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I'd go 24/2.3B

You want to be lazy, fine, here's the middle part of the free agent market last year. Here's guys who got $10-20 million AAV. note, I'm being nice because Darvish got $21 million annual. Santana - Already dumped by the Phillies Hosmer .720 OPS, 1.4 rWAR. Wade Davis - ERA of 4.13 but led the NL in saves so not awful! Lorenzo Cain - Congratulations you won the lottery Alex Cobb 5-15, 4.90 ERA. Greg Holland - 4.66 ERA, congrats you only signed him for 1 year so the debacle was limited Jay Bruce - you still owe $26 million to a guy who put up a .680 OPS. Tyler Chatwood - 5.30 ERA for the Cubs Zack Cozart - .658 OPS, missed half the year. Lance Lynn - pitched 54 innings for your $12 million Brandon Morrow - good first half, missed the entire 2nd half. CC Sabathia - you know what? Not bad. Jaime Garcia - 5.82 ERA. That is everyone last year who signed 10-20 million average annual value, roughly the middle part of the free agent market. Out of 13 guys, there's 2 to 3 you're actually happy with. The middle part of the free agent market is a plague to baseball. It is a way to destroy your franchise.

Watch little to no baseball for another season

Tar and feather Rick Hahn.

One World Series Title vs never ever playing in the World Series. Zero playoff games in 17 years. It's really that simple

If they are small market, it’s only because of a decade’s mind-numbing results on the field, busted draft picks, value-oriented Tier B free agent spending patterns and the lack of any visible marketing appeal (Abreu jersey sales lagging behind Madden, for example)...we’ve pretty much been conditioned as fans to think of the team that way. Heck, the Cubs’ bat boy jersey might be leading Moncada or Anderson. Nevertheless, we wouldn’t have one of the better media rights deals in baseball without having a significant potential market...despite the atrocious ratings...we’re a sleeping “mini-giant.” No excuse for not being a Top 8-12 franchise in the game if things were executed properly.

I feel very comfortable in saying that to not even mention the White Sox for either player means he doesn’t know shit.

Didn't the Cubs do that with Lester?

I’m not sure getting this wrong will have any impact on his career. He can simply say his source (who he already revealed to be a friend / former teammate) misunderstood the certainty of what Machado told them. Meanwhile, he’ll have gained some Twitter followers which long-term likely results in more clicks for his blog. Sure, his reputation will take a hit in the short-term, but look how many of you beleive hik despite all his previous misses / cover-ups. To me, there is nothing but upside for him here.

Do some research before typing nonsense.

That was one hell of a season. Thank you Bears.

If you’re afraid to take risks, then you’re setting yourself up for mediocrity IMO. I get the Astros developed most of their core on their own (although they’ve since augmented), but that’s simply not very realistic for us. We will have to sign a premier free agent or two at some point (ideally while our core is still cheap) if we want to maximize our chances of putting together a championship caliber roster.

I can just as easily name a series of 3 WAR players that hit as you can that missed. That's part of the game. The good thing is that 3 WAR players that don't hit also don't cost nearly half a billion dollars.

Getting an additional 5-6 WAR player enhances the rebuild and its only for money. Those players aren’t always available when you need one for just money.

I swear a few of you guys have been in a mental tailspin since Kopech went down. No matter who this team signs they're still at least 2 years from contending. Stay the course. The only way this ship is righted is if guys like Anderson and Moncada develop and around 5 of the top 10 prospects hit. Relax and try to enjoy player development.

The only way I will be placated is if the Sox announce they are committed to building the best player development org in the world, acquire some sports medicine start up and analytics business, say they are building special training facilities for players to use in North Carolina, and a hiring spree of front office officials from progressive franchises AND creating a scouting team and facility for some obscure country like Ghana. And they sign drew Pomeranz and Shelby Miller to one year deals.

7 of the last 8 seasons have been losing ones. They mad the playoffs 10 years ago. Barely. How much is a fan supposed to take? At what point is this not on the fan base but on the guys who have been in charge for close to 20 years? Someday, everyone will be able to block out all the filler KW and RH use when they speak, and realize even if they may be bright guys, they pretty much suck at their jobs.

I'll accept if he misses on both but has a plan to bring in some controllable talent. Making a panic move and trading for Encarnacion would be the nail in the coffin, IMO. It would show a stunning lack of preparation and market awareness.

Basically everything is a mess right now. There's not one person on the current roster where you can confidently say they will still be a key contributor come 2022. It's why 2018 was such a lost season.

Agreed. You don’t become much of a joke if you don’t have very far to fall. People will mock him a bit if Machado signs elsewhere, but then they’ll forget until the next time he does this. Even then, given how many scoops have come from reddit, twitter users with few followers, and other message boards, it’s hard to truly discount someone that claims to have information. A certain percentage of folks will always believe.

From what I am gathering around the interwebz most people agree that Dan Clarke doesn't have any 100% credible information, he's simply taking a stab here with a 1 in 3 chance with low long-term risks and high short term gains. It just doesn't make sense. I'm treating it as a non-story.

I can't make you believe or not believe him, but I think that the reactions of Orioles fans who are familiar with Clark speak volumes. This is a guy who has tweeted out rumors (on a smaller scale) in the past and deleted them when they are wrong. He did leave up the Markakis one which he got wrong, which I suppose (?) I give him credit for? Anyway, it's fine if you think he could be right, I just don't appreciate when other people feel the need to mock those who don't believe Clark, especially given his track record.

Did anyone catch five tweets from Steve Phillips Friday. Does not believe Cubs Phil's Nat's or Dodgers are IN on Harpo. Then he points to the alt Chicago team. Again I would never count on a player who works with Boras. We have no concrete hints that Harpo is headed here.

Is that WhiteSoxDave's cousin or something?

The dude is a total joke whether he’s right about this or not.

Another nice win. Hope Gabriel and Miller are okay and that Robinson and Jackson will be 100 percent by next week. Great defense and a nice ground and pound game with solid play by Mitch. Scoring that many points against a good d without most of your top wideouts was nice. Everything is about to get tougher and the Eagles are on a roll and obviously are playoff tested. One game at a time but no matter what happens this has been just an awesome season (which hopefully only gets more awesome).

The cubs and royals obsession is just sad around here.

Trust me Truth, I’m in full agreement that we need to do whatever it takes to land a whale. And I do they believe they’re willing to offer a record breaking contract, I’m just concerned in the case of Machado they won’t make a Godfather type offer and will instead just assume 10/$325M is way better than 8/$280M. We’re entering unprecedented territory for the franchise so who really knows though.

The Mariners at least had identifiable franchise cornerstones in Ichiro, Felix and Cano. We had...Buehrle and Konerko, then Abreu. Nice covered modern stadium, trendy city with lots of tech companies...compared to now one of the older stadiums in a so-so area of the city, and certainly not the heart of an entertainment district. And then the Cubs’ Marginalization Effect, too.

He got injured a week prior. Just reaggravated it. He'll be fine. Won't be 100% but who is at this point. Philly fans going nuts on their board. They're playing the Bear Down song on their message board.

Just to mess with fathom, another New York “insider” says Machado to Yankees:

Because $$$ and market share.

Why is it an either/or type thing? Adding a star via free agency allows us to overcome one of those guys not hitting their ceiling. If they all reach their potential plus we add Machado or Harper then great, but we shouldn’t make decisions today assuming all our young guys are going to work out. Also, how quickly does Robert become an impact player exactly? He may not be up here until late 2020 / early 2021 and could take a year or two before he finds his stride. Meanwhile, we burn through Moncada & Jimenez’s service while we wait. Adding a legit star or two takes some pressure off our kids needing to come out of the gate guns blazing to be competitive.

Calling us a small market team is absolutely ridiculous.

The Sox are basically a small market team. They can't afford those risks. I think I'm just more realistic about the Sox position in the market than some of you guys.

You know what? Go do it then. Go look at the performance of guys who sign $15-$20 million a year, multi-year contracts the last few years. How many of them outperform? How many underperform. The last time I did that exercise was after 2016 and the results of these guys made me sick to my stomach. That part of the market was something like $13 million/WAR because so many of them underperformed. You had better luck signing the really big names or signing the value guys.

It's a lot less dangerous than signing Harper and having him underperform or get hurt, which is a very realistic possibility.

I have no urge to try to sign 3 WAR players. They are, IMO, the guys that are the most likely to underperform. 3-WAR players are guys that their teams could always sign if they wanted to keep them, and their team has decided that player isn't worth that money to them. They're they guys where a team may not even offer them a QO because they don't want them back. If you've got to sign 1 of them to fill a role at the end, fine. But we've played this game before. We know how that game goes. That's the Todd Frazier, Jeff Samardzija game - we expect more out of those guys than we actually get, and they don't make a big difference in the end.

If it would get him (Harper) to sign, I’d seriously offer him some kind of ownership interest contingent on him being a lifer with the Sox (with Sox right to buy it back or something). He’d be invested and likely recruit other players as well. It would be the best investment for this team ever it made them relevant again.

That is just embarrassing reporting but par for the course for a hack like Cafardo.

Unfortunately we can’t. Just gonna have to wait this one out. Shouldn’t be long now. Go out and party. Be safe. Maybe we’ll get a gift.

If we dont get harper or machado and yonder, martinez or encarnacion are playing for the White Sox I will then be convinced that they are clueless as an organization.

I wonder if their tune changed because of Kopech getting hurt and if that impacted either whale’s decision not to come here.

Then the Alonso trade doesn’t make much sense then and I was one of the people that said it had nothing to do with Machado. It did, unless they are going to move Abreu. I don’t want them to save face, I want the long term holes the Sox have filled and I want to see a stud play for this team instead of mediocrity we have seen over the years. Filling third base with someone other than Yolmer Sanchez would have been huge. I thought Machado would be a natural for here, whereas Harper might not be since there are a plethora of outfielders in the minor leagues. I would like to see a starting pitcher be signed in free agency over the next year or so, a third baseman like Arenado be signed or acquired and more pieces to be added. I am all for the rebuild but I want to see pieces that supplement the rebuild and I have not seen that yet. I do not want to just see bad contracts taken on without much gain in terms of prospects. Hopefully it happens next offseason.

BTW, when it was announced DiDi was injured, I did post it made it a lock Machado to NY. So if he does sign, I do hope everyone, including all the national guys give me credit.

I would think it would be due to the holidays. This would be one of the biggest signings in history, and people are doing other things. It would basically be the Friday night news dump , I take a bus to work in the morning. It is empty now , usually standing room only. The office is a ghost town. Turn on the news and it is the back ups on the telecast. Watch TV, it’s re runs. i think it is as simple as that. James McCann, that’s the type of stuff you can announce now. Machado and Harper, you need to wait until people return to their normal schedules.

Their plan B this whole time has been to stay the course in the rebuild.

Deals fall apart all the time even in late stages. But these are not the smoke signals you like to see, as DA says. I way way downgrade Sox’s chances after stuff like this starts popping up.

Exactly, the only people that would be jumping for joy are the same ones that panic over every tweet saying the race is over. When a deal/agreement is tweeted from the national guys come out then I'll react, until then alot of smoke blowing with different agendas.