Sarava

I don't see this excess in pitching? IMO the Sox need more young arms, not less. And for what it's worth, I'm not a fan of Jonathan India. I'd rather thew Sox stay away from him.

That makes more sense.

Today would be a good day for Manny Machado to shock the country and all the rumors and announce he is signing with the Chicago White Sox.

Over the last 3-4 decades at least, the Sox have had a smaller core fanbase than the Cubs - and are dependent on bandwagon fans when they play well. It just is what it is. That doesn't make us diehards any lesser fans than Cuib fan diehards. There's just less of us. But for eroding fanbase? Nah. The Sox last year still outdrew the 1998 and 1999 seasons. for your 2012 example, you're ignoring that with Sox fans at least, fans show up a year after success. 2006, 2007 and 2008 all outdrew attendance in 2005. In your 2012 example, they never gave themselves a chance for spillover attendance, because of the late season collapse.

I was going to express disappointment in the Sox letting yet another player sign elsewhere. But if he seriously got 7 guaranteed years - then enjoy him Seattle!

I think the problem is, many of the plan b's or plan c's were off the market before the Machado's or Harpers seemed to start leaning to other teams. And the Sox chose to let those guys go to other teams. So, what we're left with, if the Sox do fail to land one of the big fishes - is the Sox looking like they were completely unprepared for this off-season, and apparently content with pushing the 100 loss envelope once again in 2019.

Good grief. This guy reminds me of John Jaeckel - the Hawks blogger that is always wrong and always searching for credit or attaboys.

Here's another thought. If Eloy had been promoted mid-summer as he deserved - could that of swayed these guys? Prospects bomb out all the time. But if he came up and tore the AL up for 2 months, the Sox have a much better case to bring to Machado or Harper. Of course, Eloy could of come up and struggled too - to be fair. Would giving up 2025 control of Eloy be worth Manny Machado coming here?

Hmm, I'd have a hard time supporting anything that moves Cease. But yeah, otherwise I kind of agree.

Didn't Hahn say last winter that things would be different the next winter? I could of swore he said that was the last winter of not doing anything worthwhile. Because when the winter meetings started this year, and him and Kenny both were saying it was a year early - my first thought was, of crap they're moving the goalposts on us now.

If The Sox miss on the 2 big guns. The mood at Soxfest will be interesting. Acquiring a guy like Encarnacion will only add gasoline to the fire they started. I hope they're not this stupid.

Yeah and people could have New Year plans. So the waiting part could make sense here. I suspect this all is true. I hope I'm wrong, though. It's made me crabby this morning.

The Sox management are the ones that created this undesirable team to play for. If it's that bad where even offering the most money doesn't lure guys in, then that shows that the damage they have caused might be far worse than us fans realized. I mean, even if you forgive or forget about everything that happened before the rebuild. Management has gone out of their way to be as bad as possible the last few years. They're tanking for picks. They weren't filling gaping holes on the roster. There's pros and cons to that. They got Nick Madigral and will have the 3rd pick next year. But it might of cost them Manny Machado. He see that triple digit loss total, and he sees that as the New Year is about to roll over, they've done little to nothing this off-season to change that. Well maybe he doesn't want to be part of this losing culture that they are continuing to foster, even as they pursue him and Bryce Harper?

Bingo! Unfortunately...

Do you not think the undesirable state of the White Sox is the fault of Jerry Reinsdorf, Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn? This is 100% on those 3 guys if they miss out.

I really hope Rick Hahn or Kenny Williams don't think Encarnación is an acceptable big acquisition for this winter.

I agree with that Ross. I think first is worse. The other team's know where the 'bar' is to beat. That said, it's sounding like having his brother in law might be a bit too much for the other team's to top. Let's hope anyway.

I think the Sox would need to hold on to Dane Dunning. If they pulled off the miracle and signed both Manny and Bryce. My feeling is you wont ever have money to spend a ton on pitching. So with that said, and knowing the Sox already forecast that some prospect for prospect trades might be coming to fill holes (Hahn brought this up late in the season). I think you consider moving some of these positional prospects for young arms. Load up on young arms and hope enough do well to make this thing work. You probably can afford to move guys like Rutherford, Basabe. Hell maybe even Luis Robert for the right return.

Yeah, even if a team's interest is phony. The agents will surely play along to drum up additional interest or leverage with other teams.

Maybe even a plus for the Sox for signing Welington Castillo last year as well. He's supposed to be real good friends with Machado.

Of course not. The problem for the Sox is, even if they did actually make a legit effort - their history bars us from giving them the benefit of the doubt. Add in the reports that JR quietly doesn't believe they will land one of the big fishes, and it kind of comes together for what it is. Or...what we hope it isn't.

Not sure how we'll ever know the truth. But if this is true, then Rick Hahn has been lying to us the past couple of years. He has said over and over that the money will be there when the time comes.

I think Jerry should go for it. At his age, you could almost say he's already playing with house money. Just do it

At the end of the day, the Sox are the 3rd worst team in baseball and despite knowing this big free agency winter was coming up, they chose not to showcase a bit of the future last year. Eloy probably deserved to be called up in July. If he was called up and then tore up August and September, the Sox have a stronger sales pitch to these guys. Right or wrong, the Sox prioritized that extra year of control.

I agree with this. If Machado wants to play SS, and puts that out front now before he has signed anywhere, that's cool. That said, I don't want the Sox spending 350+ mil on him if that is the case. To me he is not worth that kind of money as a SS.