Balta1701

Clear out the front office, training staff, and coaching staff, wait 2 years, clear out some of the guys like Lavine and Portis who would be better elsewhere right now, accumulate 2 or 3 more high picks, and maybe that reputation can go away.

I coulda seen Machado getting $70 million more than that. You aren't mad if you only get one, but you gotta try for 2 in that case. Imagine two 5 WAR players and you've gotten a $150 million discount on them compared to what they should be getting in a functioning market, and they were already cheap compared to what you blew on Laroche, Robertson, Cabrera, Frazier, and Samardzija and co.

Lunar eclipse Sunday night and the ultra cold conditions should make for pretty ideal viewing skies for just about everyone. Starts at 8:36 pm CST on Sunday.

You're happier not knowing. There's like 15 pages of people trying to digitally enhance photos of a hat from Instagram.

Picking him sure. Vaughn might even make sense as the pick. But racing Rodon up to the rotation in April of 2015 and thinking he was part of your playoff bound rotation, with no time to work on stuff in the minors like his changeup? Classic White Sox.

#1: 14% #2: 14% #3: 14% #4: 12.5% #5: 10.5% 5 games separate the 5th worst from the 6th worst already, so those will be the Bulls' odds of the #1 pick. 3 worst teams all have 52.1% chances at a top 3 pick.

Rodon, Fulmer, all the talk about moving Moncada to bring in Madrigal, they don't do it every time (Eloy) but it's still happening regularly.

Drafting Vaughn because they can rush him upwards at a position of need seems so White Sox that I struggle to imagine them doing anything else.

At this point i'm thinking relief more than joy.

That is such a rotten defense I have to believe the White Sox would do it.

Yeah but those shades ...

It is truly amazingly low based on the standard of what these 2 looked like they'd get coming into this offseason.

I think this puts them just over it, but they could readily get under it again by trading Gray and saving a little money there.

I think this signing puts the Yankees into luxury tax territory, or if it doesn't it puts them right on the edge of it. If they sign Machado, basically his entire contract would in year 1 have a 20% additional penalty, in year 2 a 30% penalty, and even after Ellsbury's deal ends it would be difficult for them to get out of it in year 3 since so many of their guys will be deep into arbitration. This would also be the last big contract they sign in the next 2 years as if they went over by $40 million they go into huge penalties and lose a draft pick.

The Yankees have $130 million in contracts guaranteed for 2020 and B-R estimates $40 million in arb costs (this number is reasonable as it includes Sanchez, Severino, Judge, and Paxton, it could even be low). Their luxury tax number is probably close to $185 million assuming they don't nontender someone like Paxton. The useful guys they will have to replace or resign include Sabathia, Brett Gardner (I think he'll be back on short deals until he retires), Betances, and Didi Gregorius. They will be out of Sonny Gray's deal, but clearly they will need at least 1 more starting pitcher next offseason and there are several big ones available. It's the Yankees and I don't run them, but if I were in their situation, my priority would be one of those top 4 starting pitchers, which would push me right up to the luxury tax line. I do not know what they would do about losing Betances in the bullpen.

There remains no way to know that Bonds wansnt regularly taking something else throughout his career and only switched to the tetrahyrdrogestrinone when the new more powerful stuff became available.

Anderson is an average player with pretty good upside if he can continue the defensive improvement we saw in the 2nd half of last year. Right now he's a better defensive SS than Machado. If you have an infield of Machado, Anderson, Moncada, and some warm body at 1b, you have the makings of an exceptional defensive infield, and swapping out Moncada for Madrigal does not change that. Moving Machado to SS and doing whatever else you want to do with Anderson leaves you with a much weaker IF defensively, fails to fill the main hole in our organization right now (3b), and leaves you still thinking about shifting Moncada or having to sign another 3b. If you sign Machado and someone gets hurt or falls apart at SS then moving him there for a short time is a backup plan, but honestly, if Machado insists "I must be a SS at any cost" as a GM I'd almost certainly say good luck and I hope it costs you a lot because you don't have an offer from the White Sox to manage us and make our lineup.

I don't see anyone likely to give you a real decent rotation piece for Anderson. He's an ok player, but what team is going to part with a rotation piece for him when they could just sign Jose Iglesias?

If he insists on playing SS the White Sox should look somewhere else. Play Yolmer at 3b for another year and go after Rendon or Arenado. He's not as good of a SS as he is a 3b, he won't last there for that many years and he'll have to move eventually and doing that would be a problem if we've promised him a position, and if a player really wants to convince me they have an attitude problem then that player should insist that they deserve a position even when they're not the best defender at it. That said, I still think playing SS this year was to show some suitors that he could if they wanted him to.

Machado to 3b.

Earlier today Buster Olney tweeted that the White Sox have made a 7 year, $175 million offer to Machado, and the article made the #2 story on ESPN.com when I looked earlier. There were the usual patterings back and forth of people challenging twitter sources for the morning and saying that made no sense... Then Machado's agent, Dan Lazano, unleashed this tweet and press release saying that someone in MLB was potentially violating the collective bargaining agreement by attempting to negotiate through the media (read full statement at tweet) https://twitter.com/Feinsand/status/1085655770857799680. That was then followed by more twitter shenanigoats including Levine saying the 7/175 note was right but that they were sneaking around that with deferred money and Heyman saying nonsense, and Levine also making a pretty silly sounding appearance on the radio. The big deal is the Lazano tweet, as we have no idea who he's targeting, whether it's us or not, whether it actually affects anything, or what it means about the negotiations, but it seems like he's pissed at someone in MLB and it seems he has a right to be.

Kept rick hahn his job though (wanders out).

Lozano is seriously annoyed with someone in major league baseball and appears to have a right to be. Whether that is us or not - we don't know. Would that affect where Machado goes? Unlikely, but anything could be possible.

...Lozano...

I would guess the fact that this was the #2 story on ESPN.com today after Olney jumped in probably played into this, that's bigger exposure than just twitter.