ChiSox59

Honestly tho, competition is important. As of this am, there was very little for the 5th spot.

Well, clearly I am arguing with wall. I am not some huge proponent of backing up the Brinks Truck for Harper, but this narrative that he is an average player asinine.

I just told you his average fWAR was 4.39 over the course of his entire career, not 3. Conservatively, 1 WAR is equal to about $9M on the free agent market. Let's assume just for the sake of your own argument Harper regresses to a 4 WAR player moving forward. 4 x $9M = $36M per season in value $36M X 10 seasons = $360M So yah....he probably is worth $350M+, and that completely discounts inflation on the backend of his contract.

Dude. Cherry pick whatever stat you want, he's still not average. He has averaged 4.39 fWAR per seasons across his career. He is a damn near HOF shoe-in at 26, and its likely he's just now entering his prime. The one year you want to call average a 1.6 fWAR he was hurt and had less than 400 plate appearances. WAR is a counting stat, so of course his WAR was lower that season.

What a jagoff, that Brett Santos cat.

I wish one of the beat guys or reporters would at least as him about this. "So Rick, earlier in the offseason you said no stop gaps would be signed/traded for and your focus would only be on adding players that helped the club long term. You've sine added almost 10 veterans on short term deals and spent close to $50M on them, and have yet to add a player that projects to help this club beyond 2020. Please explain."

This is such a bad take. Harper has never been an "average player". His career OPS+ is 139, which means he is 39% better than an average player offensively. His worst season was in 2014 as a 21 year old at 111, still 11% above average. I am not the biggest Harper fan around, and I too think he will likely at some point be a financial burden to whomever signs him, this idea that he isn't a legitimate superstar is insane.

I hope they try to turn Rondon into a utilityman. We know he can cover the IF spots, but he was supposed to play OF in winterball and played very little. I know Renteria mentioned it again that they're going to give him some reps in the OF in ST...hopefully it works out.

At least those guys are young. Palka, Delmonico and Cordell and infinitely more of a chance to be a part of the next Sox playoff team than Ervin Santana or Ivan Nova.

Let's be real tho, Covey is a reliever. Just let him do that. $4.3M does seem a tad high, tho. But that's just if he makes the club.

There is no draft pick. Almost positive the Astros did not offer him a QO.

In part time duty. HE only went to the dish 370 times in 2015. Averaged 528 PA in 16-18. But yah, his 2015 was marginally better on an OPS basis than his 2018.

Have you looked at their pitching?

2/$21M is a steal. But Marwin really isn't that good. Outside of his awesome 2017, he's a pretty meh player. Valueable in that you can plug him in anwyhere other that CF and C, but his 2018 line of .247/.324/.409 was his 2nd best season in the bigs.

They better hope they hit on all those SP prospects (they do have a lot of them) because they have basically nothing at the major league level as far as pitching goes.

If the Padres sign Harper, I look forward to them tearing it all down in a couple years when they realize they have no money left to supplement the rest of their roster.

Would fit on the Astros. Their 1B options are Yuli Guerriel and Tyler White, both right handed bats.

I was Manny over Harper 100 out 100 (mainly due to organization fit), but Harper has a career OBP of .388. His "mediocre seasons" are still excellent.

Puff puff pass.

Ervin is most likely toast. I think he was throwing in the mid 80s in his rehab with the Twins last year. But I dig it on a minor league deal.

Alonso and Jay are actually major league players. They probably make this team better. But now that we missed on Machado, what's the point? We're better off letting guys that have a sliver of hope to be a part of the future play as much as possible. I think Alonso is probably tradeable right now. Jay probably not.

Sucks on Basabe. He is probably the most interesting young OF on the 40 man not named Eloy that actually had a shot to play in the big leagues this season.

Hard pass. At this point, roll with with marginal young guys we have. The only position player FAs I have any interest in are Harper (not happening) and Marwin. But even Marwin seems unecessary at this point. Let Palka, Delmonico, Engel, Cordell and Leury get the OF at bats that aren't going to Eloy. Trade Jon Jay as soon as humanly possible.

I don’t think I will ever root for a seemingly nice young man to fail more than Tatis. But chances are he’s going to be very good. Obviously another another tarnish in the ever growing list of mishaps over the past decade plus.

I am thinking the 2 vesting options were what was recently added.