2 minutes ago, MiddleCoastBias said:

Is this separate from the locker photo from yesterday? I don't have instagram so I depend on screengrabs here. 

Pretty sure he isn't serious.

4 minutes ago, MiddleCoastBias said:

Is this separate from the locker photo from yesterday? I don't have instagram so I depend on screengrabs here. 

I don't have insta I was just wondering if anyone saw it

3 minutes ago, Kyyle23 said:

I don't have insta I was just wondering if anyone saw it

His Myspace has Yonder and Manny right next to each other in his top 5 friends ?

So the guy on espn.com who picks All Star teams is guessing Harper to SD, Manny to Philly. That would be a kick in the nuts. A direct hit.

Edited February 8, 20197 yr by Dick Allen

 

8 hours ago, Joshua Strong said:

Top five Queen song

Tis  a great Queen song but my top 5 might be different but haven't given it much thought yet;.

Nightengale was on hot stove.  Awfully confident Machado would be signing with us next week.

3 minutes ago, bschmaranz said:

Nightengale was on hot stove.  Awfully confident Machado would be signing with us next week.

So, who do we believe?

1 minute ago, Saufley said:

So, who do we believe?

I don't believe any of them anymore.  This is almost as bad as when LeBron went to Miami from a media perspective. 

We’ve gotta wait for another week for this crap... at best?

oh Lord, how you’re teaching us patience.

14 minutes ago, Orlando said:

 

Agrees with a Philadelphia sports reporter on MLB this morning. He said Machado is their top priority and they are waiting until other offers are made then they will beat any offer. 

10 minutes ago, bschmaranz said:

the start of I don't believe any of them anymore.  This is almost as bad as when LeBron went to Miami from a media perspective. 

Sure would be nice to have the entire team together at the start of spring training. And, have we decided to go with an in-house SP at the #5 spot ?

 

Edited February 8, 20197 yr by Saufley

3 minutes ago, ptatc said:

Agrees with a Philadelphia sports reporter on MLB this morning. He said Machado is their top priority and they are waiting until other offers are made then they will beat any offer. 

Didn't follow what your sentence above.  Can you please clarify?

4 minutes ago, ptatc said:

Agrees with a Philadelphia sports reporter on MLB this morning. He said Machado is their top priority and they are waiting until other offers are made then they will beat any offer. 

He said the Phillies want Machado

over Harper?

15 minutes ago, Saufley said:

So, who do we believe?

Someone is going to be right eventually but I'm still employing the mindset of believing absolutely nothing  from anyone.  Everyone is being fed BS imo.  

Edited February 8, 20197 yr by Rowand44

23 minutes ago, Orlando said:

 

This sounds extremely accurate and feasible. In the end he is going to go to the highest bidder. It’s going to be a huge contract. Phillies are probably willing to go higher than the Sox though so hopefully it will be for Harper and leave us with Manny. 

 

18 minutes ago, Tony said:

From a pure business perspective, I don’t know why you wouldn’t employ this approach. As fans it sucks we have had to play this waiting game, but given this market, this seems the right thing to do. 

And if they strike out on Machado, they deserve all the criticism in the world. Tough business to be in. 

I wouldn't go that far.  He gets a $50-$70 million check annually just for existing, before any team operations get started.  And for ten years the product has been bad, the front office has been criticized and yet they all seem to be doing OK.  In fact, better than any of us I would say.

Maybe Pads are just making sure white sox don't get manny machado for only 35mill more than they paid for Hosmer.

7 minutes ago, Special K said:

Didn't follow what your sentence above.  Can you please 

All of the teams seem to be taking the approach that they dont want to get into a bidding war and are waiting to see what other teams offer 

Also that the top priority for Philadelphia is Machado and once he receives offers from other teams they will beat it.

11 minutes ago, Orlando said:

He said the Phillies want Machado

over Harper?

Yes. Apparently one of the Philadelphia front office people was part of the Baltimore group that drafted and developed him. He is pushing hard for Machado.

6 minutes ago, ptatc said:

Agrees with a Philadelphia sports reporter on MLB this morning. He said Machado is their top priority and they are waiting until other offers are made then they will beat any offer. 

Baseball writers are terrible at understanding contract negotiations. They live in a world where years and dollars are the only substantive terms, and they talk about negotiations as though that's the case. These deals are getting more complicated, and the meaning of "beating any offer" becomes unclear. If the Phillies are in win-now mode, then their deal is going to be based on short term certainty and limiting long term risk. The Sox will want long term certainty but may want to mitigate short term risk if the rebuild fails.

Each has their benefits and risks for the player, and the final dollars for each, if the whole contract is played, may be the same. But the path to the end of the contract will differ. How does someone say the Phillies will beat the Sox offer? The offers are different, and the teams are in a different situation.

I am of the opinion that teams use the inability to understand the negotiation as a way of distracting writers. If you don't understand the topic enough to ask the right questions, then you can never piece together the truth.

3 minutes ago, G&T said:

Baseball writers are terrible at understanding contract negotiations. They live in a world where years and dollars are the only substantive terms, and they talk about negotiations as though that's the case. These deals are getting more complicated, and the meaning of "beating any offer" becomes unclear. If the Phillies are in win-now mode, then their deal is going to be based on short term certainty and limiting long term risk. The Sox will want long term certainty but may want to mitigate short term risk if the rebuild fails.

Each has their benefits and risks for the player, and the final dollars for each, if the whole contract is played, may be the same. But the path to the end of the contract will differ. How does someone say the Phillies will beat the Sox offer? The offers are different, and the teams are in a different situation.

I am of the opinion that teams use the inability to understand the negotiation as a way of distracting writers. If you don't understand the topic enough to ask the right questions, then you can never piece together the truth.

I mean sure, but the player has an opinion too. So if the player doesn't care about limiting the phillies long-term risk, then he can ask to remove the stipulations that do that in order to beat the white sox offer. When competing offers truly get on the table the team may have to start compromising with their own interests to get a deal done to the players interests.

We also don't know that any of what you are saying is in those team interests is what they are personally vying for with the player, so there's no reason that should be reported. And they report on "beating offers" because its succinct and probably closer to accurate than what you described.

 

24 minutes ago, bmags said:

Maybe Pads are just making sure white sox don't get manny machado for only 35mill more than they paid for Hosmer.

Thought this same thing.  But I still think the longer this drags on it gives a little more clarity to the Jay/Alonso signings.  It might not have been done to JUST sway Manny, but to scare away other teams as well.  It's somewhat of a foregone conclusion now that the White Sox have made the strongest pitch and have paved the way for Manny to play with his people.  Other teams might not bother trying to land him because they know the Sox will likely get a chance to beat it--and likely will.  A lot of work done to not just land this guy but to do so in a market that a (supposed) $175M "low-ball" offer would paralyze other teams from bidding higher. 

Rumors of that offer have made others re-evaluate the true "values" of other free agents.  Ironic...a bubble-bursting low-ball offer that sent out shock waves that prompted public statements from his agent--assuming other teams would be drawn into the mix--and even IF that's ACTUALLY happened, no one has assembled the "pen-to-paper" offer that would beat ours yet?!?  The public side of this story has been so cryptic.  I'd love to see a truth documentary script when this is over...

Edited February 8, 20197 yr by FT35

3 minutes ago, FT35 said:

Thought this same thing.  But I still think the longer this drags on it gives a little more clarity to the Jay/Alonso signings.  It might not have been done to JUST sway Manny, but to scare away other teams as well.  It's somewhat of a foregone conclusion now that the White Sox have made the strongest pitch and have paved the way for Manny to play with his people.  Other teams might not bother trying to land him because they know the Sox will likely get a chance to beat it--and likely will.  A lot of work done to not just land this guy but to do so in a market that a (supposed) $175M "low-ball" offer would paralyze other teams from bidding higher. 

Rumors of that offer have made others re-evaluate the true "values" of other free agents.  Ironic...a bubble-bursting low-ball offer that sent out shock waves that prompted public statements from his agent--assuming other teams would be drawn into the mix--and even IF that's ACTUALLY happened, no one has assembled the "pen-to-paper" offer that would beat ours yet?!?  The public side of this story has been so cryptic.  I'd love to see a truth documentary script when this is over...

I know others disagree, but this does feel like what collusion would look like. By that I mean owners telegraphing what their high offers will be privately to discourage teams from jumping into mix with bids that will only serve to raise the number the player gets; because that team will know they'll be outbid.

But on the other hand I think that it's more likely that while low, teams don't often plan for 200 mill signings, see this as a low number but especially didn't plan for 250 mill signings, and already moved on before it was clear the bidding wouldn't be as high as thought.

3 minutes ago, bmags said:

I know others disagree, but this does feel like what collusion would look like. By that I mean owners telegraphing what their high offers will be privately to discourage teams from jumping into mix with bids that will only serve to raise the number the player gets; because that team will know they'll be outbid.

But on the other hand I think that it's more likely that while low, teams don't often plan for 200 mill signings, see this as a low number but especially didn't plan for 250 mill signings, and already moved on before it was clear the bidding wouldn't be as high as thought.

Yep.  What this off-season has done so far has effectively shaved about $100M off the asking price of top free agents.  With Giancarlo Stanton deal at $325M...you now have a player of Manny Machado's caliber (better all-around player imo) not able to get offers in the $225M range (obviously only using numbers that have been rumored).  

I think the owners saw Stanton's number and thought...oh...we need to put an end to this before the likes of Harper and Machado enter the market asking for a half-billion dollars.  They're trying to stop the inflation.