SoxBlanco

8 for $275 just makes too much sense. Very high AAV, and yet the Sox manage to stay under $300. Also, Lozano comes out looking great because he was able to get the offer raised by $100 million, even when not many teams were interested.

Ok, and then what happens when they get back to them? Probably the same conversation that I joked about.

And then what does that call sound like? Padres: Hey Lozano, I heard the highest offer is for only $25 million per year. We'd like to enter the bidding. Lozano: Actually, another team is willing to go 8 for $250 right now. Can you beat that? Padres: No Lozano: Ok, bye.

I don't believe the Sox offer has shrunk. You don't believe that, do you?

I want to believe this, but why would somebody who works directly with the big boss be letting it out that Manny to the Sox is pretty much a done deal?

There is no chance that the Sox were never really in the running because of insultingly low offers. Zero point zero percent chance.

At least.

Do you mean actually signing where the deal is official? Or just news that we have reached an agreement?

@raBBit, do you have reason to believe this saga is coming to an end soon? Or did you just mean it in a general sense?

No, Kevin Spacey.

I'm assuming Machado's camp is using SoxFest as leverage. "Hey, I know you guys would want him signed by the end of the next week. Give us this amount right now, and we'll sign."

And since the morning, we've gone from 280 pages in this thread to 288 pages with literally nothing happening.

Guy can't even charge his phone. Definitely not legit.

Any luck trying to get information? We need something to get excited or freak out about.

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.