4 hours ago, Dam8610 said:

Machado fits the rebuild perfectly. He plays the one position the organization has no answers for right now, he's a legitimate Gold Glove caliber defender there, he rarely misses games, and he rarely falls below 5 WAR in a season.

Harper is more like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. He's a lefty power bat, but he's missed a lot of games due to injury, has bad-average defense, is a risk to need to be moved to DH, and plays the position where the organization has its greatest depth.

Harper is just as good a fit, if not potentially better than Machado. He's a power bat from the left side, and has amazing OBP instincts. That is something this team hasn't had since Thome left. It also allows the Sox to deal from their glut of OF prospects to further improve other areas of need. Either way, I'll gladly welcome either of the two, haha

On 11/5/2018 at 11:38 AM, Dick Allen said:

We saw an opportunity to accelerate the rebuild, and were aggressive, but ultimately the price did not make sense for us.  We will continue to explore every opportunity to make our team better, with the ultimate goal of sustained winning, and multiple championships. 

Fuck, that's blueprint.

Cardinals logically being linked to Harper...especially (or despite?) after losing out on Price and Heyward, positive momentum to Cubs and Brewers. 

Harper apparently declined a $300m/10 year extension towards the end of the season (not sure if there were opt-outs or not). I could see the Nats circling back on talks more towards the finish line to see where other offers are at.

Edited November 7, 20187 yr by soxfan2014

Just now, Tony said:

Good luck, White Sox..

Put up or shut up time for the Sox.

11 minutes ago, Tony said:

Good luck, White Sox..

“It’s not unintentional having the flexibility we enjoy going forward,’’ Hahn said. “That was a secondary goal of the rebuild, to make sure we had flexibility and economic strength when the time was right to spend and add on to what we’ve accumulated."

You have to admire the bravado in Hahn's commentary re: financial resources these days.  Sounds to me like they are prepared to play some hard ball with these extraordinary potential offers we keep reading about.  Should be very interesting, and actually, quite fun to sit back and witness!

16 minutes ago, Tony said:

Good luck, White Sox..

Damn, Bryce must really not wanna be there anymore.

5 minutes ago, SoxAce said:

Damn, Bryce must really not wanna be there anymore.

The opt-outs are key. Would he rather become a free agent at the age of 36 or would he like to try to get anywhere between a 7-10 year deal when he is 30, 31 or even 32? 

Edited November 7, 20187 yr by soxfan2014

35 minutes ago, Tony said:

Good luck, White Sox..

That deal got turned down because it can get to 325 or 350 with an early opt out. The Sox need to be at the table with 360, 5th year opt out, and front loaded contract. Then you try to get a title or two in his 5 years. 

27 minutes ago, SoxAce said:

Damn, Bryce must really not wanna be there anymore.

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

1 hour ago, soxfan2014 said:

Harper apparently declined a $300m/10 year extension towards the end of the season (not sure if there were opt-outs or not). I could see the Nats circling back on talks more towards the finish line to see where other offers are at.

No real surprise there, but honestly if you are this close to the starting line for free agency, there is literally no reason for you to NOT run the race.  At worst you have to figure that the 10/300 is the starting point, not the ending point.

 

18 minutes ago, Sleepy Harold said:

 

No excuses. I don't want to hear we made an attempt and that attempt isn't logical for our situation. Last year everyone here told me that the team that pays the most gets the player, so we shall see if that's true. 

Seems like Morosi is really pushing the fact that the Sox will be big players in this free agency market. I don't know what his reasoning would be to keep reiterating it if it wasn't true. 

Personally I would love the sox to go all in on Harper. offer 10years 33m but font load and get opt outs at 4/5/6 45M 40M, 35M 33M. 38.5M AAV for the first four years.

You guys are fucking crazy if you think the White Sox are getting Bryce Harper. The White Sox are not a team that anyone wants to come to unless they double the next-best offer.

1 minute ago, Steve9347 said:

You guys are fucking crazy if you think the White Sox are getting Bryce Harper. The White Sox are not a team that anyone wants to come to unless they double the next-best offer.

Maybe not an exaggerated double but I tend to agree. If they offer a little bit more than a contending team, it's no guarantee he or Machado would pick the Sox.

Edited November 7, 20187 yr by soxfan2014

This part of Morosi's report makes me wonder what the draw would be. It's a 100 loss team with holes everywhere. Looking for a bargain isn't going to fly.:

 

The White Sox, with one of the smallest committed payrolls in baseball for 2019, have the capacity to add a $30 million-per-year player right now. But Hahn won't be pressured into overpaying in order to make that happen, for the same reason that he refused to rush into trades for Sale, Quintana or Eaton more than two years ago.

Edited November 7, 20187 yr by Dick Allen

There are still professional players out there that don't want to join super teams and want to be the alpha.  Lets hope Harper and Machado are two of them and see something special brewing here.

11 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

This part of Morosi's report makes me wonder what the draw would be. It's a 100 loss team with holes everywhere. Looking for a bargain isn't going to fly.:

 

The White Sox, with one of the smallest committed payrolls in baseball for 2019, have the capacity to add a $30 million-per-year player right now. But Hahn won't be pressured into overpaying in order to make that happen, for the same reason that he refused to rush into trades for Sale, Quintana or Eaton more than two years ago.

Yeah. I'm worried they won't offer enough and they will try to sell him on the team. If that's the case, we might as well not even get our hopes up.

1 minute ago, Chi Town Sox said:

There are still professional players out there that don't want to join super teams and want to be the alpha.  Lets hope Harper and Machado are two of them and see something special brewing here.

Problem is, there really are no "super teams" interested in on either guy. You keep reading that teams like the Giants, Phillies and Cardinals have interest.

Edited November 7, 20187 yr by soxfan2014

18 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

This part of Morosi's report makes me wonder what the draw would be. It's a 100 loss team with holes everywhere. Looking for a bargain isn't going to fly.:

 

The White Sox, with one of the smallest committed payrolls in baseball for 2019, have the capacity to add a $30 million-per-year player right now. But Hahn won't be pressured into overpaying in order to make that happen, for the same reason that he refused to rush into trades for Sale, Quintana or Eaton more than two years ago.

It is free agency, if you are going for Machado and Harper, you are fundamentally going to overpay and need to be okay with that. An alternative view is to shell out big money but over shorter-term deals for guys who languish a bit longer on the FA market. You know some won't pan out but you hit on a few and than in another year or two you dabble in the deep-end.  

20 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

This part of Morosi's report makes me wonder what the draw would be. It's a 100 loss team with holes everywhere. Looking for a bargain isn't going to fly.:

 

The White Sox, with one of the smallest committed payrolls in baseball for 2019, have the capacity to add a $30 million-per-year player right now. But Hahn won't be pressured into overpaying in order to make that happen, for the same reason that he refused to rush into trades for Sale, Quintana or Eaton more than two years ago.

By not being pressured, they mean it's such a no brainer he will just overpay without second thought. So no pressure will be necessary.

When it's all over we will look back at these breadcrumbs and say it was obvious sox weren't serious about this or it was obvious sox were just trying to cool public sentiment of them being front runner to avoid bidding against themselves.

7 minutes ago, soxfan2014 said:

Problem is, there really are no "super teams" interested in on either guy. You keep reading that teams like the Giants, Phillies and Cardinals have interest.

I'm sure they are behind the scenes but if not, I wouldn't really call that a problem.  You rarely see those guys pay up for major free agents just like the White Sox.  If Miggy signed with Detroit after his trade, it's not out of the question to get a marquee player to Chicago.