he gone.

These are my favorite types of signings to be honest. I was all excited for Ervin Santana one year .... haha. They never turn out but I always hold out hope for the comeback story. This year I don't have a ton on the list, next year is primed with a bunch of nice short term guys. I've banged the drum on Rich Hill for like two years, not exactly garbage heap at all. His velocity took a bit of a dive as did he peripherals but he also continues to put up a 3ERA. nothing to sneeze at and should be available on a year deal at just a few million. Matt Shoemaker is one of my favs too. He's going to give you about 5 innings all year, but when he's healthy hes still decent. McHugh and Peacock - both guys interest me. More because of like 2017/8 memories. not sure of their latest velocities and health etc. David Robertson - why not? I guess? That's about it.

I'd say if we lose Gio, Keuchel or Lynn for part of the season to injury, or one of them completely shits the bed then 83 might be on the table. Or if NONE of Rodon, Cease, Kopech, Lopez, Stiever step up and pitch even remotely league average then maybe ... but 83 would be doomsday/floor. Things to consider is Detroit is a lot better this year. Same with KC. Obviously Cleveland offsets that a bit. Minnesota probably the same. Kansas City actually has a path to .500 if all goes right -- Singer, Bubic, Minor, Duffy, Keller ... that's not an awful rotation. They have some pop in Soler, a healthy Perez, etc. If you get good years out of Mondesi and Santana that team is much better this year. Side note: I think this is probably the last cake walk year out of the Tigers before they make their splash again. I can definitely see them nabbing a Trevor Story or the likes as their franchise guy. Tork comes up. Riley Greene comes up. Skubal, Mize, Mannning all take their licks this year & are better next year. etc. Here and there they'll be able to add vets + a few more draft picks ... they'll be back at 81 wins sooner rather than later.

It kind of merges with student loan questions. should you be able to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars without understanding possible outcomes.

Yasmani Grandal: $18.25M/year Dallas Keuchel: $18M/year Jose Abreu extension: approx $18M average for 3 years Luis Robert contract Yoan Moncada extension Edwin Encarnacion: $13M Gio Gonzalez: $4.5M Nomar Mazara: $5.5M Aaron Bummer 5-year extension with 2 club options at $7.5M each Lance Lynn: $8M for 2021 Liam Hendriks: 4 years, $54M Adam Eaton: $8M avg for 2 years Attempt at signing Zack Wheeler, who took the Phillies offer of $23M/year. Signed Keuchel and Gonzalez instead for about the same amount. Yes on the bolded. I'm not counting Abreu as anything. He was on our team, we had a hole, he filled it. That's not money being spent - it's not letting the train go off the tracks. Robert, Moncada, Eloy, etc. are all just a creative way to make it seem like money was spent. Both sides won those deals. It's not spending money. The Eaton, Gonzalez, Mazara's of the world? That's like the saying the Cubs are spending the money too because they brought in Trevor Willliams. You need bodies on a roster & none of those guys are remotely even anything more. They are well short of spending - and that was on ONE player. Actually scares me if we were to have signed Machado at 8/250 what our team would look like.... would that have meant the Sox would be rolling with Cease, Dunning, Kopech, Giolito and Lopez this year because we had zero left? The sox have not, and will not hold up their end of the bargain. Best case scenario is a team record contract to giolito and even at that we likely won't go above 5 years and giolito is too business smart. don't see him going team friendly. But outside of that?? Not sure what we'd do. You're set at most positions for a while. Right Field is the biggest hole for now and the foreseeable future -- there's not really any options upcoming there so I don't see many big signings anytime soon. Castallenos is maybe an option? Best place to look for in terms value is SS next year with that crop of SS. But you're not moving Anderson and unless you're moving Moncada to RF it doesn't make sense. Always can use more pitching .... so without further ado, here's that list for next year. Dylan Bundy (29) Kevin Gausman (31) Jon Gray (30) Zack Greinke (38) Andrew Heaney (31) Clayton Kershaw (34) Kwang-Hyun Kim (33) Corey Kluber (36) Lance Lynn (35) Carlos Martinez (30) — $17MM club option ($500K buyout; contract also contains $18MM club option for 2023) Lance McCullers Jr. (28) Eduardo Rodriguez (29) Max Scherzer (37) Marcus Stroman (30) Noah Syndergaard (29) Justin Verlander (39) If you want to make a splash to add a veteran SP next year on a shorter deal i think you have a path. Plus they're all old and we know how much the Sox love "leadership" and getting the old guys past their prime. Verlander, Scherzer, Greinke, etc So that's my guess. I think they'll add an old vet. Not saying I agree or disagree and think a lot can changed based on how our 4/5 guys do this year.

Worth discussing, but i don't see the upside from the dodgers end. They have an okay payroll right now, and can keep it under $250 reasonably easily if they were just either move on from Justin Turner or trade a Joe Kelly for salary relief. Think Price has too much upside to be their dump. My guess. The plus side is they're actually only paying for $15mm of the $31mm this year .... so maybe. That said I wouldn't pay him any more than I'd pay Garret Richards or Smyly ... or hell even Cole Hamels. I think I'd rather even have Hamels. So I'd roll the dice on Price ... for about $6-8mm. Just don't see the Dodgers taking that bath. They sit at $239mm w $11mm before they get dinged. Think you're more likely to see Turner sign a creative contract iwth deferrals or Joe Kelly be traded then Price being given away.

Definitely can't blame him. Bauer isn't a 40mm AAV guy, he's more in line between Zach Wheeler and .... Chris Sale? But those guys also took long contracts. Bauer probably could've been a 6/160-175mm type guy. But same time, pitchers like Bauer and his mentality don't happen .... like ever. Most guys want to lock in that security, while he wants to bet on himself and lock in like $300mm over 6-7 years. He's one injury away from being Garret Richards and taking $8-10mm deals on a year to year basis. I still think there weren't many better fits ever created for this team. Adding a 4th horsemen to that rotation would have been epic. And based on the duration would've allowed guys like Cease and Kopech and Crochet to still flourish. Adding a Bauer takes us out of the Rays/Twins/A's/Blue Jays/Mets/Cardinals/Nationals ... and personally Yankees in my opinion category and puts us in the Padres/Dodgers category. Adding someone like Sonny Gray midseason or having Cease/Kopech/Crochet become reliable can also do that, so it's not the worst thing not getting Bauer, but definitely filled a hole without having to commit long term capital.

Chamath quotes!

Sorry about that! haha. Took you off. Now it's just Peavy44. Who knows - sometimes these boards get heated. Have to remember that we're all playing make believe passing time just wanting to see winning Sox baseball.

I thought I had made a prediction close to this ... didnt realize i shoulda been his agent. Reality he signed a two year deal because that third year is so cheap that unless he's hurt he's opting out of LA. I still woulda done any of those deals in bold.

People miss the point of why this is a big miss. a) this is and was the best match in terms of a top tier pitcher willing to play within Jerry's rules of no more than 4 year contracts. b) this completely matched the "all-in" period and "the money will be spent" period. b 2.0) The sox try and mostly have successfully tricked fans into believing the money was spent on the Eloy and Robert, etc. extensions. It's really just a crock of shit. Those guys were going to get those numbers in arbitration no matter what. So what we did was just give them a bit more * guaranteed. They took a haircut to secure the bag. But to act like "money was spent" is ludicrous. Keuchel .... Grandal .... Hendriks .... that's money being spent. I count like $70mm more to be spent to just hit the one Machado contract. But I digress, it's Jerry selling a load of crapola c) pitching wins championships. This has less with the Sox even acquiring him. It's the fact it just got that much harder to win against the Padres or Dodgers in the WS. Those rotations are 5-6 deep with young firepower in the wings waiting to mow you down for an inning or two at a time in high leverage. We are 3 deep with young firepower. It's a loss not to sign him. Winning builds teams. Trevor Bauer since he speaks his mind and is active on social media gets spun as this headcase. It's this narrative that has played out forever "shut up and play" we don't want to hear you, just play the game. You're making millions. You're opinion doesn't count. Meanwhile we sit here like armchair GM's on a message board playing make believe. in the end, this signing is just as bad as if the yanks, twins, rays, etc. signed him. we have to beat a team in the world series to win the thing .. it just got harder.

at this point we're just going in circles on this thread. I hope he signs soon haha. its either a) i dont want him on my team, hes overrated and a head case or b) jerry sucks. hes old and cheap. Just variations of that arugment over and over lol. I think it's just sad we couldn't even get creative with a guy willing to get creative and who wasn't as concerned about years as most guys. Between that, his talent, the timing of the Sox being ready to contend for a WS and we didn't even try? Reminds me of Harper pursuit.... just sad. But so be it. As long as my ticket prices remain well priced and we don't turn into Wrigley field w/ $85 bleacher seats I'm fine passing on guys like this.

Seeing Mets, Brewers and Rays in on Rich Hill... Was holding out small, small hope we'd be on that list. Seems like a small price/risk to take and can fill a role the rest of the back of rotation -- I woulda wanted to throw him in there with Rodon, Crochet, Stiever, Kopech, Hill, Cease and let them all battle it out for innings. Losers get multi inning bullpen roles this year. Also if the Rays are in on someone means there's something there. It's almost the coop can fix em from 2004-2008

Not everything is about bets and proving people right or wrong. I've had Yarbrough on my fantasy teams for three years in a row ... he's logged some games of 2 innings, some of 3 innings, some of 6 innings and some of 7 innings. I don't really get how that plan is any different, or cant be used in the same manner on Crochet & Kopech. On good days, let them run a bit more, on bad days an inning or two. If they weren't such similar pitchers I'd just put them as my #5 as back to back guys. Meaning having Crochet do 2-4 innings, then Kopech 2-4 innings. Also just to give you some solace for a bet? 2018 - 147 IP, pitched into the 6th 8 times of his 38 appearances 2019 was used more as traditional starter role and pitched half of his appearances into the 6th. Pitched 141 innings.

I'm not sure is so controversial about Crochet in bullpen? You have to stretch him out and you have to stretch Kopech out. Both should be either in multi inning roles or working as openers pitching 2-3 innings at a time. Over 162 games they'll get their work. Look at Ryan Yarbrough for the Rays as your example. In 2019 he pitched 140 innings. Started 14 games (mostly as opener) and pitched in relief in multi-inning roles. These guys are going to be able to get 100-120 innings no problem. 100-120 IP in the regular season + sprinkling in a few more in the postseason? I don't want anymore than that out of them and I'd rather them take all those innings at the major league level. After you have one more year under your belt of Kopech, Cease, Rodon and Crochet you can better make your decision on what to do with Lynn next offseason.

I think the TV channels know and understandably make these lists controversial. I believe that TA was their controversy as well as Story. They want people to talk about the list to drive attention to their lists. That said my list would be: (and my list is predicated of who I'd most want starting this year only for the White Sox as SS: 1 - Lindor 2 - Bogaerts 3 - Tim Anderson 4 - Tatis Jr. (he's almost in TA category from a few years ago that i keep waiting for his underlying stats to catch up (ala baez), but think he's just that good) 5 - Turner 6 - Story 7 - Bichette 8 - Gleyber 9 - Correa 10 - Baez Next up - Wander Franco/Seager/Semien

It will all be a footnote in history. These type of events repeat themselves over history, however are just becoming more prevalent and frequent as technology becomes more widely available. Sharing info and building momentum is easier than ever. momentum and psychology work both ways. i agree with whoever noted the texas hold em analogy -- doesn't matter how good your hand is here, the deck is stacked against you here. Plus its much harder to organize millions of people to row in one direction than a handful with billions. These are all a fart in the wind. An expensive fart. If anything comes of this it's having people realize and wake up. It put finance on a lot of peoples radars. It put stocks on peoples radars. The amount of people who bought their first stock probably was through the roof. Unfortunately for most their first experience will be a bad one, but it's a step.

Nice job on this post. Very detailed and allows reader to visualize it well. As a Packers fan I hope they follow the mold of teams like the Packers (for football) or Cardinals/Rays for baseball. Which is to say I hope we balance this run against the future flexibility. For the Packers it was walking away from guys like TJ Lang and Bryan Bulaga during some of their best years. It's been incredibly frustrating at times when they don't go out and get that extra piece that puts them over the top, but having decades of success is very fun. Same with Cardinals - I'd love to be them - they do the Rays model but with the ability to be more aggressive. They made that run at Stanton, brought in contracts like Goldy and Arenado, but balance that by walking away from guys like Wong this year. Rays obviously do it to a fault - letting Snell and his affordable contract go, Pham, etc. And i know all the people will say it's worth it to have one championship like the cubs and most of the fans are content with that. I'd like to raise the bar - I want a decade plus of constant success to raise our stature to being on par with the Cubs on a national basis. I want 30,000 fans each game for a decade -- not just for a few years. So what does that mean? To me it might mean trading away someone like a Cease in a year or two if he turns out well and parlaying that into additional players. Same with a Moncada. letting Abreu walk instead of trying to get an extra year out of him. Trading some of your bullpen pieces at a premium even during a World Series run. I think it means keeping and paying your "core" and then trading some of your nice pieces for volume trades to fill in besides them. My core would be: Robert, Eloy, Madrigal, Giolito, Vaughn, Kopech I'd be open to trading: Moncada, Anderson (on fence here - as he gets older his speed will diminish, that said SS is super stacked and so his price tag might not be terrible), Cease, Abreu, Keuchel A little controversial for sure, but there are three options for running a team like the sox heading towards a nice run: Cubs/Padres/etc. -- you go out and just spend and put really nice pieces next to your younger stars. you have a 3-4 year run of being a top, top team. You ride with them until you can't and then it all gets broken up and return to nothing for 3-4 years while reloading again. Cardinals/Rays/A's -- you do what is noted above - you balance going for it while trading guys at their top value and filling in with additional volume. There's levels to this - the Cardinals to me are the team to emulate - they spend some too, but remain on task Rockies - just sit on your guys, trade them for absolutely nothing like Arenado - Trevor Story, etc. Add in bad free agent pieces at high prices to supplement and miss -- wade davis, ian desmond, murphy, etc. etc. squander everything and all your talent by being awful I guess a 4th option is being the Yanks/Red Sox but we know that's not possible since we wont spend.

These next two weeks are going to be a flurry of signings. Here are a few names I'd like the Sox to consider whether it be on a minor league deal or a flier/small Major league deal. Tyler Flowers - I'm probably more comfortable than most to go in with Collins & Yermin, but seems like a natural fit if we go FA route Marwin Gonzalez - probably not a whole ton left in the tank - but fills a versatility role for cheap. One thing to note is his best of best years were during the cheating scandal I believe. So you're likely just getting a .250ba with a dozen homers. very avg. replaceable type guy, but can move around the field. id rather keep what we have than chase him. Villar - Not sure if he really has a role, but has played CF a few times over the year, 2b, DH, SS, etc. some versatility there and can swipe 30-40 bags. Don't know larussa's past on stealing - old school guy = steals? maybe. like marwin just a guy who can plug in a few spots and also has some pop. doubt his price and want to play everyday can be met with us, so long shot of a fit here. Cespedes - call me crazy - and this is a hunch - i think he signs a minor league deal with some incentives and is w the Sox in ST. I can see him wanting to play with his brother & this gives him an opportunity to do so during spring training. give him the option to opt out before the season starts. i also think he has at least a glimmer of an opening to DH for the Sox for a month or two - something I'm not sure he's going to find elsewhere either. I dont think people are knocking down his doors. Maybe you find lightning in a bottle. He'll be 35 but last time he really even played half a season was back in 2017. ST deal, 1 year, $1mm if he makes the roster. Can tie some incentives to it just in case he's good again or healthy. Shin Soo Choo - this one makes a ton of sense to me. lefty bat, even at 36 back in 2019 he batted .265 with an obp of .377 and ops of .826 - hit 24 homers, stole 15 bases. Wouldn't be surprised if you can get him on a deal like cespedes - just a year deal, $1-2mm. He can plug into rf and left field in a pinch, not well, but enough to hold down the fort for a few games if forced into action. Scooter Gennett - guy fell of the face of the earth sitting out last year. I'd explore. Rich Hill - been a huge fan of his - can bounce around starting and bullpen easily. Cole Hamels - not too far removed from earning that 1yr 18mm deal. can see him going for 6-8mm. know we explored him in the past. would be open to it

Cease has the stuff, has the mindset, has everything. He will figure it out as some point - just unsure if that will come in a Sox uniform. He reminds me actually a lot of Giolito. I remember when he was struggling in his 1st year with the Sox I kept saying he's going to be our future ace - I feel like Cease is going to be our 2/3 for a long time to come and think he'll have more glimmers of success over a long campaign this year. I'm guessing we'll see 3-5 game stretches where he looks like a world beater and other 3-5 game stretches where he'll be bullpen fodder.

Stocks in the Reddit thread for all intents & purposes are just speculative buys at this point. Can you buy and sell/time the market to make a profit. It reminds me of a lot of alt-coins in the crypto space. Can make and lose a ton of money, but has nothing to do much with actual fundamentals. Big psychology game. I wouldn't be surprised to see it bounce up a bit over the next few days, but at the end of the day it was a momentum trade & the momentum was robbed last week. That was the ultimate high & everything beyond that will just be spikes up, on the way down. If you're going to make a case, AMC might have one with raising shares to retire debt. I don't think the stock will do great, however with vaccines happening and people wanting to get back to normal I can see earnings being better than expected over the next few quarters leading to spikes that may be exaggerated just because of this whole saga. Name recognition and memes go further than they used to.

No comment ? ?

True - both parties are fundamentally the same. Its not like theres a budget conscious crowd. If they're anything the parties are strong marketers. They play on emotions and act like they have many, many differences. Everybody buys into it.

There's going to be a lot of this argument and I agree with it. Unfortunately there's not many good solutions where everybody wins. Definitely has changed lives for the worse across the board. You have people like you who have done the right thing and get screwed. You have people like me who married into it and now have to change everything about our lives for it. It's a completely bogus situation that was created out of human error. Also imagine how the ohter 75% feel. the ones who didn't go to college ... they're even more perplexed and against it. Why should the elite/rich get forgiven for going to college? That's their mindset. There's some merit into looking into income garnishing type colleges. like free college, but you pay a certain percent of your paycheck back to that college until $ a certain figure is hit or until a certain age is hit. It would incentivize colleges to actually prepare you for a well paying job since they are invested into the returns instead of just pumping out degrees for $$. That has a whole other set of issues tied to that solution as well, but i wouldn't mind some competing mindsets in higher education to drive competition.

We were never going to get him, hell, we didn't even talk to him. His desires match up so perfectly with the Dodgers and Mets it was probably likely them all along. Dodgers have done this in the past where they offer more money on a shorter deal. Mets? I mean it's Cohen at the end of the day. What I've liked about the Bauer aspect all along is his ability to accept fewer years for increased pay. If there was ever a time or situation that matched up with Uncle Jerry's philosophy, time frame, and winning window this was it. We didn't even engage ... so let's be serious. Our "maybe Jerry will change and try and chase a championship before he dies and start paying up"? that's never happening - he'll die rich and with a second place team like he prefers. I'll die on the hill that I would've given him 3/125mm or 4/160mm in a heart beat. I think you could've even done it similarly to Scherzer where it's deferred over a bunch of years. Bauer was and is willing to get creative for the chance to win and to hit the all-time high AAV. Having 3 years of Giolito, Bauer, Keuchel + Kopech and Cease and others coming up (assuming you don't resign Lynn if you go big on Bauer) would've been huge. This year alone having a 4 headed monster plus our young guys would make our bullpen management so much easier ... you'd have 4 guys who can go 200ip. Alas, it's all conjecture and words on a page because it was never meant to be.

I think without a doubt one thing we can all agree upon is that the MLB will screw this up. They're like the government haha. They purposely wait to negotiate this type of stuff instead of having plans A, B, and C public. They want to keep it close and quiet and then "blame" the current case levels on why ST or the start of the season is delayed. All of this can and has been projectable to formulate multiple plans around. At the end of the day they'll use the guise of "health" as the reason they're delaying the season rather than money while we all know its the latter. Hopefully i end up wrong, but i still think they try and delay this season by a month or two to allow vaccinations to start ramping up more and therefore deaths to plummet (since it'll be the 65 and over crowd with the vaccination) once deaths start plummeting I think you'll see a lot more of "partial seating" plans across all sports. So more like .. 33% type crowds. This season may be a lot more 10-15k type crowds for a longer time.