Jake

Lack of a salary cap is definitely not the problem in baseball right now. The harshness of the new luxury tax may even be a key problem in getting the best players paid well.

For reference, league average payroll last season was about $140 million

So there are two questions: 1. Is this accurate? 2. Given the answer to the above, who would leak this and why?

If he doesn't get something better than 7/175, we're on the verge of a strike in a couple years.

I decided to look a little more closely at the ingredients, etc. and I was somewhat surprised that the ingredients were decent, all things considered. I still don't think it works and would strongly advise Frank (if he cared what I thought) not to shill for them, at least in the way that he does. It also costs a fortune if the GNC price ($85/month) is anywhere close to the typical price people pay. There are several ingredients with decent scientific evidence as libido boosters, at least among those with low libido, and a little evidence for fertility enhancement among the infertile. The ingredient they mention in the commercials had one study showing a modest increase in testosterone, but two follow-ups by the same research group found no effect on testosterone levels. In all the trials of that ingredient, people who were given that ingredient did not get stronger, leaner, or get any other practical benefit that might come from more testosterone. One ingredient has some modest evidence for slight increases in testosterone but is at a much, much lower dose than what has been researched. One ingredient probably does have a small benefit, but again not to testosterone. Research is fairly conclusive against testosterone enhancement, but somewhat encouraging for slight increases in muscle mass and strength in certain subsets of men. That being said, you could just purchase that ingredient for much, much less; a quick search turned up that ingredient at the same dosage in isolation for $10/month. Conclusion: mostly BS supplement (if we judge it by the claims they make on TV) but may give an edge to people who are training hard and may give erections to those who want them.

To be clear: the product Frank is a spokesman for is not a "testosterone supplement" in the sense that it is not testosterone. The way these products are *supposed* to work is they stimulate one's body to produce more testosterone within its natural means. Such products typically have zero effect on testosterone, though they occasionally will have some libido-enhancing effects that make the user feel like the stuff must be working. This stuff is only harmful to your wallet and probably not helpful for anything. Of course, the manufacturer wants people to buy it on the premise that it's probably something like legal steroids. There may be a couple products in the industry that successfully increase natural testosterone production, but we're talking about a very small scale that wouldn't be remotely comparable to steroids. Selling people steroids with minimal instruction and no supporting drugs would indeed be a medical nightmare that could risk people's fertility and a lot of other problems. In summary: Big Frank isn't promoting anything that's going to physically harm anybody. There's a tiny chance it will do something helpful, but probably not. Big Frank is promoting something that is total BS and it is unseemly for someone in the Hall of Fame to be part of a company that rips people off like that. Given that the scam relies on people assuming the product is steroids or something like them, it is especially dumb of Big Frank to be promoting it given his previous anti-steroids stance and the fact that his size always made him a target of suspicion. Note: I worked in the supplement industry for several years and got well-acquainted with the ways things work and how products get developed. Most herbals are BS in general and one should be most suspicious of ones that advertise on TV.

He had 4.2 WAR in 2017, which looked a lot at the time like he had put things together. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he returned to similar form.

If Manny signs with the Sox, five years from now people will remember the Sox as the mystery team.

His velocity was plummeting

I think this will make MLB teams much less likely to reach agreements like this ever again.

Moving any player on the MLB roster in anticipation of Madrigal's arrival is nuts. Let's see the kid crack a .400 slugging with wood bats before we move the superior prospect to a new position.

I've been seeing plenty of positive attention for the Sox on MLBN lately.

Would love to see Cuba amnesty these defectors so they can come home and see their families.

This should be good for everyone. Players are at much less risk and can keep more of their money. Great players will stick around Cuba at least until their age 25 season and when they leave, their teams will get a big payoff from MLB.

Both the Cubs and Astros had the added incentive of having more allowable spending on international prospects. The new CBA now gives all teams the same amount* to spend. The Astros built quite a bit from the draft, but as I've mentioned a few times on here the Cubs championship team was basically Kris Bryant plus a mixture of free agents, trade acquisitions, and players drafted before they started tanking. Bigger bonus pool in the draft is nice, but it can only be useful if you're getting a player who doesn't deserve to be drafted where you pick him with your high pick(s). *small-market teams can spend slightly more, but it is not related to record

There are very few benefits to tanking at this point. All you get for it anymore is draft position, which is not very important in baseball. Trading short-term assets for long-term assets and not wasting money can be sensible, but in general there's no good reason for a team to try to be bad just for the sake of losing.

If you were doing something like that, why not just sign Dozier to play 3B? He's not a great defender and is too old for us to care about his long-term value.

I didn't see rabbit's tweets as speaking from some kind of insider knowledge of our hopelessness but just someone frustrated with the notion that the Sox are going to be on some kind of equal footing with the Yankees/Dodgers/couple others in the pursuit of these big fish.

It's like the Sox only target catchers whose value is only high if you ignore the influence of framing

I think it's good to have an alternate way to get into the HoF other than the baseball writers' voting. I wouldn't have put Harold in. I also recognize that Harold played in an era in which players were generally evaluated in different ways than they are now: Batting average and RBIs were king. I suspect part of the reason there are some people so ardently in his corner is they feel that if Harold played in a different era, he had the bat talent to change his game in a way to suit the new incentive structure.

I'm sure we've checked on the price. Makes more sense for us to look at him as a free agent two years from now as a final piece for our contending core

Shields was in the midst of a downward trend in his velocity and it woudln't surprise me at all if they withheld information about him dealing with soreness, dead arm, etc. even if it never really developed into a full-blown injury.

Since becoming a full-time MLBer, he's put up WAR numbers of 1.3, 1.5, 0.3, 4.0, and 1.6. These are all in not quite full time roles (a little 500 PAs each year). How much extra money does the 4 WAR season get him over and above what a 1.5-ish player in his prime usually gets? It's hard to know. You could also make an argument for a guy who plays multiple positions being more valuable than the numbers tell you because you can deploy him in a way that he's usually filling in for your weakest link every time he plays. I wouldn't mind having him around, but it's hard to see why the Sox would value him more than a team that's more clearly in contention right now. It also begs the question of where we would plan to play him. We're weaker in the corner OF than we are at 3B (and he seems to be a better outfield defender than infielder), but if a couple things go right we could end up weaker at 3B than the corner outfield. In that sense, he can be pretty useful because you're not locked into a guy that plays a position where he might get pushed out by a prospect over the life of the contract.

You're pretty much going to keep pitching him unless it looks like continuing to do so is actively hurting his development. I don't see any way we end up with enough rotation options this year that we would pull him from the rotation for being merely pretty bad.

The upshot is by this metric, almost every single White Sox batter was overrated by popular alternatives. I wonder if this might have something to do with strength of schedule.