White Sox Miss Out On Free Agent Manny Machado, Who Reportedly Joins Padres For 10 Years, $300 Million
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The White Sox swung and missed on prized free-agent infielder Manny Machado, who reportedly has agreed to a 10-year, $300 million contract with the San Diego Padres.
According to published reports, Machado and the Padres agreed to the deal Tuesday. Machado's deal would be the second largest in baseball history, behind Giancarlo Stanton's 13-year $325 million extension with the Miami Marlins in 2015, and the most expensive ever for a free agent.
The White Sox had made signing Machado their biggest priority this offseason, and even went so far as to sign first baseman Yonder Alonso – Machado's brother in law – to a contract in December and outfielder Jon Jay – a good friend of Machado's – to a one-year deal last month. While the team has insisted those signings had nothing to do with Machado, those moves were widely seen as an effort to convince Machado to sign a deal with the White Sox.
Machado, 26, was one of the two biggest free agent prizes this offseason, alongside outfielder Bryce Harper, who remains unsigned.
A four-time All-Star, and two-time Gold Glove winner at third base, Machado has a .282 career batting average, .335 career on-base percentage, .487 career slugging percentage, and .822 career OPS. He has hit at least 33 home runs and 86 RBI each of the past four seasons in Baltimore.
Machado hit .297 last year and set career bests with 37 homers and 107 RBIs.
White Sox executive vice president Ken Williams told the Sun-Times he was "very surprised" by Machado signing with San Diego. While he acknowledged the White Sox were not willing to offer Machado a base salary of $300 million, he claimed the team's offer to Machado had the potential to pay him more than the Padres deal.
"If the acceptance of the offer that I'm seeing is true, then actually our offer had the opportunity for Manny to surpass that. But in the end we went after the guy and we didn't get him. We're disappointed but, hey, we are positioned. The reason why we were going after him in the first place is because we feel we are positioned to do some good things here going forward. We wanted to accelerate that to a large degree, and that's why we made the overture we did," he said.
The White Sox were hoping Machado's skills with his bat and glove would help their developing young core of players become a playoff contender earlier than expected.
It's unclear if the White Sox will now try to sign Harper, but he undoubtedly would be seeking a deal as rich as Machado's.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
