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| Was there ever a chance that Manny Machado or … |
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| … Bryce Harper would have played in Chicago? |
SOME
EVEN MANAGE to come up with language much more blunt and vulgar – to the point where
I wouldn’t feel compelled repeating it here.
Yet
I can’t help but think those people are being ridiculous. In part because I
suspect many of the same individuals are the same people who spent the winter months
when ballplayer negotiations took place lambasting the very idea that these two
men were somehow worthy of the big-money, long-term deals they were demanding.
As
it turned out, Machado went with the San Diego Padres – which offered him a
10-year, $300 million deal. Harper this week got an even bigger contract; some
$330 million over 13 years with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Who,
of course, were the baseball franchise whose ownership said they were prepared
to spend “stupid” money in order to give themselves an injection of talent that
could make them a sudden championship contender.
THE
WHITE SOX never made a definitive offer to Harper, while the Machado deal was
for some $250 million – with other clauses that could have boosted the overall
cost to $350 million.
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| From journeyman outfielder to nondescript VP? |
In
theory, Machado could have made more money coming to Chicago, but chose San
Diego because he wanted the guaranteed payoff rather than the possibility of
more money.
Which
has some baseball fans determined to badmouth the South Side ball club by saying
the Sox were too amateurish to negotiate firmly – instead acting as though they
hoped to get some sort of discount to get Machado in the black-and-white
pinstripes of the Sox; rather than wearing the occasional brown-and-yellow
throwback uniforms that lead fans to joke about Taco Bell.
I
think such criticism is ridiculous – and not just because some of the same fans
seem like they’d criticize the Sox for doing a deal AND for not doing a deal.
IT
ACTUALLY MAKES me think that White Sox executive vice president Ken Williams
had a point when he told the Chicago Sun-Times that, “it’s a shame if it’s
being portrayed that we were on the cheap on this thing. That’s really
interesting because, holy shit, that’s a quarter of a billion dollars we
offered with a chance to be higher than what he’s getting.”
Then
again, there probably is an element of a baseball executive trying to downplay
the fact that he got beaten out for a ballplayer he wanted to acquire – not only
for his on-field talents but also for the large amount of publicity his
acquisition would have brought to Chicago.
Which,
I suspect, is what has many people eager to bad-mouth them. Or at least those
people whose baseball leanings make them delusional enough to root, root, root
for the Cubbies.
Perhaps
they didn’t like the idea of the White Sox flirting with baseball relevance –
and reminding people that Chicago IS a two-team town. No matter how much some
Cubs fans are insecure at the thought of anyone paying attention to any team
other than themselves.
NOT
THAT I’M intending to write an anti-Cubs diatribe here. It’s just that I’m not
bothered much by the fact that Machado turned down a White Sox offer and didn’t
get serious in trying to win over Harper.
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| Wasn't good enough to bring championship to Chgo |
I
still think that if all the rhetoric about the White Sox rebuilding themselves
into a serious championship contender has any truth to it, it’s going to be
because a significant share of those young minor leaguers already in the Sox
system actually turn out to be as good as speculated.
Acquiring
either of them would not, by itself, have turned the White Sox into a
championship team.
All
it would have done was created a deal that would have financially strapped the
White Sox for years to come – possibly thwarting any serious efforts to improve
the team in the future. As though what the Sox really need is to come up with
their own version of Ernie Banks – a star ballplayer whose career was wasted
away playing for Cubs teams that never won a thing.
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