Jake

I have to think it's more likely that we're playing a very weak hand with Lozano to show we have a long-term option at every spot in the infield.

I think that if Manny insists on playing SS or Sox scouts feel Manny showed an ability to stick at SS, this is a plausible and probably the best configuration.

Good for him to take his career into his own hands and not do things he felt were hurting him. Hope it works.

I've not seen enough to see that as an assumption. Who plays 2nd? Yolmer?

For me, the easiest thing is it's a bad deal if he has a unilateral opt-out after 2 years. 3 years may be too early too. When you sign a player to a contract, you're hoping to at least get exactly what you paid for. But for a long term deal, you know it's more likely you end up either doing really well (player outperforms the deal) or very poorly (player is much worse than the deal). If you give an early opt-out, you almost can't do well — if he outperforms the deal, he becomes a free agent and then gets a bigger paycheck — but you're exposed to 100% of the risk of things going badly. For us, you enter the deal knowing that Year 1 is very unlikely to be a championship year so you want him to do well but his performance in that year isn't very important. And so Year 2 is the first year you start to really get a payoff if he outperforms the contract. If you risk losing him after Year 2, then you have practically no upside in the contract. It's not a ton better if he can leave after Year 3.

The potential positive spin is, as always, that we might avoid a bad deal.

We would be more willing to outbid if our window is open versus now, when we can't risk a lot of money if the deal gives the guy the chance to dip out as soon as we get good.

deferrals = not serious

Opt outs are so important. If he can opt out after two good years in SD, then we can outbid them in two years and if he flops then SD is hamstrung for a decade by a bad deal.

I think that's a plausible interpretation of those comments, but I just didn't see any direct relationship with Harper being on the team or not.

The Heyman tweet screams like desperation from the Yankees to me. "Psst, Manny, don't forget we're here to offer you a shitty deal"

Moustakas gets $10 million. That's a pretty good deal for him, all things considered. I'm sure he would have liked a 2-year deal (or much longer), but he's just a so-so guy and gets a good chunk of money.

Clearly not everyone agrees with me, but I think it's silly to do anything on the MLB roster to accommodate a guy who thus far has done nothing but hit okay in A-ball.

I don't follow.

Seems plausible that the Sox could sign Manny to play SS, move Tim to 2B, and Yoan to 3B. I continue to think it's stupid to move Yoan in general, but that configuration would probably be the best use of our talent if we start with the stipulation that Manny plays SS.

One thing that wouldn't make me mad is if Manny gets a bunch of money as well as an early opt-out from someone else, especially if it's after year 2. I don't want the White Sox to sign him to a deal where they have no option to keep him without bidding against the rest of the league in the event that he continues improving/stays at a very high level over the next couple years.

If we do land one of the big dogs, I'd like to see us kick the tires on Dallas Keuchel to add a little juice to this express rebuild.

Let me say this: Don't interpret the length and dollars until you know the opt-outs. 10/300 with no opt-outs and 10/300 with an opt-out after year 2 would be very different contracts.

https://deadspin.com/jim-bowden-caught-stealing-from-fake-twitter-account-d-1614081824 "Final update: Ralph."

People hate Boylen when he runs too slow of an offense but they also hate Boylen if he opens things up and starts running a bit.

I can live with some unreasonably restrictive definition of ace and I understand that FG is using an even dumber mapping of rotation slots to projections, but it remains dumb. Most teams use 5 starters. When you want to say a player is a 1/2/3/4/5 starter, it should map onto his relative rank on some kind of team — maybe a good one, maybe an average one. Nonetheless, I still think the Kopech projection is a joke on their own terms because for a player with Tommy John and no other injury history, the injury has no import to his ceiling. I see no reason to rule out the reasonable possibility that Kopech becomes one of the best few pitchers around. And I am fairly confident that your average scout does not take the FG approach of converting scouting values to projected average WARs. From 2016 to 2018 and 2015 to 2017, no pitcher averaged 7 fWAR. In the 2014 to 2016 window, only one did and barely (Kershaw, the best pitcher of a generation). The last pitcher besides Kershaw to have a 3-year average of 7 fWAR was Roy Halladay from 2009 to 2011. So I think it's fair to say it's not a useful vocabulary when we can simply say that some guys have hall of fame ceilings (pitcher who will average 7 fWAR in a 3-season or longer timespan) and others merely have ace ceilings (let's say something like FG's #2 starter standard, which means top 5-10 pitchers in the game).

It's hard for me to be super invested in this stuff anymore. The top end of our system is so good, I just don't get that worried and know that the exact ordering is shuffling deck chairs a bit. And I really like the group of guys who are getting snubbed on these lists and am confident some will soon be on these lists. That being said, FG saying Kopech has #3 ceiling is a joke. If a guy who throws 100mph fastballs with elite spin, life, etc., has a plus-plus offspeed pitch, and two other ones that show flashes, and has dominated AAA as a starting pitcher, his ceiling is an ace. Period. The prospect publications basically never say a pitcher has a ceiling as an ace, which basically means most aces were once said to not have a ceiling that high. I can read between the lines when they say a player who is obviously a potential ace is described as a potential #2. Saying Kopech has #3 ceiling is flat out stupid. I also question FG's rating of Cease, particularly because I've seen them talk about how they don't think he is at all likely to make it as a starter. I don't know how dominant and consistent a guy has to be as a starting pitcher to get even the least benefit of the doubt about his likelihood to cut it as a starter.

Hey now, we don't do stuff like that around here

Besides lucking into drafting a superstar or having one decide he just has to play for you, I do think the route taken by Philly (Butler), OKC (George), Toronto (Kawhi), and probably some others not coming to mind is the best one. Trade for one of those players even if he has been giving signals that he doesn't want to sign with you. See if you can win enough that he won't ever want to leave. You might get burned after you unloaded the truck to get a guy who takes off in a year or two, but you have to play these games if you want to win them. The tanking method is going to get less viable over time anyway with the recent lottery odds changes and the likelihood that the NBA takes more measures to disincentivize tanking.

The 8/$250M rumor sticks around partly because of how plausible it is. It's not hard to see how Manny's people could have started the offseason thinking 10/300 or 10/350 and want to wait until the last possible second to come down to 8/$250M. Another potential sticking point is that we have offered a straight up 8/250 but he would only take it with player-friendly opt-outs sprinkled in whereas the Sox want to actually have a chance at realizing the upside of getting him cheap (if he wins MVP next year, we don't want him going out and testing the free agent waters again or else this was all almost wasted investment).