Chicago White Sox

I laid it for several stars and them going through the arbitration process resulted in between $50M to $60 in earnings over seven years. $100M for eight seasons would be crazy IMO and an unprecedented extension.

I’m in 100% agreement. I’m not a huge fan of Hahn at the moment, but he did add a substantial amount of high-end talent with his big three trades (which he should have given the assets being traded). The problem is we’ve failed to supplement that much via the draft and that’s downright inexcusable IMO. Most rankings have only have two or three of our top 10 prospects being draft picks, which is pretty damn nuts. Only one of those guys is a legit 100 prospect, which is also pretty pathetic. A big part of that is playing it way too safe with our high picks. Hostetler has actually had some nice mid & late round finds, but he needs to start prioritizing ceiling much more at the top of the draft in the future and that means seriously considering high school talents. If Adley & Vaughn are off the table at #3 in this next draft and we pass on Witt or Abrams for a safe college pick (I know a lot can change between now and June), I’ll be beyond livid. That being said, I’m fairly optimistic after last year’s draft where we took three HS kids in the first 11 rounds, that our willingness to take HS is finally changing for the better.

Also, with Dunning likely needing TJS, the need to add a veteran pitcher prior to the 2020 season becomes vitally important. That being said, there will be a ton of options comparable to Dallas if not better next offseason. These include: Chris Sale (31) - 6.5/7.7/4.9 Gerritt Gole (29) - 6.3/3.1/2.6 Justin Verlander (37) - 6.8/4.1/5.2 Madison Bumgarner (30) - 1.7/1.4/4.9 Rick Porcello (31) - 2.7/2.1/5.2 Zack Wheeler (29) - 4.1/0.3/2.6* Alex Wood (29) - 2.6/3.5/1.3 Michael Wacha (28) - 0.8/3.2/1.9 Dallas Keuchel (32) - 3.6/2.4/2.6 Admittedly, outside of the top 3, a lot of these guys have question marks. That being said, all five of the other guys have put up a 3 win in the past three years, are younger than Dallas, and potentially won’t cost a draft pick or at least one as high as this year’s pick. With 2019 being a lost season, waiting is the still the best course of action.

We should not be signing any free agents that cost us draft picks now that we’ve missed on Machado & Harper.

I hope Hill gets banned from the NFL for life and actually serves some time. And for the love of god Chiefs, do not give this scumbag that an extension until/if he’s in the clear on this shit.

I’ll give you credit for providing examples, but how many of these picks are based on the benefit of hindsight vs. actually feeling conviction for taking them at that time?

Wow, that’s awesome! Guardians of the Galaxy is easily the best Marvel series IMO.

Thank you both.

Would you mind elaborating on what he said? Nothing will give me the motivation to pound five beers than some good ole fashioned Rick Hahn speak.

I think Ricky plans to bat our catchers high in the linuep. Castillo will likely bat 5th on most days and against LHP him or McCann will maybe even bat cleanup. Look at our options from the right side, it’s beyond pathetic.

Are there specific HS guys they should have taken with those picks instead of the guys we should have selected? Instead of just whining about the approach, maybe cite some examples where we didn’t select the BPA and instead took a college player.

I think that will be the primary lineup against RHP.

He took a HS kid in the 4th round last year.

Moncada will be batting 2nd against RHP this year.

That looks spot-on to me. The only question at this point IMO is whether Guyer makes the roster or if they go with 8 pitchers.

I still think two impact free agents is a possibility easily. I already ruled out Sale, Cole, & Bogaerts and probably Rendon too. But short-term money will not be a problem and guys like Verlander, Bumgarner, JDM, Goldschmidt, Grandal will happen. You keep talking like our plan is to rock a sub $100M payroll and that this extension that hasn’t even happened yet will someone prevent us from adding guys even though Eloy will be dirt cheap over the next few years regardless.

Sure I’ll double down on that. And there was nothing sarcastic / hyperbolic about me moving to Nashville...it’s very likely happening in the next couple months.

Yeah, End Game looks amazing. Can’t fucking wait.

Now I’m actually convinced you’re just trolling.

Pretty much the same as last year when most of us were terrified the Sox would take Singer over Madrigal (and IIRC Fangraphs even reported that). They proved us wrong last year and I’m somewhat optimsic we’d take Witt if Adley & Vaughn were off the table, but that would be a terrifying few minutes that’s for sure.

We haven’t signed Eloy to an extension and even if we do, how does that prevent us from adding pitcher via free agency exactly? Very confused here.

I think there is some truth to Hector’s reports and that conversations are on-going, but I still find 8/$100M unlikely. He’s probably got a counter-proposal coming out of Eloy’s camp and it will end being a bit less or with an additional option year. To Ken’s point, this would be an unprecedented contract for a pre-majors player.

He’s reporting what he heard though and was called out for it. I think his response is appropriate as there isn’t a fact to report here.

I got to disagree here. Nolan Arenado would have made roughly $50M to $55M over his seven years of team control had he competed the arbitration process this year. Josh Donaldson, a top 3 player in all of baseball and former MVP, made ~$57M in his seven controllable seasons. Kris Bryant, one of the most impactful young players and a former MVP winner, will have made $26M over his first five years of team control. If he can return to superstar form, he can probably beat the $52M guarantee I put together for Eloy by ~$15M or do (and that’s far from a guarantee). The point here is a $52M commitment is basically assuming Eloy is a top 10 player from the get-go. While that’s more than possible, he’ll need to hit like JD Martinez to get there because his defense will be non value add at best. For Eloy to lock that in prior to ever playing a pro game would be a huge coup for him IMO. Whether that’s worth sacrificing two free agency seasons is up for debate, but I simply can’t agree he’d be likely out-earn than $52M, especially when you consider his history of minor health issues.

I’m not sure I’m following here, but the luxury tax implications only matter to us in the event we decide to trade Eloy to a tax paying team (which suggests things have gone wrong). We ourselves will never be tax payers under Reinsdorf and will be unable to take advantage of his salary being higher than his AAV during our competitive window.