Balta1701

The Yankees have "not" paid the Luxury tax in exactly 1 season since it was instituted.

Gray and Andujar for Rodon and Sanchez?

No, but in 2012 the Republicans hadn't yet declared that the native American population in that state was ineligible to vote.

That's the difference between a luxury tax and a hard cap. Teams will not give up major pieces to avoid paying the luxury tax, they will give up major pieces if there's a hard cap they are required to maneuver around.

We've heard ideas for how teams might do something like that and how a team might give up a huge prospect to get us to absorb large sums of money each of the past few years, and almost without fail - it never happens. Teams would rather pay the luxury tax than give up the player. The Yankees and Dodgers were teams people talked about doing that this year, and it never happened.

That was the logic that left us paying LaVine...so we'll see soon how good that logic is.

That's usually not anywhere close to how it works on the FA market, but we'll see. This one could be unique.

He then goes and lies his head on a pile of money.

Kanye West brought an unsecured cell phone into the oval office and unlocked it on television today. The passcode was straight 0's.

Also the Saudis are paying a lot of money to stay at his hotel properties.

First point...why do we "need guys that get on base"? I look at next year as well below .500 no matter what we do, so what huge benefit are we expecting to reap from guys who get on base? Are we basically bringing him in to be another hitting coach? Second point, yes McCutchen's still a solid hitter, he's put up an .801 OPS over the past 3 seasons combined, but you just quoted a price on a 1 year deal that is higher than what we'd project Avi to get. Basically, I'd ask - for either of those guys to be tradeable for something of serious value, they would have to outperform their numbers. McCutchen would have to put up a .850+ OPS, or Avi would have to replicate part of his 2017. Which do you think is more likely, Avi stays on the field or McCutchen puts up numbers in that range? I dunno, but if you put a gun to my head I'd probably go with the guy who is $5 mil cheaper.

If I had to ask which guy was more likely to outplay his contract, McCutchen or Avi, I'm probably going to go with Avi out of that pair.

April 16 was included in that statement because that's the day Eloy comes up, within 24 hours or so. You could start Davidson at DH and Palka in the OF until Eloy comes up if Delmonico did not make the team out of ST or he continued having injury problems.

Delmonico has an option remaining so I think there's a decent chance he's not on the White Sox to open 2019 and an even higher chance that he's on the Charlotte Knights roster on April 16.

.....we could do a stimulus at the federal level where the federal government spends money....

The Indians were 2nd in MLB in fangraphs-WAR to the Yankees, with 60.7. They've put up nearly 60 WAR each of the last 3 years. They had some extra losses this year because their bullpen foundered, but that's still an absolutely loaded roster.

I'd have turned that down too. If he's actually healthy his contract will be well north of $300 mil.

Even if Covey starts off in the rotation, we need someone in the 4th slot who can at least cover some innings. If people have names who fill that option better than Shields, I'm happy to listen, but as usual I hate the concept of this fanciful "bounce back pitcher who must exist but who I will not name".

When can the T-Wolves write a contract extension for him? Could they extend him up until the start of the season if they wanted to? Don't they have to extend Wiggins like right now if they're going to?

I think the last few outings were tired arm personally, but the response to this isn't hard. September, after that "improvement", was his worst month of the season. He put up a 9.27 ERA and a 1.925 WHIP and a 0.926 OPS in September. If that's "how much he improved"....well....someone else finish the rest.

An Appeals Court upheld a North Dakota law intended to block anyone who only has a PO box from voting as you have to register using the mailing address of a household. Native Americans who live on land in that state...do not have mailing addresses because the US Postal Service does not deliver to their land. So basically, the Republicans passed a law saying that Native Americans in North Dakota can't vote, but because they wrote the law in such a way that it hits native americans on a property of the population, Republican judges will uphold it. Only 1 appointee on the Appeals court that upheld it was a Democratic appointee, and the Republicans are simply ok with stopping people of the wrong background from voting as long as it is a technicality. That native American population which has now been declared not as worthy of voting as good, honest, white americans, typically supported democratic senator Heitkamp quite strongly. It will of course be the Democrats fault when they lose that Senate Seat, for not turning out strongly enough, and no one will ask why.

The right business decision is to let Garcia walk, and probably to let Abreu walk for that money and the need of roster spots also, but the White Sox have a habit of making decisions that aren't just business ones. That's how you wind up with Robin Ventura and how you wind up with the org not being willing to fire him after 2016 - they prioritized the "family" side of things. That's how you wind up with Getz and Rowand as key guys in your minor leagues, because they started in your system. You can easily come up with other examples of them holding onto guys that they like, sometimes they'll justify it by saying that the guy is good in the clubhouse or is good around the young players or something like that. Even though they could use the roster spot and the money could be better spent elsewhere, the White Sox have enough of a history of saying "Yeah but these are good clubhouse guys and they're guys who have been with us for a long time" that I'll be skeptical that they will make that move until they actually do so, because they have a habit of doing otherwise at least some of the time.

The rules on the Franchise tag are annoyingly tough.

Does Philly have the cap space to absorb a guy on a fully guaranteed deal this season?

I can think of no one who would convince the African American population to turn out more than the guy who ran stop & frisk. It's totally their kinda thing.