ChiSox59

This is fucking stupid.

haven't seen the base salary, but Heyman saying he can earn up to $6M with incentives.

Yah, because the 4-year deal was gone because they found another catcher. The Sox aren't finding another 3B in this FA market. Its VERY VERY VERY different.

I'd be shocked if the guarantee was that high.

Tough to bite us too hard when he would have been a FA after 2019 anyway.

Good for Avi. Thought he may need to take a minor league deal. I am guessing $3.5-4M range.

Good for Avi. Thought he may need to take a minor league deal.

Could not possibly disagree more.

I don't want them either based on what they were projected to get originally. I could be interested if on much shorter term deals, but I doubt we see either of them on the Sox.

You can sign Machado, and sign a few stopgap guys that don't cost a ton and should help in 2019 and don't block the future or cost us assets. Don't see what the issue is there. Maybe you catch lightning in a bottle and find yourself in contention in this horseshit division in July. I don't think trading major assets for SP is the right move right now. I would, however, trade a guy like Rutherford a couple other guys between 15-30 for a controllable SP. But I would not move anyone better than Rutherford. Just my personal take.

The White Sox aren't sending top tier prospects to Cleveland to acquire a guy with 2 years of expensive control (Bauer) or beating the rest of MLB in the bidding for Kluber. It just isn't happening.

He'll likely be the starting CF for the Sox before he's the starting RF. He's definitely ahead of Robert in his development. I could see Gonzalez roaming CF in Chicago by August, honestly.

Pitching in the NL usually helps that.

A backend top 100 (Rutherford) and a close to top 100 OF prospect (Micker, I am sure he will be top 100 within next year) would get you a pretty nice SP, IMO.

I'd make a trade headlined by Rutherford for a SP now if we landed MM. But man, I really want to hang onto Micker. I just have this feeling he is going to turn into a monster down the line. But I would do a Rutherford, Walker, Lambert type deal for a SP - not sure how far that would get us though.

No, nothing worthwhile.

I can basically assure you that major league baseball teams don't operate based on twitter rumors. Twitter rumors are for the fans.

I don't think he is signing for 7/$220 either (more like 8/$280M), but no person in their right mind is leaving $150M on the table. Its not happening. Crazy shit happens. He could have a career ending injury. He isn't leaving that kind of money on the table.

Lol, Machado isn't taking 2/$70M over 7/$220M.

While I kind of agree, it is pretty serious if its the best offer to date. Spring training is now less than a month away. No reason to pay the man $300M if you can get him for $220M.

I don't think that's the case. I think its simply that Hahn knows his 7/$230-240M is the best offer and the only team he's worried about (Yankees) aren't even close. He doesn't see the point in offering more if he doesn't need to. At some point he may need to juice the offer to get it done, and he is probably willing to do so, but he's not going to negotiate against himself.

I agree - its tough to buy. But its also tough to understand how teams like the Brewers, Twins, and Padres (to name a few that make the most sense) aren't jumping into the fray if they can get Machado for around $30M AAV. They can all afford him, and definitely could all use him.

I must have missed this. Where did he say this?

I know, but its such a big opportunity for those other teams that usually wouldn’t have a prayer to land a player of this ilk on a FA deal. There are many teams that would never be able to outbid the big boys if they were in the running that I am surprised more aren’t sniffing around, at least seriously. Padres, Twins, Brewers, Mets, Angels and even As and Rays are teams that come to mind. Surprised at least a couple haven’t kept the bidding more honest than it appears to be publically. All make varying degrees of sense for Machado, and at least a couple of them definitely have the payroll space.

I’m not against athletes getting paid big money. They are the very best at what they do in the world. Most people who are in that minuscule percentage do very well for themselves. I do think baseball FA is broken. I don’t think Manny Machado signing for $30M a season is one of those reasons.