Eminor3rd

I would rent the car. Phoenix is designed for it. We did and didn’t regret it. Did this once about six or seven years ago. Had a blast. Have fun and be safe.

To me, it sounds like the Sox (and the other teams, tbh) are just trying not to bid against themselves. Given that this is how the process is flowing, I think I’d happy with literally any year/dollar amount that gets Machado to the Sox. Because whatever that number is, it will be what the market required.

This guy was the Zach burdi of the 2015 draft or whenever, except a leftie. Then yeah, injuries.

I don’t think there’s any chance the White Sox are willing to pay up for both of these guys, and to be honest, I’m not even sure it would make sense to. Assuming they are going to stay near the middle/upper middle of the pack at peak payroll years.

Correct. I’m talking about the intrigue of the market at large. Because the media industry has made news cycle so insanely small, it just doesn’t fit the pace of the free agent market. We expect more updates than really happen, and so writers have started to speculate and prognosticate and look further into the future than ever before. This free agent period has literally been in the background of our media awareness for over two years, and it’s been in the forefront of team-building discussion for some teams as early as July. The story has been alive in a very real way for five months, despite almost nothing, actually HAPPENING to move it forward. There was some actual news when teams started to admit to being in the race, and a bit more when the players actually started meeting. The media has just been making shit up literally every day otherwise. They are obligated to say stuff when there’s nothing to say, and it just doesn’t have the right effect. The story just isn’t progressing at anything close to a reasonable pace for human consumption, as a story. I have no reasonable solution for this, and I’m not even sure if it’s fair for one to exist. I’m just pushing back against the images of drama and theater that the media has been selling is with this stuff.

Sure, but we don’t leave the presents under the tree for six months leading up to Christmas. There’s some kind of ideal anticipation period, and we probably had it at some point over the last ten years, but I think we are way beyond it right now and I think it’s been that way for at least a few seasons

The offseason is just not fun anymore. When your team is one of the few in on some of the most exciting and celebrated free agents in history, it should be fun to follow. This is frustrating and old and I hate it. I don’t know if it’s social media that’s to blame, or another instance of teams and players finding “optimal” strategies that just happen to be worse and less fun for fans to following consume, but it sucks and i wish it would end.

Didi is definitely extremely popular in the city. I haven’t worked with him personally yet but my colleagues says he’s extremely nice, accommodating, and charismatic with fans and staff when he’s doing appearances and stuff. While it does seem like they’ve been sentimental with bringing guys back lately, they’ve really all been guys that come back to fill what would be an organizational hole. I’m not sure we’ve seen them bring a vet back to block a better long term path quite yet. You could argue Gardner is an exception, but he isn’t really blocking anyone and can fake center, so he lets them pretend Ellsbury doesn’t exist a little longer.

My personal opinion is that 1) Cashman realizes he already got Didi’s best years, and isn’t planning to resign him, 2) Machado can play SS in the short-term, but the long-term solution is Gleyber at SS and Machado at 3B, and 3) the org has lost faith in Bird and believes Voit is probably just a flash in the pan. I think that Andujar’s defensive struggles have been overblown by the media. A lot of his problems were with a throws, for example, which can be very flukey/unstable from season to season, and I think Cashman knows that. I think he figures that getting Machado either gives him a chance to put an impact bat at first base in the long term, or gives him a great trade chip, and both those scenarios sound nice.

Lol exactly

WSD is the worst twitter follow I have. I alternate between following and unfollowing him because I know he does scoop stuff sometimes, but literally every tweet in between makes me want to smash my face into a table. I need to unfollow again. You guys will keep me posted on what he says anyway.

If they want to move Senzel for pitching, they could easily put a package together to get Kluber or someone like him.

Yeah you’re probably right.

What a fantastic thread.

Lame

The cubs and royals obsession is just sad around here.

Unfortunately we can’t. Just gonna have to wait this one out. Shouldn’t be long now. Go out and party. Be safe. Maybe we’ll get a gift.

I guess, lol.

The only thing that makes me worry here is that the reported interest in two other 1B/DH types (Martinez & dumb parrot) only makes sense if they expect to move on from Alonso and/or Abreu, neither of which would happen if Machado was gonna be here. There is some real smoke here, is all.

I was afraid of Machado to Yankees the moment Cashman traded for Paxton.

Maybe the Sox are trying to re-enact the OOTP all-Adam Dunn team experiment?

Ottavino has some of the best stuff I’ve seen in my life. His pitches move so much i don’t think he’ll ever be a safe bet to control them. He has the potential to be a disaster, but he’d be super fun to watch regularly.

If Trout reaches free agency as the same player he is today, it will blow this year out of the water, in terms of buzz/dollars/amount of teams interested. I don’t think we should plan on being able to win that bidding war.

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Well the post you quoted surely was...