Yes, it's true what you've heard: Jon Jay and Manny Machado are friends. It's also true that Yonder Alonso is Machado's brother-in-law. Together, the three of them make up the "Miami Baseball Brotherhood" the White Sox are hoping they can reunite on the South Side.
This would all seem to be a page out of the book of scandalous college basketball recruiting: signing the brother of the kid you really want, giving jobs to people around one of the highest-rated recruits in the land. It might look like that from the outside — and it's inarguable that by adding Alonso and Jay that the White Sox can offer Machado something his other suitors cannot — but the White Sox insist that's not what they're doing.