Dear FO: Harper VS Machado, Soxtalk Will Help You Decide

[TaylorStSox]

I don't think the Sox are in the position, or ever will be, to buy their franchise players. They have to produce them. Our free agent acquisitions should be the second and third tier types to fill roster holes. That's just the reality of our market position. If we buy a franchise player, and he fails, we're fucked for years. Too much risk for one player. 

[Jack Parkman]

35 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

 

What is the point of signing a guy for this roster with a 2-3 year opt out? If 2021 is our only legit competitive season out of the next 3, and you offer a 2 year opt out you've basically wasted the money, and if you offer a 3 year opt out then you're paying what, $80 million for what the guy does in 2021? 

If someone's going to offer a 2 year opt out, I'll just sign the guy after 2020.

There is no point, which means it doesn't make sense for either party. Sox aren't a fit for Harper/Machado 

[ron883]

Why are people so convinced teams will be offering buyous at year 2-3?

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

10 minutes ago, Hot FiRe said:

Why are people so convinced teams will be offering buyous at year 2-3?

Teams don't offer them. Players negotiate for them.  Player options  if they have a few spectacular years and baseball inflation goes up and voila you're a FA free again if you want to be for even more money. . 2nd year seems unlikely but 3rd and 4th year seems pretty likely in a young superstar's contract. If you want me then give me the option of making more money elsewhere in a few years.

[Balta1701]

45 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Teams don't offer them. Players negotiate for them.  Player options  if they have a few spectacular years and baseball inflation goes up and voila you're a FA free again if you want to be for even more money. . 2nd year seems unlikely but 3rd and 4th year seems pretty likely in a young superstar's contract. If you want me then give me the option of making more money elsewhere in a few years.

Teams will also be more willing to offer them in exchange for lower dollar totals in the first few years because it can turn those first few years into more of a bargain if the player opts out of the highest dollar amount year.

[Dick Allen]

1 hour ago, Hot FiRe said:

Why are people so convinced teams will be offering buyous at year 2-3?

Because it has become a trend and benefits the player. Why would anyone think opt outs won’t be required to sign any of these guys?

it just takes one team to offer one. The only way you will be able to avoid one is if you outbid everyone by a rather large amount. For me it would depend on exactly when the opt out or outs occurred. If it was 4 or 5 years down the line, take your chances. 2 years, 3 years, that is pretty tough. You would also need to study what would potentially be available the years they can opt out, as the money could be re directed. 

 

Who knows. One thing Machado won’t have is the QO. So you save a draft pick signing him.  I don’t think the Sox will sign him, but they say Castillo is tight with him. Another guy who knows him from Miami is Ozzie. As much controversy as there has been with Ozzie, he still loves the White Sox. It would shock me, but I think the chances are a lot farther away from zero than normal.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Dick Allen

[Thad Bosley]

3 hours ago, TaylorStSox said:

I don't think the Sox are in the position, or ever will be, to buy their franchise players. They have to produce them. Our free agent acquisitions should be the second and third tier types to fill roster holes. That's just the reality of our market position. If we buy a franchise player, and he fails, we're fucked for years. Too much risk for one player. 

Thank you for reminding us all of the horrible built-in disadvantage the Sox have of playing in Chicago.  It’s utterly amazing how they manage to even survive sometimes.  

[TaylorStSox]

47 minutes ago, Fan O'Faust said:

Thank you for reminding us all of the horrible built-in disadvantage the Sox have of playing in Chicago.  It’s utterly amazing how they manage to even survive sometimes.  

What's the Sox market share of the Chicagoland area? 

[Jack Parkman]

12 minutes ago, TaylorStSox said:

What's the Sox market share of the Chicagoland area? 

Going by Twitter followers, the Sox have roughly 36% of the Cubs fanbase. Meaning the Sox have 908k twitter followers and the Cubs have 2.5 million. 

My first set was old data. This is correct

Edited September 29, 2018 by Jack Parkman

[TaylorStSox]

17 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

Going by Twitter followers, the Sox have roughly 36% of the Cubs fanbase. Meaning the Sox have 908k twitter followers and the Cubs have 2.5 million. 

My first set was old data. This is correct

Okay, so if you have roughly 1/3rd of the Chicago market, I don't want to hear shit about having the advantage of playing in Chicago. The Sox simply can't afford to invest so many of their assets into 1 player. That's just foolish. They need to develop their stars and fill holes wisely in the FA market. 

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, TaylorStSox said:

Okay, so if you have roughly 1/3rd of the Chicago market, I don't want to hear shit about having the advantage of playing in Chicago. The Sox simply can't afford to invest so many of their assets into 1 player. That's just foolish. They need to develop their stars and fill holes wisely in the FA market. 

If they have done their job in this rebuilding, then filling holes wisely IS finding one or two stars at the positions we didn't manage to fill. If they have not done their job well in this rebuilding, then they will have so many holes that they won't be able to fill them in the FA (Or trade) market, the classic 2015/2016 situation.

[TaylorStSox]

14 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

If they have done their job in this rebuilding, then filling holes wisely IS finding one or two stars at the positions we didn't manage to fill. If they have not done their job well in this rebuilding, then they will have so many holes that they won't be able to fill them in the FA (Or trade) market, the classic 2015/2016 situation.

I totally disagree. A team with the Sox' market simply has to develop their stars and not sink 1/4 of a billion dollars or more into 1 player. It's just foolish. Develop your stars/franchise players and invest in the holes. 

[TaylorStSox]

Another beautiful thing about baseball is that you don't need elite stars to win World Series. You need production from every position and elite pitching. There's countless examples. 

Edited September 29, 2018 by TaylorStSox

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, TaylorStSox said:

Another beautiful thing about baseball is that you don't need elite stars to win World Series. You need production from every position and elite pitching. There's countless examples. 

FWIW, this wasn't how the Astros won last year or how the Cubs won. They had elite young stars, with some notably weak positions offset by those stars, and strong pitching. 

[Jerksticks]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

FWIW, this wasn't how the Astros won last year or how the Cubs won. They had elite young stars, with some notably weak positions offset by those stars, and strong pitching. 

The cubs actually had a magic horseshoe pitching staff that had career years across the board.  Similar to 2005

[TaylorStSox]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

FWIW, this wasn't how the Astros won last year or how the Cubs won. They had elite young stars, with some notably weak positions offset by those stars, and strong pitching. 

The Astros and Cubs won by getting their stars via FA? Really? They didn't win by producing their own stars? 

 

*edit*

I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about my original point, about the Sox needing to produce their own franchise players, not get them in FA. 

Edited September 30, 2018 by TaylorStSox

[Balta1701]

2 hours ago, TaylorStSox said:

The Astros and Cubs won by getting their stars via FA? Really? They didn't win by producing their own stars? 

 

*edit*

I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about my original point, about the Sox needing to produce their own franchise players, not get them in FA. 

yeah reread. They can't do what the White Sox tried to do in '15 and '16, have 5+ crappy positions where they try to win them all with the free agent market. All of these teams tell us that it is ok to go for a few positions via FA, but you have to be ready for one or two of your big money FAs to be surprisingly terrible. If you play for 5-8 positions, then most of them will bust and your team will as well. Your team needs to be a 90 win team from what you develop, winning the division and a playoff spot without that help, and the FA and Trade guys you acquire at 2 or 3 positions have to be the guys that push you to 95-105 wins depending on how they do. 

[Leonard Zelig]

6 hours ago, TaylorStSox said:

Okay, so if you have roughly 1/3rd of the Chicago market, I don't want to hear shit about having the advantage of playing in Chicago. The Sox simply can't afford to invest so many of their assets into 1 player. That's just foolish. They need to develop their stars and fill holes wisely in the FA market. 

By those Twitter numbers the Sox have closer to 1/4 of the Chicago market.

[wrathofhahn]

Neither. None of us really have any idea how good some of these guys are in AA/AAA or where the needs will be in the next 2-3 years. Signing someone now seems like a really bad decision.

Also I'd rather use that kind of money to retain our own guys and fill in any holes with productive vets. 10 year deals is just a terrible idea.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

15 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

Going by Twitter followers, the Sox have roughly 36% of the Cubs fanbase. Meaning the Sox have 908k twitter followers and the Cubs have 2.5 million. 

My first set was old data. This is correct

So are we assuming every one of those followers on twitter are all from the Chicago area ?

Edited September 30, 2018 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[Jack Parkman]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

So are we assuming every one of those followers on twitter are all from the Chicago area ?

Of course not, but it is the best way to judge proportion of the market. Extrapolation isn't perfect. Actually if you use the combo of both fanbases, the Sox have 25% of the market. the 36% number is % of the fanbase(908k/2.5M) where the 25% number comes from total followers of both teams(908k/3.4M) 

If that is the accurate data, and the Cubs hold 75% of the Chicago baseball market, you do the math, and the Sox market is about 2.2 M which is one of the smallest in Baseball. 

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by Jack Parkman

[Jose Abreu]

https://deadspin.com/heres-facebooks-2015-mlb-fandom-map-1695021778

 

This is from 2015 but is relevant to discussion. Seems like the White Sox control more of the actual city of Chicago (as opposed to the rest of IL) than people may think. 

[Jose Abreu]

And here's another, clearer one from 2014: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/24/upshot/facebook-baseball-map.html#6,39.284,-94.931

[TaylorStSox]

3 hours ago, Jose Abreu said:

And here's another, clearer one from 2014: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/24/upshot/facebook-baseball-map.html#6,39.284,-94.931

By that chart, it looks like the Cardinals have more marketshare in the Chicagoland area than the Sox. 

[Panerista]

For this org you can go either way.  Machado makes you better on both sides of the ball but Harper puts fans in seats.