SHOCKING REVELATION: Bryce Harper Is The Perfect Player To Build A Franchise Around
Tim Nwachukwu. Getty Images.Last night I watched Bryce Harper and the Philadelphia Phillies cream pie the Atlanta Braves again to move within one game of their 2nd straight World Series NLCS:
It's such a love/hate thing for me anytime Harper does something sweet. I LOVE Bryce Harper the baseball player. He plays hard nosed yet under control and was the best thing to ever happen to the Phillies organization. Signing Harper when they did showed the Baseball Gods they were serious about winning and thus far have been blessed with a lot of wins and potentially a 2nd straight World Series birth because of it.
Who wouldn't want this guy on their team???
Not sure. He's the absolute epitome of a franchise cornerstone fucking dude and he respects and embraces that role as best as he possibly can. He's a goddamn perfect baseball player and is everything you'd want to build around.
Oh actually I forgot… the White Sox just fucking ghosted him like he was some Tinder date that was 300 pounds heavier in person than in their pictures:
And in hind sight, that was where the rebuild failed. Instead of inking Bryce Harper to what's already a WILDLY below market deal, they instead rode with…
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- Ryan Cordell in 2019. He's not in baseball anymore
- Nomar Mazara and Adam Engel in 2020. Mazara is out of baseball and Engel played 5 games in 2023
- Adam Eaton, Adam Engel and Leury Garcia in 2021. Eaton and Garcia are out of baseball as well.
- AJ Pollock, Adam Engel, Leury Garcia, Gavin Sheets and Andrew Vaughn in 2022. Pollock is cooked and Vaughn/Sheets weren't ever supposed to sniff the OF
- Gavin Sheets and Oscar Colas in 2023. They had a combined (guesstimate) 30 wRC+ this year
So since 2019 and passing on Bryce Harper, a future Hall of Famer, franchise cornerstone and all around STUD on and off the diamond, the White Sox opted to roll with 7-8 guys that are currently out of baseball, will be out of baseball soon, or were 1B masquerading as OF due to a lack of depth.
It makes me fucking sick. It truly does. Every time I think about the White Sox, which is still wildly too much considering the pain they cause me, I try to find the tipping point and/or first sign that Jerry and his front office were unserious about winning anything of substance. In hind sight, it was completely GHOSTING Bryce Harper after introducing him to Jim Thome and decorating the fucking Jordan statue at the United Center:
But hey - 28 other teams didn't ink Harper at a WILDLY BELOW MARKET DEAL either, so it's not just the White Sox who are clowns, at least in this instance. At least they can FINALLY right their wrong and go after the biggest free agent ever, right? I mean they are DYING for LH power and SP depth… Ohtani would fit RIGHT the fuck in on this team.
Oh wait, Jerry's already breaking CBA rules and publicly stating he won't go after him or anyone else any good:
Instead, in order to really REALLY flick the fans in the nuts, he's gonna allow his new GM and 2nd year manager potentially Royal-fy the roster even more:
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First off, this article is complete and total click bait. The Salvy/Whit rumors have been floated for months and this isn't new news. It's just a way to rile people up and get clicks. Just know that going into this fucking RANT that I'm gonna continue on with about the Chicago White Sox.
It's very funny to me: the White Sox do these sort of fan surveys through the media and those surveys are always conducted by the same two people: Bob Nightengale and Bruce Levine. They'll lob shit out like…hiring Tony LaRussa before ANYONE - even the Rosenthals and Passans of the world - see it coming. Same thing just recently happened with the Getz promotion. That was floated by Nightengale before anyone else.
Point is is this: the White Sox know there's going to be a reaction of some kinda when news like this is floated via Nightengale and in this story's case, Levine. They then choose to ignore how pissed off their little media surveys make their consumer base. They (Reinsdorf) know(s) all. We don't know shit. Duh.
For instance, NOBODY wanted to hire Tony LaRussa. NOBODY thought Chris Getz was deserving of a promotion. In fact, most people thought he should have been fired, let alone named GM.
BY THE WAY: Salvy Perez will make $20MM in 2024 and $22MM in 2025. Merrifield, a free agent, is projected to be about 2 years at $5MM a pop. Add that up and it's $25MM in 2024 and $27MM in 2025 for their services.
Bryce Harper will only make $27.5MM those years.
Paltry difference. But it's the White Sox way.
Whit would be a nice pickup though…If they were World Series contenders and he were the 26th man on the roster.
Jerry Reinsdorf's evil reign cannot end soon enough.