SoxBlanco

Haha, I'm one of the most optimistic people on this board. I defend Hahn to a fault sometimes. I was referring to the "lucked into" part of your post. They absolutely have a championship caliber team. But they didn't luck into it.

This is absolutely insane.

@ChiSox59 The confusion happened with the part I highlighted above. Ray Ray meant that you named Sheets and the guy who is currently our LF (Eloy) as the DH options. He didn't mean that you were claiming Sheets is the LF.

I am very curious to see what kind of deal Conforto gets. It's such a mystery to me because of his poor year last year. Schwarber played only 113 games last year and put up 3.1 WAR (and a 145 wRC+). Conforto is coming off a season where he played 125 games and only put up 0.8 WAR (and a 106 wRC+). Conforto obviously plays better defense, but that is taken into account with the WAR totals. Obviously it was a down year for Conforto compared to his previous seasons, but how will that affect his contract? It'll be really interesting to see how it shakes out.

And Rodon last year.

Agreed. But we might have gone with a 4/$80M and no other teams want to go 4 or 5 years with him coming off a down year.

This is exactly what I've been saying. It's possible that Hahn tried to lock up Conforto the same way that he locked up Grandal early, but that Conforto isn't biting because of Boras. The good news is that we have other options if we don't land Conforto (Castellanos, Schwarber, etc.), so if the market isn't great for those guys, Hahn's plan to not increase the offer at this point might not be such a bad idea. This obviously all depends on whether we are trying to land one of those guys in the first place.

We need the position player floodgates to open. One of the bigger names needs to sign, and then I think we will see a flurry of activity.

This is the number one thing I keep telling myself in order to stay optimistic. The limited market, combined with the fact that we have possibly two guys who I would be satisfied with, gives me hope that the Hahn strategy of not offering an aggressive contract right away might just work out to land one of them.

I honestly think Hahn just figured Harrison can be the everyday starting 2B, and for $4M, that's not terrible. Leury then becomes the super-utility guy (who I think TLR really wants in that role). It will all come down to what we do in RF. If we land Conforto (or another big bat), then I am completely fine with Harrison and Leury. If not, then I will consider the offseason a big, fat failure.

Yes, but the question I asked right after that is what I'm really curious about.

Conforto is my top choice, but if we land Castellanos instead, I would still be very pleased. Where would Castellanos rank defensively compared to Vaughn and Conforto? Better than Vaugh, but worse than Conforto? Would the gap be larger between Vaughn/Castellanos or Castellanos/Conforto?

How many games this year do you think the starting RF will be either Vaughn or Sheets?

When you say “using”, are you referring to 2021 or 2022?

I didn’t take “Just wait…” to mean that a move was imminent. I just figured it meant that we definitely will make a significant move at some point. If we don’t, then I’ll be right there with you criticizing this offseason.

That’s ridiculous. If we are eating $10M, we are getting a great return.

Doesn’t matter. Worst case, they move him and have to eat a little salary. But he won’t pitch for the Sox this year.

I’d wager so much money that Kimbrel gets traded. I don’t even think it’s a question.

I wonder what Conforto’s market is like. Which other teams would be interested, and how many of those teams would rather have Castellanos?

Yeah, I hear you. I explained my thinking in the post above this, but I don't disagree that your offer would probably get it done quickly. The only question would be whether it could have gotten done for much less.

Yeah, the reason I asked @Balta1701 if he would open at the 5/$110M offer is because I'd probably be willing to go there, but I certainly wouldn't open with that. I would probably offer 4/$84 and see what happens initially. If Boras is trying to get you to increase the offer, that means there probably isn't another team offering 5 years yet. It also gives you a chance to see what the rest of the market looks like (which appears to be happening right now).

So would your initial offer be 5 for $110, with an opt out after year 2?

What would you be offering to Conforto right now if you were the GM?

If you were dealing with Boras, wouldn't you want to make it seem like you are fine with Vaughn/Sheets in RF? The other option is to sound desperate, where you keep increasing your offer to the delight of Boras.

Who said they haven’t put in a competitive offer yet?