Balta1701

Well yeah, because 10/$300 for Machado was an absolutely ideal fit for the needs and funds available for this franchise and you'd have to be an imbecile to be in this organization's position and not go after that.

But look at all the attention they get.

The Super 2 date is a different date from the one that delays his free agency. The Super-2 date determines whether he is eligible for arbitration 4 times versus 3. April 12 determines whether he hits FA at the end of 2024 or 2025. The extra year of control is decided in April, not at the Super 2 deadline.

Honestly, I do not understand what you are saying at all.

You need to check this more. If he is called up before April 11 of this year, he first hits free agency at the end of 2024. After April 12, he first hits free agency at the end of 2025.

FWIW, Eloy would not be "Under contract" unless he signs a contract. The first 2.5 years the White Sox would just "renew" his contract each offseason, and then the following 4 seasons he would have his contract determined through the arbitration process. It is possible, although unlikely, that one of those years could get lopped off. Not something I would bet on happening, but if we're talking about a 6 month strike and a possibility of the courts intervening as happened in 94, who knows.

Huh?

A major league calendar consists of 187 days of service time, a player earns a full year if he is on a roster for 172 days. Basically the Sox need to keep him down for 16 days. That's about April 12, give or take a day, since opening day is March 28.

Counting Alonso as the DH, the White Sox are going to have taken on contracts worth nearly $90 million to cover the DH position in the last 10 years - saved a little when LaRoche retired. That is a ridiculous amount of money for the DH, especially since they haven't spent on that position the last 2 years and they went cheap with Kotsay 10 years ago. If I can get a lefty who hits 6th or 7th in my lineup and who is a threat to hit 40 homers every year, and he covers that DH position cheaply for 3-4 seasons, and all he does is give me 1 WAR out of that spot and keeps me from having to spend $10 million on an ancient veteran to fill the role, that's a solid plus to me, and it doesn't take much from Palka to make that happen.

I hate moving players unnecessarily and I think Eloy is likely to remain in LF for several years, so I'd much rather have Palka struggle in RF and Eloy struggle in LF than start Eloy in RF and move him to LF once Alonso is out of the way.

Now everyone just imagine the positives of an OF going Jiminez-Jay-Palka.

By who?

Interestingly, if the Phillies hadn't traded Gio away the second time, the value both teams would have gotten in the first trade seems pretty close. Thome had a short but incredible stint for the White Sox, but Rowand was outstanding for the 2007 Phillies (broke his face chasing a ball in 2006). The Phillies also got a sandwich pick when Rowand left. 2 years of Rowand and 6 of Gio would have been pretty fair compensation for 4 years of Thome, especially since Thome was pretty well paid and the White Sox took on that contract.

At some point, bidding against yourself a small amount isn't going to be the difference between your team making and missing the playoffs, but losing the player because you refused to bid against yourself might be. That's one of the many mistakes the White Sox made. At some point they just need to put money on the table and get this done.

This seems like a good point to me, even if the White Sox wanted to keep active interest quiet, Boras does not. He isn't going to threaten his own credibility by outright lying, but if a team is meeting with him, he just has to leak the honest statement that a meeting happened.

One other possibility is that the White Sox are actually out and Levine and Nightengale have repeatedly gone to ask them if they were going to change their minds, and they're just reporting that statement because the Sox are ok saying it.

I fully believe that $175 million guaranteed with some additional options is where the White Sox offer was sitting sometime in January, possibly that could be the offer they presented as their opener in December, but whenver it was - it totally fits the narrative the White Sox gave of upping their offer and adding things from an initial offer as ST approached.

I can readily see a path to 70 wins, that one isn't that hard. They were a 62 win team last year and they deserved to be. Start at that point. Compared to last year they've improved the bullpen a little bit - compare Soria for 1/2 a year to Colome and Herrera for a full year and that bullpen has likely improved. They also have Rodon for possibly a full season. They either treaded water or downgraded their lineup and rotation with the Nova, Narvaez, Palka, Jay, Alonso etc. moves. Abreu could be better, could be worse, who knows. Overall out of that, they've taken a 62 win team and probably upgraded it by a couple wins... Then add in a couple more wins from Eloy. Now, without any improvement from the young guys, they're an upper 60s win team on paper. For them to get to 70, only a couple guys have to improve or just get lucky, and not by a lot. That's not a lot of "ifs", IMO. 75 plus takes a lot of IFs. Possible, but that needs a lot to go right. Similarly, below 65 is still possible for this team if a handful of things go wrong.

It's an ok offseason but I wouldn't be content at all if I was a fan of theirs. Their offense was their big weakness last year, their pitching staff was strong - they finished something like 10+ games behind the Braves for a reason. As of right now, if you're a Phillies fan, you look at the lineup and think they've made improvements but to really compete in that division they need several young guys to step up even more AND the Braves (and Nats) have to fall back...and the Braves added Donaldson so they may well have improved that young team also. They have a clear weakness at their corner OF spot. They absolutely have the money to spend. They have huge potentail for revenue growth as their attendance a few seasons ago was 1.5 million higher. They have gotten better, but this is just a good baseball move for them, and they shouldn't lose it over $5 million a year on the contract. There is a high potential that this move is the difference between making and missing the playoffs this year and in several following years, that makes it extremely valuable to them.

Don't we have to give them a ton of credit for coming in ahead of the Astros? I mean, replacing Correa and Bregman makes complete sense for that franchise.

They offered a clearly below market deal and were unwilling to pay market rate for a player whose contract we could have guessed 6 months ago. They only were willing to sign him if his contract came in below the expected market. That's not the behavior of someone who cares about winning and is willing to make a few last sacrifices financially.

The last week argues pretty strongly against this.

Top guys are not getting dangerously expensive. There is some degree of sticker shock, but inflation of the top level salaries has not kept up with either overall payroll growth or with revenue growth.

Don't forget about the pitchers.