Look at Ray Ray Run

With Andujar coming back, the Yankees have an infield logjam; making Didi expendable. They may think he is worth the QO but they don't want the risk of him accepting it and playing one more year to how he's recovered from TJ fully before entering FA again with no QO tied to him. Regardless, your entire argument is that he is worth 9-10 million. I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion. He'll sign a multi-year deal somewhere in the 15-18 million range per year.

Um... uh. 1. Didi played 82 games. 2. The year prior he had a WAR of 4.7 and the year before that it was 4.1. Teams amazingly don't only judge you based on one half season coming off injury. If you think a guy who averaged 4.4 WAR over the two year period is going to sign for 9-10 million, you crazy. Are you willingly ignorant?

In the last three years, he's graded out as the third worst defensive player in major league baseball. I'm not saying that metric is 10000% accurate but I tend to think it means he's likely really horrible.

Ha. I feel this exact same way.

As the saying goes, all it takes is one. I just think in this scenario the potential of that one has shrunk substantially. Leaving him vulnerable. Say the Sox sign Grandal, or the Rangers, then what? Maybe you find a team like the Cubs to take a chance, but if you don't you're left out there floating in silence with no phones ringing because your initial ask is viewed as far too much.

I'm curious to see Castellanos market. Consensus is he's a horrible fielder that needs to be a DH - even moreso as he ages. As was the case with JD, there's like 2 teams in that market and he's no where near JD as a hitter. He is young for a FA and you could argue he still could improve. But theres a real chance there's no market for the guy and he's stuck taking a 1 or 2 year deal for like 18 (1) 30 million (2). Baseball front offices have just lowered the value of his specific skill set significantly over the past 5ish years. He could be sitting out there for a while.

Honestly depends; if robert can be even 80-85% as good as buxton it would be impossible to be the worst outfield - that's how important center is to outfield grades; it's also how incredible buxton is. By all accounts Robert is an absolute stud out there but not sure how well his routes will grade out.

Good point; regarding DH. I think we're further away from that change than next CBA but you never know.

Huh? If he got 3/38 hed be a moron to turn that down for 1 year 18 million.

The Sox weren't lying when they said they want Jose retire a White Sox. They just left out the part that they want him to retire after next year. ?

Calhoun is a maddening player to watch. So streaky. He would drive White Sox fans crazy.

4.4 million is like .5 WAR in these negotiations. For his age most models will show similar regression from this year to next to cancel out that value. I hear what you're saying but the later you get into your thirties the less likely a team is to invest in you. Given how long it took JD to get this contract signed In the first place i think it's safe to say the market isnt in JDs favor.

Obviously not suitors for him; unless they were trading stanton and eating 50% of the deal which would make no sense.

Sure but if teams didnt find him worth his salary this year, with basic aging regression he certainly wouldnt be worth his salary next year at 4.5 million less.

Once again, it is already implied he would have to beat the offer to opt out. You can gauge interest without discussing numbers. This isnt rocket science. There was possibly only one - at most two - suitors for JD. Having a team negotiate against themselves doesnt usually work; although it did work for JD the first time. I am on record saying an opt out didnt make much sense given the risk vs reward. At most he gets a small raise but at the expense of possibly getting less. His current contract was likely a maximization of his worth.

He would be a year older. Hed be giving away the most valuable year of the contract, this year. If a team was not willing to beat the offer to capture this year, they will be even less willing to beat it without the youngest and projected best year of the deal.

Jd Martinez made the decision because he determined he would not make more than what he signed for. Theres nothing he could do to make himself more valuable next year (being 1 year older) than he is right now.

Why?

If Wheeler is out of their price range they will never be ready to compete in the modern game. You could argue it's reasonable for Cole to be out of their price range, but Wheeler and Martinez? That would just mean the White Sox were never ready to compete and were never serious about it. That doesn't mean they should sign those players no matter what - they shouldn't exceed some crazy number just to make a point - but they should certainly be in the conversations and making elite level competitive offers.

Not sure how he is an upgrade over Nova. Nova has out-WAR'ed him the past two years. Their FIPS are really close, Teheran has simply been bad the past three years... and that's bad in the NL. Teheran would be a disaster in the AL, imo.

Yeah, I get that it's been a rough decade and the Sox have failed time and time again... there's enough actual nonsense to be critical of, what is the point of being overly critical of things that aren't real? It takes away from all the "I'm a realist" credibility claims. I am all for logical pessimists; I can't stand illogical ones.

Sure, but I've asked for baseball comps not basketball; basketball is suffering from player tampering not agent led tampering.

Miami cleared that space after those players had opted out and became free agents. They also did not sign bosh, wade and lebron to max contracts. Those players agreed to take less to play together. Again, these things are nothing alike. That said, baseball would possibly argue this is player tampering.

Sure, so name me one team that has ever been caught doing this. The only tampering you see in the MLB is players saying a certain guy would look good as their teammates (which is a laughable claim of tampering), and Joe Maddon to the Cubs. There has not even been an investigation into the "tampering" that is being claimed as likely in this thread; not one. So either all these teams have done an incredible job at hiding this entire aspect of negotiations - meaning MLB teams have willingly given Agents more power than the CBA negotiated for them - because we've never even had a case brought forward for it. Teams just publicly saying they like a player who is under contract - or even being complimentary of said player - is a tampering violation. Teams directly discussing compensation while under contract with another team? Significantly worse than the above.

Players talking amongst themselves to say they'll play together as friends is not tampering between agents and teams. In fact, it's really hard to claim it's against the rules. Every team in the nba cleared space for that off season. Basketball is also a capped sport which makes it no where near similar to baseball. The thing you pointed to above is nothing like Boras calling the sox and saying "we'll opt out if you tell me you'll offer this much for JD."