Southwest Sider

I get that it is good business savvy to not put your best offers forward too soon, and to not bid against yourself. It makes complete sense. Is there any argument for the Sox to just go ahead and blow everyone away, get closer to 300 million than 200 million, and try to push this thing to the finish line? Manny was obviously expecting 300+, and a slow market has caused bidding to stay low. Isn't there some incentive for the Sox to go ahead and get this deal done instead of fucking around and playing the normal bidding game? They have gone so far to show Manny that he is wanted by "attempting" to trade for him, to trading for Alonso, why not go the extra mile, put a few more dollars in his pocket and try to seal this deal? Isn't he, by WAR standards, worth say a 10 year/290 million contract? Heck if he's so bent on 300, why not offer 10/300. If nothing else, Lozano can call it a huge win (if reports are true that offers are closer to 200), and stick it in Boras' craw by having Manny sign a contract that Harper turned down at the beginning of the offseason. I don't know, I just continue to think that the Sox are not a top destination due to poor handling of the franchise over the past few years. I feel like the price you pay for that is that you might need to blow a player away with an offer to get it to the finish line. Or, I could be wrong since we're not within WSD's 5 day expectation yet.

A ton of smoke around here today. Getting real exciting... heres hoping this is over soon.

By anyone i mean the Yankees. Gotta keep their offers low. This could be a ploy for the Yanks to think their 5 or 6 year offers are strong.

They may be getting close to a deal and with the 10+ year info out there, dont want anyone offering 9 years because they are only offering 8.

This should basically cement Harper to Dodgers, yeah? Man, the one time the Sox could actually throw some money around on legit FAs and they turn out to be destination FAs. Im not saying were out on Manny, but everyone knows he wants to be a Yankee. Must be nice to be those teams and have players like this practically begging to join them. Absolutely brutal.

Just trying to put together the pieces. Harper apparently wants to play for a team like the Cubs or Dodgers rather than the Sox or Phillies. Word is he doesn't want to go to Philly. Now you're saying he probably isn't coming here. Maybe I am incorrectly assuming that it's Harper making these calls. If it is him, though, it's weakening his ability to get a large pay day by trying to get contracts from cash strapped teams like the Cubs or Dodgers.

If I'm reading him right, he's saying Machado isn't gonna get as much money as we all think, and that Harper has all but decided he won't be joining the Sox. I can't imagine Boras is too happy with Harper eliminating teams and weakening his negotiation stance further. All we need now is the teams to come out and say they are out on Harper and he can watch his big payday continue to shrink.

What's his Q score tho?

Yeah, that is a pretty solid package. Not outstanding yet, but it would be if Basabe had another great year and Rutherford improves further.

Damn. All the cool kids have sources nowadays. I need to go find me one. ?

I hope they showed him Wrigley Field. Definitely a must-visit when it town.

Absolutely they should try because you cant win if you dont play. But in reality the most likely scenarios are the Sox land neither. If the master plan is to sign both, you may get a real intrigue from the guys by communicating this plan. They probably have better odds of getting one of them if they do try to get both.

I dont understand because rabbit is saying moves like this are just so the Sox can have a seat at the table and appear to be suitable destinations for Manny. He will give us Monday to make our spiel and make us feel good but in the end he will go to the Yankees like most top FAs ever have done.

Sad but true. Why on earth would machado choose us over the yankees? Why would harper choose us over the dodgers? All they have to do is be in the ballpark in terms of $$$ and sox are screwed. Sad but fucking true. Sucks to suck. The rebuild will need to produce multiple world series contendors before we are actually considered for top FAs. Theres a lot of work to do to dig out of the suck hole.

Look, I am as excited as the next guy that we appear to be major players in the Harper sweepstakes. I definitely get swept up in emotion and admittedly get "silly"... ...Which is exactly what we are doing. Now I just want to preface this by saying being us being silly by thinking we will land Harper doesn't necessarily mean it's not going to happen. Indeed, sillier things have happened. It's easy to get caught up in Soxtalk groupthink. And while I agree that Jack Parkmans constant back and forth with people who disagree with him ruins threads, I do agree with him to an extent here and commend him for challenging the groupthink that I admit that I have participated in. We really do need to face the facts and really temper expectations here. I'm not going to say that there's a 0% chance the Sox sign Harper, but the reality is that it is highly unlikely that he actually wants to sign with the Sox. He may think the farm is kind of nice, and that Chicago is cool, but this is a franchise that has basically lost the battle for Chicago to the Cubs. They are without a doubt, a completely irrelevant franchise to MLB fans in general, and of course, the national media that we love to hate. The tides can always change, they have before, but as we sit here right now and look at body of work JR has done as Sox owner.. it is generally not good. The Big Hurt and some ok teams kept the Sox relevant in the 90s, and obviously 05 was a big deal, but somewhere in between there it became "cool" to be a Cubs fan. Winning the World Series probably staved off some of that irrelevancy, but they did not sustain success and basically started becoming a joke of a franchise. It can be best summarized by saying: "They 'tried to compete' for 10 years since 05, made the playoffs once and got smoked, tried to fill holes with marginal free agents. Big splash trades rarely worked (Samardzija, Frazier to name some), most prospects busted and in general, the Sox version of trying to compete was a total joke as the Tigers, Indians and Royals made painfully clear to us, year after year". Now, if you're Bryce Harper, do you really want to sign here? We'd have to be hoping that Harper is some kind of person who is willing to bring a franchise out of irrelevancy, which isn't even a guarantee would happen. Given no other options, Harper probably would demand an opt out after year 3 and if the rebuild hasn't taken major steps forward at that point, he is gone. Harper would go a long way towards making the Sox relevant again ONLY if the rebuild works. Trying my best to put myself in Harpers shoes here, but if I am him I am waiting until the Dodgers or the Cubs or some other team that wants me but can't logistically make it work yet figures it out. Then I am signing there as soon as they offer the same or a better contract than the White Sox. There are numerous arguments as to why neither team will be able to work, and they are indeed good arguments, but I think there will eventually be a moment where one of the owners of these teams realizes that a young stud is literally standing outside my door waiting for me to let him in, and they will find a way to make it happen. I would absolutely love to be proven wrong, but while my heart says Harper signs here, the brain disagrees strongly. In short, yes, we are being silly. But stranger things have happened.

/thread

Well this conflicts everything I thought I knew regarding JR's relationship with Scott Boras. Or maybe it was KW I was thinking of...

Gotta hope Harper likes the outlook of our talent then. But it wouldn't be surprising if he preferred a more established contender.

Will Boras be on MLB Network?

He's making concessions so that he can sign with a team other than the Sox. Sucks to suck. ?

To me that says that it definitely will be a drawn out process, well past the Winter Meetings. Or it means those guys are shut out from info and instead info is getting leaked to "friends of friends" when it probably shouldn't be.

I love that "Luke" guy flexing his confidence in his sources. Liam doing the same thing... "don't sleep on my sources". These guys are crazy.

Well, at least one of them is a liar. Probably both of them. This is just nuts.

I was going to say something very similar. He's still very young and has a ton of potential.. maybe not defensively.. but I don't think anyone would be shocked if he turned into the top bat in whatever league he ends up signing in.

If I were more of a gambler, and looked at the scenario as it is, I might. Especially if I was given nice odds. But I wouldn't bet a lot.