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Arb can still be pretty expensive. Betts got 20 million, Arenado will likely be between 20 and 23. Hell, Colome in arb 2 gets 7 million. So starting 2022 you could be talking huge, huge payrolls.

My favorite part is the front office saying that they operate specifically to keep flexibility for moments like this but they always pass them by. Part of it historically was falling in love with their own players, but now it's because they've become such a joke nobody would re-sign long term.

Worse than that, had they not won a frickin coin flip. (they'd have probably drafted bagley and then portis would have kicked him in balls and ended season)

I think they would have had trouble matching the kristaps trade because NYK definitely wanted to clear all salary and our best assets would have been lavine/dunn/portis (don't give up LAURI) and you wouldn't have WCJ obviously. That said, ha, imagine a team with doncic that has porzingis and lauri at the 4/5. Would have been hilarious.

I know that trades are never that good for stars but...that is weak for NYK especially targeting Mavs who couldn't get a pick. Before draft I was hoping to trade a future first to trade up for Doncic. For hawks to take it, maybe it couldn't have been done, and then signed capela. Hoiberg with Doncic Lauri Lavine. Killer. Oh well we suck haha sigh.

This is a great point.

Porzingis also on the block. Bulls well suited to...nevermind.

So when all of us say "you think a GM is actually reading media reports and influenced by that?" the answer is actually yes apparently.

Right, while I'm not concerned about the padres, this is something I didn't want. While a number of posters are adament that you don't negotiate against yourself, what I didn't want was for sox to sit on a number so low that it still allowed other teams to get into mix. Do I think Pads could scrape together an 8 year 250 mill contract? No. Do I think they could work out a 7 year 175 contract? Absolutely. Now, I have no freakin clue what number the sox are on and years they are on, and maybe they are at a high enough number that repels everyone but the phillies. that 175 number sucked for basically this reason. And once someone is invested enough to offer once, you have no idea how far that could take them.

Reminds me of when college recruits post "i'm so confusssed" and fans go nuts and they were talking about ordering fast food.

I'm not really. The White Sox are not spending bohemoths compared to the padres, but the padres really did handicap themselves in this by signing hosmer and myers. The entire case for the white sox is that the only long-term money on the books is an affordable one on the shortstop. Hosmer's deal is not gangbusters (except when you factor in that he sucks), but it is $20 mill on the books for the next four years on a 1b, and $20 mill for next 4 years for Wil Meyers. They could sign Machado for 30 million, and it would ease up obviously when some of their star young players hit meaningful arb years, but they'd need to pay for a bullpen and sp support. They'd be up against it pretty quickly.

I mean, for all of these guys, you can do both. And considering the lack of downtime during the season, I would rather be in a major city than San Diego, which while beautiful, has the charm of a cruise ship.

All this says to me is that the Phillies and White Sox are still most likely to get the a Harper or MAchado on the roster. It would just be truly incredible for the Nats to be able to afford HArper, but because of their amenable relationship to Boras are likely to keep up this posture.

The NCAA responded to the huge North Carolina academic scandal by giving Missouri a post-season ban.

I wouldn't read too much into this. While I still think sox are in on harper, he's saying that the sox were known to have met with them. That's not new info.

I love the range of players from Marwin Gonzalez to Bryce Harper.

I always believed that Machado's market was legitimately phills/white sox but with Harper despite silence I always thought more teams in on him. Still wouldn't be surprised if a team like ATL talks with them often. You know, Rockies.

Thought of one, Bulls backcourt is probably better than the Cavs.

Augustin has a higher FG%, shoots 43% from 3pt range, and turns it over half as much as Dunn. Dunn certainly fills defensive stat sheet more but Dunn's 45% 2pt% on 9 attempts per game...he's just such a bad offensive player between his shooting but especially his turnovers that I'm not sure the bulls wouldn't be better with augustin.

Sure but none of those owners were involved in the collusion cases of the 80s as JR was. I mean, one of the main collusion cases was the white sox getting carlton fisk after Reinsdorf told Steinbrenner to back off. Sox getting Machado on collusion on a deal cheaper than expected after the phillies pledged stupid money? I won't blame players for thinking something was up again.

In the 1980s, a fine was forced by owners that was paid out directly to the Players Association. They also allowed the players affected to look for better contracts as free agents while not terminating their current ones. If JR is caught in a collusion case again, I would hope the mlb would force him out but that's hilarious and would never happen.

It's a shame because I was really hoping it was the lowered arm slot that would unlock him: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-watch-lucas-giolito-look-very-good/

Mannn I did not notice that Luzardo was ranked top 15 by pipeline. That rumored 2016-17 offseason trade to the Nats that was nixed by ownership for Drew Waters and Jesus Luzardo is definitely one that got away. I'm also a bit surprised how high pipeline is on carter kieboom. That will always be an easy hypothetical vs. burdi in years to come.

Sorry gotcha. I get caught up in re-enforcing that the best teams in the league have redundancies that they aren't scared of. There is consistent discussion here about trading a guy because someone else is there, when these teams would just keep both. It may not guarantee a World Series as we've seen, but it pushes odds in your favor for competing for division by not seeing big dropoffs from injuries and slumps.

I could see Dodgers winning with a package of Ruiz easily, especially if the "aggressive" reds package is mostly around India.