Breaking Down Bruce Levine's "Sox Will Not Go Over 7 Years On Harper/Machado" Tweet
White Sox fans are losing their goddamn MINDS over this tweet out of Levine yesterday. I chose to ignore it because I thought it’d be easy to, but everyone and their mother was DMing me what the fuck is happening.
I am going to break it down for everyone so we’re all on the same page. Gonna bullet point it out so it’s easiest, but this is how I see it:
– Bruce Levine has been covering Chicago sports for about 100 years. He knows people. Someone very, very high up in the White Sox organization told him this. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Jerry Reinsdorf himself who was the “leak”
– The largest contract ever doled out to a hitter is in length and dollars 13 years, $325MM that was signed by Giancarlo Stanton when he was 25, extending him through his age 39 season
– The largest contract in terms of AAV ever given out to a player is Zack Greinke who makes about $35MM/ year
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– Scott Boras and Dan Lozano at the very least are going to do whatever they can to land contracts for their clients that out AAV Grienke’s deal, and Boras is probably looking to beat both the length and AAV records for a contract
– Supply and demand: there are two exceptionally good baseball players that are free agents at 26. That doesn’t happen in baseball. These guys are going to get fucking paidddddddd
– The White Sox, from everything I know, love their position with Machado right now. Not so much Harper, but they do feel they have an excellent shot with landing the former. They have a seat at the table, and it’s a extremely limited seat. That’s a grade A stone cold fact. Play the harp, call it #ScoopCity if you’d like. The Sox have a shot with Machado, and a good one
– Bruce Levine says the White Sox won’t go over 7 years for a contract for Machado or Harper. Well they wouldn’t have a shot at either unless they BLOW BY the AAV record. MLB players do NOT want to become free agents at 33. They’d be in baseball purgatory if that were a fact. Both Machado and Harper will be looking for deals that more than likely take them through the end of their careers, or at the very least close to it. Not 33 when there’s zero chance for a 2nd long term deal.
– I’ve detailed why the Sox are in a good spot to land Machado or Harper before. You can read that here. Thanks for clicking. Well they’re in a good spot because they should have a theoretical open checkbook. 40% of all contracts that have been signed that have a value of $100MM or more have been signed by players on to teams that are sub .500 the season before the contract was signed. That said, it’d be a leap of faith for Harper/Machado to hop on board a 62 win team that is still a year away from competing
– Jerry Reinsdorf is a stone cold assassin as a businessman. He’s got a tough “fuck you” attitude. Well methinks Jerry Reinsdorf and his old pal Scotty Boras got together, Reinsdorf gave him a blank check, and Boras said “hold on, let me think about it”, and that Boras was looking for infinite money and using the Sox open check book as money. This is what Reinsdord will NOT allow to happen. “You gonna use me as leverage to get your client extra cash? Fuck you. I’ll put the weight on you right back. I’ll suppress the fuck out of your client’s market value and if he ends up signing for a lot less than I just offered you, you’d look really, really bad you cock sucker. And this will be the start of a trend. Look what you just did to Mike Moustakas when you had him turn down a QO a year ago. You’re losing your luster”
– This is all a big, long, boring, and more than likely anti-climactic negotiation that’s using the media as the vehicle to deliver information to/from teams to players. It’s a game of poker and to me, each team is playing with their cards face up. Everything that is happening is so obvious
– Almost all info is a plant. It’s planted by an organization or agent. There are very few people who don’t have some sort of agenda when providing info. For me it’s to garnish a coveted retweet. For others, they do it so they can be owed a favor later. I’d say Rosenthal is the one and only national baseball writer who isn’t some mouthpiece.
– I will reiterate that the White Sox are in a great position to land Machado. Fantastic one at that
Long story short: don’t freak out about shit you see in the media for baseball hot stove season. I will tell you what to freak out about and what not to.