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Showing content with the highest reputation since 03/28/2023 in Posts

  1. Drunk or stoned would be the two most recommended ways.
    28 points
  2. Such brazen examples of theft should not be tolerated....but enough about Moncada's salary.
    21 points
  3. The Big Lie is Over Seven years ago, on December 6th, 2016, the White Sox traded the best pitcher who ever put a White Sox uniform on. This trade symbolized the end of an era of White Sox baseball. Rick Hahn stood up at the podium and began laying out his plans for the future of this organization. A team that had, as he put it, been in an endless loop of perpetual mediocrity had seen enough; it was time to push this organization into the 21st century! At that time, fans were all in. They understood that the operational baseline for which the organization had operated in the 1990’s and 2000’s would not produce the results this fanbase deserved. Not only were the White Sox going to invest in player development and prospects, but they were also going to analytically move the White Sox into the modern era of baseball. Rick Hahn was saying all the right things, and all of his trades after the Sale move were lauded as big wins for the White Sox. For the first time since the early 1990’s, the White Sox had a top 5 farm system. Additionally, they had acquired the number 1 prospect in baseball; at least, accordingly to publicly available prospect data (more on that later). “Pray for the league” fans said over and over. Fast forward a little over two years, it’s now February of 2019 and Kenny Williams has just put his shades down to hide his shock. The White Sox spent much of the 2+ year period between 2016 and 2018 talking about their unprecedented financial flexibility, and here was their chance to show the world this organization means business. Yet, as Sox fans we really should have known better. After the White Sox misread the market on Machado – misreading the market should be put on Rick Hahn’s tombstone – they came out to the fanbase and proclaimed not to worry, THE MONEY WILL BE SPENT! Afterall, they offered Manny the best package, he just didn’t want to prove it! If you want to play for this elite organization, you’ve gotta be willing to prove it! Like any person in an abusive relationship, Sox fans ignored all the signs of danger. When a red flag went up telling us nothing had truly changed about the organization (such as the Machado situation), we looked on the field and fell in love with the narrative of tools of Moncada, Robert, Eloy and Kopech. The propaganda machine was on overdrive, and the organization had pulled the wool over my eyes for the last time. Just like all competitive rebuilding teams with aspirations for a World Series title do, the White Sox brought in a manager who required a nap-time clause be written into his contract to accommodate the fact that Connie Mack was calling him old. LaRussa had no interest in developing players or learning the modern game. He’d been out of the game so long, the last time he was involved the White Sox were actually competitive. Yet again though, the Hahn bots were setting the narrative that this was all Jerry’s fault. It’s always Jerry’s fault. What’s the truth though? Rick Hahn is a lawyer who had an edge writing contracts and exploiting eager young players who feared failure and wanted to make sure their family was set for life. Hahn’s entire tenure and reputation still revolves around the idea that he got young players to sign team friendly deals; completely forgetting the fact that Hahn had to trade those deals just to try and compete again. Hahn wasn’t even capable of building around 3 players producing 15+ WAR for about 21 million a year, yet we thought he could tear an organization down and rebuild it from the ground up. What Hahn really did was buy Reinsdorf three years of spending zero dollars on the team. During their rebuild, they hoarded international money instead of spending it on top talent, they lacked any minor league unison in messaging and development between levels, and players who came here couldn’t help but notice the lack of technologically driven developmental tools. In fact, by the time the White Sox purchased and began utilizing things like Rapsodo machines at the major league level, other advanced organizations had already moved on to more advanced and effective tools of evaluation. The White Sox had spent five years building the body of a Ferrari and then placing it on an engine from a Civic, because for them presentation was and will always be more important than production. The big lie bought the organization a decade; a decade of savings for Jerry and “benefit of the doubt” for Hahn. While LaRussa certainly put a damper on the organization, he’s not the reason this team has become the worst team in baseball during the peak of their contention window. Rick Hahn was quoted earlier this season talking about how writers and the likes surround themselves with the worst fans – negative fans, as Rick called ‘em. The audacity of Rick and Kenny to call out this fanbase is truly unbelievable. The White Sox exist in the countries third largest TV market but they’re one of three teams in MLB history not to give out a 9 figure contract; joining the likes of the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland A’s. It can’t be ignored that the Sox payroll is certainly competitive, but if you buy 10,000 rings from the dollar store, they’re not going to turn into a singular $10,000 diamond. That said, Rick Hahn going to the outlet store and buys only the items that aren’t truly on sale. During the past few years, Rick Hahn has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on complete trash, topping it off with Andrew Benetendi who truly symbolizes the Hahn tenure as a baseball evaluator better than any other signing. Rick fell in love with Benetendi 8 years ago, and he was kicking himself for missing out on him from the draft. Despite the fact that Benetendi has regressed horribly since his age 23 season, never again eclipsing 3 WAR in a season, Hahn like his predecessor always gets his guy. It’s as if Hahn never changes his mind on a player despite endless amounts of data refuting his initial evaluation. At the end of it all, the White Sox fan and leadership relationship has never been more severed; never more broken. The trust that Hahn had unwarrantedly been granted by the fanbase was pissed down the drain alongside every other narrative and story this organization has sold since Reinsdorf took over. This time though? It has been even more obnoxious, more absurd and more offensive. At this point, Hahn has insinuated the fans are unreasonable; “no one takes this harder than me” Rick reiterates over and over again. While I am sure there is some truth to that, is this any different than Politicians standing in front of the country and saying “if only someone in power could do something about these issues?” No, because Rick Hahn made his bed and then blamed all the fans for how messy it is; for how uncomfortable, and cold it feels. White Sox fans are loyal to a fault, and they deserve so much better than the three stooges who stand up in front of them once or twice a year and blame them for the negative attitude around the team and the organization. While people think the big lie is a lack of money spent, the lack of farm system development, or a lack of accountability… while those may all be true, that’s not the big lie. The big lie this organization has sold the fanbase is that they care as much as we do. Kenny is “in a bad place” right now he’ll tell you, and Rick has to watch games on a treadmill. The failure is killing them just like it’s killing us. If only they knew someone who could do something to stop this, they would! They promise! While I’ll never stop being a White Sox fan; it’s engrained in my DNA… it runs through my veins. I’ve never watched less than I am today. I’ve never bought fewer tickets than I have this year and last. I’ve begun to prioritize other things in my life, because frankly why should I prioritize something so heavily that has never prioritized me? Baseball has been in my blood since I was a little kid and my love for the game has evolved along with each step of my life. For the first time ever, as a White Sox fan, this team has hampered that love. If Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams truly are in a bad place, and truly feel the same as the fans, then they should step down from their positions and end the big lie. Until then, Sox fans will be left longing for the days of perpetual mediocrity that Hahn promised to get us out of. To be fair though, that was one promise Rick Hahn did keep but sadly it was because they’re now just perpetually bad.
    21 points
  4. Jake Burger's wife "hearting" the official instagram post about the firing is peak rebuild.
    20 points
  5. Ooh spicy. Absolutely love that this is going public. What an utter embarrassment of an organization.
    20 points
  6. I would tell him: if it's publicly funded, then it's owned by the city of Chicago, it's going to have a retractable roof, and the city will use it however it wants for the 284 days a year that the Sox aren't at home, and keep all revenues from that usage. If you want anything other than that, pay for it yourself.
    19 points
  7. He might’ve been a scapegoat but the Giants fired Kapler, a winning manager. The Cubs just fired David Ross, a winning manager. The Mets fired Buck Showalter, a winning manager. And the Sox won’t fire Grifol. Make it make sense.
    18 points
  8. It’s been so exhausting being a fan of this team for about two full years now. Seemingly every story is negative and embarrassing.
    18 points
  9. This is actually the most fun in the 2023 season
    17 points
  10. Everyone knows the time to judge a new front office is a few months into its first offseason before you let real results influence the true reality - how it feels. But nonetheless, as someone extremely skeptical this will work, I have to at least remark that it does feel a lot different. First - I think I can say somewhat accurately that this board would have said the worst thing Getz could have done is act like they were still just a, say, RFer away and tried to patch it up. This offseason was painful, because this upcoming season is horrifying, but at least it appears to not be putting off future pain. I'd need an ethicist to tell me if it's better to take more pain in the short term or have more time to adjust future pain. Second - The trades do feel different. I would say in general Hahn got more leeway than deserved because my strong opinion is he sought out trades that got him prospects with higher "prospect handbook" grades specifically to get him a better set of reviews. The hype around the trades continued to meet an underwhelming reality, because often these rankings are outdated, and we were buying guys starting to fall off. He was like buying a car literally after it rolled off the lot for the full sale price, but still showing the sticker on the windshield to us. Posters can check me (I encourage it), but I really can't pin trades that hahn did similar to what Getz has done this offseason. He has gone for volume of some bounce back candidates/dfa candidates, and players whose age/grades seem to have undervalued them. Or...accurately valued them. But it certainly has felt like the sox own grades on these players were what drove the acquisitions. Were they right? I have no idea, but it feels like what is happening. Third - For seemingly his entire tenure, when Hahn is facing free agent position players in his "budget", he has opted for marginally more offensive upside over competency in literally every other area. If you saw a guy that had hit 95 wRC+ over the last 3 years who was slow and horrible defensively, and one who hit 90 wRC+ over the last 3 years and was good/great defensively, Hahn took the first guy 100% of the time. Fourth - Hahn's analytics seemed to always boil down to "this one weird trick will fix all woes". It seemed like they were way, way too focused on contact rate and cutting down Ks after 2019, even if it was a guy with low walk rates or horrendous power, and it came with a bunch of players with horrible zone contact who just chased every pitch for a nubber. For pitching, K-rate became everything. Some of this made sense. When your defense is horrid, getting guys that just don't allow contact made sense. But then also loving sinker-relievers in front of horrid defense made no sense ever. Fifth - he hired from the outside, albeit from the royals exclusively (jk). And even where he did not firesale his PD staff, I have to pay attention when Keith Law says this: "They did extremely well in last summer’s trade binge, they’ve hit on a couple of recent high drafts, and we’ve seen guys develop in that system to a degree that we hadn’t seen in some time." SO - maybe there were was headway. Now, what I'm not saying is different will equal success. You can make a lot of different versions of bad. But as a concern that he was promoted from within, he certainly has some different ideas. But obviously, he needs to show he can find well-rounded, elite talent from the draft, from intl, from trades, from everywhere. Different though! Go Paul DeJong!
    16 points
  11. I'm so sick of hearing about his loyalty. There are so many players he sent packing instead of having them finish their careers here. He's screwed over the fans that have made him rich. He forced a strike when the team had it's best chance in decades to compete. Locked out players and held the strongest line. Mark, Frank, Jose, Carlton . . . He's loyal to cheap deals, and lap dog executives that won't question him. It's not the kind of loyalty anyone should admire.
    16 points
  12. I'm sorry, I know it seems melodramatic, but I sincerely hope they trade no one, honestly not even expiring contracts. I really think the only chance in hell there's ever a wholesale change in leadership is if the franchise totally craters. At this point, I'm willing to sign up for it, no matter how long it takes and no matter how deep the hole -- because the alternative is an eternity of knowing damn well the team isn't good enough and will only ever win again if every hand turns up aces like in 2005. And I'm being honest here, not vindictive or edgy: I've lost interest in this team. I'm not even watching the games anymore. It isn't to "penalize" the team or "send a message," it's just purely from totally losing hope and interest, and preferring to do other things. I click on SoxTalk almost every day, by rote, out of habit, and 90% of the time I bounce without viewing a single thread. Like I almost can't believe it as I type it, but I'm not sure I would even give a s%*# if they ripped off a 20-game winstreak and suddenly looked like a lock for the playoffs. Maybe I'm wrong, but right now I just can't imagine it. It's like my subconscious has moved on. I'm just done with them. For literally the first time I can remember, the White Sox have ceased to be a part of my summer. I'm now wondering if it's possible that this fucking clownshow of an organization has somehow snuffed out this candle for me. And if so, what an achievement that would be -- I've been a fanatic most of my life, and I understand the swells and troughs of a competitive window. I'm patient and entertained by the process itself. It's just -- after this many consecutive years of being, overwhelmingly, a source of frustration for me, my brain feels like it's finally becoming trained to search elsewhere for meaning. This is truly EXCEPTIONAL incompetence, well beyond what can be expected even through luck. For a long time, we could root for signs that they were going to learn, change. adapt, improve, etc. We know now, after seeing them finally get the chance to do it totally right, with all the time and support they need, that, beyond the shadow of the doubt, they cannot. This is who they are. This is what they think works. They gotta go. Doesn't matter what it takes.
    16 points
  13. Is there any other team in baseball in a worse position than the White Sox? The minor league system is bare. The controlled assets on the main roster are either under performing or sunk costs which means if they do try to sell they will get diminished returns. The payroll is seemingly maxed and the budget is on the way down based on a abysmal 2023 season. They wont ever do what it takes to sign a superstar. They wont hold anyone accountable and in the off chance Hahn is relieved of his duties they wont go outside of the organization to replace him and change the culture. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?
    16 points
  14. Truly hate to admit it, but I will celebrate the day this fucker turns into worm food.
    16 points
  15. 15 points
  16. I'm just glad that Gio & ReyLo continue to play on every team together
    15 points
  17. Well, the excitement lasted three minutes
    15 points
  18. It's a divorce, Jesus, Sox fans are losing their minds.
    15 points
  19. The amount of people who seem to be actively cheering for the team to leave is really weird.
    14 points
  20. Sox fans are a weird bunch. Practically my whole life, people bitched about the current stadium. Now, they are planning to build a ballpark that looks like it would be one of the premier sports venues in the entire country and a large segment of Sox fans suddenly fell in love with the current park. Today on the radio, Laurence Holmes was making a huge deal that it only takes him 8 minutes to get to the Sox game now. The new park will take him 18 minutes he said. This was supposed to be damning evidence against having a beautiful new stadium. The new site is near all the major highways. It will have access to a metra, red, green, orange CTA lines. It will be accessible by water taxi. It will be walkable for a whole bunch of people who live and work nearby. And yes... it will have parking. It will be built in an up and coming area. It will have great views. It will be near a ton of bars and restaurants. It will include a super cool park/green space for people to hang out. The park will undoubtedly have better seating. It will have better bathrooms. It will have better food options. It will also end the "Will the Sox move to [insert mid-market city]?" discussions that pop up here every once in a while. It should inject some life into the organization and allow them to invest more money into the club in the future. Most importantly, it will most likely be a much more enjoyable place for fans to go for a game. I love going to New Comiskey... but come on, this is going to be so much better.
    14 points
  21. Probably a big nothing, but f*** this asshole
    14 points
  22. Perfect cuz the Sox could compete in the KBO.
    14 points
  23. If she came here, it would take her like a year to learn the whole org so
    14 points
  24. You have a team you expect to win the division, and instead it loses 100 games. How does this dope not get fired? He is a huge part of clearing the stench.
    14 points
  25. I would counter that they need to better tailor their roster to the MLB
    14 points
  26. Our guy who was hired because he was supposed to know the team, is talking to reporters in Detroit trying to figure things out. Meanwhile, other teams’ execs are scouting in Japan. this has been a Mickey Mouse operation. Nothing changes with Getz.
    14 points
  27. Getz oversaw a farm system that went from 1st to worst. Promotion to GM for you!! The White Sox Way 🤡
    14 points
  28. I might be done if this happens. Following a baseball team shouldn't be this miserable.
    14 points
  29. 14 points
  30. Please hire someone from a model organization and just give them free reign. I beg you Jerry.
    14 points
  31. I think there's this misconception from the anti tanking crowd that they think the rest of us actively enjoy tanking. No. It's just the less shitty of two shitty options.
    14 points
  32. I just willed this s%*# into existence! Up next: should Sox sign Ohtani in off-season? 😝
    14 points
  33. After hearing Rick just now, I’m totally good on him resigning today right now this very minute
    14 points
  34. Since TLR returned, the White Sox have had only one steadfast rule which may not be broken: Never, but never, hit a home run against a position player pitching. Other than that, anything goes.
    14 points
  35. I wanted to give Pedro a chance this year but he hasn’t shown anything to earn a second year.
    14 points
  36. That W bought Rick and Kenny another month of "accountability".
    14 points
  37. The good news is that no one is ever amped up on opening day, so we don't have to worry about him overthrowing things or over stressing that arm. We also can count on the manager to be responsible about his pitch count and innings count.
    13 points
  38. While the Sox were making changes - FutureSox.com has also made a change, returning to its independent roots after an 18 month partnership with SoxMachine. While we appreciated the partnership we had with SoxMachine and the whole team there, I am personally excited for FutureSox's return as a true independent, with Mike Rankin, James Fox and the rest of the amazing cast and characters (Steve Hasman (aka Sleepy Harold), Ken Sawilchik, Jeff Cohen, Julie Brady, Elijah Evans, Jasper Roos, Jeff Feverer, Jason Lowenthal, Rob Young, and Dan Santaromita (aka one of the original godfater(s) of FutureSox) continuing to do what they do best - delivering the absolute BEST White Sox focused minor league content on the planet. And one ask, this whole crew puts a ton of blood, sweat and tears into producing this content, so for anyone willing and able, who loves the great content FutureSox has been providing for 20+ years now, please support their efforts through its Patreon site. Excited to see the continued growth of the franchise, brand, and the quality and insights the entire team delivers to Sox fans everywhere (no matter how sad all of us are at the current state of the franchise). Note: I also personally apologize, because as the superstitious individual I am, I can't help but notice a correlation to the White Sox performance during that timeframe
    13 points
  39. i'm sorry guys. I'm gonna wait a bit on this one because I think Shane Riordan is a moron. He's probably going to be wrong in one aspect that makes the fact that he's wrong worse.
    13 points
  40. Team gets more unlikeable by the day
    13 points
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