2018 White Sox catch-all thread

[ptatc]

7 minutes ago, soxfan49 said:

Arguably Chicago’s worst sports writer comes through again. Never change, Rick!

While it sucks, he was pretty much correct. This team is awful to watch so far. If they are going to tank they may as well go all the way and they are. It is a valid question to wonder if they will ever rebuild a fan base. The Cubs have always drawn a good fan base since 1984. Win or lose. The sox don't. They will only draw when they win. Hopefully, if the rebuild works and they have a sustained period of competitveness, the fan base will grow.

[soxfan49]

Just now, ptatc said:

While it sucks, he was pretty much correct. This team is awful to watch so far. If they are going to tank they may as well go all the way and they are. It is a valid question to wonder if they will ever rebuild a fan base. The Cubs have always drawn a good fan base since 1984. Win or lose. The sox don't. They will only draw when they win. Hopefully, if the rebuild works and they have a sustained period of competitveness, the fan base will grow.

Correct. He wrote a whole bunch of “no s***” comments. The Sox fan base isn’t great. No s***. They’re trying to be completely awful. No s***. 

What’s the point of this article?

[ptatc]

18 minutes ago, soxfan49 said:

Correct. He wrote a whole bunch of “no s***” comments. The Sox fan base isn’t great. No s***. They’re trying to be completely awful. No s***. 

What’s the point of this article?

Gotcha. The article was just stating the obvious.

Edited May 17, 2018 by ptatc

[Chisoxfn]

So I just want to throw out a statistic for everyone who thinks that you have to blow things up to rebuild (by the way I think in the case of the Sox, they made the absolute correct decision) but the LA Dodgers are 10 games under .500 for the first time since 1929.  Yes, they have had deeper pockets the last 15 years but still a testament of the strength quality front offices, ownership, coaches, player develoment, etc can have.

I also had saw a stat that if the cardinals finish the season below .500 again this year, it would only be like the 2nd time since 1930 that they had back-to-back losing seasons.  

[LittleHurt05]

3 minutes ago, Chisoxfn said:

So I just want to throw out a statistic for everyone who thinks that you have to blow things up to rebuild (by the way I think in the case of the Sox, they made the absolute correct decision) but the LA Dodgers are 10 games under .500 for the first time since 1929.  Yes, they have had deeper pockets the last 15 years but still a testament of the strength quality front offices, ownership, coaches, player develoment, etc can have.

I also had saw a stat that if the cardinals finish the season below .500 again this year, it would only be like the 2nd time since 1930 that they had back-to-back losing seasons.  

The Cardinals are #1 in the majors at calling up minor leaguers nobody has ever heard of and having them produce in the majors.  You are absolutely right that rebuilds aren't the only way to go, but consistent development of your young players is mandatory, especially lower rated depth guys, not just your blue chippers.  And the Sox have been absolutely horrendous at it.,

[bmags]

 

11 minutes ago, LittleHurt05 said:

The Cardinals are #1 in the majors at calling up minor leaguers nobody has ever heard of and having them produce in the majors.  You are absolutely right that rebuilds aren't the only way to go, but consistent development of your young players is mandatory, especially lower rated depth guys, not just your blue chippers.  And the Sox have been absolutely horrendous at it.,

Not just that, also the good teams use latam scouting effectively, often by oversigning and having more rookie teams to get in quantity what they'll lose in quality selections.

When you don't play that game as the sox did and the orioles still do, you are tying a hand behind your back, and eventually relying on the draft and fantastic major league scouting.

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, soxfan49 said:

Arguably Chicago’s worst sports writer comes through again. Never change, Rick!

As long as Joe Cowley is in Chicago, not even close.

[soxfan49]

1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said:

As long as Joe Cowley is in Chicago, not even close.

This next comment might speak to his irrelevancy, but I truly had no idea he was still writing in Chicago. After a quick google search, he apparently writes for the Bulls.

[southsider2k5]

9 minutes ago, soxfan49 said:

This next comment might speak to his irrelevancy, but I truly had no idea he was still writing in Chicago. After a quick google search, he apparently writes for the Bulls.

He still tries he old routine of stirring up garbage with the Bulls. 

[bmags]

Any time a chicago media personality (sox beat writers do not do this, which is a telling sign) retweet or source opinions from the guillen kids I know not to pay attention to them anymore.

[Thad Bosley]

1 hour ago, Chisoxfn said:

So I just want to throw out a statistic for everyone who thinks that you have to blow things up to rebuild (by the way I think in the case of the Sox, they made the absolute correct decision) but the LA Dodgers are 10 games under .500 for the first time since 1929.  Yes, they have had deeper pockets the last 15 years but still a testament of the strength quality front offices, ownership, coaches, player develoment, etc can have.

I also had saw a stat that if the cardinals finish the season below .500 again this year, it would only be like the 2nd time since 1930 that they had back-to-back losing seasons.  

Are these strengths of the White Sox organization, too?  

[Chisoxfn]

1 hour ago, LittleHurt05 said:

The Cardinals are #1 in the majors at calling up minor leaguers nobody has ever heard of and having them produce in the majors.  You are absolutely right that rebuilds aren't the only way to go, but consistent development of your young players is mandatory, especially lower rated depth guys, not just your blue chippers.  And the Sox have been absolutely horrendous at it.,

Yes - Top picks don't drive teams to the top of the league...strong player development and scouting does.  Period. End of story. All the #1 picks in the world don't matter if you can't draft and develop talent.  This isn't the NBA where a franchises fate can change with one right draft pick...it just isn't.  If the Sox are going to have sustained success, they need to do it with a long-term winning program of identifying the right talent and developing such talent. If you do that, you are going to be solid...from there, you obviously need to leverage FA and trades effectively.

While Hahn has accumulated a lot of talent via trades, we haven't had a proven track-record of drafting and developing talent. I want to see us generate a top 5-10 farm system on a regular basis based upon us drafting and developing players as well as effectively leveraging international free agency. To do that effectively, you need to spend money on the best scouts, best coaches, best programs, etc. 

Look at the Dodgers...yes they have more money but they also have drafted and developed extremely well and they have invested heavily in their front office, scouts and analytics programs. Ditto for Boston and the Yankees.  Maybe 5-10 years ago those big spending teams had a major competitive advantage with deep pockets in international space, but that is gone too.  The competitive balance / positioning for young talent is economic neutral (in the sense that big money teams don't have a major advantage over smaller payroll teams) and with that it all comes down to the teams with the best ability to identify and develop talent and if you are really good at that, you are going to consistently have good rosters.  Than you need to have the right front office to be able to aggressively and effectively bolster your major league roster via trades / free agency (within your budget).  

The real mark on Rick Hahn is going to be 3-5 years ago do we have a farm system which is effectively producing quality major league talent (without being supplemented from trading a couple highly effective and talented players with below market contracts (i.e., Sale / Quintana / Eaton).  

[Chisoxfn]

30 minutes ago, Fan O'Faust said:

Are these strengths of the White Sox organization, too?  

See my follow-up post just below this one.  The White Sox will not succeed, imo, if they don't make these their strengths. They don't have the ability to "buy" talent and thus they need to effectively identify and develop talent. That will be where the road hits the rubber on Hahn and the entire White Sox organization.  

[Lip Man 1]

12 hours ago, kwolf68 said:

To soak up the sorrows of a sorry state of Sox affairs right now I took a trip down 1983 memory lane by strolling along Youtube for ole Videos. YES, that season ended with brutal disappointment, but it was still a HELL-A fun year.

I remember that year because I went to see the Sox v. Baltimore in August, Friday night. It rained and rained. Finally they got it started like 2-3 hours later and RANDY MARTZ started the game (he actually pitched well). Sox lead that game the entire way and lost a 4-2 lead on something like 6 or 7 straight singles with two outs that left my idiot Oriole friend ragging me. ANYWAY, I was set to goto camp that Sunday and my mom said had the game been rained out we'd have gotten tickets to the Saturday game, instead of Martz pitching Saturday I'd have gotten to see one of the horses (Floyd, Dot, Hoyt) and of course the Sox won both Saturday and Sunday (in fact I listened to the Sunday game while driving to summer camp). I was intoxicated with the White Sox, read the American League red book from cover to cover, drank the cool aide and had so much fun, but good god Game 4 of the ALCS is a haunting horrible memory. Thank god for 2005!!! 

I think this is the game you are referring to. It was in Baltimore. I remember listening to it in Louisiana where I was working at the time.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1983/B08050BAL1983.htm

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, Chisoxfn said:

Yes - Top picks don't drive teams to the top of the league...strong player development and scouting does.  Period. End of story. All the #1 picks in the world don't matter if you can't draft and develop talent.  This isn't the NBA where a franchises fate can change with one right draft pick...it just isn't.  If the Sox are going to have sustained success, they need to do it with a long-term winning program of identifying the right talent and developing such talent. If you do that, you are going to be solid...from there, you obviously need to leverage FA and trades effectively.

While Hahn has accumulated a lot of talent via trades, we haven't had a proven track-record of drafting and developing talent. I want to see us generate a top 5-10 farm system on a regular basis based upon us drafting and developing players as well as effectively leveraging international free agency. To do that effectively, you need to spend money on the best scouts, best coaches, best programs, etc. 

Look at the Dodgers...yes they have more money but they also have drafted and developed extremely well and they have invested heavily in their front office, scouts and analytics programs. Ditto for Boston and the Yankees.  Maybe 5-10 years ago those big spending teams had a major competitive advantage with deep pockets in international space, but that is gone too.  The competitive balance / positioning for young talent is economic neutral (in the sense that big money teams don't have a major advantage over smaller payroll teams) and with that it all comes down to the teams with the best ability to identify and develop talent and if you are really good at that, you are going to consistently have good rosters.  Than you need to have the right front office to be able to aggressively and effectively bolster your major league roster via trades / free agency (within your budget).  

The real mark on Rick Hahn is going to be 3-5 years ago do we have a farm system which is effectively producing quality major league talent (without being supplemented from trading a couple highly effective and talented players with below market contracts (i.e., Sale / Quintana / Eaton).  

I know the frustration is there, but I do think with the Sox quietly changing over their developmental staff and getting Getz, Hostetler and Paddy into key slots, as well as bringing in guys like Aaron Rowand, Jim Thome, Dave Duncan and  others to give more sets of eyes and feedback to players that we have seen the fruits starting to bloom.  For the first time in forever, we can actually claim to have completely brought kids along from signing day to the majors in Yolmer Sanchez and Tim Anderson.  We are also seeing not only the guys we traded for over the last year succeeding in the minors, but guys that we have drafted and signed ourselves are also having explosive seasons.  I mean we won't know for sure for years, but the needle is pointing as high as it has in probably a generation when it comes to the Sox drafting and developing as a whole.

[wrathofhahn]

I think more then anything the people saying well the Cardinals don't need to rebuild are missing the point. Prior to the rebuild this was a team that missed the playoffs with one of the worst farms in the ML.

For us there really was no other option unless payroll was going to be drastically improved to compete in the near term while the farm was reworked. For me rebuilding made a whole lot more sense and probably for ownership too.

[southsider2k5]

A live look in at the Sox starting rotation...

 

 

[bmags]

2 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

I know the frustration is there, but I do think with the Sox quietly changing over their developmental staff and getting Getz, Hostetler and Paddy into key slots, as well as bringing in guys like Aaron Rowand, Jim Thome, Dave Duncan and  others to give more sets of eyes and feedback to players that we have seen the fruits starting to bloom.  For the first time in forever, we can actually claim to have completely brought kids along from signing day to the majors in Yolmer Sanchez and Tim Anderson.  We are also seeing not only the guys we traded for over the last year succeeding in the minors, but guys that we have drafted and signed ourselves are also having explosive seasons.  I mean we won't know for sure for years, but the needle is pointing as high as it has in probably a generation when it comes to the Sox drafting and developing as a whole.

I too have wanted to say the same but have avoided it because then it felt like everyone would tank. We have not had a new prospect just completely tank yet. We've seen a few come back around. We've seen a whole bunch of lottery ticket guys stay interesting (Yrizzari, forbes, etc).

Encouraging signs, but won't matter if it doesn't translate to bigs.

[southsider2k5]

Just now, bmags said:

I too have wanted to say the same but have avoided it because then it felt like everyone would tank. We have not had a new prospect just completely tank yet. We've seen a few come back around. We've seen a whole bunch of lottery ticket guys stay interesting (Yrizzari, forbes, etc).

Encouraging signs, but won't matter if it doesn't translate to bigs.

Obviously the grade right now is incomplete, but all we can go off of today is positive signs from guys, and we see a whole lot of those.  Even the class of 2015 has some guys showing signs of life with Fulmer in the majors, Stephens in AAA, and Seby Zavala killing it in A+, and a couple of others on the fringes.

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Obviously the grade right now is incomplete, but all we can go off of today is positive signs from guys, and we see a whole lot of those.  Even the class of 2015 has some guys showing signs of life with Fulmer in the majors, Stephens in AAA, and Seby Zavala killing it in A+, and a couple of others on the fringes.

Basically the worst performing acquisition so far may be Casey Gillaspie, and the guy we traded for him is I think currently available.

 

[southsider2k5]

1 minute ago, bmags said:

Basically the worst performing acquisition so far may be Casey Gillaspie, and the guy we traded for him is I think currently available.

 

To be fair, Dan Jennings basically had zero trade value anyway, so weren't going to get much in return.  Getting a guy who was a fringe top 100 player recently isn't a bad play if they saw something they thought they could fix.

[Sleepy Harold]

 

[bmags]

4 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

To be fair, Dan Jennings basically had zero trade value anyway, so weren't going to get much in return.  Getting a guy who was a fringe top 100 player recently isn't a bad play if they saw something they thought they could fix.

edit: to be clear I'm 100% in agreement with you and am offering examples that I feel advance your point.

Right, but I'm saying I'm just very encouraged that basically everyone has found their footing in the org. It's hard to stress to people who maybe didn't check the minor league box scores in 2015-16, there would be nights where literally everyone was terrible! Like a good night was 1-4 and it seemed like the whole team hit .220, and like randomly a mason robbins type would be good but overall just soooo bad. 

And now even players like Fisher getting aggressively advanced to make room are respectable. 

Getz, Jirschele, Thome...I think stuff is starting to work. 

[southsider2k5]

1 minute ago, bmags said:

Right, but I'm saying I'm just very encouraged that basically everyone has found their footing in the org. It's hard to stress to people who maybe didn't check the minor league box scores in 2015-16, there would be nights where literally everyone was terrible! Like a good night was 1-4 and it seemed like the whole team hit .220, and like randomly a mason robbins type would be good but overall just soooo bad. 

And now even players like Fisher getting aggressively advanced to make room are respectable. 

Getz, Jirschele, Thome...I think stuff is starting to work. 

Yes.  Even if you want to discount the guys we traded for, even though the Sox had to scout, evaluate, and coach them, even just the draft and signed guys group is having a lot of big years.  And that is even discounting the injuries to Robert, Burger and Hansen knocking out the top 3 internal guys.

[greg775]

Courtney Hawkins got picked up by the Sugar Land Skeeters. Geez. No big league team even wanted him after we released him.