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I guess I don't want hahn to be interviewed as much as lectured to. It's an easy answer that you have to balance the team value vs player value and it didn't match up this time. It's easy to act like you tried for harper. But he and some media do this thing where sox fans just have starry eyes and think you should throw money at every big free agent that comes along, and they need to be tough and realistic like the front office is. Two years ago when they started this rebuild they head nodded that they would shed salary while they amassed prospects, but that they would also spend money when the time came. It was obvious to fans like us and to hahn that he was talking about 2018-19 offseason where 2 superstars at age 26 would be available. When asked about this directly he did not shy away. He talked about how the money would be there, how they would have economic might due to the restructured team around cost controlled players. And so while in a typical situation where you have a fairly mature, competing roster toward the top of your budget, adding what would likely be another 1/3rd of your budget to one player would be a balancing act unlikely to tilt toward signing it. But that wasn't the sox situation. They had economic might and a target on these players backs because they were young, would be productive throughout the rebuild, and could afford to pay a large dollar amount to one player because the total budget would still be reasonable due to the amount of cheap talent. They keep answering the question as if signing this player maxed out their budget before they were in the rebuild, but that was not true. And we all know the real answer is that they were wrong about the market and what it would take and that they could get what it would take from a historically dogmatic owner on "what players should get". All of that could be predicted but they didn't because they were bad at their jobs and so that's not an interview question its a lecture but I want him to own up to it which he never will so all interviews will be bad. edit: I dont even know why i wrote that out, we all know the truth at this point it was written 1000x in a 6million page thread. But they are trying to change the narrative that it was about responsible choices when its actually that they are bad so i'll just repeat myself to everyone.

Yeah, I think in general having known ticket reps I'm sympathetic to backlash being targeted at that group (its like taking it out on the hot dog vendor to be quite honest). But I have really been annoyed by sox ticket reps recently. They have very siloed structures that make any questions you may have that may require the events team to answer instead of your individual rep, you get basically asked to contact directly. Very little follow-up on questions asked, very little assistance in correcting mistakes. And I compare this to how chicago fire reps interact with me when I bought like one ticket 3 years ago, constant touchpoints, answering every question, following-up to see if my experience went well. It just makes me want to go more. Part of the sox brand, for better or worse, has been that it's supposed to be the easy game to do for the casual fan, for the family. But between the security protocols (which they can do nothing about), the poor ticket rep experience, the opening day fiascoes, constant chaos in april with the food vendors, it has just felt like sox games are very hard recently. Then, you know, I'll spontaneously go to a game in july when they have their act together, it's 85 degrees at night drinking a beer behind home plate for $30 and its like "damn I can never quit this." But in general I felt like they have been really poor recently.

Front office. Stearns could work under JRs constraints without being naive about them.

Im a bit surprised how much Clay Matthews got.

Yeah that makes sense but you saw what happened to the tigers last year on how hard it was for them to pass consensus (I think this guy for Balt won't care as much). The other thing is it really does feel like "cutting a deal" has become less of a think since the latest CBA so that's partly why I feel like teams are just going with their top pick.

I could see the new baltimore GM having a process that devalues taking a catcher and 1b that high but I think they'll take adley.

Alex Bregman getting a 6 year $100 million extension after two great years, but Eloy was going to get a 100 mill for one extra year? This rumor was bogus.

On tankathon I just had bulls be 1st or 2nd 6 times in a row hopefully I didn't use all of their luck

Ahead of the 2017 draft there was a lot of rumors of jeren kendall to the white sox. I remember actually going through a ton of college hitters looking for the highest k rates while still being successful. I wanna say after 18% k rate was when you started to get into outlier territory. I think Judge was 22%, corey ray was 13% in his junior year but 20% his sophomore. Kendall was 25%. There really is a point where it's too unlikely they can handle mlb pitching. Kendall had a .650 ops last year with a 27% k rate in A+

I mostly agree but who is this referring to?

When you only take 1 high ceiling position player in a decade there is a good chance it will fail. But regardless, drafting a high school with big power but high likelihood of being a corner outfielder isn't the greatest upside play in the world.

I kinda hope they fall in love with two top 15 guys and try to get both at 16 and 26 but use up most of the budget for their comp picks.

I felt like he was a guy a bunch of udfas could beat out but oh well. Just would like Pace to bring in competition every year regardless of results. And to think his rookie year tress way was better but they had used a 6th round pick on him so they cut way.

I am not a scout and will not scout or know how swings or anything work but I do still really like the profile of CJ Abrams and if he is graded closely I'd be attracted to cutting a deal. Starting to sound like he may start to slide into the back half of the top ten though.

I'm dreading when sox pay $180 for an age 29 player that turns into a crap contract but will "prove" they sign stars.

One thing that's going to be tough with getting a high schooler in 2nd round is AZ has all of those comp picks. Worried we are going to pick a college 1b again.

Wow I thought initially this 12 year 420 deal was added to the remaining two years, not including them. What a steal for LA.

I feel like 90% certain sox will draft Tommy Henry and then they will all joke about being michigan alums for weeks.

I have nothing more to add other than this is good for baseball and this thread had many hilarious comments, good job everyone.

Regardless of anything, good for baseball when a team can keep a player like this and the team ponies up for a wonderful player. Sucks he's west coast!

Boylen should be replaced at seasons end. The defense has been a tire fire the last week, he keeps going under screens even when it burns him. He opened up the offense, but he should have never closed up the offense. And now he keeps getting in unnecessary shots against other coaches (See phx last night, and doc rivers last friday). Seems like a nice guy but hasn't done anything to deserve more than be an interim coach.

From today's grab bag: "Purely my own opinion, but Lenyn Sosa, who just turned 19 in January and hit .293/.317/.406 in Great Falls last year against a league full of recent college draftees, has smooth actions from shortstop during infield practice."

Well so much for that.

people think this may mean something

Sad I missed a game where he played. I have no idea what he looks like (pictures don't provide much scale).