The White Sox have a seat at the table for Manny Machado. That’s all we really know because reporters are tripping over themselves trying to nail down what exactly their offer has been for the free agent and the result is just making fans pissed off.
Here’s what’s happened just in the past four hours. First, ESPN’s Buster Olney confirmed a whole bunch of reports that said the White Sox were only offering Machado a seven year deal. Both national and local reporters were quick to tweet out that the offer was indeed seven years after Jeff Passan reported on Sunday night that the White Sox had an eight-year deal on the table.
Anyway, Olney has been the first to report a specific figure on the seven-year offer, as Bruce Levine and Bob Nightengale have only reported a range for the average annual value.
Olney said it’s for $175 million, which is ridiculously low.
The White Sox offer to Machado is for $175 million, over seven years. In some ways, their approach is like Boston's w/ J.D. Martinez last winter — the Red Sox offered $100 million and waited for two months. If CWS offer emerges as best, a big ? is: Would Machado/NYY re-engage?
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) January 16, 2019
Nightengale backed it up.
The #Whitesox made their 7-year, $175 million offer about two weeks ago and haven’t felt the need to alter it, and bid against themselves . Just like Martinez last year with #Redsox as @Buster_ESPN points out, whose only other known offer was a one year proposal from #Dbacks https://t.co/NJSiooQXep
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) January 16, 2019
And then Jon Heyman said that Machado’s agent is trying to top Giancarlo Stanton’s huge contract.
If Chisox offer to Machado really is 175M, that’s 150M-plus less than asking price. Multiple sources say his agent at different times has asked teams to “top Stanton.” Giancarlo deal was 325M. Quite a gap.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 16, 2019
That was a 13-year extension that the Marlins signed Stanton to, which has an average annual value of $25 million.
Anyway, now Heyman is refuting Olney’s $175 million offer, saying that according to his sources the White Sox have offered more.
hear that the rumor of a chisox 175M offer for 7 years for manny machado is not correct. am told it is "way off," though not sure exactly how off. I'd say offer has to be higher and almost surely begins with a 2.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 16, 2019
Meanwhile, during this entire time Passan has apparently doubled down on his report of the White Sox eight-year offer and Hector Gomez was the first to say it was worth $250 million. He’s also sticking to his sources.
SOURCE: The #WhiteSox have offered Manny Machado an eight-year, US$250 million deal, #Phillies still involved.
First to reported @JeffPassan.#ZDigital #ZDeportes @z101digital @ZDeportes
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) January 14, 2019
This report matches my source. https://t.co/AziKjE7Ka8
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) January 16, 2019
Just speculating here, but isn’t it kind of obvious that Machado’s camp doesn’t like the offers he’s getting, if there’s even more than one at this point, and is trying to drive up the price with these contract leaks?
And I know it’s been pretty frustrating for White Sox fans, but you can’t really blame Manny in this situation. He’s trying to cash in and right now it looks like teams are trying to get him below what his market value should be.
Seems like fans are going to keep waiting for Machado to sign.
