Chicago White Sox

We could sign both if we were prepared to become a luxury tax team, which seems completely unrealistic. I see us eventually being around a $150M payroll and that simply can’t support both of these guys.

You and others are missing the point. To convince a Harper or Machado to come play here, we need to make it clear that the rebuild is coming to an end. Trading our best hitter for a B prospects conveys the wrong the message. This isn’t about competing in 2019, it’s about proving to them that we plan to be serious by 2020. Dealing Abreu does the exact opposite.

What difference it makes is it might piss off Harper or Machado. You don’t risk that under any circumstance.

But I think they key is it should be in that order. Trading Abreu first & potentially risking our well-being with the whales would be a big mistake.

I’m fine with that path as long as Harper or Machado bless it. Can’t risk trading away and losing out on one of these guys.

You do NOT move Jose until the Harper & Machado situations have been addressed.

Fan-fucking-tastic news if true and exactly what I was hoping for. NYY only going to be a player for Machado if on their terms.

Because I like Tucker and would hate to see him on the Indians the next seven years or so.

The Astros being in the top 5 is interesting. They really need some starting pitching. I wonder if we could see a Kluber for Tucker ++ type deal go down. Would really hate to see that as a Sox fan.

Hard pass on Moose for anything over a year IMO. First, he’s simply not good enough to warrant a multi-year deal. Second, the Sox seem committed to moving Moncada to 3B eventually and Madrigal could be ready by OD 2020. If we don’t sign Machado, I could maybe see a 1/$10M-ish type deal.

Awesome, thanking for sharing that.

So GMs should be arriving today right? Hopefully we start hearing some actual rumors at some point tonight.

I just think we’re a year too early to trade guys for an established star. A big part of that reasoning is we have a ton of guys who will be spending a bunch of time in AA this year and that’s the level where prospect value can increase exponentially. Madrigal, Robert, Basabe, Adolfo, Rutherford, Gonzalez, Sheets, Rivera, Dunning, Hansen, Lambert, Medeiros, Flores, Johnson, etc. should all spend a good chunk of time there next year. Let’s see what we have in those guys before we trade for a cost controlled stud. For now, we have plenty of cash to fill holes with vets on short-term deals.

A high upside, rebound candidate that makes us better in 2019 and serves as a bridge to Madrigal. Dozier & Murphy are both coming off rough seasons, but were 5+ WAR players in 2016 & 2017. Those are exactly the type of guys we should take a chance on because they can actually become valuable flip guys.

I think you start the season with Yoan in the leadoff spot and adjust accordingly. I do hope if we add Harper, we turn around and add Murphy or Dozier on a one year deal (with Moncada moving to 3B). While neither of those guys are ideal leadoff hitters per se, they at least are typically high OBP types which is something our roster is lacking.

Why?

I’ll be honest, Keuchel would definitely scare me, but I truly believe the Sox want to add a veteran starter who can stabilize the rotation over the next few years and for whatever I feel like he may be the guy if they land Harper.

With the Winter Meetings literally around the corner and the rumor machine in full hype mode, I wanted to create a thread for us to place our bets on what we think Hahn gets done over the course of the event. My predictions are listed below: FA - Harper - 10/$400M FA - Keuchel - 4/$85M FA - Allen - 1/$10M FA - Maldonado - 1/$5M Alright, I admit the above looks pretty ridiculous (that is exactly a half billion in spending), but I’ve got this weird vibe that if we land Harper, then Keuchel may be coming with him. We know Hahn wants to add starting pitching and keeps referencing “long term” solutions. And what I find interesting is he’s the only big name arm we were never connected to this offseason. Again, it definitely seems crazy, but I could see something like this happening if Harper were in the fold.

I didn’t see it posted in here, but apparently they were victims of a robbery that used rocks to cause the car to crash. There were four passengers in the car, but these two guys were the only ones who died as they didn’t have seatbelts on and were ejected from the vehicle. I still can’t believe wearing a seatbelt isn’t just an automatic for some people...such a shame.

I wonder if peavy44 has heard anything on this.

Don’t buy it, I think we’d simply sign Grandal if we felt Collins or Zavala wasn’t the answer.

I’d like a refund please, I’ll even let the Padres keep Erik Johnson.

That’s what I was kind of getting at. If after three months he still looks terrible as a starter, I wouldn’t be against seeing how he looks as a reliever. I’m sure we want avoid an experiment like that in 2020.

He has one option left. Regardless, I think they give him three months (unless he starts off disastrously) and then reevaluate. The good news for him is would take a lot for him to lose his rotation this year. Next year will be the challenge for him.

I can’t imagine we really made an offer if we’re actively pursuing Harper. There is no ideal OF arrangement that works for Harper, Brantley, & Jimenez. Sure, Bryce could theoretically play CF but that seems like something we’d want to avoid at all costs.