing Corbin, offering Brantley, or interest in Nelson Cruz...Frankly I'd just like to go hard for either Machado/Harper and if we whiff, save the money for next off-season...maybe bring in some relievers like Familia, Allen, Herrera, or Miller this year and that's it (although Hahn seems to prefer a makeshift bullpen with all the wheeling and dealing he's done)

No reason to spend, just to spend

Really don't think overpaying Corbin makes us a better team next year or in the future, or bringing in an injury prone OFer on the wrong side of 30 like Brantley, or a 38 year old DH

Ricky, be patient

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5 hours ago, ChiliIrishHammock24 said:

What bad contracts has Hahn handed out? How does that compare to all the great contracts he's gotten players to agree to sign?

He’s gotten four...if you’re including Tim Anderson.  That’s still only about half of what Cleveland has managed the last 4-5 years.

The better question is which good contracts he’s handed out?  

Robertson and Abreu were the FA’s that turned out pretty well.  Abreu is the only one that really provided anything resembling surplus value.  

The jury’s still out on Luis Robert, although most Sox fans would score that as a coup when you beat the Cardinals for a player they really want.

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16 hours ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

My fear is they don’t get Harper/Machado and end up with something like Brantley, Happ, and someone else all on multi year deals. Essentially tying up too much payroll in veterans for the next 2-3 years that still won’t make us playoff contenders.

If he lands 1 of Harper/Machado then sure, go for it. But I don’t want to see us tie up payroll and go back to that middling 80-85 win team while we are still trying to develop prospects.

Time to embrace your fear. Unfortunate that Adam II is engaged tracking down child predators in Bangkok.  Ron Bloomberg is off the market. Brett Lowrie is still in rehab.  

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6 hours ago, ChiliIrishHammock24 said:

What bad contracts has Hahn handed out? How does that compare to all the great contracts he's gotten players to agree to sign?

Bad in the sense that it put a financial strain on the org., then none really.  Bad in the sense that the players didn't perform?  25-30.

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7 hours ago, ChiliIrishHammock24 said:

What bad contracts has Hahn handed out? How does that compare to all the great contracts he's gotten players to agree to sign?

Really? His free agent record is terrible. I don’t care if LaRoche and Cabrera were market value, he gave market to bad players.

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11 minutes ago, bmags said:

Really? His free agent record is terrible. I don’t care if LaRoche and Cabrera were market value, he gave market to bad players.

Pretty much all his free agent signings and trades for established players didn't quite work out as hoped. Robertson did pretty well but posters wanted to salary dump him after about 2 months.

He is good with contract extensions. That is what he should stick with. They need a different look. One with KW also out of the way.

It amazes me how fast this board went from bring back James Shields to sign all the free agents. This was a team that wouldn't pay Mark Buehrle $14 million a year, and it may have cost them a playoff berth in 2012. Tickets are cheaper, attendance is lower, but still now some actually think Harper and Machado is possibility. Hot stove makes reality go away. 

Edited by Dick Allen
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1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

Pretty much all his free agent signings and trades for established players didn't quite work out as hoped. Robertson did pretty well but posters wanted to salary dump him after about 2 months.

I think that says more about the posters than it does about Hahn...

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I have a ton of anxiety that they actually get why they want. Hahn sounds very confident in things but I just have a hard time believing everything they think they’ll get done will end up that way. It’s probably the most likely scenario that they don’t get Harper or Machado and end up making rash FA signings or trades. That’s what I’m scared of.

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FWIW I think the offseason the Sox spend is next offseason as opposed to this one.  No downside to going after Machado or Harper but common sense says that one of them will end up in New York and the other most likely in Philly.  This is a big season for the Sox as far as seeing which young guys are starting to make progress and which ones aren't and then being able to figure out who to spend the big money on.  

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3 hours ago, Dick Allen said:

It amazes me how fast this board went from bring back James Shields to sign all the free agents. This was a team that wouldn't pay Mark Buehrle $14 million a year, and it may have cost them a playoff berth in 2012. Tickets are cheaper, attendance is lower, but still now some actually think Harper and Machado is possibility. Hot stove makes reality go away. 

Is this you doing a Caulfield impression, because you’re all over the place.  Like what in the word are you talking about here.

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18 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Is this you doing a Caulfield impression, because you’re all over the place.  Like what in the word are you talking about here.

It’s a perfectly logical question.

What has changed over the last 5-6 years, where they would suddenly be willing to hand out a contract FOUR or FIVE times the largest in team history...when we would never even give a $100+ million dollar deal to our OWN franchise players at any point over the last two decades?

We definitely had a “core” of competitive players at various points (after 2012, then again with Sale/Eaton/Q/Anderson/Rodon) recently, the problem of course being that we were “tapped out” at $125-135 million and there was no remaining payroll flexibility.    That makes it easy to imagine them spending $100 million in additional payroll for 2019 alone?

Seems like a lot of wishful thinking, let’s see, suddenly JR is old/desperate...the division is there for the taking...Luis Robert’s an All-World CFer again, when this seems more like a classic case of “eyes are bigger than the stomach” and we all end up being terribly disappointed again.

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18 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Is this you doing a Caulfield impression, because you’re all over the place.  Like what in the word are you talking about here.

It's not hard to understand.  It's an irrational White Sox fan's take.  

His takes are all silly: "We're going to fail, so might as well be disappointed now" or "Adam Engel has something to do with the success of this rebuild"

It's just low rent baseball takes.

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1 minute ago, caulfield12 said:

It’s a perfectly logical question.

What has changed over the last 5-6 years, where they would suddenly be willing to hand out a contract FOUR or FIVE times the largest in team history...when we would never even give a $100+ million dollar deal to our OWN franchise players at any point over the last two decades?

We definitely had a “core” of competitive players at various points (after 2012, then again with Sale/Eaton/Q/Anderson/Rodon) recently, the problem of course being that we were “tapped out” at $125-135 million and there was no remaining payroll flexibility.   

But suddenly JR is old/desperate...the division is there for the taking...when this seems more like a classic case of “eyes are bigger than the stomach” and we all end up being terribly disappointed again.

The money to pay caliber free agents and not be financially hurt. The farm system like this that we’ve never had before. They don’t have anyone at the moment to build around. 

The only thing that can’t be controlled in all of this is if they don’t  want to play for the Sox.

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2 minutes ago, DH in the NL said:

The money to pay caliber free agents and not be financially hurt. The farm system like this that we’ve never had before. They don’t have anyone at the moment to build around. 

The only thing that can’t be controlled in all of this is if they don’t  want to play for the Sox.

Come on, silly!  He meant "other than the whole organization being rebuilt from top to bottom and the farm system getting restocked".  

It's funny how the guys who invoke "reality" in an argument are the ones who ask silly questions.

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12 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

It’s a perfectly logical question.

What has changed over the last 5-6 years, where they would suddenly be willing to hand out a contract FOUR or FIVE times the largest in team history...when we would never even give a $100+ million dollar deal to our OWN franchise players at any point over the last two decades?

We definitely had a “core” of competitive players at various points (after 2012, then again with Sale/Eaton/Q/Anderson/Rodon) recently, the problem of course being that we were “tapped out” at $125-135 million and there was no remaining payroll flexibility.    That makes it easy to imagine them spending $100 million in additional payroll for 2019 alone?

Seems like a lot of wishful thinking, let’s see, suddenly JR is old/desperate...the division is there for the taking...Luis Robert’s an All-World CFer again, when this seems more like a classic case of “eyes are bigger than the stomach” and we all end up being terribly disappointed again.

Is that what his post was asking?  Seems like he was simply calling anyone who thinks the Sox might be serious about Harper / Machado stupid

Your skeptism is fair, but our past actions don’t dictate those of tomorrow. There are many reasons to believe now may be different, with our known efforts to trade for Machado last offseason to be the strongest of evidence.  By all means remain skeptical if you must, but please don’t mock those of us who are optimists like some posters are doing.

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2 minutes ago, DH in the NL said:

The money to pay caliber free agents and not be financially hurt. The farm system like this that we’ve never had before. They don’t have anyone at the moment to build around. 

The only thing that can’t be controlled in all of this is if they don’t  want to play for the Sox.

Which is why there’s a pretty close parallel to the Bulls. You have Hoiberg/Renteria, and the fact that they’ve never really been able to land a big fish from outside the organization, either.

Ever since I can remember, and this is the late 70s/early 80’s, we’ve always been baseball’s version of the Land of Misfit Toys in terms of attracting premier free agents...the ONLY exceptions being Belle for one year and signing Adam Dunn before the 2011 season.

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3 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Is that what his post was asking?  Seems like he was simply calling anyone who thinks the Sox might be serious about Harper / Machado stupid

Your skeptism is fair, but our past actions don’t dictate those of tomorrow. There are many reasons to believe now may be different, with our known efforts to trade for Machado last offseason to be the strongest of evidence.  By all means remain skeptical if you must, but please don’t mock those of us who are optimists like some posters are doing.

Fair enough.  The only way to move the meter with the majority of “pragmatic/realistic” Sox fans is to actually go out and genuinely shock the baseball world.

And they’re boxed in at this point to even Machado or Kershaw coming over not being enough to break the apathy.  It’s either Harper or bust.

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6 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Fair enough.  The only way to move the meter with the majority of “pragmatic/realistic” Sox fans is to actually go out and genuinely shock the baseball world.

And they’re boxed in at this point to even Machado or Kershaw coming over not being enough to break the apathy.  It’s either Harper or bust.

I'd be more excited about Machado than Harper.

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10 hours ago, dpd9189 said:

FWIW I think the offseason the Sox spend is next offseason as opposed to this one.  No downside to going after Machado or Harper but common sense says that one of them will end up in New York and the other most likely in Philly.  This is a big season for the Sox as far as seeing which young guys are starting to make progress and which ones aren't and then being able to figure out who to spend the big money on.  

I agree. I won't get excited about anything regarding acquiring guys outside the organization til they actually start spending. In the meantime I can be excited about the usual hot prospects: Robert, Kopech, Cease, Eloy, Timmy, Moncada, Madrigal (I guess), Burger (I guess), Collins, some of the other pitchers I've forgotten. But I don't see Jerry agreeing to pay today's exorbitant superstar prices. Hope I'm wrong.

Edited by greg775
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Rick Hahn traded Fernando Tatis, Jr for an aging pitcher. Until one of his ballyhooed prospects lights it up I am skeptical. I DO like and am enjoying the rebuild. The good thing about baseball is we can pontificate about the great minor league system as a way to assuage our misery of a 90-100 loss season. Think about this, I was more interested in White Sox baseball LAST year than I had been in some time, simply because he have a "great minor league system". At some point that's old dope and it's time to win some games on the Southside.  

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2 hours ago, kwolf68 said:

Rick Hahn traded Fernando Tatis, Jr for an aging pitcher.

Great post.

I will say I started out despising Shields, but by the end of his Sox tenure I liked him for a.) his effort. b.) his performance; wasn't gawd awful anymore and c.) his tutoring of the younguns on the pitching staff. Hail to you Mr. Shields. You earned your Sox paycheck. Thank u.

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