Chicago White Sox

I plan on flying in for it and that will be one of many questions I’ll consider asking.

He was saying to front load the contract to make it more difficult for teams close to the luxury tax threshold to match. It will be a cold day in hell before the Sox ever have to worry about that.

Salaries are averaged over the life of a contract for luxury tax reasons so no benefit there unfortunately.

They spent every year for a good half decade or more leading up to Robert and now all of a sudden they don’t like anyone. To me, it’s all a front for some sort of fuckup and they’re trying to get anything they can for the money they can’t spend.

Backloading contracts doesn’t help with the luxury tax.

Pollock was a 3+ win OF who can play all three positions when healthy, while JDM is at best a 2 win OF and only going to get worse defensively. I don’t know what to tell you man, but no NL team is signing JDM to any realistic contract.

Hard to disagree. This signing class is an absolute travesty.

I’m guessing the Rangers asked about acquiring our slot money, while Hahn came up with this scenario.

Exactly, I think is a symptom of a bigger problem with our LatAm operations.

Oh I 100% agree, given the ROIs, not spending your full pool is just plain stupid. That being said, I will care far less if they end up adding multiple impact talents in free agency.

It’s definitely embarrassing, but I don’t think this is entirely money driven. I feel they somehow botched the recruitment process with this class after signing Robert and there is simply nothing of significance left to spend it on that isn’t already tied to another organization. Whatever the truth is, our LatAm operations are a complete mess and a worldwide draft can’t come soon enough.

We better spend a fuckton in free agency to make this shit acceptable.

There is zero chance the Cubs decline Quintana's option.

This is just a crazy comp. Pollock is at least good defensively when on the field. JDM is a fucking butcher man and would also get hurt.

Maybe at a $10M AAV? No NL team is signing him to a 4/$68M contract.

They wanted to trade for him last year with two years in control when competing was going to be a long-shot. Right or wrong, I could definitely see us revisiting that.

No one is screaming the market will work in our favor. But to say the market dynamics are vastly different this year and the Yankees are automatically going to spend hog wild and there is no hope for us is absurd. The Yankees could afford a $300M+ payroll every single year and don’t. Why is that? And last year they could have added Machado or Corbin and didn’t. I still think they’re a huge threat for the top guys, but they aren’t the free agent monster they were under the previous Steinbrenner.

Chapman leaving would give them $17.5M to worth with, but that’s also a pretty big hole to fill. Encarnacion isn’t actual savings for them.

Why are you only looking at the expiring dollars and not the increases? And the Yankees only paid $7.5M of his contract last year and are on the book for a $5M buyout, so even if you want to go down your ridiculous path that’s only worth $2.5M in savings this year.

The Yankees have an estimated payroll of $201M with no major additions. Those guys coming off the books are simply paying for salary increases on their existing core of talent.

Andrew Friedman has signed as many $100M+ contracts as the White Sox and both of these teams were heavily rumored to be players in last year’s market.

If he opts-out, JDM’s market will literally be 3 or 4 teams and my guess is Boras will be eager to get something ASAP. This won’t drag out like the Machado process IMO.

Why do you think JDM can play RF and be a 3 win player? In 2016, he played a ton of RF and was worth 2.3 fWAR. His offensive & defensive stats were more or less the same as last year. The difference is he’s now 32 and only going to worse. Additionally, there are plenty of stories out there that he’s unable to play the field on a daily basis and stay healthy. No NL team in their right mind is going to sign him to play RF for the next three or four years without having the DH spot as an insurance policy. It’s simply not going to happen.

Who are all these teams who’ve come out and said they’re going to be big spenders? I’ve seen multiple teams say they won’t be spending big, but nothing of the former if you’re referring to teams like the Yankees & Dodgers.

Agree to disagree. Corbin was the 5th ranked pitcher in 2018 and flashed ace potential with his increased slider usage. He was without question an A tier free agent and was compensated almost exactly as expected (MLBTR predicted a 6/$129M contract). Wheeler is definitely a tier below where Corbin was last offseason IMO and I say that as a huge Wheeler fan.