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https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/12/evan-phillips-rumors-sign-january-july-red-sox.html Evan Phillips available strictly on a one year deal

Yep and I'm encouraged that Cleveland has a legit defense so he didn't just beat up on a scrub D

Jets Saints Browns NY Giants TN AZ Washington Cincy Two NY teams that are constant doormats, Washington was in the playoffs last year with Daniels and Burrow/Chase two of the most recognizable stars in the game. You don't have the equivalent unless you think Nats are really = Commanders. You also don't have two superstars long term in the NFL equivalent of Pitt Cincy KC in MLB. Well, Bobby Witt Jr. might be the one singular exception.

Sports with a salary cap still have a collection of consistently hopeless teams and a collection of consistently good teams. You don't solve for parity by restricting spending. Teams hire cap wizards and test all sorts of other tactics to navigate those restrictions. The salary cap is seldom an issue for good NFL teams if they want to keep a player or sign one. The NBA has been a super team league for most of the years since the mid 80s when they instituted a soft cap - if teams want to sign or trade for someone, they will. I think only one trade was ever vetoed by the commissioner's office. Baseball has the luxury tax, but smart teams are deferring money to work around that. All a hard cap would do is change how the Dodgers structure contracts to sign or trade for whoever they want.

Most Sox fans don't believe all that much in Pereira...but 100% would rather watch him than Tauchman Bell Arraez Ozuna Kepler Conforto etc. Would anyone get excited about Rhys Hoskins, for example? No, not really. The real problem is they always want to cobble together 3-5 veteran "name" players years past their sell by dates instead of investing $125-175 million into a really really good hitter...we also know quite well the Sox (at least until Isbia) would never even dream on $200+ million, let alone getting that first $100 million guy.

I'd rather sign nobody than waste 20 million on two bums that will just take up roster spots while producing 1 WAR.

Teams cheat with organizational backing all the time - we saw two huge scandals with the Astros and Red Sox in the last 7-8 years, and there have been rumors about a bunch of others. You've also said it yourself - advantages are often small and very difficult to come by, so there's a ton of pressure to seek them wherever you can, even if it's in an area that's technically "cheating" (like relatively sophisticated sign stealing). If someone out there is doing something interesting with data or analytics but they're not approved by MLB, I guarantee a team is still going to talk to them and figure out a way to leverage that data to see if it's useful. I'm sure they're doing it in other sports, too, though we don't ever hear about it - you can't wear unapproved wearables during a game in the NBA, for example, but who knows what they're doing at practice during simulated games. That data over the course of a full season's worth of practices is going to have some value. This is well beyond the scope of this discussion, but governance and controls for "back alley deals" and other similar violations fail ALL THE TIME in enterprise organizations. It's so common that questions about what to do if you find yourself in this situation are part of every security and compliance training.

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/chiefs-playoff-elimination-and-patrick-mahomes-knee-injury-puts-chiefs-dynasty-at-a-crossroads-is-it-a-pause-or-the-end-075325247.html A lot of younger people forget/don't realize that the Patriots' dynasty paused for almost a decade in the middle. KC is going to have to find a dynamic RB in the next 3-5 years (Barkley last year, J.Love in draft, maybe it's Bijan Robinson or Achane via trade or FA). And Andy Reid is already near 70. https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/patriots-super-bowl-appearances 2005-2015 between SB wins 3-2 start exactly like KC Then 3-1 again in their "second wave," and Brady at 37-41 years old.

Jerry is cheap...not dumb. I presume, at the end of the day, it depends on what the deal is.

Not to mention Ohtani Matsumoto and Ohtani are responsible for sonewhere in the vicinity of $150-250 million in revenues generated in various forms in SoCal and especially through Japanese corporate partners/advertisers. Almost the same number of Japanese were watching LA on a Sunday morning for Game 7 of the WS in a much smaller country than Americans watching on a weekend night. And the same advantage is accruing to Toronto as "Canada's team," just on a slightly smaller scale (Rogers is a massive national corporation) that puts them on equal footing with the Yankees and ahead of Boston/Balt. All these resources have also led to a perennial Top 2-3 farm system...where they have 3-5 replacements for every position with the exception of closer, which was addressed with Edwin Diaz after Sasaki made it through the playoffs (barely).

Not to mention Meadiocre.

I don’t know how you could have Vargas, Sosa, and Vientos on the same team. They are all basically variations of the same player.

Please. These guys aren't solving climate change or building AI models. They are funding baseball teams. I am not interested in excuses for Jerry.

LOL, Mark Walter alone is worth 6 times more than Jerry Reinsdorf. The fund itself manages almost 400 billion in assets. Jerry could afford to field a much more competitive team than he does, and the White Sox could make much more money than they do, but in no world could Jerry Reinsdorf compete financially with the Guggenheim fund if there are n restrictions in place.

Having watched him pretty closely the last couple of years...he's almost the very last player to buy low on when he's still going to get something like $12-15 million on name/reputation alone. https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/2025-atlanta-braves-player-review-170000563.html M.Ozuna...or Conforto, in following the Encarnacion/Alonso tradition, just somehow feels likelier, because both SHOULD be under $10 million and willing to sign one year "make good" deals that allow them to be flipped to contenders with better performances.

It will have been 22 years since they had a payroll as low as they're about to have. League revenues have tripled since then. Adjusting for inflation and revenue growth, this will be the lowest White Sox payroll since I have a record.

Poor Jerry can't keep up with all of the other Billionaire's isn't much of a selling point for me. I guess it is good that the teams who are willing to be out ahead of everyone else face more obstacles for the fan of a team that doesn't give a crap.

Do we even know this for sure? That week when minority shareholders were offered the opportunity to sell at a $1.8 billion valuation...a surprising number of those share sales went to the Reinsdorf kids and not Ishbia. JR was already around 25% personally. His kids maybe at 5-10%? Ishbia MIGHT be at 45-50% now, Reinsdorf family at roughly 35-40% and also a number of the minority shareholders decided to hold out. At least 10-15% remaining. But there hasn't been any public reporting that the Ishbias are over 50%...and control person title/shares is all that really matters at this point.

I mean, depends on what they get for him. That being said, going under $80M would be a complete embarrassment after gaining some momentum in the 2H.

Picking up the option and immediately trading it would be hilarious. Pushing the Sox payroll under 50 million. Then Getz would get to go make his big splash and sign some bum like Luis Arraez.

The Ishbia’s are the majority owners of the White Sox right now. They may not have a controlling interest, but they have gained significant influence with their recent buy-outs and the future deal that’s in place to take over the franchise. While I certainly don’t think any major moves happen this offseason (think A tier free agents), I don’t think anyone can say with a level of certainty that we won’t see any operating changes until 2029. I believe we start seeing the Ishbia impact, even if moderate, as soon as this offseason.

R/R, low OBP, high whiff, bad defense, and slow. Stick him at first and you’ve got your Andrew Vaughn replacement.

Vientos is RH and is a low OBP player. Don’t think that would interest Getz much.

If this is based on the eventual new owner being announced this year, the option to sell to Ishbia doesn't even begin until 2029 and might not even happen until a few years after that. I see no reason for the future owner to want to spend money now on free agents who either won't be here or will be past their prime by the time he takes over. The money he's spending on the team over the next couple of years are for long-term fixes such as scouting, player development and a new stadium, not to land FAs in the short-term.

This is so going to be you this Christmas