$300,000,000 ain’t nuthin’ but a number

Good day friends, it’s your old pal BeefLoaf and I’m ingesting just enough caffeine to keep my lids open and type this here “entry” into the old wordpress machine.  Just like all of yous (this is Bridgeport) I go through fits and starts of being enthused, amused, excited and thrilled, as well as frustrated, annoyed, scared and bored, with the whole MacHarper twitter rumor mill.  As fun as it is to see fake accounts or even real accounts make grand proclamations and then get dunked on until they have to deleted their accounts, it is even more fun for me to see grand proclamations by folks who TELL YOU that Player X won’t sign for X amount of years or less than X amount of money.  OR that the White Sox are idiots if they don’t just immediately write a check for $300M and “GET THIS OVER WITH!”

I see people with lots of followers writing shit like this, not the average fan that is #108ing by cutting loose eating some Punky’s Pizza and downing some Miller High Life bombers.  I get it, us 108ers have opinions about stuff as well, but you don’t really see us espousing an opinion on this thing at all.  Why?………

The 108ers have avant garde or even crazy opinions about lots of stuff.  Some of what we spout is just tongue-in-cheek and fun stuff we think will make you laugh (possibly), but other stuff we just tend to think differently than just about everyone else who likes to have opinions on stuff.  That’s where we are at with this negotiation.

Player X (meaning MacHarper) won’t sign for less than X amount of years!!

This claim is total bullshit and you can safely ignore anyone who says otherwise.  You have no idea what these negotiations look like because not only does the media only have a vague sense of what is being discussed, but we don’t have a good sense of what the limited amount of teams and players actually want.  As much as you don’t like it, the teams have as much control as the players do.  MacHarper aren’t going to sit out the 2019 season waiting for what they want, or will they?  MacHarper may want to play in a certain subset of cities or have a certain long-term plan in mind.  They might want an early escape hatch and the only team willing to provide that only wants to give them a certain amount of years or money.  They just might want the most money possible per season or possibly a wickedly front loaded contract that allows them to get in on the early ownership of an XFL II team.  Nobody really knows and anything we get in the media is hearsay.

Player X won’t take less than X amount of money!!!

Again, who the fuck knows.  If you only have a limited amount of teams / companies bidding on your services, you only have so much leverage, even if you have a very special set of skills (like MacHarper).  Maybe the 3 teams in the marketplace really do only want to spend X amount on your services.  You can stomp and kick and yell for your $300,000,000 (again, speculation) and never ever get it.  Maybe nobody values your services THAT MUCH.  Are you going to sit out?  Are you going to go on personal strike?  Or are you going to take (some made up estimate below $300,000,000) because it’s the best offer and you’d prefer to use your talents and skills instead of “making a point”.  I think you get the idea.

The White Sox should just write a check for $300,000,000 regardless of what the other teams are offering to get this over with.

I’ve seen more variants of this than any other thing and it is the most ludicrous thing I have seen.  I know, I know, it’s not my money and I am never trying to save billionaires a couple $20-$30 Mill…..BUT, the White Sox should be trying to hook one of these big fish for the LOWEST amount that they possibly can.  This way, they can allocate the remaining shekels that they didn’t spend on other players that make this franchise into a winner.  I know that’s sort of theory, but it is also practice.  It is okay for the White Sox to “wait it out” and use the resource of “time” to keep the final price of netting a big fish lower, even if it causes you to refresh twitter a couple thousand extra times in the interim.

Hang tight White Sox fans, keep your head on a swivel and always be #108ing, but be aware of folks who’s emotions are getting the best of them (and not in a fun, totally losing their mind way).

Lastly, if you want to hear more bullshit than you can possibly handle, subscribe to our YouTube channel.  We do post game shows of our podcast that don’t get published anywhere else, and we think you’ll enjoy them.