Thad Bosley

A really fun and positive development in the next year is if these young pitchers all take the step to the next level, similar to Giolito from a couple of years ago, and force some really tough decisions for LaRussa and the FO. What an embarrassment of riches it would be if all of these prized or once-prized top prospects, from Cease to Rodon to Lopez to Kopech to Crochet, started pitching at or near their ceilings. In a glass half full point of view, the potential for this staff with the kind of talent it possesses is an Atlanta Braves circa the 1990s type of run from a pitching perspective. It’s certainly exciting to think of the possibilities!

Nice to see both of the team’s top two international signings crack the top ten list.

He of the six foot, eight inch Tayron Guerrero’s!

Rich King doing a good job describing LaRussa back in the early days, how he rubbed some of the old time managers back then the wrong way. He definitely came off as someone who thought he was smarter than everyone else. It would piss off Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall, too, who saw it everyday. They would criticize him mercilessly from the booth, which LaRussa complained to Reinsdorf about. Reinsdorf sided with LaRussa, which was then the beginning of the end for Harry & Jimmy in the Sox booth.

Rich King

I am equally excited about Yoelqui. I believe Paddy said back in January he’s close to MLB-ready. The only thing that caught my eye recently was where he landed on Fangraphs Top 34 prospects list for the Sox. He came in at #25, so I’m trying to understand just what kind of talent he actually is. I thought as #1 on the international prospects list we were getting another blue chip, elite talent and that he’d easily be somewhere in the top ten, but apparently Fangraphs doesn’t think so.

1-5 is quite a buzzsaw. This is what we get to watch every day for a very long time. Could not be more excited!

What we don’t need during the team’s “window” in these upcoming years is John Danks redux. He signed his extension as a young pitcher, but then got injured almost immediately, and they ended up running the poor guy out there way more often than they should have, but only due to how much $$$ they were into on him. It’s obviously tougher in the pitching space to give these extensions. It’s so much more of a crapshoot than with position players. You get stuck having to run these guys out to the mound in the pre-free agent years far more often than you would otherwise. We saw that with Danks. I don’t know. I love Lucas and am extremely excited about what his potential is in leading us through this upcoming exciting chapter with the team. He’s the leader on the staff as TA is the leader with the position players. I’m not against an extension based on the money. Happy to have the current owner to pay for premium talent (a rarity). But I don’t want to see the team possibly crippled by a pitcher coming back from injury who’s not effective any longer but who they run out there because he’s tethered to a huge contract.

The Cubs are televising 28 games while the Sox only six. Seems like a missed opportunity to create a buzz for our new and exciting team while the Cubs get so much more exposure.

I wonder if Abreu experiences the lack of energy that Moncada went through if that won’t force a 1B/DH flip flop with him and Vaughn.

The lease at 35th & Shields is up at the end of the decade, but unlike the late ‘80s when the South Loop was an option, is there even any location in the “downtown area” these days where a new ballpark could even be built? I have no idea. But it’s certainly exciting to think of the possibilities. I can’t think a new and improved ballpark, one with more seating than just the 40,000 capacity of the current one, won’t be something the new owner, whoever that turns out to be, won’t be thinking about seriously.

We’ve been led on by an incomplete sentence all along, this “The money will be spent” business. Spent on what? Premium available talent on the open market? Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, George Springer, and Trevor Bauer say “HELL NO! Not the White Sox! Not Jerry Reinsdorf!”. Only the Indians, Pirates, Athletics, and Royals have the highest contracts those teams have ever given out less than the Sox’ “franchise record” $73 million given to Grandal last year. It would be one thing if Reinsdorf’s frugal methods over his four decades as owner resulted in, you know, all kinds of winning. Championship after championship after championship. Yet we all know it’s been anything but that. Not one playoff series win in 39 of his 40 years at the helm. So it’s clear that at this time of a championship window of opportunity that winning isn’t the top priority the occasional Reinsdorf fluff piece would have us believe. We just have to hope now that the young, cheap talent can overcome the lesser talent that has been brought into augment them. In other words, hope the team can prevail in spite of the owner’s cheap ways.

The key, and what is so exciting about this team, are the ceilings for all of these guys. We are talking about elite, blue chip players here. Sky’s the limit fir each of them. Should be a lot of fun watching how well they make it to those ceilings over the next several years.

The infusion of not one, not two, but three elite, blue chip talents into the team this year with Vaughn, Kopech, and Crochet set to join the team is nothing short of truly exciting. The Sox really do have an extraordinary amount of terrific, young talent. The next several years is going to be some kind of ride!

In the spirit of good-natured ribbing with Cubs fans both friends and family, it was a lot of fun to watch the success of Jon Garland and see how annoyed Cubs fans were with that trade. Cease and Jimenez have the potential to take all of that to a completely different level. They will likely recalibrate the crosstown rivalry for years to come!