TheFutureIsNear

Sure, and how were all of them NOT grossly overpaid? And did they work out?

Do you have the facts of what teams offer what to certain free agents? Because myself and the rest of the general public don’t. And aside from machado what really good players have signed with really bad teams?

Again, we would have to offer a significant amount more...no one is coming to the Sox over good teams because we offered $1M more. Like it or not we will have to overpay to attract big names. -shitty weather for 1/3 of the year -coaching staff that is in the stone ages -haven’t won crap in a decade + -2nd most popular team in the city -horrible attendance And I’m sure I could go on...there’s no need to be delusional about the situation. The Sox are a bad team run by bad ownership with a bad front office. No one (besides Jose Abreu) is clamoring to join this team if the $ is similar in other places. With that said, the team has so much $ to spend that there’s no reason NOT to do what’s necessary to bring in big free agents. We’ll see if it actually happens or not

But again. Best deal...by a large margin. All things close to equal and the Sox are not signing star players that have several other suitors

Wait, you don’t think players don’t want to play for the Sox? The most $ has to be by a significant margin to get us a great player imo...it’s not a matter of bidding a couple million more. Or we could really just sum it up by saying we are never signing a top free agent like Cole. Just like we were never serious contenders for Harper or Machado

I wonder what Seattle’s price for Haniger would be? Everyone on that team seems to be available so I’m sure they’d listen. He would make a ton of sense for us in my opinion...I’d offer a package starting with Dunning and Steele Walker. Not sure how close that would be, don’t think it should be too far off given he’s coming off a down year and an injury

If I haven’t seen your other posts I would think this is 100% sarcasm. Sadly, I know you’re being serious.

I hope I’m wrong too...and in fairness I don’t think McCann is a bad player that doesn’t deserve to be on the roster. I’m just in no rush to extend him and would prefer he be in a backup role. I have a hard time ignoring sample sizes and the fact that the only 1/2 of a season McCann has been a plus hitter in he had a .408 BABIP. However, I don’t think .260/.320/.400 is unrealistic....I wouldn’t bet on it though.

Obviously it’s too early to tell for almost all of our list, but I think it’s a pretty damn good list of talent if you ask me. The biggest thing is going to be top of the rotation starters...if Kopech and Cease aren’t what we hope (or at least very close) then yes, we could be in some trouble. Realistically a team needs like 12 impact players to make a serious playoff run. 3 starters, 3 bullpen arms (1 LH), and 5 hitters. Obviously the rest of the team has to be at least serviceable, but I don’t think we are too far off from that path of a great core 12 already. But again....at lot still left to prove with our players.

The point of a rebuild is to amass as much young talent as possible. Later trading some of that talent is pretty common place. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with the Sox looking to trade prospects for a piece that will get us over the top sooner rather than later. Yoan TA Kopech Gio Robert Eloy Cease Madrigal Vaughn Thats the young (hopefully all) elite talent we tanked for. That’s a great core...now the franchise should be using any and all resources to add as much good and proven talent around them as possible. Jerry opening his wallet in free agency is obviously a huge part of that, but it doesn’t have to be, and nor should it be the only way we add talent.

I hope they aren’t too worried about specifics with any position. Assemble talent and figure it out from there. We aren’t nearly close enough to anything to be that picky.

Not trying to be a dick, but how on earth do you think the small sample size of a hot 1st half outweighs the other 1000+ AB’s of his career? He’s not pressing, he’s just not a good hitter. McCann is still under contract next year, no need to do anything with his contract. C is a position we should be looking to upgrade, but if the opportunity doesn’t come up there’s worse things than having McCann as a starter.

Ozuna- semi high profile bat that fills a need and will get fans/media talking without breaking the bank Moreland- LH, good fielding 1B, above average hitter. Makes sense to pair with Jose 1 of Wheeler/Odorizi/Keuchel- The front office isn’t going to give Cole huge $ despite how bad the team needs him. Saving face on a serviceable and recognizable 2nd tier SP for lesser $ will help Decent reliever like Hector Rondon/Brad Brach- steady the pen in front Colome with a reliable vet. Should be relatively cheap To me thats the very obvious/easy off season for the front office. Not saying it’s the best, but it’s pretty straight forward and safe. If they are less aggressive than this I’m going to be very disappointed...again

We need good hitters. JD Martinez is a good hitter. Of course we should be highly interested. Any thought about anything else is non sense

A whole lot of pickiness going on in this thread...we haven’t had a competent lineup in years and we are apparently most worried about plus D and handiness? Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand the importance of defense...but can we just get some good major league hitters please? Compile talent and figure out the fine details later

I’d just bite the bullet and pay up for ozuna. Like it or not he’s the closest thing to an impact player this organization will pay up for. We will likely have to overpay for what he’s actually worth, but it won’t be a crippling mega contract...the $ has to be spent somehow.

Considering the fact that the Sox haven’t sniffed the playoffs or played a meaningful game since Jose has been here...I’m going to say this is a stupid argument. Wake me up when Jose actually steps to bat in “clutch” situation.

Anybody who thinks we are signing Cole is just in flat out denial at this point

If the front office can’t figure out how to get a DH with an OPS over .800 we are a lot of trouble. Im sure you and I both were penciling in the likes of Beckham and Dayan into the starting lineup for years to come...are Madrigal, Vaughn, and Robert really good prospects? Of course, but many really good prospects have failed. Eloy and cease have a long way to go as well. Trust me, I’m optimistic about the future myself, but just resting on what’s already in the organization thinking everything will work out just fine is craziness. We should be looking for upgrades outside the organization at a lot of positions, 1B/DH being 1 of them. I’ve said before that Jose isn’t a bad player and if we end up circling back and giving him a 1 year deal I’m fine with it. But to lock him up for 2+ years thinking we are set at any position is bad management

Are people giving McCann a lot/all of credit for Gio turning into what he should have been all along? Because other than that I see no improvements from our pitching staff to rave about how good McCann is defensively. Reynaldo hasn’t taken a step forward Nova has been worse than his previous years for most of the season Cease has struggled No one else has been useable... McCann’s 2nd 1/2 offensive #’s reflect his career...so what are we really talking about? I’m not saying he’s not serviceable enough to keep on the roster for next season. But extension and penciling him into future lineups? Hell no.

I’d bet $ that if I looked up post histories of most of the people that are talking about extending McCann are the same people that were penciling in the likes of Delmonico, Palka, Yolmer, Covey, etc into future lineups. Absolutely 0 reason to touch McCann’s contract with a year of control left

So we should be happy with an average/below average player because the rest of the lineup MIGHT be really good in 2 years? Not trying to improve the team to the best it possibly can be because we have prospects coming is just craziness and a great way to never get out of the rebuild. Some of those guys you listed are inevitably going to fail.

Can I choose to let all 3 leave? I’ll honestly be surprised if any of those 3 are anything better than league average...I hope we are shooting for better players if we are planning to seriously compete for a WS in the next few years

I guess the part we disagree on is any team with World Series aspirations being happy with a slow footed DH that barely maintains an .800 OPS. Like I said earlier, if other options are exhausted and we can’t find a better hitter we can certainly do worse than circling back around and keeping Jose. Jose is in no way a bad hitter...I just don’t think he’s much (if any) above average for a player with his skill set at this point.

Why skip over his slg%? And we are talking about a 1000 AB sample size...at some point it’s not luck and he is what he is. No? Are you really going into next season thinking that a 30+ year old hitter is going to buck a 1000+ AB trend and go back to what he was? Hell, if you really want to be honest about Jose...add his ‘16, ‘18 and ‘19 seasons together and you have a slightly above average 1B. Those seasons are rapidly adding to the seasons where he has been really good.