southsider2k5

When your strategy isn't really to make an impression on a free agent, but to make just enough of an impression to be barely ahead of the next team, this is the expected result.

Chalk one up for the "best shape of his life" counter.

Until he fails the drug test...

There would be about 20 better teams falling over themselves to give Kimbrel a short term deal.

How I feel about this thread right now.

A top notch closer on this team seems like a huge waste. Of all of the things we could spend money on. This would be the last.

They said he wasn't supposed to be in game action until June.

666 pages of trash. Crazy. I would have never guessed this would still be going after the start of spring training.

Nothing does. But if you do, he is more likely to want an opt out later.

I think your sarcasm detector is defective.

Next up, the NFL.

I am not even saying cheap. I am saying they won't spend ridiculous amounts of money, so as to be able to support two superstar salaries on the same roster. Also comparing eras is rough with the amount of money the biggest market teams bring in being more than double the Sox, plus the new cap system wasn't around then either.

You are arguing against yourself now. I think JR is going to operate the same way he has always operated. He isn't going to spend just to spend. He isn't going to suddenly go wild in free agency or payroll. He will probably allow more spending than he has in the past when the team allows for it, but I can say at a level of near certainty that he isn't going to go from pinching pennies for the top free agents on the market to blowing past the luxury cap numbers in the same breath. If JR was really going to go through some spending spree because he wants to win before he dies, and somehow stop the rationality that has been a trademark of his management of the White Sox, the most obvious place to start would be spending what it takes to get Manny Machado done. Instead he is playing it exactly as he has played it with every single free agent in the teams history, bar one.

Considering we are still waiting out Manny Machado to save some number of millions of dollars, I am going to say that is a fantasy right now.

Can and will are do different things.

Some assumptions are pretty easy to make. This isn't going to be a franchise that goes past the caps as lon as JR runs things, which means an absolute top of just over $200 million. Realistically, this is a franchise that has never been over $130 million in a season, so the idea that they are going to suddenly spend 50% more than that seems pretty crazy to me. At the very least it would need a World Series win to get that kind of revenue flow again.

Zavala is 100% in the lead for the next crack at catcher of all of our prospects. He is ahead of Collins for sure.

Never say Soxtalk didn't give you anything.

I'd feel worse if there weren't 100 other free agents still unemployed. This was literally the worst free agent market in modern history. You could about build a playoff team from the people who are FAs right now.