Chicago White Sox

His info is wrong or more likely a plant by us. I can tell you right now any bidding process is going to require teams to present some indicative range of value up-front. This is not a formal offer but simply a means to weed out teams that aren’t going to be serious players. We know we’ve already made that first cut which means with near certainty we can assume that we’re willing to go at least 10/$300M (the Nationals offer) and likely much higher.

This article is exactly why Harper won’t end up in L.A. unless he’s willing to take a lot less money. The Dodgers have zero reason to spend 10/$350M+ on him. I still think this comes down to us or the Phillies.

It won’t happen because the org is all in. We just all need to have patience.

I can’t wait until Manny signs with us.

For the love of god just stop. Alonso won’t be here for two years unless he is absolutely crushing it.

Great stuff as always. Much appreciated Jimmy.

Player A: XWOBACON = .460, 18.7% BB, 24.3% Player B: XWOBACON = .470, 13.2% BB, 14.8%

Y2Jimmy with a fantastic write-up! And I’ve never heard of Adam Schein, but good god what an annoying, ignorant hack. How the fuck could anyone stand to watch that douche for more than 90 seconds?

They won’t keep both Nicky & Palka on the 25 man roster once Eloy is up. One will be optioned down to AAA.

I think it improves our chances with Machado and puts some pressure on Boras. Plus if we somehow miss on both guys, it allows us to consider moving Abreu for prospects and still have a place-holder at 1B.

I’ve got bad news for you fathom, but I’m guessing your boy Adam Jones will be a member of the 2019 White Sox if we don’t land Harper ?

No stop gaps meant expensive deals to mediocre veterans like Melky & LaRoche that would block prospects. Alonso was brought here for one reason and we all know why. His addition doesn’t go against anything Hahn said.

I’m not following. If we add Harper, who cares about Palka? Until then, he’s a place-holder for RF. I really don’t see what the issue is here.

Right now that’s probably the OF. I think it’s very likely they add one more guy to the mix even if they miss out on Harper.

Again, you’re over-thinking this. All it means as currently constructed, Palka is now in the OF mix because we added a DH and we have a gaping hole in RF.

Oh come on, he had to say something to the press and clearly he wasn’t going to say this gives them an edge in the Machado sweepstakes. His response was completely fine, no one should be over-analyzing it.

I don’t follow.

Even if we’re the highest bidder he may not sign with us, this move is all about getting any edge you can get. And quite frankly it’s an incredibly smart gamble to take with very little downside risk.

Dude, you really don’t get this. Alonso is a strong-side platoon hitter. Not only will it be easy to limit him to 500 PAs, he’s actually more valuable to us when used in that fashion.

I’m convinced you’re just playing board contrarian at this point.

Lol...are you actually suggesting we are a revenue sharing recipient? Do you just make stuff up?

Cue the “hero worshipping” rants in 3...2...1...

Well now that he’s a member of the White Sox, there’s like a 50% he’ll get a coaching job with the organization.

Lol...I refuse to accept that’s a possibility, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Alright, so here are my thoughts. First & foremost, the question of whether or not this can happen comes down to money. Trying to be objective here, I’m going to consider a couple of pieces of information. Let’s start with Forbes’ valuation after the 2017 season: https://www.forbes.com/teams/chicago-white-sox/ This article suggests we made $30M in operating profit after the 2017 season. While this shows player expenses of $119M, our major league payroll was only $98M according to BP: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/?team=CHA For this analysis, the $98M of payroll and the $30M of operating profit are the key numbers to focus on. All other items (draft & LatAm spending, minor league spending, etc) will be held constant. What this immediately suggests is we could have afforded a $130M payroll last year. And that’s with pretty pathetic gate receipts. So what has changed since then? The MLB has renewed it’s contract with Fox, resulting in an additional $7M/year in revenue per team. For sake of math, let’s say that our payroll potential at $140M. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thewrap.com/fox-extends-its-tv-deal-with-major-league-baseball-through-2028/amp/ But in the grand scheme of things that is pretty insignificant. The real potential comes with our next TV deal with should go into effect after the 2019 season. Right now, we earn somewhere between $50M to $55M for our broadcast rights. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/estimated-tv-revenues-for-all-30-mlb-teams/ I can’t find the source, but there is some speculation our revenue could double as a result of this new TV deal. But given this is simply speculation, let’s be conservative and say our next deal will pay us $25M more, which would be an50% increase. That would put our payroll potential around $165M and that again is with our current gate receipts. So what would it take to pay both Harper & Machado? Let’s be aggressive and say they earn a combined $85M in the early years. That’s about half of our potential payroll. But that’s at current gate receipt levels and adding two mega stars would definitey change that. Even at just 2M in attendance (2011 levels), we should see a $12M increase in gate receipts plus a decent amount in parking, concessions, etc. Let’s call it $20M all-in, putting a conservative payroll estimate for the near-term at $185M. That allows us to spend $100M on top of Harper & Machado. TLDR - Yes, we can afford to add both Harper & Machado and still have enough payroll flexibility to build a competitive roster.