Based on their public-facing quotes, Manny Machado signing elsewhere for a reasonable market rate was not the worst-case scenario for White Sox players. The fact that he signed somewhere at least provides relief from what had been redundant yet understandable:
“What do you think?” [Yonder] Alonso said with a smile when asked if he was ready to be done with this line of questioning. [...]
“F--- yeah,” said Tim Anderson. “S---, maybe y’all can stop asking me now. I could care less about (Bryce) Harper and Machado’s situation. I know where we’re headed. We have a great group of guys here.
“We’re gonna be South Side regardless. Nobody’s decision determines what we got going on in this locker room. I feel we have a great group of guys here. We’re gonna do something special. The White Sox are moving in the right direction. One decision won’t dictate our season.”
Outside of quibbling with the idea of "right direction" -- they're going to need to show their work come late March -- I began to like the idea of Anderson's swag getting its own spotlight, if nothing else.
Then I saw this float by on Twitter:
Even if it weren't accompanied by "OMG THEY HAVE MANNY MACHADO," that "5.4" wounds me. When the White Sox' ZiPS projections come out, I'm guessing you're not going to get to 5.4 WAR from the top two White Sox, whether you're combining hitters or pitchers. I'm also guessing one of those hitters won't be on the roster Opening Day.
That's what the White Sox are missing out on -- well-rounded star projection being part of the expectations, not an upper-level outcome.
There really isn't a way to get over that, at least without invoking sour grapes. If Machado turns out to be a dud, it still doesn't reflect well on the White Sox' pro scouting, which is what undermined the last rebuild. If Machado is great, but eventually goes the way of most 10-year deals ... I just didn't care.
I never agonized over a 10-year commitment to Machado because so much can change over 10 years. It just might be hard to see that because, for the White Sox, nothing happened for them over the last 10 years. The Sox had they had the most dominant pitcher their franchise has ever seen, and yet they failed to make the postseason even once. Moreover, without Machado, the White Sox might come up well short of their Opening Day payroll from a decade ago:
- 2009: $96.1 million
- 2019: $84.1 million (projected)
And all the while, Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn remain the top two decision-makers under Jerry Reinsdorf.
I wanted the Sox to sign Machado for the same reason the Lerners wanted Jayson Werth for the Washington Nationals back in 2011. Werth signed for seven years and $126 million, the first major free agent signing of the Nationals era and a contract thought to be another Scott Boras miracle. While he was a little overpaid on the whole and was a liability over the last two seasons, he helped them get out of the NL East cellar and into regular postseason appearances, which allowed the Nats to hand out nine-figure contracts to Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Ryan Zimmerman.
I doubt the Lerners had any regrets about inefficiency, because the Nats after Werth in no way resembled the Nats before him. I thought Machado could do the same thing for the Sox. Bring him in to supplement some pre-arb stars, and maybe we never look at a $120 million payroll as ambitious again.
But given the way the Sox stopped short on Machado, and given reports like this one ...
... I'm not expecting them to ever outbid the league for a star player in his prime. It brought to mind a line from a Cigar Aficionado profile of Reinsdorf in 1995:
Throughout the fall and winter, he was still driven by the dream: to create a World Series winner in a business climate that made sense to him.
If the White Sox are to pursue top free agents without ever increasing the market's top line, they're going to have to get good first. If they have to get good first, they're going to have to convert on lesser free agent signings -- you know, the things that broke the first attempt at rebuilding. It doesn't reassure me when Hahn says "the money will be spent," because he'll be the one spending it. The truth remains that the successful rebuilding teams hit bottom and reached the top with new owners and new front offices.
The White Sox are trying to change. They've added to their R&D department, they've added scouts, they're integrating technology and those who can interpret it at the minor-league levels. Alas, until there's any success to point to, they look like firmware updates for internal components that can never be brought back to relevance. They're Major League Baseball's Blackberry, still bringing a product to market every year, but every headline garnered mostly acknowledges that they're still alive and nothing more.
The White Sox had an opportunity to force a reckoning with an exciting new wrinkle, but in the end, they let the Padres make Machado's decision an easy one. Now it's back to hoping that guys like Anderson, Yoan Moncada, Reynaldo Lopez and Eloy Jimenez can force everybody to reconsider them. Good things are still eminently possible, but it stings knowing it could've been so much easier.
