ChiSox59

That would be an entirely awful idea by the Indians, and they're far less likely to sign Harper than the Sox.

Now that Smith is gone, I'd just hold onto Castillo. Narvaez is a fine part-time, maybe even majority share of a platoon guy, but I'd prefer to have another playable option along with him due to fairly terrible D. I was all for shipping Castillo out before we lost Smith, but now I think the Sox are content to roll with Castillo/Narvaez platoon for 2019.

Hmmmm.

My take: I don't really want Corbin, I think he's a high injury risk and I think 2018 may have been a career year. That said, he is at worst a very good mid rotation pitcher. If you can get him on 5/$90 type deal, its probably worth it. But I think it'll get quite a bit higher than that with the Yankees definitely being interested. I just don't love spending top dollar on SP unless its super elite. These guys only impact at most 20% of the games each season. While we do need pitching, and you can never have enough, I somewhat question the timing of adding an expensive long term rotation piece. You add Corbin and suddenly the 2020 rotation gets pretty crowded with Rodon, Corbin, Lopez, Giolito, Kopech, Cease and Dunning. I personally just prefer the Sox go after more of the stopgap (2 year deal types) or 1 year bounceback candidates, or try to get Kikuchi, who actually has the potential to give you some surplus value. It remains to be seen how much the Sox are going to be willing to inflate their payroll, but locking up over $100M into a mid rotation-type starter on a playoff team (even if he is the best SP available this offseason), doesn't seem terribly prudent unless the Sox are willing to spend with the big boys the next half decade.

I guess you can never have too much pitching, but I really like the Sox young bullpen options. Unless the Sox are going all out, I'd rather give those guys 2019 to get seasoned than pay dollar for relief pitching in free agency. Between Jones, Hamilton, Fry, Frare, Covey, Burr, Bummer, Burdi, Stephens, Banuelos, Fulmer, Minaya, Ruiz, Viera and Medeiros, the Sox have plenty of major league league ready bullpen options in house.

I agree. Outside of Kikuchi, who I think would be a great fit, I'd prefer they look for short term bounceback pitching candidates as opposed to paying top dollar for the best pithcing on the market, which still isn't that great.

This x1,000,000.

You still wait the 15 frickin' days.

Yep.

I'd be surprised if the Sox traded meaningful prospects this offseason unless it was a prospect for prospect type deal.

No. I think that Kopech probably would have gotten hurt in AAA anyway, gotten TJS, and spent all next season on the milb DL and not accrued away close to 20% of his control. Or maybe he doesn't get hurt at all. Or maybe he doesn't get hurt until next season and it ends up worse. No one really knows. But the one thing we do know is how it did play out, and with benefit of hinsight, it literally couldn't have worked out much worse for the Sox.

Double the best offer? Lol, c'mon. This talk is lunacy.

Kopech was pretty terrible for the first part of last season in AAA. They could have kept him down. But whatever...spilled milk, moving on.

Lol, what stocks should I buy? Who will be the president in 2030? How many wins will the Sox have next season?

What Whitesox27 said. He doesn't accrue valuable MLB service time if he blew out his elbow in AAA and spent all of 2019 on the minor league DL. I agree sending Kopech back to AAA to start next season would have been tough. But he only needs to spend like 2 weeks down there. Teams game service time all the time. They could have sent him down for two weeks after a bad start in July if they wanted. They could have it made it work. But, yes, what is over is over and it is what it is at this point.

I was one of the more outspoken people here pushing to keep Kopech in the minors last season for multiple reasons. He may have gotten hurt anyway, but at least we wouldn't have wasted close to 20% of his service time on the DL. Its a huge deal, and calling up Kopech last season to pitch meaningless baseball (albeit he was probably ready) really backfired,

I like Kikuchi and then a guy like Tyson Ross or Ervin Santana.

Meh. Definitely think he's going to get quite a bit more than $30M AAV, if there are no opt outs.

Just out of curiosity, why sign Nelson Cruz and Machado/Harper and then trade Abreu? Edit: see you addressed later on. I just don’t think the Sox are getting a great prospect for Abreu. At least try to put the best possible team together. Guess it depends on what the offers look like. At first blush, Cruz is not my favorite target, but he’s getting up there and could probably be had on a 2 year deal. If he’s signed to be a supporting cast piece, I can get behind it. Otherwise, I’d rather see Palka at DH.

Obviously less front loaded is preferred (like $40M), but trying to brainstorm ideas that these guys would actually accept. Sure, itd be great to sign Machado and Harper to 10 year $250M contracts!! WOOHOO. Yah, never happening.

You don't think they could field a competitive balance of team with another $100M with all the pre-arb guys the Sox will have?

I actually really like a structure like offering an 8 year / $325M to both Harper and Machado with the first 5 years at $50M, next three at $25M, with an opt out after 5 years. So basically a 5 year $250M deal. Therefore both players can still hit FA one more time while they're both ~31 assuming they opt out after 5 years. Sox add $100M to the payroll each year the next 5 seasons, and should still have plenty of money to fill out the roster if they're serious about being good. Really no "surplus value" in those contract, but you're never going to sign a superstar FA and get surplus value. As I've said before, you just hope they stay healthy and you're paying them what they're worth. Go win a couple a championships in the next 5 years and its all worth it. This would require Jerry to OK the payroll going into the $180-$200M range, but if he's not willing to do that, then this team was never going to good for long anyway.

This team will never be good for a sustained period if the Sox max out at $130M payrolls. If they're serious about this rebuild, they'll get up up $180M-$200M payrolls in 2020-2025, or this whole rebuild was pointless anyway.

You have two of the best players in the game on your team? This isn’t rocket science. If the Sox are serious about winning, they’ll be ok bumping their payroll to $180M range in 2020-2024 range. If they aren’t, the “sustained success” model Hahn constantly pushes is a bunch of BS, because they’ll always be searching for lightning in a bottle. Top shelf FA don’t sign “value” deals. You just hope they stay healthy and get paid what they’re worth.

You’re all over the place dude.