southsider2k5

Indiana's own Oscar Robertson.

I would put Toronto into that bucket, plus they have a giant Asian/Japanese/migrant population, friendly sports media, low pressure environment, and a willingness to spend money.

Seattle seems like a great first guess for non-huge markets because of a ton of advantages.

If he wanted that, why come to the US in the first place? And even if he did want it, there are plenty of lower pressure markets than Chicago, including many who can offer things like more money, a better team, recent integration and infrastructure for Japanese players, etc. Pretty much any selling point you can give for the White Sox, multiple other teams will easily beat.

Yes it was mentioned by Chris Getz that the Sox have a seat at the table to pitch Sasaki, then someone afterwards took it a step further. But let's take a step back and look at this objectively. 1. The Sox history in Japan is dormant for an entire generation. We have no scouts there, and no real history of success in the far East compared to their peers. 2. The Sox international pool is in the smaller end of the pools. While the Sox may well have a large amount of money left over because they are one of the worst spending team internationally, but there already talks of teams revoking signings to be able to offer Sasaki more money than the Sox ever could. 3. 121 losses. 4. The Sox are very probably to be into Sasakis arbitration years before they hit .500 again. Even if Chris Getz somehow turns the Titanic around, we are probably now into his last year or two of control when this could be a legitimate playoff operation again. That means choosing between risking losing him for nothing or trading him to a place he didn't choose to be in. Sasaki is smart enough to know this timeline. 5. Chicago is in the middle of the country and doesn't have a particularly big Japanese population, especially when compared to all of the West Coast. Even when Iguchi was here, there really was no surge of fan base from the community. 6. The West Coast cities are 3-5 hours closer to Japan. 7. Because Sasaki has to go through the six years of control, his primary source of income will be endorsements. Between the horrible ratings the Sox have, their complete lack of significant carriage agreements on cable, and the size of the Japanese community as a proportion of the metro population, he would be looking at significantly more money in a lot of other markets. 8. Many of the other teams will be in the playoffs this year. Others are going to be in the playoff race. A 1st round playoff share would be a huge bump for a guy making league minimum. A World Series championship would about double his salary. 9. Besides a potential playoff share, a playoff appearance also means more national exposure, further opening up more endorsement chances. That's not happening in Chicago. 10. The Sox have a league wide reputation on a lack of resources for players. Despite the noise about that changes, would someone be willing to bet their formative years and the chance at a powerball sized contract on it when you KNOW other teams already have done it. 11. The Sox have a brand new manager, GM, scouts, analytics crew and pretty much every thing else, except a couple of positions. 12. Between the Sox stadium fight, and rumors of ownership changes happening, and an owner pushing 90, the team that is selling Sasaki probably won't be the one who will be around to talk about his first big contract. Even if the are, the Sox have never paid anyone more than $75 million. Do you want to sign somewhere that almost certainly not offer you a mega contact when free agency approaches, or be hoping for a new ownership group who might? Why wouldn't you just go to someone who you know will be willing to pay you when time? I am probably forgetting some things, but this is a good start.

USD.

Could it help? Sure. Would it outweigh the sorry state this franchise is in, probably not.

I get the "anything can happen" of MLB playoffs, but the Cubs are half assing this. With the resources they have, they should own that division, but they always try to do as little as possible.

If the Cubs don't extend Tucker, this was a stupid deal.

Especially when a lot of teams have Japanese players now to give feedback on, if this is even a thing.

He's locked into a team's international bonus pool, and considering how little of it the Sox usually spend, in theory they could be a leader there, that is unless a team with a bigger overall pool refuses to honor an agreement to give it all to Sasaki.

If he isn't talking to others about selling, it's because he already has it figured out.

Juan Soto literally doubled his Washington offer.

Does not appear to a single White Sox player on this list. https://apnews.com/sports/baseball-5dc4b61e33649fa5d08e17c3de87cf67

Statistically he is right.

He's going to be insanely expensive in one year and they probably don't think they can resign him so they are getting what they can for him.

Well I fully agree with the idea that none of this makes sense, hence my perplexed replies to your absurdities. But bonus points for the school yard level taunt.

At least you are dropping the idea that the previous regime was actively refusing all of this, even after the absurdity that an "entry level" employee was somehow qualified to run an entire baseball organization better than experienced people because he apparently asked for stuff, but only after nine years.

So Chris Getz is now a lower entry level hire... yet fully qualified to run an entire baseball franchise, complete with the knowledge of everything that needs to be done. WTAF.

Apparently he is a fraction of the player development guy that Kenny Williams was by your own definition, because he was able to churn guys out with even less resources. But sure, I am going to believe that some "resources" were the problem, somehow the person responsible for approving resources hasn't changed, but now that problem is all better because Chris asked, and somehow Kenny and Rick were refusing any extra resources for some weird reason that has never been stated or outlined. But again, this isn't far fetched.

Or maybe the guy who ran player development, and had pretty much no talent develop while he was doing the job... hold on, this gets really complicated... wasn't actually good at player development? Whoa, right? But no, I am sure they literally picked the wrong guy in every single international signing, draft pick, and MiLB trade.

So the VP in charge was telling Jerry that he didn't need resources, and I am the one who is believing far fetched things. Got it.

And if the implication is that Jerry did nothing for Getz in these areas before, are we supposed to believe that all of this magically changed just because Chris nicely asked him? GMAB.