Machado signs with Padres 10/300

[NCsoxfan]

It still feels like to me that the Sox have the best offer but Manny/agent don’t want to bite as they’re holding out for more/a diff team. In other words we have to hold out hope that the big guys don’t decide to spend.

i still contend that the Sox should overpay to make sure they get him. If they don’t, it’s likely they end up overpaying on a tier of FA’s far below him. Playing for a fair deal is being penny wise and pound foolish IMO

[caulfield12]

53 minutes ago, NCsoxfan said:

It still feels like to me that the Sox have the best offer but Manny/agent don’t want to bite as they’re holding out for more/a diff team. In other words we have to hold out hope that the big guys don’t decide to spend.

i still contend that the Sox should overpay to make sure they get him. If they don’t, it’s likely they end up overpaying on a tier of FA’s far below him. Playing for a fair deal is being penny wise and pound foolish IMO

1) There might not be any left to spend on at that point.

2) Hahn will have a very difficult time getting fans to buy into moves for players like Moustakas/Markakis/Adam Jones/Marwin Gonzalez and Miley/Gio/Pomeranz without Machado.   The reaction from the fanbase will be lukewarm, AT BEST.

[caulfield12]

Examining the role of 'Mystery Team' as the Machado and Harper markets drag in a stagnant MLB offseason

 

But just for the sake of argument, let's say that bringing up Mystery Team is nothing more than a negotiation ploy by other interested parties. Could you really blame them? The highest bid made public so far for Machado is a seven-year, $175 million offer by the White Sox. Machado's agent Dan Lozano blasted reports of that offer as "inaccurate" and "reckless."

Giancarlo Stanton, a terrific power hitter whose overall game doesn't approach Machado's (Machado dwarfs Stanton in Wins Above Replacement over the past four seasons) is playing on a contract worth almost twice as much as that supposed $175 million White Sox offer. Lozano's client is a durable star in his mid-20s who rakes, plays excellent defense, and who many observers believed could challenge or beat Stanton's record $325 million deal, yet here we are. Meanwhile, Lozano's also locked in a competition with superagent Scott Boras, whose own client Bryce Harper has also been rumored in the past to be a candidate to set the new all-time record for biggest contract in baseball.

Making matters worse for Lozano's client is a murderers' row of possible reasons to explain why no team has stepped up with the kind of premium offer the baseball world long expected.

Today's GMs are just really, really, really smart and risk-averse, we're told. No wait, maybe it's that Machado has a bad attitude, as evidenced by his infamous "Johnny Hustle" comment during the World Series. Maybe it's just that not trying to win for a few years has become an acceptable, even admired tactic, prompting gobs of teams to lay down their arms and not bid on a ham sandwich, let alone a marquee free agent. Or maybe, as another agent recently claimed, it's that teams are flat out colluding against players in an effort to drive down salaries. Could you blame Lozano, or a distant relative, if he were to plant a few Mystery Team seeds out there?

Or let's say you're the Nationals. Your big divisional rival's owner has said he's prepared to spend money, "and maybe even be a little bit stupid about it." That owner has Machado at the top of his team's shopping list. Could you blame the Nats for sprinkling a little Mystery Team pixie dust out there? Ah, but that division rival is also interested in a player Washington likes, with both clubs rumored to be after Harper. So maybe it's another hungry division rival trying to sow chaos by invoking multiple Mystery Teams that could be in on both Machado and Harper.

If anything, we might need more Mystery Teams to move the market along.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/examining-the-role-of-mystery-team-as-the-machado-and-harper-markets-drag-in-a-stagnant-mlb-offseason/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[caulfield12]

MLB GMs make sense of the Bryce Harper and Manny Machado market, and the changing dynamics of free agency

What do the people who run front offices have to say about some of the market's shifting trends?

 

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-gms-make-sense-of-the-bryce-harper-and-manny-machado-market-and-the-changing-dynamics-of-free-agency/

 

But one executive from a smaller-market team said he sees bigger-market clubs as being more prudent now too. "It certainly wouldn't surprise me if high-end guys have a harder time finding irrational spenders early in the offseason going forward. As a group, the people running big market teams now are pretty different than the group that ran them 10-plus years ago."

Moving beyond Machado and Harper, one GM said he doesn't see this winter's market as abnormally slow to develop. Instead, he says, this is now the new normal.

"GMs are a different breed today than they were 10 years ago," he said. "They are less willing to sacrifice the medium- and long-term health of the franchise in exchange for a short-term benefit."

The result, one GM says, could be more potential bargains for patient shoppers. "More of an opportunity for us. It would be nice to know more of your roster before March 1, but not necessary. And, it's worked out pretty well for us a couple of times in recent years to be patient."

...

One National League front-office member said the longer wait time could lead to a glut of teams trying to land the same bargains, with unintended consequences. "Small-market teams always want access to bargains. I'm honestly not sure if there are more true bargain opportunities now than there were in the past, though -- if the reason the market is slow is that teams value players more efficiently now and players simply haven't adjusted to the lack of irrational spenders, it stands to reason that it actually will be harder to find great deals, because many teams will be competing for those."

Edited January 22, 2019 by caulfield12

[smellysox]

On 1/19/2019 at 7:40 PM, Heads22 said:

 

 

This is Not a new tweet. Just a reminder if there is ever any doubt that creeps in with all of this- a little WSD to lift the spirits! (This was only 8 pages ago or 2 days - however you want to look at it)

It does give me some hope.

Edited January 22, 2019 by smellysox

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, smellysox said:

This is Not a new tweet. Just a reminder if there is ever any doubt that creeps in with all of this- a little WSD to lift the spirits! (This was only 8 pages ago or 2 days - however you want to look at it)

It does give me some hope.

About as uplifting as Josh Groban for four hours on a road trip...

[maxjusttyped]

Is today the day..... someone has a tweet that causes this thread to start moving again?

[smellysox]

10 minutes ago, maxjusttyped said:

Is today the day..... someone has a tweet that causes this thread to start moving again?

No. If you're referring to my post. That tweet is from Saturday. Just a reminder that WSD is excited about Manny. 

[Ross Gload Fan]

Well I definitely had a dream about us signing Machado today, so thats gotta mean something.

[Bob Sacamano]

3 minutes ago, Ross Gload Fan said:

Well I definitely had a dream about us signing Machado today, so thats gotta mean something.

I've had like 3 of those over the past month. It means nothing 

[CWSpalehoseCWS]

Man, I don’t know if this silence is a good thing or bad thing. Wish this saga would end already. 

[NCsoxfan]

7 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

1) There might not be any left to spend on at that point.

2) Hahn will have a very difficult time getting fans to buy into moves for players like Moustakas/Markakis/Adam Jones/Marwin Gonzalez and Miley/Gio/Pomeranz without Machado.   The reaction from the fanbase will be lukewarm, AT BEST.

All the more reason why they need to overpay to make sure they get him

[Vote4Pedro]

8 minutes ago, CWSpalehoseCWS said:

Man, I don’t know if this silence is a good thing or bad thing. Wish this saga would end already. 

I live by the motto that no news is good news so I’m going with it in this case as well.

[Special K]

4 minutes ago, CWSpalehoseCWS said:

Man, I don’t know if this silence is a good thing or bad thing. Wish this saga would end already. 

It's a bad thing.  If nobody is showing strong interest but for the Sox, now is the time to pounce.  They need to up the ante and get Manny while there is no competition.  The fact that he remains unsigned simply tells me the Sox haven't made a lucrative enough offer to get him.  The longer this drags on, the more likely it is a mystery team jumps in or he takes a shorter deal to play with the Yankees or some other better team.

The Sox do not have room to "stand tough" in negotiations to try and get him on a bargain simply because no other team is interested.  From Manny's eyes, the Sox are a terrible 100 loss team that is basically irrelevant in their own City.  There's no rush to take a mediocre offer -- even if it's the best offer out there.

If it turns out the Sox were only offering $200 million, the FO is a complete joke.  That was never going to be enough for him -- just enough to say we were in contention.  And we will have blown a major opportunity.  All this other garbage about signing his friends will have been a bigger joke too.  

[Justinsettle]

9 minutes ago, Special K said:

It's a bad thing.  If nobody is showing strong interest but for the Sox, now is the time to pounce.  They need to up the ante and get Manny while there is no competition.  The fact that he remains unsigned simply tells me the Sox haven't made a lucrative enough offer to get him.  The longer this drags on, the more likely it is a mystery team jumps in or he takes a shorter deal to play with the Yankees or some other better team.

The Sox do not have room to "stand tough" in negotiations to try and get him on a bargain simply because no other team is interested.  From Manny's eyes, the Sox are a terrible 100 loss team that is basically irrelevant in their own City.  There's no rush to take a mediocre offer -- even if it's the best offer out there.

If it turns out the Sox were only offering $200 million, the FO is a complete joke.  That was never going to be enough for him -- just enough to say we were in contention.  And we will have blown a major opportunity.  All this other garbage about signing his friends will have been a bigger joke too.  

How do you know that we haven’t offered more?  The negotiations would probably be the same.  Machado and Harper have nothing to lose by waiting as long as possible.  None of the teams are really in a position to be making deadline demands unless they basically bid on themselves and grossly over pay. 

[caulfield12]

15 minutes ago, Special K said:

It's a bad thing.  If nobody is showing strong interest but for the Sox, now is the time to pounce.  They need to up the ante and get Manny while there is no competition.  The fact that he remains unsigned simply tells me the Sox haven't made a lucrative enough offer to get him.  The longer this drags on, the more likely it is a mystery team jumps in or he takes a shorter deal to play with the Yankees or some other better team.

The Sox do not have room to "stand tough" in negotiations to try and get him on a bargain simply because no other team is interested.  From Manny's eyes, the Sox are a terrible 100 loss team that is basically irrelevant in their own City.  There's no rush to take a mediocre offer -- even if it's the best offer out there.

If it turns out the Sox were only offering $200 million, the FO is a complete joke.  That was never going to be enough for him -- just enough to say we were in contention.  And we will have blown a major opportunity.  All this other garbage about signing his friends will have been a bigger joke too.  

It’s almost feeling like the government shutdown...no resolution in sight, both sides are dug in and getting more stubborn/intransigent by the minute.   Machado shouldn’t sign anything for less than $225-250 million, period.  That’s $100-125 million less than everyone thought he was going to receive...and it’s not like he’s 31.  Heck, it’s not like his fWAR values aren’t much greater than Stanton’s.

[Special K]

4 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

It’s almost feeling like the government shutdown...no resolution in sight, both sides are dug in and getting more stubborn/intransigent by the minute.   Machado shouldn’t sign anything for less than $225-250 million, period.  That’s $100-125 million less than everyone thought he was going to receive...and it’s not like he’s 31.  Heck, it’s not like his fWAR values aren’t much greater than Stanton’s.

That's exactly why the Sox should pay up.  Every report we've seen suggests the max offer the Sox have made is $250... and even this number has been strongly contested and its been suggested the Sox offer is closer $175.  Just pay the man his $300 and get it done.  The difference in money saved is not even comparable to the difference his presence will make to our franchise and rebuild.  

[caulfield12]

Escape Room 2:  Liberate Manny Machado from NYC

 

You would be able to understand not bidding against yourself...but we’ve already spent $13 million, so let’s say that they’re currently at $215 million as their top bid because that’s the midpoint between high and low estimates ($170-260).    

Why not simply ask Lozano what it would take to get him to sign today?

Whatever they ask...let’s say it is $350 million for their counteroffer over ten years, then you cut that difference in half and get to $282.5 as a very fair and reasonable offer (depending on the opt outs.)

Somehow, this has to get settled at $275-305 million, unless someone gives Harper an insane number (what seems like it today, at least) like $375-400 million.

 

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by caulfield12

[bschmaranz]

4 minutes ago, Special K said:

That's exactly why the Sox should pay up.  Every report we've seen suggests the max offer the Sox have made is $250... and even this number has been strongly contested and its been suggested the Sox offer is closer $175.  Just pay the man his $300 and get it done.  The difference in money saved is not even comparable to the difference his presence will make to our franchise and rebuild.  

All I can say is I'm glad you're not in the room.  It's a business, you don't pay more than the market dictates, especially when you don't have an open checkbook.  

[Special K]

1 minute ago, bschmaranz said:

All I can say is I'm glad you're not in the room.  It's a business, you don't pay more than the market dictates, especially when you don't have an open checkbook.  

Your assumption is based on the belief that all buyers are equal.  We are not a destination players want to go play at.  We lost 100 games last year and are irrelevant in our own city.  If the money is close, we will lose regardless of whether we have his brother-in-law.  We have to outbid by a lot to win.  It's not letting the market dictate.  And if we don't have an open checkbook, why is our payroll at like $18 million next year.  

[caulfield12]

8 minutes ago, bschmaranz said:

All I can say is I'm glad you're not in the room.  It's a business, you don't pay more than the market dictates, especially when you don't have an open checkbook.  

This is all fine and good, unless trying to save $15-25 million loses you Machado to another team, while you’ve already committed to another $20 million on your roster for Jay, Alonso and Castillo EXPRESSLY to entice Machado.

[bschmaranz]

5 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

This is all fine and good, unless trying to save $15-25 million loses you Machado to another team, while you’ve already committed to another $20 million on your roster for Jay, Alonso and Castillo EXPRESSLY to entice Machado.

I get that. But if we're talking $50+ million, that's a lot of money, especially for a team that again, has a budget.  That's the CF we need, that's the other arm in the rotation we could use.

And to respond to Special K's comment, none of those caviar teams are bidding here.  We're bidding against ourselves or another "deplorables" like the Padres or Phillies.  If the Yankees were in it and willing to go deep, then yeah, if we really want Manny that bad, you go with desperation money.

Edited January 22, 2019 by bschmaranz

[caulfield12]

Just now, bschmaranz said:

I get that. But if we're talking $50+ million, that's a lot of money, especially for a team that again, has a budget.  That's the CF we need, that's the other arm in the rotation we could use.

And to respond to Special K's comment, none of those caviar teams are bidding here.  We're bidding against ourselves or another "deplorable" like the Padres or Phillies.  If the Yankees were in it and willing to go deep, then yeah, if we really want Manny that bad, you go with desperation money.

True, but Machado also makes it MUCH more likely you can get all that money back and more starting in 2025 when you renegotiate the t.v. deal with a winning/successful organization in place finally.

Without that whale, the whole proposition becomes much iffier.   It almost forces Jimenez and Cease to be absolute studs, or the #3 pick...or for us to get a whale next offseason when the big spenders will all be out again, at least more so than this cycle.

[IowaPG]

January 22nd.. The free agent all star team could win a division at this point

[bschmaranz]

1 minute ago, caulfield12 said:

True, but Machado also makes it MUCH more likely you can get all that money back and more starting in 2025 when you renegotiate the t.v. deal with a winning/successful organization in place finally.

Without that whale, the whole proposition becomes much iffier.   It almost forces Jimenez and Cease to be absolute studs, or the #3 pick...or for us to get a whale next offseason when the big spenders will all be out again, at least more so than this cycle.

Alright, you've convinced me good sir, offer him $326 million.  And then when Lozano says "well we want 400" , then we'll sit here and speculate and wig out for another 6 weeks anyways.  ?

(And before people respond with insanity, I'm kidding)