MiddleCoastBias

Thing is, I think a number of teams would think that as well. Then we're back to who offers more money or an extra year, and are the Sox the team that is going to do that?

No. That's a move a team on the brink of contention makes, someone that needs that final piece vet presence to win *this year* while leveraging the future. That is not us.

We're just now wrapping up the Winter Meetings and there are still a few big names on the board, though we don't seem to be publicly connected to them yet or anymore. The off-season isn't over yet but they haven't performed well to this point. Their progress report reads "needs improvement" at this point, trending toward a final bad grade. Still time to prove us wrong though.

Hear me out... What if it's so obviously a fake account that we all know to ignore it, that it's actually Kenny Williams playing 4D chess on a burner hiding account in plain sight and leaking us news? Makes you think hmmm ???

Well that was an exciting 30 seconds.

Is this an actual quote? From where?

I'd like to petition that future Winter Meetings are held in the Northeast so 1. they wake up earlier in the day relative to the rest of the country so I don't have have to wait for three timezones for them to wake up, and 2. they can't be distracted by nice weather - stay inside and make some moves

I hear you, I think it just sounds pretty and childish for an entire organization to think and act that way. It's a business, not the playground.

I don't understand this - what does it matter if it leaked before they can announce it? Why get all stubborn and hold off announcing it just to prove a "point" that a leak was wrong? Like, it's not going to be a secret from the other teams when he shows up on the field wearing our jersey, so why this push to keep a signing secret after it's agreed to in principle?

Speaking of, whatever happened to Ranger/Rongey? We scare him off?

Anyone catch what was talked about?

Is there evidence for this? I've only heard about how loyal the org has been, to a fault, nothing about burnt bridges for a million here or there. The "snitty for less money" thing sounds like the Astros or some comparable team on the other end of the spectrum.

It's 10am CT, less than 24 hours after we received any information from anyone even tangentially related to having real information - I think we need to relax and let things develop as they will. We haven't missed anything, he hasn't passed on us, the off-season isn't lost - it's just a process.

Tony out here live-tweeting his post-lunch constitutional ?

My understanding of the process means it gives us a chance to clear a spot on the 40 earlier in the off-season as the decision to non-tender isn't due for a couple months. If our intention was never to bring him back, might as well start that process early to give ourselves flexibility, right?

The article is a few weeks old but I haven't seen it shared anywhere so thought it worth mentioning: Kiley McDaniel at Fangraphs predicts his market is not what we think and that he'll sign at 4/$68M https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-top-50-free-agents/ FWIW, in that same article Kiley predicted Grandal at 4/$70M

Personally, I won't believe it until Peavy44 confirms it.

Isn't IncarceratedBob the know-nothing blowhard that cubs fans absolutely swear by? Probably sharing another person just throwing stuff at the wall, but that's what the off-season is until he actually signs somewhere.

Wasn't there a marketing slogan to that effect in the mid '90s or around the "good guys wear black" era, or am I making that up? Feel like there's definitely an opportunity to brand this as a young & fun team, in line with MLB's "let the kids play"

Brb, I'm going to go lurk in the Wheeler thread refreshing every minute and wait for Tony's eye emojis there too

Yeah, but is a friend of Machado? /gn Let's goooo! Hopefully the first of many and a great signal to the rest of the FA class that we mean business

Our seat at the table might be the upgraded to the adults table this year!

Yesterday Rosenthal had an article suggesting we might be able to get Benintendi if we take on Price or Eovaldi's contract with it.

With a trade, what value does Yolmer have? I'm not sure how his contract situation works with a trade - would we have to tender him a contract first before we trade him, or can we trade him first and let the other team pay the arb price? Does he even have value as a trade piece (not as a headliner but a sweetener)?