SoxBlanco

Perhaps. Judging by what some of our own insiders have said, I think it’s higher than that. I think we’ve officially offered at least $250 by now. But who knows how many official offers we’ve even made at this point.

You actually think our highest offer has been around $210/$220?

If the Phillies think our best offer is 7 years, they might swoop in and offer 8 for $250 thinking they have us beat. In reality, we could be sitting there with an offer of 8 for $275. It would really be great if the Sox leaked both reports. Get the conflicting 7 or 8 year reports out there and everyone will put two and two together and assume the Sox actually offered 8 years but they don't want other teams to know that. Then their true offer of 10 years won't be touched by other clubs.

I understand that, but he's saying that the report about Manny heavily leaning toward accepting our offer has been vetted and confirmed. The part where the deal could still fall through is meaningless to me. If he didn't add that, I would still think the deal could fall through. So he decided to leave himself a direct out. Big deal. The fact remains that he heard Manny is heavily leaning toward accepting our offer. That sounds good to me.

I like the sound of that.

We’ll be playing with house money at that point. It’ll be a crazy thread, but much less stressful.

Everyone needs to read this post. It’s like people are setting the market in their minds based on what they read the offers are. While the actual offers DO set the market, we have no idea what those offers are. I was willing to pay $350 in a heartbeat just a month ago. If we can get him for cheaper because nobody else is offering anything, then great.

So if we are offering 8 for $250, and he wants $300, then throw two extra years on and offer 10 for $300. He'd be getting a lower AAV, but then we might be closer to a deal.

Exactly. At this point, if we give an extra $30 million, how do we know Manny even accepts it? Like Balta has been saying, what needs to happen now is Hahn asking Manny's camp what number they would sign for. Then you negotiate and try to meet in the middle. You don't just throw extra money at him and hope he accepts. It's hard to sit back and wait, but at this point, what other team is going to swoop in and sign him? I like our chances, but I have no idea how long it will take to find a number (and opt out agreements) that both sides agree on.

Pi Day! (with 22/7 being a close approximation to pi)

I think people are claiming this offer isn't as high as originally expected because they are looking at the $250 million number. But the AAV of $31.25 is still very high. I don't think teams are going to look at this offer (assuming it's true) and say, "Wow, Manny is only going for $250...let's jump in!" I think they are going to look at the $31 million per year and say, "Yeah, I don't think we can add more than $31 million to our yearly payroll. If they were willing to do that, they would have been in the mix a month ago.

I think Manny wants to sign with the Sox at this point (going off of nothing other than a gut feeling). I think if Lozano and Machado are trying to get other teams to enter the mix, it's because they want to get the Sox to increase their offer, not because Manny wants to play for a different team.

Yeah, Hahn said earlier this offseason that Cease is on the same path Kopech was last year. So assuming things go well, he could be up in August, just like Kopech was last year.

Palka it is!

Did you not list a position for Anderson because you’re still not sure if he will be making the switch to catcher?

You’re the long time lurker that has some connection inside the Sox organization, right?

Where would Passan most likely be getting this from?

How about an opt out after year 3 if we haven’t made the playoffs yet in 2019, 2020, or 2021? If we do make the postseason at least once in those three years, it kicks in after year 4. Or do you never want to tie wins/losses/team results into the contract of a player if it means a negative outcome of the team means a positive for an individual player?

I deleted my post.

Oh, I totally agree. I’m not at all worried by what NotHahn has to say. But I think it’s pretty clear he talked to his source and received some bad news. Hopefully the bad news is just that it’s not looking good for Manny to sign anytime soon.

I thought of all that too, but then he wouldn’t have added “not looking good”.

Yeah, he said that if we had never acquired Alonso and Jay, he would never have thought Manny was more realistic than Harper, based on his conversation with his source. I’m obviously paraphrasing, but it was something along those lines.

Maybe NotHahn’s bad news is only in regards to Harper.

I don't believe he ever said anything about this coming Wednesday. Four days ago (Tuesday), he tweeted that the White Sox used to always make their big moves on Wednesdays. I don't think he had any inside information that something would happen with Manny/Harper on Wednesday. Or are you referring to something else he said?

My guess is it's something like this: Our negotiations with Machado have slowed recently. There was some momentum and hope that we would reach a deal this week, but both sides appear to be far apart on the money side of things. This may drag into February. The bright side is that Philadelphia is not meeting his asking price at the moment either.