Look at Ray Ray Run

So day that Phillies are said to be nearing the end with Harper the padres now hummed up bigger in machado sweepstakes. They were last team left even said to be involved with philly out. Of course this was coming

Smoke smoke smoke and two fires announced tomorrow morning? National writers heating up.

Ding ding.

There is zero percent chance manny goes to the Yankees. Why do people still think this?

Step away from the ledge pal. All is going to be fine.

They have like 3 players on the books.

Hence the miggy comp too. Never seems off balance and never has to sell out for power. Doesnt walk a lot - similar to miggy - but sees a lot of pitches and goes with the pitch better than any young hitter in the game.

Honestly there will never be a hitter like Frank again. He was so unique. You would never teach someone to hit like him but he was so skilled - his eye to ball skills were remarkable. His weight shift was so unique. He was somehow so balanced in a position anyone else would be off balance. He was a punch and Judy doubles hitter with 80 power. Butt out ball down the line protection hitter and an abnormal home run hitter - Frank did not sell out to pull. He was remarkable because he could punch a ball out to right with his hands only. I understand being as excited - they are both remarkable hitting talents but sometimes I think people overlook how unique Frank Thomas was. There will never be a hitter like him again. Front footing his way to 500+ homers.

Moncada was always an incredible athlete and all around player. Great speed and power combination. A Roberto alomar kind of talent but needed fine tuning. He has a hole in his swing and it's now his turn to adjust. But scouts fall in love with tools and 5 tools especially. Eloy is a fine tuned professional hitter. He doesnt have a hole in his swing and understands how to approach hitting like a veteran. He doesnt have the speed or defense/arm tool upside like yoan but his hitting could be top level good. That means all he has to lean on is his bat which gives him less avenues to produce value... hence why its safer to rank a guy with multiple value generating tools higher. Eloy has a lot of manny Ramirez in him. It is a truly great comp. But remember how manny wasnt really good at anything else... so eloy has a little risk because he had two tools instead of 5. But man are those two tools historically great.

Yeah I remember this. Bowden definitely can be lazy but not sure he could continue to be 100% retarded after that mistake and keep his job.

Not really though. I don't think this market effects the average FA market at all - just the top tier talent market. I dont see how Boras can have the majority of his clients without a team come March.

The main reason I don't think these guys could hold out until March is because they are holding up so many other players, that Boras and Lozano have to be feeling the heat to wrap this up.

Front page of MLB.

You can discredit the piece all you'd like Dick, but just like everything else... provide me with a source of rebut if you're going to say it's a lie. Just dismissing things because you want to doesn't really make it right. Here is the piece about Lozano spending and living check to check: From the moment he was hired, Lozano was never more than just barely out of debt, living contract percentage to contract percentage. He told colleagues he hadn't put a dime into retirement accounts. He borrowed against his pension. When he tried to buy his house in 1997, his credit was so shot that he had to borrow money from Jeff Borris, a senior partner at BHSC, to make a down payment. Borris made sure that the entire office knew he had lent the money and made sure he was repaid with interest. There was no single demon sucking up Dan Lozano's money. He was doing well, making high six figures annually according to a co-worker's estimate. He just lived beyond his means: a home steps from the beach, a new Range Rover, a tailored suit. It was always something new. "As soon as he made money, he spent it," recalls an acquaintance, who says Lozano would think nothing of dropping thousands of dollars on dinner, most of it on wine, and would think even less of dropping thousands of dollars on women for himself. Lozano often entertained prospective clients by bringing them to porn shoots, a co-worker says, but gradually he began dating adult film stars and escorts. There was Alisha Klass, the former fiancée of porn mogul Seymore Butts. There was Julián, the androgynous Filipina. But these flings never lasted long. One of his steadier relationships, lasting a year, was with a pretty blonde named Kristen, who told at least one person in Lozano's circle that she had been a call girl. She was now trying the sugar-baby route: A source familiar with Lozano's finances says he spent $50,000 a month taking care of her. By the way, his networth was listed at 27 million... one site listed it at 7 million. Maybe he changed his ways, but it seems incredibly unlikely that's the case.

Well, I read the article in which they discuss how he lives very lavishly and depends on his contract signings to support his spending habits year to year. I actually read the article which is where I came up with desperate for cash. Weird, huh? What were they used for?

Lozano is desperate for cash and will worry about himself before his client - that's not exactly what you want in your agent. Dick, I'll be honest, you have some of the most interesting takes here. Having a guy who lies about everything - even my salary offerings so that he can claim he talked them up to give me more - is not exactly what I want out of my agent. Also, why would Boras "use" the White Sox. If they offered the most money, that's where Harper would go. He wasn't using them.

A quote from the piece: With Lozano, that question is always there. Through the years, he has told clients and colleagues that his career began in 1990 as a kid fresh out of USC, where he played Division I ball and earned a law degree. Every part of that sentence is false. Lozano never passed the bar, never went to law school, didn't even earn an undergraduate degree. He told USA Today that he was just one Spanish class shy of graduating, but he once told a co-worker he lasted only "a few semesters." (He also told USA Today he dropped out because he was "negotiating the biggest deal in baseball history." He was referring to Mike Piazza's gargantuan Mets contract, which was signed nine years after he dropped out.) As for his boast of playing baseball for the Trojans? Longtime USC coach Mike Gillespie has no recollection of Lozano, and his name appears nowhere in a list of all-time letterwinners. It's not for nothing that, according to colleagues, people in the BHSC office took to calling him "Lie-zo." lol

He didn't even have a degree. Agents aren't the best people alive, but this guy makes the rest look like Mother Theresa.

Can we talk about how stupid this quote is: “Thirty owners need to be answering that because you have one of the best players in the game that needs a job and no one is signing him,” he said. “You’ve got 30 owners who have a sabermetric box that will sign players when they were in that box. They don’t take any intangibles or anything else into play and that’s a sad thing. They remain unsigned by their own choice. It's not as if no one is offering them a deal, and Wainwright has no idea what they have even been offered so why is he talking as if he knows the interest. Manny and Bryce aren't unsigned because of sabermetrics. They are unsigned because they want more than what people are willing to offer. It's not about intangibles or any of that nonsense, jaysus. "No one is signing him" is such a dumb thing to say. As if Manny is shopping around for minor league contract offers or something.

This was when deadspin was a good platform so I'm not sure why you're saying really. This was when they were a good investigative site with good indepth stories. That article is from 2011 - the things in there are facts. Don't hate the source, read the story.

He's not a good manager, and I'm not signing a manager for marketability. Madden the most overrated hack since LaRussa.

I said it before, but Lopez's second half was the most exciting thing to happen to that team last year. His September he threw 33 innings, struck out 35, OBAA of .164 and an ERA of 1.09. The improved strike out rate his final 8 starts showed the advancement of his secondaries as the year went on. I'm excited for Reynaldo this year. He also had a FIP under 2.8.

Madden is an asshat.

I honestly don't understand how their roster was better last year - not sure why people continue to say that. Who have they lost that was worth anything? Their roster is better this year because they're a year older, and because all they "lost" was Avi and Davidson who are bad.

Yes, he is different. He lies to his clients, and plays two face. Lozano is about as shitty of a human as you'll find. Give this a read if you're interested: https://deadspin.com/dan-lozano-albert-pujolss-superagent-king-of-sleaze-5861982