he gone.

*** that being said, if Harpers market is bad too (let's say Manny signs for 8/260 or something... which is well below the projections of the 10/330 type deals before the offseason starts) then I think you a FINAL and BEST offer to Harper and walk. Be like we'll do 10 years and $340mm... take or leave it.

If we sign Manny I would stay the course for the rest of FA signings... only make moves that benefit us 2-3 years down the road. We've already made the stop gap trades and signings in Alonso and Jay. The only other stop gaps I'd want are two lottery ticket pitchers like the Shelby Miller signing for $2mm. Other than that? Pollock is a luxury, and I don't think he is necessary if you believe in your minor league OF's. He is oft injured and expensive. Infield? Nothing to do there either. IF there was a big spend I'd look to Keuchel for a 4 year deal at like $70mm. He theoretically should age well and could still slot in as a 3/4 at the end of that contract.

Just to get our mind off the Machado signing for a few minutes, wanted to go back in time and ask who was your least favorite 3rd baseman over the past decade. It's quite the list...... II was going to do it the other way around, but Frazier would likely win in a landslide with some competition from Yolmer maybe.

The thing about that $325 number though was that it was like 12 years .... right? If he's getting 7-9 years he's not going to get $325, nor does he deserve it. I'd go 10/300 over 7/245 in my opinion. Like if getting to 300 meant that much.. id just keep tacking on years.10/300... 11/300 ... 12/326

I feel like a kid in the back of a car on a 18 hour road trip.

4th team "entering" the fray as well as Phillies "re-submitting" and offer means this is close to an end. I'm guessing we'll hear one last scary Yankees rumor about how they're willing to go 8 years now. I think this is actually all good news for the Sox. Basically trying to get them to bump up one more year or a few more million on the AAV before signing.

I kind of feel bad for having to do it, I think he's well intentioned with his enthusiasm based on his twitter profile, it's just watering down my experience here. No hard feelings, I just can't keep reading it.

I'd say this number is probably a bit high right now, but not far off. You're talking 12 more wins than last year ... with a solid bullpen you may be looking at 4-5 wins alone right there. Any progression from Giolito and Moncada would help a ton... someone on base (Jay) in front of a Abreu should help and add in Eloy... I think at this exact moment, figuring maybe some veteran 1 year gap SP and maybe an OF (basically assuming no machado or harper) I'd say... 70-72 is my guess. You also have to remember the division is awwwfullll. Indians are worse, Royals are worse, Tigers are worse... and that's like 70 games of your schedule.

Thank you!

For real how do you block a member? If I go to the profile page of the individual I can't seem to find a mute button... is it somewhere else im not looking?

This narrative bothers me. You can't cheer for a team to win 60 games every year. at some point the clubhouse needs to learn how to win and keep leads and build a culture. The tanking is over. Need to turn the page and improve now. There's a difference between tanking for a few years and becoming the Pirates and Royals of the world. Also you don't build your team generally through the first round picks whether they are 3rd overall, 5th overall or 13th overall. example a) sale v fulmer example b) you build through ALL rounds of the draft + international and trades. It really doesn't matter that much if we pick 3rd or 8th IMO... You can argue that all you want but lets start with 2004 and Gio Gonzalez since he's still in the league... since that time you have Sale, Anderson and Rodon who have made a difference at the MLB level. I dare throw Beckham into the mix since he had a nice half year.. so you're talking 14 years and 3 guys who have done something.... really only 1 that has blown away his 1st round status. Time's up on focusing on the 3rd pick overall and tanking. Can't have it both ways. Can't argue for the Sox to spend north of $300mm on Machado and to make this big push, but also take the side if it doesn't work out then you're going to march out Engel and Cordell out there. That's the whole reason no FA wants to come here.......

maybe another day.. to get into cash flows of a billionaire on a Tuesday in January sounds exhausting. Also rarely does anybody win an argument on the internet. I'm in the camp of liking the jay signing, and generally thinking the money spent on these two year contracts mean very little to the sox ability to spend in the future. it is much more likely that their ability to spend will be capped by a luxury tax in the future than this $13mm holding them back from increasing from $150 to $163mm in 2023. On the flip side, I don't think any of these two year signings mean much because it's unlikely they improve our team to a level that gets us to the playoffs. So yes, it is kind of "wasted" money. But that money isn't going into a rainy day fund anyways, its likely being distributed out of the profits of the year to JR's 3 yacht fund. So maybe, call me crazy, the sox just want to be closer to an 80 win team and build a culture of winning with a young team instead of being a 100 loss team year after year. At a certain point you have to take steps forward to build a better team or you lose your fan base entirely.

I just hope a lot of this board does not run their own family run business. The economics and financials background in me is going crazy wanting to respond to too many posts.

Ahhhh. Good point.

to put it in further perspective Jon Jay has STOLEN engel, Delmonico, cordell and tilsons future world series rings in 2023 by robbing them the opportunity to prove this year that they are part of a future world series roster.

To put it in perspective we signed Mat Latos to a 1 year, $3mm deal and let him go in May. Nobody cared. We also signed James McCann to a $2.5mm deal to play like 34 games at catcher.

I'll simplify for those catching up on this thread. The Sox signed Jay to a ONE YEAR, $4mm deal. He doesn't strikeout and has OBP better than 90% of the team. He can spell each of the guys in the OF as well as be a late inning replacement for Palka in almost every game. There are two sides of the argument here from what I can tell. Those who are always angry. Those who aren't. Also apparently now we have economic majors on the board who are arguing about JR's pocketbook and how this $4mm affects his ability to spend $4mm in 2025. Carry on.

Well then, don't we have a bet?

I will bet my entire years salary we win more than 62 games this year.

Good lord some of you need to start your 2019 a bit happier. My points: 1- Look to the future. Look to 2021 or 2022 when the Sox are hopefully in the ALCS. Adam Engel won't be on that team. Palka 98% sure won't be on that team. Nicky Delmonico won't be on that team (maybe even this one), Leury Garcia, Cordell, Tilson .... none of those guys will be on the team or even really have more than a 1-2% chance of being on that team. Leury is your best shot, but there will be a cheaper, younger option who can fulfill his role. So all of those who are making the point that a 33 year old is stealing somebody's time needs to can it. 2018 was their opportunity to make noise. We gave these young guys a whole year at the MLB level.. a shot that they'd only get with a 60 win team. We owe these AAA guys nothing. Look at the Astros.. outside Abreu you'd be hard pressed to say any other guy would even be rosterable on that team. Palka probably could've been a DH for them ala Gattis.... maybe. 2- Jon Jay is 33 and still in the MLB. a lot of you are making his age out to be a bad thing. Again, at age 33 every single one of the guys mentioned above will be packing groceries at a supermarket.. hes still receiving contracts because he does bring something to the table. I think it was Garfein that said he was a gold glove candidate in RF for the diamondbacks? He still can play a decent CF. Sounds like a poor mans Adam Eaton to me. 3- As ive seen mentioned a few times, his OBP is a hell of a lot better than our team. All we do is strikeout and hit homers. It will be nice to have a guy who can set the table and get on base. I see him actually as our leadoff guy. A career OBP of .352 and strikes out less than 100 times a year. yes please. 4- The Machado angle. We're trying to entice a guy to come over for 7-10 years... year 1-2 were going to be bad regardless, so if you can sell him on coming by this method you do it. You're not blocking anybody. You're only giving 1-2 years to these guys.. and also he's a good vet. Some of the board is advocating 7/300mm+ for Machado... 10/350mm... crazy numbers, but you're getting hung up on 4mm over ONE FREAKING YEAR???! 5- Whether you believe it or not, this team, if it can sign Machado is positioning itself for a 2017 Twins like opportunity. If Eloy does as expected, if Moncada takes a few steps forward? Add in Machado and maybe a guy like Ervin Santana? All of a sudden I think you maybe are talking a 80-87 win team. That's all we can really ask for over the next two years anyways... a Band-Aid team on 1-2 year deals that hopefully you can have a chance with if all goes right. The real fun begins in 2021 anyways.

True, but they are better. No way Boras or Machado's agent settle for under 8. 8 is the bare minimum. Just my two cents. I'll guess Machado with 9 and Harper with 11.

This is true. MLB analytics are getting smarter and smarter and realizing these giant contracts don't workout probably... what? 75% of the time by the end of the contract... but if Hosmer got 8 years I am going to go out on an easy limb and say Machado at least gets 8, probably 9 years. Just my guess. I'd do Machado up to 10 years. If you get up to 10, then you AAV needs to be closer to $28-30mm. If its 8 years - then go closer to 30-33mm AAV. Then turn around and whatever you gave Machado, add 2 years onto it and 2-3mm per year and give that to Harper. So go 10-12 years at 30-35mm. See you in Spring Training!

Of course they're in on Machado. Teams that are in on 8 yr, 300mm commitments don't change their mind based on a oft-injured 34 year old SS who signs for minimum salaries. Their ultimate end game has always been to sign Machado and flip Andujar for a front line starter. There aren't any more "game changing" top line starters available after they struck out on Corbin, so now they will buy a TOR starter by signing Machado and trading Andujar.

we literally know nothing about any of the contracts given or any of the talks. this thread is talking about a twitter troll faking he's on a plane with Machado. Our insider information is zilch. For all we know the Sox contract 7 years or 10. and between 200-400mm. I don't get why were all so sure the cubs and the dodgers aren't looming more seriously.

Really enjoying this thread about Boeing. haha. The semi-rich .... so sports stars... (not your Billionaires) generally use NetJets from what I've heard. It's uber for private planes. Keeps cost down a bit.