bmags

Baseball isn't basketball though. If sox could produce same level of talent internally that cleveland or tampa does, we do have better payroll flexibility to retain our guys without constant churn there. They would be super competitive year in year out. But they think they are the cubs and red sox, well, except their ability to produce internal talent.

I actually don't even want the franchise to be top free agent spenders every year. Just wanted to sign players in times like these. Would rather they invest it all in intl/player dev/scouting than arrietta-type deals.

Jerry should offer him a stake in the bulls.

seems like the agents are pretty smart.

I think it's more that hopefully the fan fiction narrative of the owners being tough businessman wrestling the sleazy agents into submission and accepting their "market price" should be dead. When a player values themselves at a price, and teams also value them at that price, it pays off to just meet there rather than trying to play games with the other teams not bidding. Eventually one will just be like "naw okay i'll just pay you your actual amount and actually get you".

While true, when in what turned out to be the final days of machado's free agency we were only hearing about the phillies and (mainly) padres, I was saying this is typically what it feels like before you don't sign the player. Typically, though not always, when you are trying to sign a player, specifically a top of market guy whose agent tries to boost the appearance of a market, you are mentioned frequently.

Lakers fans are the worst, don't want bryce now.

can we get smashmouth as our board insiders

my main takeaway is shock at how uncompetitive the sox offer was. 8 for 250 with no opt out. Sox were under the assumption that players held to power and the only thing they needed to worry about was getting duped by agents.

but the only thing i'd point out is in machado's deal you are essentially getting surplus value in the front end but making that more affordable by guaranteeing same amount on backend. Arenado has less front end value, that's why I think its a really nice extension. You get 3? more years of peak arenado vs. 5 with machado when signed.

I don't think its a discount at all.

He'll be 28 already in FA, that's a really good deal. I don't think he'll beat it by much in FA.

I said at time that machado may be nervous to take offer before arenado in case it beats it, this was higher aav than sox offer, with it just narrowly lower. sets the table for 10/350 though for harpy.

Gonna guess kyle long restructured his deal.

I don't think this is true. Especially in the last season where the team kinda stalled out, sox could have went in saying they didn't think it made sense given where they are at, but are going to still invest in player development, scouting and drafting in a way that will pay off for building a consistent contender, and they would have turned off way less fans. Or just not even invest, just say we don't think this was the way we are going to build our team, but we have a core we are excited with that we will supplement when the time is right. They didn't do that, and when you say you are going to execute something and don't it makes it worse. Yes, machado/harper made sense due to their age, but they could have gotten away with it if they weren't so smug. Hahn at soxfest was basically mocking the philly owner for his comments. Won't be so funny if he gets a guy when sox were outbid because they thought they were clever.

if you guarantee the vesting options you are at 320, if you guarantee the stuff where if he's like mvp every year he'd be at 350.

One thing about witt, sometimes with hit tool questions you'll see the player be a bit more over the board as media evaluators seem to really get worried about getting too far in front of those guys, but witt is not 1 anymore but he's top 4. I would find it hard to believe he falls far based on what spring ball will look like but maybe a college player like misner or a pitcher catches fire. I would be really happy with either witt or abrams. Those are the type of tools and athletes totally missing passed Robert.

I kinda feel like people who work for jerry know the deal, that you don't press him for more. The way they talk about jerry is different than I feel a lot of team presidents talk about their owner, they always have to revere him and talk about how successful he is as a businessman, like they will be trumped if they bring up this convo.

May be me, I think it's worse to act like they bowed out. Especially if he signs for only 300 or 310. It adds to the "what did you think they were going to go for?" cluelessness and fuel to the fire that they did have an upper limit. But, it's a tortured fan base at this point so I know it will be tough to take people up and down. To be quite honest, as much as I know I will love harper if he were to sign, this machado thing was bungled so much it still wouldn't be as much of a celebration for me as if they had closed deal on machado.

Just want to say that though I defended Chuck, mcguffey has become insufferable this offseason. I like the media stuff he produces, but his tweets and commentary has been bad. Really miss when it was mostly dan hayes and chuck.

My favorite draft would still be Abrams’ but starting to seem unlikely. Best case scenario is abrams goes to 1 and royals do think like “we have a lot of catching prospects” and adley goes to 3.

Rosenthal tweets yesterday that la seems mostly in it because of giants headway even in a short term deal, and that Bryce is still looking for $300 mill. Heyman tweets today that actually everyone is in for long term deal and all over $300 mill and oh by the way philly your fans seem to want Harper most. Where could he get that info? Oh to be a fly on the wall.

The worst thing about Dunn is his d has also fallen off. Zack Lowe said bulls were heavily shopping Dunn and no teams were interested. I wouldn’t mind ball, bulls getting little from PG though Arc clearly performing better than Dunn. Zack has been doing an interesting job with ball in his hands. Shame WCJ isn’t there too. next offseason definitely need someone though.

I’m going to have a kinder interpretation that means the same thing: they care about what the money represents. Harper has been one of the games biggest stars since he arrived as a 19 year old. He wants to be the money amount that represents that, that’s why tax rates etc I don’t see as a big play though they will work around it where possible. Manny wanted to be a 300 mill player. Harper wants the biggest contract. You hit there you’ll get him.

Somehow I followed all of that except the sunglasses.