bmags

Yeah, I do believe there is a number where it's too high, but also last year was illustrative. Although to do so I'm going to ignore hosmer because that was just idiotic. JD Martinez was the best position player on the market. He was gonna cost you 100 mill. Would you have gotten "value" getting a few cheaper guys? I can't think of any combo. IT would be nailing a trifecta of like chacin, and some position players. If you wanted actual production, you were better off paying for Upton or Martinez than "making it up in volume".

These guys were up in the majors at age 19 making this the anomoly that it is. Eloy is great, but especially if sox hold him into May, he won't be a free agent until something like 29. You don't often get players in FA at 25 years old, when you do it's because they were phenoms, like these kids were. There's big bucks, and then there's this. I think it's important to recognize that sox may still spend a lot but not end up buying the biggest contracts in history in the same offseason.

It's really weird. Hahn has not shied away from any of the machado stuff. And they are not idiots, they know the investment this will take. Clearly they have sign off on a large amount, but still, would be a huge tease. It reminds me a bit of 2016 offseason after frazier when they hinted at going after the big three FA outfielders and signed none.

Kinda sucks considering they have to turn around and play on thursday.

Well come on. I agree with you but we aren't talking about big contracts, we are talking about two of the biggest in history in all likelihood.

He really would have thrived in that early 2000s period where every team just had one "star" they built around and let play iso offense while allowing them to ignore defense. He definitely made more now though.

Yeah not even sure about FA, but want enough flexibility to take a hamels/verlander type player that have paid off so well for teams recently.

Well, you'd definitely want to structure the deals so that the burden is lessened as we would need to re-sign the younger core. It would suck if some of our players turn out awesome but we have to let them sign elsewhere because we have 33 year old machado for $40 million

I think that could be true but I don't know what a bail out price looks like. Frankly its embarrassing that the nationals aren't going to go all out to keep harper.

You are on fire today lol The only thing you missed was posing a question to yourself to answer.

Confused by last sentence, you think the Nats are still a good fallback or are no longer going to be available if his market strategy fails?

Boras does like dragging on but it seemed to either bite him or at least give him no advantage last year. I do wonder if it causes any shift or if he goes to his old playbook. It's interesting with boras, his bread and butter used to be feeding the owners egos and showing b.s. analytics to justify the costs, but few teams operate that way now, especially the big spenders. I don't see him being that much more effective than any other agent now. FOs have become pretty smart at the same time.

I also like that offensively Harper will at least always bring nice OBP. Like your absolute floor is .350 with him. His down year he had 130 BB and 103 Runs. You get on base, you help your team score. Thomas always had like 120 walks and 100+ runs. Even if the power years are inconsistent.

Yeah this is right to me.

"Manny, here is a Hawk Harrelson alarm clock and, get ready, we'd like you to meet Southpaw, our mascot. Please clap."

Yeah but there has been such a disconnect between local (white sox) expectations and national it was noteworthy to me.

It reminded me of a Missouri-Florida game from 2014. Missouri blew them out like 45-14, I was at a movie for a lot of it. You get out and you are like "hoo hoo how did our offense do!" and the offense had like 120 total yards and were outgained like 250-120. It was a weird game. The offense still put up 27 points on their own, but a lot of it was short, short fields, and when it wasn't short fields, they'd have whole drives that were just a 60 yard pass interference.

The thing that sucks is this upcoming 3 game stretch is so bizarre (lion twice in like 10 days, minny in between) feels like it favors detroit, especially the thursday turkey game. Or at least it pushes whatever strengths to toss up territory. Minny is looking VERY good. Need a great mack to beat them.

I think it's a few things: - Immediately after the WS there was a clear push by execs to push down pricing narrative - I think this is a corrective in that vein of "there are more teams that want to sign these guys than the yankees, cubs and dodgers" that could drive price up. I agree with everyone. I find it incredible that sox would actually get to finish line in a bidding war that goes north of $300 million but also that I think the sox are set-up to do it and have desire so no use being too cynical on it.

Per the athletic: “• Rebuilding teams such as the Reds and White Sox, finally tired of losing 95-plus games, are likely to spend and maybe even spend big. One rival executive views the White Sox as a sleeper for Machado, whom they pursued heavily in a trade last offseason. The Twins and Angels, two other teams coming off disappointing seasons (and like the Reds, proceeding with new managers), are among the others that should fall into the category of “motivated.”” link: https://theathletic.com/633974/2018/11/05/rosenthal-harper-machado-and-shifting-dynamics-in-the-market-will-make-the-offseason-a-parade-of-crazy/

Would love to see Hahn and Chris Sale hanging out.

My big concern about this is it was a whole lot of "age appropriate" success. Basabe they can hang their hat on but my big concern is the amount of older prospects they have still in low-a to high-a, then you have a player like Jimenez that blows out of that mold. They haven't had a "big success" player organically despite a huge amount of focus that should have gone into talent accumulation. But Robert ties hands behind back in one sense, in other, the draft focused so much on college players that we just don't know if are good or just older yet.

Yeah, that's how I feel. That Q trade seems to have been legitimately inspired, but it's really the talent accumulation outside of that that has me nervous. It's EARLY for sure, but not that early. Also, I think the point I"m making is that Hahn and co have been in charge for 6 years now, but to execute this move to being a contender it's not a group you can sit back and say "if they just do what they do we should be alright". You could say that about dombrowski to red sox, theo to cubs. But Hahn actually needs to improve the outcomes and processes to do that. So he's just not a sure thing despite his experience.

I'm not really interested in creating an ownership persona, per se. You are right in that often ownership groups will inherently want to hire their own staff. I'm asking if I or YOU took control, following the sox like we have, knowing what we know, do you think this is the group to finish off the rebuild and get us to contention?

The rich get richer.