Chicago White Sox

Oh I agree, just don’t think they want to risk coming out of this offseason empty handed and that’s a real possibility if you are forced to wait out Boras.

He has said that and Hamels is the best guy who may be willing to take a one year deal. I had him in my offseason plan in addition to Wheeler at 1/$17.5M. If this doesn’t prevent them from adding one of the big four starters (which it shouldn’t), then I think it would be fantastic to add some stability to the rotation before the Winter Meetings.

Trade market will ugly though and don’t think we have the chips for a true impact starter. If we miss on Wheeler, I feel like Ryu is the next best alternative.

I wouldn’t be happy if Hamels was our primary addition to the rotation.

Burr showed some promise before injury, but he’s probably willing to resign with us on a minor league deal.

This isn’t true. The signing bonus is taken as part of an AAV for luxury tax purposes. For accounting purposes, it’s spread over the life of the contract. From a cash payroll perspective I’d wager it’s part of their 2020 fiscal year. Tax wise it may have 2019 implications and is likely advantageous to pull forward.

Wow, we’ve basically have nothing to show for all that slot money we traded other than I guess Schryver potentially. Although I guess Burr could be back.

They’re projected payroll is only $10M less than the competitive tax threshold. Maybe they should be able to go higher, but it’s not like they are spending like a mid-market team.

What controllable starting pitcher is going to be better than Wheeler? Because honestly, I can’t think of many that will be available and not cost an absolute fortune.

We don’t have the pieces for a Josh Hader unless we’re willing to trade one of the can’t miss guys.

It can’t be true. At a very minimum, he must be ignoring the vast majority of pitchers that never have TJS twice. No idea how you could follow baseball and believe on average a new UCL will only last 4.5 years. A huge chunk of the league would already be on their second surgery when that clearly isn’t the case.

That tweets translates as follows:

Japan is 15 hours ahead of us, so very possible it leaked there first!?!

Highly suspect baseball rumors are better than nothing, as long as they don’t come from peavy44.

Some nobody that claims we’re signing Wheeler, I’m just trying to get people hyped around here with some fake twitter rumors. The momentum has stalled and we need a new WetButt to believe in.

You know when Von Emor drops them balls, shit is about to pop off!!

Oh shit?!!

The incentives in Grandal’s contract are minimal, so I wouldn’t expect them to be a big part of Wheeler’s contract. As for Machado, I honestly believe the Sox simply got outplayed by the Padres. They thought they were in the lead the whole time and weren’t willing to negotiate against themselves. I think they were truly surprised the Padres came in at the end and offered $300M. Hopefully they learned that slow-playing stars is a dangerous game and that if you really want a guy more often than not you are better being aggressive. To me, Grandal is somewhat proof of that, although admittedly the catching market was pretty light and was likely to move fast.

I truly believe here. Don’t think anyone goes six years and I think something between $100M & $110M will be right in our wheelhouse.

A link to what? From an accounting perspective, the signing bonus is amortized over the life of the contract. But from a cash perspective, my guess is this goes against their 2020 payroll budget as they probably run on a November to October fiscal year.

How do you know what year they put the signing bonus into budget?

Betts, Wheeler, & Grandal combined for 16.5 fWAR last year. If they come even remotely close to those numbers next year, it would be absolute insanity for a team coming off 72 wins and with a talented young core in place (including the addition of three top 25 prospects) to not compete in the shittiest division in all of baseball. I’m sorry, but teams do NOT need to be perfect to be legit playoff contenders.

Why would we not be realistic contenders with Betts & Wheeler?

If we’re serious about pursuing Betts or Springer next offseason, then by all means go the stop-gap route. But if not, we should be exploring other long-term alternatives. I’m not convinced any of our minor league guys are the answer and RF is the last spot we can add an impact player to the lineup.

Getting an extra year of control of Moncada & Giolito would be huge as we’d have a legit five year window. I think there’s a possibly both accept deals that push out a free agency a year.