CaliSoxFanViaSWside

So Arizona end up with 4 picks ( 3 of them higher ) than the Sox 2nd pick for finishing with 3rd worst record in baseball. That kind of sucks. Any chance these things change in the next contract between players and owners ?

Maybe Longenhagen only saw him in the Fall Stars game . He didn't look so good in that game That game of course was right in the middle of that 14 game hit streak. Doubtful Longenhagen would base his opinion on just one game but why would he be even less confident ? Makes no sense. He was up around .370 then went 1 for 9. He's currently at .324 after going 1 for 4 and stealing 2nd and 3rd base in his game tonight.

Sox could even throw in one of the Jordan's , Stephens or Guerrero to even it up .

Isn't your last sentence just what I said ?

I think it has the chance of growing. He made 3 appearances . Perhaps hes make up to 10 appearances if we suck again all when we are hopelessly out of games. If he does well again, they might have to take him a little more seriously especially if his hitting tanks.

No but he still has a brother in the Nats system,Bryan Harper. He is a 28 year old pitcher who had TJ surgery . Maybe Sox could get him ala Eloy's brother and Jordan Danks.Give the Nats a better prospect than his brother and Bryce is in the bag .

Ha its settled he loves Chicago food.

Sorry long time girlfriend and born in Manhattan raised in Miami.

Not saying it's a selling point, He just better have his head on screwed on straight, if that's truly his dream to play for the Yankees and it turns into a nightmare .

He was around before the whole a lot of the media explosion. Yes there was ESPN . But now there's MLB Network. Twitter and tons of social media. He also married J LO which helped who is beloved from the Bronx .It's also closer to $300M than $400M if you are just counting salary about $317M, Arod was raised in Manhattan so maybe he just loved NY and just let it roll off his back like he did with the steroids controversy. He is certainly no worse for the wear. I'll give you that. Perhaps that will be the case for Machado too.

It's not unique too NY it's just intensified by 100. NY is the baseball and media capital of the world. Every time I watch any show on MLB Network be it Hot Stove, MLB Now , Baseball tonight or whatever their is always a story on the Yankees.Always. Then there's the NY based Christopher Russo show on MLB Network which also focuses a lot on the Yanks. The Sox are way down the list of teams who garner that kind of media spotlight. Sure it will happen in Chicago too but nowhere close to the extent that it will in NY.

Think of what Stanton went through in NY. He got booed plenty and worse for god knows what reason besides that he got off to a slow start and K'd a lot. Machado will be fair game for every rabid a-hole and there are many many of them. Machado will be vilified , crucified and ostracized in NY.

I think the media might be very hard on Machado next year. Everything he does could be put under a microscope especially if he's a Yankee. In Chicago he might escape the harsher spotlight. Let's face it , right now he is a marked man and is a villain in the publics eyes.

Unfortunately when you ask for something like your alternate approach it takes a ton of research on current payroll ,who we might keep who we might trade who can we acquire via FA and at what price and then making it into a full roster with flexibility. That could take a few hours at a minimum and . I don't know how long it took Balta but I know it would take me a long time. We have good fans here but if you work full time and have kids and a wife and many other responsibilities that's asking a lot.

I'd argue that point about Harper but no need to derail the thread.

Ok you're right . I had to reread the OP. Hell then I wouldn't even bother without Harper or Machado I don't see the sense of adding anything besides the innings eaters. and going back to the original plan of tanking and waiting for the youngins'. Next year is a good pitching year for FA's, maybe start then but I don;t like too many positional guys in the next 2 FA classes besides Arenado and Rendon. I might add some guys for potential flips but without the whale there's not much of a chance of being that competitive.

Sounds like the plan I've been trumpeting but the question on the bridge guys is always wwat they want and how many years and will we have the payroll for them

Depends on which whale we get. I already mentioned Harper could play 1st base. Palka could be an OF against righties. Depends on what Nelson Cruz might cost i suppose. See what Daniel Murphy will cost. Steve Pearce, Dozier ,Matt Adams.

Then its back to the original plan . Get pitching from outside the organization to eat innings and tank again.

I thought you weren't very high on ABreu any more. You made quite a few posts on his slippage this past year, An improved Palka strictly against righties could provide plenty of pop. Palka had an .824 OPs against righties. Davidson .882 OPS against lefties. Abreu .798 OPS. Doesn't appear to be a downgrade.

I'd agree with this but just to eat innings we still need pitching this year and Hahn said it will come from outside the organization WHo we get depends on how good of a shot at Harper/Machado do the Sox FO really thinks we have, If our first signing is Corbin or maybe Happ then you know we have a legit shot at the whales.

I think you did a good job. I'd subtract the salaries or Avi and Abreu .Maybe a combo of Palka /Davidson at 1st and see what kind of CF'er we can get for ABreu who costs less. Assuming we have Harper . He could play 1st since he really doesn't bring all that much to the table in the OF Just like when they moved him to catcher for his bat playing him at 1st is doing the same thing, I want to maximize the bat and try to get him back to hitting for 1.000 OPS and we have a good park for that Harper could hit 50 HR's here. Maybe trade for Jake Lamb or go with Moose , Marwin Gonzales or Donaldson depending on what the payroll constraints start looking like. If we have Machado, You could still trade Abreu and do the same things you mentioned in the OF. It takes too much time to try to figure salaries for every possible free agent and made up trades I'd also point out that the TV contract expires after the 2019 season and with Harper a new TV contract should be larger maybe even substantially larger. perhaps allowing for a higher payroll .I too have been speculating on payroll and I read this link in the Harper/Machado thread https://670thescore.radio.com/mlb-notes-white-sox-serious-harper-machado-chase "The Walt Disney Company owns more than 70 percent of MLB streaming rights going forward through its stake in BAMTech, a source said. BAMTech is a subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media that oversees the streaming technology and distribution. MLB will retain a small percentage of this joint venture. For the right to that content, Disney paid each MLB club $68 million over the past two offseasons. So over the last 2 seasons the Sox along with every other team got $68M which just so happens to coincide with the 1st 2 years of our rebuild, Now other teams got the same thing and many more than likely used that money in some fashion for payroll or whatever. Maybe the Sox used there's to pay for Robert . I don't know." Those are also my comments from the other thread. Balta was kind enough to provide the link to the Soxtalk thread that covered this initially. The thread isn't very big but it did include some speculation started by Hot Fire about signing Machado/Harper. I'm wondering if we can expect more payouts from this ? http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?/topic/103687-every-mlb-team-will-get-an-extra-50-million-from-disney-purchase/&tab=comments#comment-3553318

That's not in question but the guy was given enough grief about it. Why start it all over again. It's like picking on the fat kid. It's mild bullying. No one likes their mistakes thrown in their face time and time again.

Guys do you want to drive greg off the board for 3 months again ?

OK I found the podcast that Hahn made the quote and the thread where I think it was Chisox59 that did a recap on it. It was from August 2nd and Chisox59 said "prospect for prospect". When I listened to the podcast I was also trying to do the other research and tuned some of it out so I didn't hear the exact quote but its in that Rick Hahn Unplugged podcast from that date and it's from NBCSN the Garfien podcast from Reggies. As for the Cubs/Sox trade I remember me and Blacksox13 both thought it was a good idea and they matched up well. He could probably back me up on that if he reads this but I haven't seen him posting very much lately.