Chicago White Sox

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.

Yeah, I think you need two option years. I’m hoping Hector misunderstood and the extension is for the eight years following this season. Something like the following structure would be worthwhile for the Sox: 2019: $500K (current deal) 2020: $1.5M 2021: $3.0M 2022: $8.0M 2023: $10.0M 2024: $13.0M 2025: $17.0M 2026: $21.0M (club option) 2027: $26.0M (club option) The guaranteed money shakes out to be ~$53M over the seven years of control we already have him for (~2x the guarantee Tim got), but comes with comes with two not-cheap club options that allow us to control him through his age 30 season. Honestly, if it’s not something like the above and we only get one option, I’ll go on record and say it is too player friendly. I get how valuable even one option year is, but we’re practically assuming he’s Kris Bryant otherwise and given Eloy’s defensive limitations that seems a bit silly. I wouldn’t be outraged by it, but it would support the idea our front office is not very good or is operating with another agenda in mind.

I do kind of worry the Sox offer some ridiculous contract here to help dispose the “the Sox are cheap” notion after the whole Machado fiasco. The $100M figure does seem a bit too high for one additional year of control (unless they’re aware of upcoming CBA changes) and way too convenient for Hahn to say “look, we said the money will be spent, here’s our first nine figure contract”.

The luxury tax implications don’t matter here because we won’t be going above $200M in payroll while Reinsdorf is still alive. Also, front-loading a contract never makes sense due to the time value of money. We’d be better off taking any excess cash, investing it at some rate of return, and effectively paying less in the future.