Passan/Gomez: The White Sox Offered Manny 8 Years, $250MM; Nightengale: Fuck You, No They Didn't
Weird end to the weekend in White Sox Land last night. Just as we were finishing up laughing at Alshon and figuring out where in the fuck Julie is in True Detective, Jeff Passan drops this bombshell:
Which goes against what Levine has been told:
What Ryan McGuffey said in the White Sox Talk podcast:
And what I’ve heard, as detailed in this blog:
Long story short, there is very good reason to believe the Sox are only at 7 years with Machado and/or Harper. But that might be all they need to be at. Why pay Machado 8/$250MM when 7/$220MM is the highest bid? Makes zero sense. They will budge if necessary, but it’s not necessary.
And repeat after me: nobody is signing both Machado and Harper. It is not happening. Especially not Philly, who has Trout in the crosshairs in 2 years.
Anyways, moving on. The rebuild has turned White Sox fans into a really smart fanbase. Of course we have meatheads amongst us like that fat asshole Kenwo, but we largely understand baseball finances, economics, supply/demand, market fluctuation, and other shit a lot of other fanbases can’t grasp ***COUGH YANKEES FANS COUGH***. It’s made me a smarter fan in every single way. Which is why it’s easy for us all to break down media ploys like we saw last night between Passan and Nightengale.
Which brings me to my next point, and I know what you’re thinking: “BUT WSD WHO IS RIGHT? PASSAN OR NIGHTENGALE?!?”
This is how I see last night having played out:
1. Passan/Gomez: Sox at $8 years, $250MM offer
Makes sense for all parties involved. But it STINKS as a Dan Lozano plant trying to get the Phillies to up their ante before they ink Harper. Was Passan told this? 100%. Is it correct? Ehh…. I’m guessing it’s a last minute leverage trying to scrape together an extra year/extra $30MM from Philly, even though they have yet to offer him a contract.
2. Kenny sees the Passan/Gomez leak, hit’s up his boy Bobby N, who then tells Passan to fuck off:
Now this reeeeeeeks as a Kenny Williams leak to me. The White Sox know the Phillies have yet to officially offer Manny and are all in on Harper. The Sox, at this point, have pretty much every ounce of leverage in the Machado sweepstakes. In checks Nightengale again this morning:
The White Sox front office has to be furious that their supposed 8 year offer leaked. Why wouldn’t they be? They are holding strong at 7 years apparently and do NOT want to outbid themselves. Again, why would they be willing to go to 8 years and extra money if they don’t actually have to? They lose leverage when negotiating with Lozano if so.
So who is correct? Well… neither. I don’t believe either reporter is flat out lying. They’re reporting what they were told by their #sources. Ultimate media Mexican standoff between the Sox and their mouthpieces and Lozano and his mouthpieces. Nightengale has a reputation for being a quid pro quo journalist, so if he immediately shot down Passan’s report, the White Sox wanted him to.
Accordingly, Hector Gomez has NO scratch in the game. At least we have no reason to believe he does. That’s what is weird about this to me – if we’re going to tend to “believe” any of these tweets last night, I’d say Gomez is the winner. Passan/Nightengale could perhaps be compromised in this instance. Passan by Lozano, Nightengale by the Sox. We have no reason to believe Gomez has any tie to either. So…. 8/$250MM is what I tend to believe is on the table at this moment, or at the very least what they’re willing to go to if need be. And if that’s the case, it’d be an AAV record.
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Subsequently, what Lozano does NOT want is Harper signing with Philly 1st. That’d take every single team sans the White Sox out of the running. His market value would plummet. Reports are that Harper and Philly had an incredible meeting in Vegas on Saturday and could be wed sooner than later, so Lozano might be in “fuck, we gotta take this offer” mode. At least I hope he is because this offseason is driving me insane.
My guess? The White Sox sign Manny by Wednesday afternoon for ~8/$260 or so. Or maybe it’ll take until spring training. I have no fucking clue at this point.
Kinda hilarious that the Sox almost might win his bidding by default, truth be told. “But WSD what about the mystery team?”
There is no fucking mystery team you degenerate illiterates. Never has been, never was. It’s a apparition. A ghost. It doesn’t fucking exist. And don’t you fucking DARE say the Yankees.
TL – DR we’re in the final stages of media negotiations, and I think this wraps up this week (probably not though, fuck)