Chicago White Sox

But why is he getting more than Corbin did a year ago when there were literally no other high end pitching options available?

Great post Caulfield and spot on with your assessment of Wheeler’s market.

Absolutely no chances Wheeler is getting 6/$175M. Patrick Corbin got 6/$140M in a highly back-loaded deal and is left-handed and flashed more dominance. I think Wheeler ultimately gets around 5/$100M.

The thing is the Sox are flush with cash and there aren’t a ton of quality free agents to spend it on. As I just said, I’d prefer Grandal but it just seems like us and JDM are destined to be together.

He would definitely be a tremendous clubhouse presence on top of being an elite bat.

That would be awesome. While I prefer Grandal, JDM would be nice consolation prize. Obviously signing him adds some complexity to the 1B/DH situation, but it’s definitely better than coming away empty handed in terms of impact bats this offseason.

Qualifying offers are Boras’ kryptonite, he just refuses to accept how they hurt his players’ value on the open market. That being said, he’s got to be confident as fuck that something better is out there to pass on 3/$63M in guaranteed money.

Yup.

Exactly. Cease becomes expendable for a cost-controlled RF if need be.

On free agents most definitely. I can’t recall a guy he had opt-out where it blew up in his face, but admittedly I could be missing someone.

No way Encarnacion is getting 1/$19M when Nelson Cruz signed a 2/$26M deal last offseason and the DH market is even more team friendly.

I think almost most teams have some talks with agents that borderline on tampering. And honestly, if JDM opts-out it’s because Boras knows he can get him more than 3/$63M.

If the Sox wanted to immediately be World Series threats you’d sign both and look to acquire some cheaper help at RF & DH. Obviously that wild never happen and would be an incredibly risky plan, but my god the potential of toe rotation would be insane.

I’m fairly confident he opts-out and that Boras has had some under the table talks with us and/or the Rangers on theoretical parameters. My guess is us or Texas sign him to a 4/$85M deal fairly early in the offseason.

It’s also not a problem when we have cheap young solutions at most other spots.

Them leaking an 8/$175M offer was to get other teams to believe the Sox weren’t serious threats and to prevent other parties from doing something drastic. They definitely weren’t leaking it because they thought it was a badass offer.

You’re attributing all that ticket growth to the Machado pursuits and none to actually having some exciting young players. If anyone got hosed on the Machado pursuit it was season ticket holders and then renewing wouldn’t result in an up. And for the Machado fiasco, I still think there are two factors that drove the miss and they don’t necessarily have to do with valuation. First, I think Jerry is incredibly risk adverse and was the reason we didn’t offer a hard eight years. While I can’t prove that, I think the fact that KW provided some ridiculous explanation for why we couldn’t go longer (to protect Jerry) and the fact we acquired all his buddies supports the idea that Hahn & KW were working with restrictions. Second, I think a lack of experience pursing major free agents cost us. I truly believe the Sox may have been willing to go a little further with their offer, but simply thought Manny’s camp was bluffing with San Diego. The Sox thought they had this in the bag and KW & Hahn’s reactions prove just how shocked they were. Maybe they just suck at valuation, but personally I think they just overplayed their hand and didn’t want to negotiate against themselves.

I think they’re just idiots who honestly thought they were in the driver’s seat and simply overplayed their hand. I also don’t think they sold that many extra tickets from their pursuit of Manny and whatever measly money they made off it was more than offset by anger and hostility amongst the fanbase.

If you actually think they “lied” to sell more tickets then your business acumen is clearly lacking.

If your criteria for free agent pitching is no Tommy John’s in their past you’ve just cut the list substantially. No idea why doing that makes any sense.

Strasburg & JDM combo apparently.

Thanks...figured that was probably the case, but it’s really hard to motivate myself right now to sit through a vanilla standalone Star Wars film.

Which is substantially better the chance of a turnover or more than the one yard we gave up when kneeling. It was a dumb decision by a coach who playing afraid.

Lol...no idea how I get to that payroll? The table is a literal walk based on actual commitments, MLBtraderumor’s arbitration projections, and my own forecasted salaries for free agents. I did not include Rodon’s salary (which I mentioned in my original post on this) which would bring the payroll up ~$135M which is league average. As for the Nimmo package, I think you are undervaluing Stiever & Walker (not that they’re that studs) and overvaluing BVW’s ability as a GM. Plus the health factor is a real risk and something we’d be taking on, which would factored into any potential price. I’m definitely not guaranteeing they’d take that offer, but we’re starting to see prospects in the 100 to 200 range command more value than in years past. I think Stiever is a guy with real helium right now and Walker’s upside is still fairly high if he can stick in CF, which hasn’t been ruled out yet.

Cole isn’t happening, so no need to build a hypothetical around him. But plenty of room to fill all our needs and maintain a league average payroll. I’ve posted this before, but this would be my offseason plan: