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Now were talking. If Jose gets traded for a package of Bukauskas and Beer, and I drive him to the airport, you get banned. If somebody else drives him, I get banned.

Baines was a mere 134 hits short of 3,000 career hits and 16 home runs short of 400 career homers from being in an entirely different conversation as it relates to the HOF. Had he made those two milestones, he would have joined a very exclusive club of only eight players in the history of the game with BOTH 3,000 hits AND 400 homeruns. Your typical 3,000 hit-getter isn’t much of a power hitter, and your typical 400/500 home run hitter isn’t the kind of contact hitter the 3,000 hit guys are. Baines was a nice blend of both contact and power, which for me made him such a great player to watch over the years. But he just came up short on both milestones, and thus his election is being called into question by many. I get that criticism, but at the same time, I’m happy HB is heading to Cooperstown!

I would too. "Hey...no no this is a great deal for you. Anytime you can trade away the best established player in the trade to get the player you want with less control you do it"

Why would you trade Thor if you are trading for Realmuto? Seems both would fit in similar windows.

Is he going to learn cricket?

I don't think people who insist Khalil Mack shouldn't be used in coverage know what they're talking about 90% of the time. DEs and OLBs go into coverage sometimes, that's part of playing the position. WRs block on running plays, CBs blitz. That's like saying if you have Randy Moss he should do nothing but run verticals all game. If the offense has been doubling Mack then it means they can overload the other side where there are fewer players. Yes, sometimes this doesn't work, just like every other defensive play. Whenever I say this I always get a crowd of people getting defensive and doubling down about this, then trying to get examples. "Mack got burned because he ended up having to cover (fast receiver)." Well yeah, I mean, if Fangio knew which specific players would be running specific routes the defensive playcalling would be pretty easy.

The guy almost got 3000 hits? The controversy is annoying. He's a credit to the game of baseball but more than that deserves it. Congrats Mr. Baines. We love you in Soxdom.

And Goldie is a significantly more valuable player than Abreu. Your expectations are insane.

It is why I think the Cubs and Dodgers are bluffing as well. They're talking out of their asses. All 3 of those teams are crying poor as a smokescreen. It is going to be really tough to land Harper with the Cubs and Dodgers involved.

He always made the most sense for them, for multiple reasons. Sox have to land Harper or nobody. IMO Machado to the Jankees is and always has been nearly a foregone conclusion.

Even though he made many short-term-at-cost-of-long-term-until-there-was-nothing-left decisions, the one thing I absolutely loved about Kenny Williams is he always has made it look like being an mlb gm/president is exactly as fun as it probably is. "Like HELL YEAH I'm on the phone trying to get Ken Griffey Jr!" "He sucks now" "Yeah but I'm on a phone acquiring KEN GRIFFEY JR" "Yeah that's pretty cool alright yeah"

Wow even that gets me excited

Why do the Astros have anything to do with our spending potential?

Boylen comes off horribly in these interviews. Like that guy in the Princess Bride trying to pick the right poison cup. "You see, I knew that if I told you practice was tomorrow was a running practice, you would think it was a running practice and be mad and so you see it was a test in trust because it wasn't ACTUALLY a running practice so I lied to you so that you would begin to trust me, see!"

I actually don’t disagree with any of his points, just thought it was funny how mad he actually was about this.

As are most baseball experts, it's really hard to justify his induction by any metric other than he played a really long time. But the HOF has become a farce anyway, so I digress.

The devil you don't know is better than the one you do?

So this thread is fun lol

Here's a 6-week edition of the News & Notes, which includes 48 transactions and a whole slews of good news links. Get caught up on the goings-on around the farm! By the way, I know we've been kind of quiet lately at FutureSox, even by the usual offseason standards. Let's just say, there will be a number of pretty huge changes coming soon - three really, to come before Pitchers and Catchers report. We've been busy working behind the scenes on some big stuff. Stay tuned.

Despite knowing that he actually is not much better than Engel...I still kinda was fascinated by idea of signing Hamilton.

This is why Harper and Machado A) Won't come B) Shouldn't be looked at if they set artificial deadlines. The Orioles were the one of the worst teams in baseball with Machado the Nationals missed the playoffs and were a .500 team with Harper. This isn't basketball where you can just sign Lebron and all of sudden you go from the 2nd overall pick to a playoff team. This team lost 100 games with Abreu. It will lose 80-90 games with Machado/Harper and Abreu if they sign one of them. Go through the projected starting rotation and the rest of the lineup then tell me how you get playoffs from that roster with out trading away top prospects. The fact we even look at Abreu as our best hitter and selling point should tell you just how lacking the roster is from a talent standpoint right now. He had 1.2 WAR last season. In a good year he's a 3-4 WAR 1B. We didn't go through this rebuild process watching the Whitesox lose for three years so we could sign Harper or Machado then raid the farm for a 2-3 year window. At least I didn't.

This needs to be in this thread.

If sox do get nice offer for Jose Abreu I would like them to pursue getting Jose Martinez.

I'm honestly praying this team wins the SB so we can stop talking about that fucking team. They were amazing. They were great. They also had a limited 2-3 year run and didn't win nearly enough to keep talking about them 33+ years later.

I am becoming more and more convinced we are signing one of these guys

Ban bet?

This doesn't shock anyone considering you'd drive him to the airport if they dfa'd him.

Good for Harold, and for those of you who grew up watching him play. I guess this makes the ball I got him to sign at last year's SoxFest extra cool now. As someone who only saw him play in his final stint and even as a kid looking at his career stats in Who's Who in Baseball, I never quite got the adoration. I still don't think I do. Baines is the new example that'll be used to show the Hall being watered-down. He's a worse candidate than Rice or Dawson. This shows the flaws in the committee system in particular--a system which is responsible for bad selections going all the way back to the 60s. From Craig Calcaterra at NBC's HardballTalk: "Baines played for 22 seasons, amassed 2,866 hits and made the All-Star Game six times. He was a fantastically consistent hitter, posting an OPS+ of 108 or greater every single season between the ages of 22 and 40. He was also a durable player, not missing a whole heck of a lot of time to either injury or ineffectiveness until his late 30s. Even then he managed to hang around until he was 42-years-old. In the early part of his career, with the Chicago White Sox, he was the star of the team and the face of the organization. ... For all of the pros in Baines’ column as listed above, it has to be said that Baines will be one of the weaker inductees in some time. He led the league in exactly one offensive category in his long career: slugging percentage in 1984. He was rarely a top-10 finisher in the most important offensive categories. His highest finish in MVP balloting came in 1985 when he came in ninth. While Baines may have meant a lot to the White Sox in the first part of his career there is no way one can honestly argue that he was ever the best player in the game or even one of the best five, six or, usually, ten. His failure to rank highly in hitting categories is especially notable given that over 1,600 of his 2,830 career games came at DH. He was certainly not thought of as a Hall of Famer by the men and women who covered him during his day: he was on the BBWAA ballot five times and never received more than 6.1% of the vote. He fell off the ballot in 2011 when he received 4.8%."

LOL. Not that the Hall of Fame had much credibility left, but it's gotta be all gone now.

No doubt. I've sat through some pretty crappy games the past few years, but the atmosphere at these last two night games has made it all worth it. So much fun.

What difference it makes is it might piss off Harper or Machado. You don’t risk that under any circumstance.

You do NOT move Jose until the Harper & Machado situations have been addressed.

The speech will be as the kids would say, lit as fuck.

I want them both. Anything less is unacceptable.

I’ll do that for you for the politicos on here. I represented a republican in Illinois that lost. But I earned a ton of experience. At heart I’m a fiscal conservative and he was socially liberal so I liked him again the status quo in Illinois. So next year we are planning on running me for office. I’ll obviously let you guys know if it comes to fruition. Some guys on here already know me, but my entire platform is for the people. We need more of a voice and damn receipts for that voice. Miss you nerds.

Not for you as much as for the people who actually will read this and learn something... NO one actually cares about the teams profit and loss in terms of how much money they lose or make. They care about team payroll in terms of what is allows the team to add to the existing team. Current and future payrolls are the #1 indicator of how much salary the team is going to be able to add to it at any point in time. It tells if there is room to add a star, or if they are maxed out. Literally no one outside of the board of directors and people who hold grudges over that kind of thing actually care how much profit the team makes. They care about payroll simply in terms of what kind of team it is allowing the White Sox to put on to the field. That's it. Anything else is dishonest.

I like it? Or I don't? I'm not sure. I always said Avi was like a hot-ex girlfriend who was a bit crazy. When you think you were done with her she'd reel you back in. Every time I hated Avi he'd go on a mini run or do something like 2 years ago. And then follow it up with his normal junk. But then ride a hot streak again.. I think it's good to move on and delete him from all social media and my phone. Undoubedtly he'll marry onto the Astros or Indians or something and have a ton of success and be rich. I'll be upset. Such is life with Avi Garcia, the hot ex girlfriend.