caulfield12

We could have Kenny Williams (the legend himself, and one of the first White Sox "athletes" to be be moved all over the field) or Dayan Viciedo playing 3B, it's STILL not going to matter one iota about signing Machado or not, and his final asking price...

This is endearing and only slightly weird...this thread needs to be put in one of those 50 year time capsules for preservation, so that future generations can understand and appreciate baseball (everything but owners and sports agents.)

Are we fighting Achilles again? That last one didn't end so well.

And they had traded for Puig to play CF better than Eaton/Engel/Clemente....at least he would have been entertaining, right?

Not unless you save you love me/us/you guys...

Yeah, that makes sense...the ice comes from the local tap water, even if you drink it relatively quickly. Otherwise, I only drank Gatorade.

Any advice about going to Yosemite National Park in the summertime? Besides DON’T GO at that time, lol? Back to haikus? (Speaking of poop, don’t drink even drink the Coca Cola at McDonald’s in the Philippines, still having stomach problems five days later, back in China. Only bottled water from now on in 3rd world countries.)

Bring back Danny Tartabull!!

Gee, that doesn’t sound familiar at all. Watch, Robert will the next name mentioned to rush up and save us.

Who will play 2B, one of the Guillen or Williams family tree? Rondon? There’s such a thing as negative interest rates, where they charge you as a bank for depositing money...well, we’re heading towards negative t.v. ratings like the Astros five years ago, where they have to pay subscribers to watch.

I’ll go with the Royals’ 2013 season, leading into 2014/15 World Series teams. Competitive for most of the year, but closer to an 81-83 win true outcome team (at least .500, and you can argue higher because of shitty division)....without a whale or major additions at the trade deadline.

See Fields, Semien, Teahen, Beckham, Viciedo, Collins (coming soon, according to scouts), Burger... Then all the money we have invested into 1B/DH types over the last two decades, versus catcher, middle infield and CF. No patience, or a lack of ability to “fix fielders” like Cooper could fix pitchers.

He has a track record of nearly 15 years with KW...

Because they didn’t commit to a thorough change of their evaluation systems, and their system-wide philosophy...at least not in the same way teams like the Astros and Cubs did. They haven’t proven they are going to invest money like the a small market Indians did in a Top 5 manager like Francona. Everything here is basically riding on, what, comparatively? The judgment, development skills and talent evaluation of KW, Getz, Hostetler, Fabian, Paddy and Haber? We have never had massive investments in scouting, compared to most other organizations. We STILL haven’t fixed gaps in the Dominican Republic, Pacific Rim, etc. Jesus Pena is still basically the last Dominican prospect, if you want to call him that, we produced...back in 2011-12. I don’t see how those results would be much different if Dave Wilder was running things from jail. I guess we have 2-3 Latin kids in our Top 15-25, but it’s still an overall disappointment, outside of Tatis, Jr.

The White Sox had him as the best collegiate hitter, period...heck, they were saying this as early as his first run with Team USA. If they’re wrong about him and Cease, Kopech, Robert, Collins, Burger, etc., even TWO WHALES isn’t going to be enough to build a World Series-winning team. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/white-sox/white-sox-talk-podcast-nick-madrigals-college-coach-says-guy-going-be-superstar

It’s not like Mr. Bean accidentally bidding an item up at auction...he also has to be authorized to spend that money by an owner who doesn’t 100% trust him to spend wisely.

Capitan...

But not everyone could have signed Keppinger, LaRoche and Bonifacio...

Depends on 8/9/10 years also...but I’d say $325/330 is the very upper bound and $350 million is at least defensible (from an ownership perspective). Still, if it’s the Padres and not Phillies or a larger market team, it’s an incredibly enduring psychological blow to a fanbase who was dreaming “what if?” for almost the entire offseason. There won’t be tangible any reason to have faith we will actually be willing to overpay that star player next offseason, that’s for sure.

See Alex Gordon, Cespedes, Adam Dunn, Tanaka, etc.,...but that’s guaranteed not to sell any tickets or get anyone to tune in at home.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/sd-sp-padres-wil-myers-hair-outfield-0217-story.html Wil Myers is all ready for the Battle of the Best West Coast Hair with Harper and Hosmer.

$240-260 million has to be more likely given Padres’ financials, or the inclusion of deferred money in that package...or Year 2/3 opt out or swellopt or whatever. They have to be willing to go to at least $300 million or this entire 2+ year planning this out and adding Jay, Alonso, Colome, Nova, Herrera while keeping Castillo (to dump Narvaez) was all pretty much pointless...

https://www.thegoodphight.com/2019/2/14/18225033/why-scott-boras-should-ultimately-land-bryce-harper-in-philadelphia-phillies-free-agency-hot-stove There’s no doubt that, in any other normal off-season, the winter that Klentak and Co. has had would be lauded by the fanbase. The Phillies have improved themselves quite a bit with the trades of J.T. Realmuto and Jean Segura, the free agent signings of David Robertson and Andrew McCutchen, and the contract extension to Aaron Nola. The Phils are much better and, as currently constructed, will be a better team in 2019 than they were last year. But without one of the big fish in the boat, it feels like the entire catch up to this point has been disappointing. This whole process has become annoying and stressful and taken the joy out of the entire process. Certainly, it’s not the Phillies’ goal to make this whole thing fun for us, their job is to get the player they want at the price they want. Nevertheless, this hasn’t been a joyride, and it has taken the fun out of much of this off-season. 63 people are talking about this This is what you would expect Klentak to say, and if one is just talking about year-over-year improvement, he’s right. Adding this caliber of talent and locking up the team’s most important player would be a successful off-season. But no Machado and no Harper makes for a crushing disappointment and would, in the eyes of most fans, submarine all the good work that has been done up to this point. The whole reason Bryce Harper picked Boras to be his agent wasn’t so that Boras could find a nice home on the west coast for Harper to live so that he could be close to his hometown of Las Vegas. Harper didn’t pick Boras so that Boras could work out a cheaper deal for fewer years just so Harper could play in a city he thinks is prettier or has nicer sushi. The reason a big league ballplayer hires Scott Boras, one who is the face of the sport and is likely setting himself up for the biggest payday of his life, is so that Boras can get that player the most money possible.

More like ESCAPE ROOM. I don't know if there's enough energy left over for full-out PANIC at this point in time. It's either a sense of relief we FINALLY sign Machado (overlaid with concerns about him exercising an early opt-out) OR pretty much total nuclear meltdown/Chernobyl/Armageddon/Thanos snapping his fingers if they swing and miss with almost EVERYTHING POSSIBLE working in their favor in terms of market conditions (and considering how disappointing 2018 turned out).

Cheap Charlie