Chicago White Sox

He’s getting way more than that bro.

Unfortunately the Cubs have a patent on the 20 year contract.

It’s definitely possibly that we aligned on terms on Monday and met with the Yankees, heard what they had to say, and basically said “I need $xxxM or I’m going with another team”. And if we really met with him for 10 hours, that’s not just possible but likely.

You typically don’t draft an agreement and share with the other side until you’re aligned on terms. But my experience is not in people contracts, so maybe that could be totally different.

Chili said he gave that info to WSD though, so now we got a bit of a chicken/egg going. Hopefully Dave has confirmed Chili’s rumor elsewhere since then.

Unfortunately it’s the last 10% of an agreement that’s usually painfully slow to iron out. Look, I hope I’m wrong so I can get all my kids Machado jerseys for Christmas, but I’ll remain cautiously optimistic for now.

Giving Chili the benefit of the doubt for a second & saying Machado is eager to sign, I still don’t think a deal gets done this weekend. Best case scenario he informally selects us and then the two sides start negotiating terms. This is not going to be a straight forward contract so I think the earliest it could get done is after Christmas but before New Years.

Sounds short. How long did he meet with us?

Yup, and I’ll be honest, I don’t believe for a second that Machado wanted to sign with us heading into our meeting with him but his agent pressured him not to. I really wish that were true, but I think it’s a complete fabrication.

Look, I have no personal gain from calling out an alleged insider, but he clearly said Machado was staying through Wednesday and that’s not the case if that tweet is true. Honestly, I simply want to know what’s real and what’s BS and despite being one of the more optimistic posters on this board, Chili’s rumor never felt right to me. Again, nothing personal against him, but it just doesn’t seem to jive, at least the part about spending an extra day & night in Chicago.

That is the single stupidest thing I have ever seen and question your fandom.

Why the Cubs?

I think this first post proves Chili may not be the insider he claimed to be.

I’ve lost all respect for Ron.

You’re cheering for the Cubs to sign Harper to avoid a ban bet?

Which is probably part of the reason we’re going with a five year deal.

We have no reason to believe he’s in New York. We have a person on this board saying he stayed an extra day & night in Chicago. Just find it odd that hasn’t gotten leaked out yet if true.

I haven’t seen one single story or rumor about Machado being in Chicago today, which seems incredibly odd given the importantance of that if true.

Sounds like this agreement is only for five years, so I wouldn’t expect billions for us. But regarding your “only baseball game in town” comment, that still applies to our RSN and it’s vitally important to our partners to have content throughout the summer.

I mean, these guys own the network and get to keep all the profits, so of course they are naturally motivated to have good teams. The big change now is they should each own a bigger piece of the network with the Cubs gone, which creates more potential upside and downside risk in the actual quality of the product.

Damn good summary Shack, this is honestly more thorough & comprehensive than what I’ve seen from the professional baseball writers.

I hope Loaiza is back again, would love to get my authentic 2003 All-Star game jersey signed finally.

The Cubs are owned by a trust fund, not Pizza man. They aren’t going to do anything crazy until they’ve paid off their purchase and have that new local TV deal in place.

I just don’t think there are huge markets for either guy and I feel like Reinsdorf is actually motivated to spend big. It honestly seems like the perfect storm right now of desire, cash flow, & opportunity.

Anyone else feel like this has a legit chance of happening? If I were a betting man, I could see the odds being like 25% that we land both at this point.