Look at Ray Ray Run

Also, Cuban is very vocal. I'm not sure they thought that Cohen would be this active in the public sphere. Some of his actions no doubt hurt his teams ability to sign players as it'll turn some people off, but it also raises the prices on people that are unsigned and are basically telling owners to put up or shut up. Huge douche move, but it's Steve Cohen so what did anyone expect?

If one good thing comes from Cohen spending all this money is that owners finally have to put up and stop colluding to suppress player salaries.

I don't see how an off-season in which you have to trade Vaughn because you couldn't just spend money is a big win or even a win at all.

The big move being SIgning a DH/1B type would be brutal regardless of when it happens

Kenny WIlliams: We were caught off guard. Had no idea any of these guys would sign before the deadline. Didn't expect it. We had all their presentations set up for after the New Year - decorated the United Center, the whole nine yards. We had the biggest offers on the table, we just didn't slide them across yet. It hurts.

Rangers making big moves. Sign Gray and Stroman in 5 minutes after Semien.

Far cry from 4 years at 180 million. This was right at the level I think most expected, so the narrative that the Sox wouldn't go to that level meant the Sox were never serious about Scherzer; which is fine, honestly. I wouldn't hate the signing, but Scherzer showed some signs of aging last year; especially before the trade to LAD.

I'm incredibly high on the current pieces on the team which is why I'd love for them to shove all their chips in the middle and support these guys with an influx of talent to help push them over the top and have a hell of a 2-3 year run of dominance. I'm about as optimistic as it gets for the current roster, which is why this is so enraging that the Sox sit on their hands after not trying for three+ years, not spending a dime, and promising they'd spend when the time came.

Cohen is such a chode lol

Who said it was his fault? Who knew this would be the off-season where bmags stans for not spending money and not acquiring good players. Exciting stuff!

Seems like another White Sox outspent excuse. Also, I don't see 4/180 coming in. I'd guess he's got about 3/120 on the table right now.

Oh, so if a team who was willing to spend got involved the Sox would be out and not act like a big market contending team. Got it... so same old White Sox?

Your guy Harold told us the Sox were going to be in on Scherzer and spend like a big market team. Kind of running out of options to do any of those things. Sox going to end up with Danny Duff, Jonathan Villar, and Eddie Rosario.

Don't come at me like that, Ron!

Maybe we can get some updated "top 5 payroll in November" updates after all these players sign.

sigh This was probably my favorite target of all the pitchers this off-season.

Of course. That's not happening though.

So Scherzer, Ray, Gausman and Semien were never targets? It was always Conforto. Interesting moving of those goal posts. Sorry if I'm not going to throw a party about acquiring inconsistent Conforto (who I actually am a fan of). If that's the prize again, it's just the Sox proving they'll never enter the price range needed to sign really talented FA's.

Gausman gone too pal. They're not in on the top top guys, so you're left with two guys: Conforto and Ray. There are 29 other teams. No reason to think the Sox sign both.

It's unlikely, although not impossible by any means, that Conforto is a more valuable player over the next three years than Semien.

The young players on a roster are supposed to outperform their concepts because they're grossly underpaid. Veterans performing to their contracts is fine. I'm not going to get into a huge payroll debate, but salaries in MLB have not scaled with revenues. Not even close. In the period of time that revenues are up nearly 200%, avg player salary is up 76%. Overpayments imply some sense that owners lose money on those contracts. They don't. Fans have bought some erroneous and absurd billionaire narrative that big contracts that don't perform at the end of them hurt franchises. It's complete BS. Players don't get paid when they're young, so you are going to have to "overpay" whent they're older. If Semien is 4+ fWAR player for 3 out of 7 years, the contract is a big win. If he is a key cog on a title team it's a grandslam. The back end of contracts have no actual impact on a teams ability to spend. Owners have merely taken more and more of the revenue share over the past two decades while fans root for them to make even more. It's absoutely baffling. You're not paying for Semein in 2026-2027. You're paying for his production over the next 2-3 seasons and hoping he puts your team over the top. That generates huge revenues for a team and pays for itself on the back end.

After further thought, I'm actually really excited that the Sox didn't sign a perennial MVP candidate because in 2028 we want to make sure we maintain that elite financial flexibility to miss out on marquee free agents then as well. $/WAR championships are the real champions. I hope baseball owners can continue to grow their share of the pie over the players because there's nothing I like watching more than Jerry Reinsdorf count all his money in the owners box. It's my favorite thing to bid on during the White Sox charities auction every year. Let's go! Bring on Chris Taylor!!

White Sox baseball. We're all-in, baby!

when i grow up I hope I can be just like you.