Dick Allen

There is a de facto salary cap. In fact, it is one thing the union knows they got played.They gain nothing because crying poor has worked for years. The media has bought it, and held their water, yet they somehow come up with the coin to pay a James Shields $20 million a year.

The question is why won’t they open their books if they have nothing to hide and making money owning a baseball team is extremely difficult? It isn’t about the public seeing it. We know the answer.

If the owner is losing money, they can sell the team and never worry about money again. The owners agreed to guarantee these players these salaries whether they made millions or lost millions. The players are willing to play for the pay they would have received per game. Very fair. The Forbes link said teams made, on average, $50 million last season. Record profits. Now they are crying poor. The media has held their water forever. The poor billionaires. They have made this very ugly for no reason other than to try to intimidate a Union they have had their way with in recent times. This stupidity is going to cost everyone.

You are all for owners not having to lose any money, but seem to have no problem with the player supposedly guaranteed $20 million this season getting paid $6 million. Ken Rosenthal had a proposal which, if the owners are being straight, something most people find laughable, would cost them each $20 million this year. Or one year of James Shields. 72 games full pro rated salaries. Seems reasonable. If that is too much water for an ownership to take on, they need to get out of the business. https://www.forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/#tab:overall

The problem is the $20k cap is such a small amount an interesting HS player isn’t going to skip college, an interesting junior would probably go back to school as well. It will just mostly be college seniors IMO. Obviously there are players that weren’t drafted that eventually will be good MLBers. But getting them signed for $20k is going to be pretty tough. Just remember Ozney Guillen turning down $75k, and that was a decade ago. Chances are pretty remote the Sox sign anyone worth being excited about.

When you watch the draft on TV, it's hard to really put things in the proper perspective. Most of these guys will never sniff AAA let alone the big leagues. But you watch their highlights, all the pitchers throw close to 100. All of them have nasty breaking balls. All the hitters can hit it a mile, or at least will project to. They all seem capable of winning a gold medal at the Olympics with their speed. The fact is, compared to other professional baseball players, the vast majority really don't stand out. I must of heard 3 or 4 times last night, "you could put this guy in a major league bullpen right now". OK, but not if you want to win.

If Kelley is the man, punting on the 3rd and 4th round is well worth it. Go look at the Sox drafts the past 25 years. Not much from the 3rd or 4th round. Not much from any round really, except for Sale and TA. Hopefully, Vaughn and Madrigal and now Crochet change that. You can question if Crochet was a good pick. Some have doubts about Kelley, but IMO, the plan was pretty solid. If they got the right guys, they deserve a ton of praise.

He should have said lit as fuck.

Most had hats. But it is pretty obvious they had a plan.

If one of these 5 pans out, it’s a good draft. If 2 do, it’s tremendous. When is the last time the Sox had 2 guys that ultimately weren’t easily replaceable in the same draft? I get they kill their odds the last 3 rounds, but they picked their BPA in round 2, and seemingly had their plan in place to get their guys. You have to give them credit for that. If they work out, great. If they bust, that’s on them.

I wish they would have taken BPA, and offered him slot. If he didn’t sign, get the extra pick next year.

HS pitchers are a crapshoot, but the White Sox also have the fortune of not having his HS coach abuse him.

The sequel is usually disappointing especially if the original was a masterpiece. I don’t mind the pick, but anyone thinking he is going to be Chris Sale is fooling themselves. But you can still be a couple notches below Sale and be more than worthy of being pick 11.

Embers, ashes. The Trump administration will stomp those out very quickly, very powerfully. Some say with more power than you have ever seen. But then again, it will be up to the governors. If they don't respond well, the federal government will step in. Believe me. Thanks to POTUS, the coronavirus has been reduced to ashes. You can thank him in November.

Supposedly he is a hard sign and they don’t have a 2nd round pick. I think Dowd might be right, they get the pick back next year when they have better information. But they do have to offer him a certain percentage of the slot to get the pick next year, and maybe that is enough for him to sign.

I wouldn’t have minded him, but do question whether the White Sox are the organization that can develop a questionable hit tool. His talent might override that, but until they start developing hitters again, I have my doubts.

That is probably the big issue. Also only 13 starts in college, but I think if they can keep him healthy, it’s a good pick.

With only 5 picks, I think the under slot thing isn’t going to be as prevalent this year. You have to take BPA.

He's pretty little, but 12 HR in 16 games isn't shabby. I'd be happy to have him.

They got him for Bobby Bonds, and thought he was going to be a star. Had a lot of talent, but seemed disinterested quite often. RIP.

Dick Johnson NBC 5 Chicago weekend anchor. Seemed like a good guy, although I always wondered why they had Dick Johnson as an anchor with Pete Sack on weather during the same broadcast.

They are used to A. Eventually lead to more profit. And B. Increase the value of their asset. Why should players pay for that? What they do with their baseball profit should have nothing to do with players. If you owned a business and decided to go gambling and lost your ass, how do you think telling your employees they will have to take a pay cut to cover your losses going to go over?Ricketts didn’t need to buy Wrigleyville. He did. But that shouldn’t be on Brizzo and Javy Baez to take a cut because a pandemic made the revenue at his outside business go to near zero.The owners negotiated prorated salaries, and we have known for some time there would be no fans at stadiums at least for the vast majority of games.

He is saying the baseball operation is making a huge profit and that many owners are using that profit to finance other things. Why should Cubs players take a cut because Ricketts isn’t generating any money at his Hotel Zachary? According to Boras, the owners make enough money without fans to fund players salaries. Whether that is true or not I have no idea, in fact, I kind of doubt it. But, I think owners should take the loss. They take the extra profit when it’s there. Prorated salaries seems fair to me.

What he is getting at is the debt is taken on to make more money. It would be like asking your high performing employees at one business to take pay cuts because you bought a new house and it turned into a money pit, and wanted them to bail you out. People don’t pay billions for businesses that don’t make money. Lenders don’t loan billions of dollars to purchase things with razor thin profit margins. It’s pretty obvious owning sports teams is very lucrative, even before they sell.

"Remember, games cannot be played without you," Boras wrote to his clients. "Players should not agree to further pay cuts to bail out the owners. Let owners take some of their record revenues and profits from the past several years and pay you the prorated salaries you agreed to accept or let them borrow against the asset values they created from the use of those profits players generated." He says they make record profits on baseball. Their loans are for outside stuff like Ricketts buying up Wrigleyville, and that has nothing to do with the players. He is using his profits on the baseball operation to pay down his loans on his rooftops, his bars, his hotel, and doesn’t think the players should give him a break on that, since ultimately, when the loans get paid down, he won’t be sharing the profit with the players. If it is such a tight business, the owners should show the player unredacted books. They would probably get some concessions. But they absolutely refuse. Kind of like a certain someone with his taxes.