FLsouthsider

You want the young players to succeed. If the team is winning because Giolito, Rodon and Lopez are putting up quality starts ... Moncada and Anderson are going off, etc., etc. ... well, then that's a great thing. Now, if it's Holland, Shields and MiGo throwing consecutive shutouts while the other team is balking home runs, well, yeah that doesn't accomplish much. But I'd much rather see the young guys come up, get some successful ABs and innings at the big-league level and bring some confidence with them into spring training then worry about whether the team is drafting at No. 2 or No. 3. That said, the extra bonus/slot money would be nice.

Is it possible that Courtney Hawkins learned how to hit in the last week?

Are they going to cap Kopech's innings this season?

What's up with Jameson Fisher? Is he hurt?

I just like the idea of raiding a team's farm system in exchange for a guy that they cut five years ago.

If they move Frazier, they could do the same thing with the Yankees with a guy like Chase Headley or Brett Gardner. Or maybe the Sox and Yanks swap 3B and the Sox get an extra prospect or two for paying the extra year of Headley's deal. Might as well get creative.

QUOTE (reiks12 @ Dec 9, 2016 -> 09:03 AM) Am I the only one who is obsessed right now? I keep refreshing mlbtr and this thread. I need this resolved soon so I can get back to my normal life. I can't imagine how Hahn feels. I'm thinking the Sox might hang on to Quintana this season. Next year's free agent class of SPs is nothing special so it wouldn't be all that surprising if he stuck around another year and then Hahn can move the crown jewel of the winter meetings for a second straight year. Although God only knows the kind of defense Q would be pitching in front of here. And if he thought run support was bad before ...

Assuming a full tear-down, the White Sox are going to be really, really bad with an expansion team roster. There are about 1,500 innings to account for. Someone has to pitch them. I'd rather it be something like a Holland reclamation project or an Erik Johnson Quad-A type than rushing someone (ahem, Carson Fulmer) up to the bigs. With punting on the next year or two, White Sox can afford to be patient with young players for once.

Eff it. Sell everything that isn't nailed down.

I've moved into the total rebuild camp because it really is a unique opportunity, but it poses some really interesting questions. First off, I think most of us would agree that it makes sense to hang on to Anderson, Rodon and Eaton. But, of course, everyone has a price and you should always listen to offers. Now, let's say Hahn decides to go full nuclear option. Hypothetically ... They trade Sale and Quintana in megadeals to the Dodgers, Red Sox or Astros. They package Eaton and Abreu to, say, the Nats for God-knows-what. Jones and Melky get sent to San Francisco (OK, OK, so the Giants aren't big Cabrera fans after his PED suspension in 2012, but this is all a fantasy-baseball-esque dreamscape anyway). Robertson goes to a contender. Frazier, Lawrie ... maybe they stay because they don't have tons of value in this market. But maybe Hahn revisits that at the deadline. Avi ... still has zero value. With ALL of those pieces on the move, the White Sox could realistically acquire anywhere from 10 to 25 prospects, a significant portion of them being high level to elite. Now, not all of them are going to be MLB-ready, obviously, and the big-league roster is now essentially bereft of any veteran presence. The interesting thing to me is figuring out how in the heck you go about putting a team on the field for the next two seasons. It reminds me of expansion teams, where they have to feed off the scraps. I mean, it would be one UGLY season, like 50 wins. A season where we're all looking at Charlotte and Birmingham box scores every night. But the wave of talent -- considering it would be buttressed by likely back-to-back top-five picks in '18 and '19 -- arriving over the next two to four years would be IMMENSE.

There is almost no chance I would remain a White Sox fan if the team moved. It's probably hypocritical to be that way, since I moved away from Chicago about 15 years ago and haven't looked back. That said, I still love Chicago, and the thought that someone would take a community institution (and a charter member of the American League with 100-plus years of local history) and sell it off to Oklahoma City or wherever just makes me sick. It would be a slap across the face. I live in South Florida now, and I go to maybe three or four Marlins games a year. If the White Sox bolted, I'd probably just punt on baseball altogether.

Sale was named a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award today.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 09:46 AM) Your points are well founded, but just pushed a little too far. A grocery store operates year round and their infrastructure costs are spread out over that year and over a wider and deeper volume of products. If your local grocer was only open 80 times per year, you would see a much different pricing structure. At a grocer, some items are "loss leaders" to lead people into the stores, and some are the profit items once you arrive. And now compare the price of that beer at the grocery store and have someone buy it, deliver it to your home, serve it to you, and clean up after you. Factor in the cost of your home, electric, gas, insurance, and see what that grocery store beer really costs. We have strayed far from your original, and IMHO valid statement, baseball should be concerned about turning away fans at the gate bnecause of economics. There is a sweet spot between selling 1 @ $20 to one customer and selling 20 @ $1 to 20 customers. Your costs go up with more transactions for the same gross. So that one sale looks tempting, but when that narrow customer base leaves, you are in real trouble. Yes, but, not insignificantly, grocery stores also operate at much, much smaller profit margins. And grocery stores don't charge you a $20 cover charge, either. Sorry for the threadjack. Economically, everything is higher today for baseball than it's ever been... on the revenue and costs side. MLB is on pace to out-earn the NFL within the next five years. Up to this point, fans (at least in the aggregate) don't seem to respond to higher costs associated with going to games, evidenced by the record revenues and attendance figures. I love baseball and love the Sox, so I hope it's sustainable. I just wonder if it is, in regards to the long-term health and growth of the game. Then again, this argument has been trotted out there for years and things are still sunny.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 10:02 AM) Also true, with Diesel being well above 4$ per gallon, the delivery trucks for food/beverages will raise their freight costs in order to offset the rising cost of fuel. Which is why beer prices are up 40 percent at the grocery store.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 09:40 AM) I didn't say I was happy about it, there you read into what I said too far. The complaint for decades was that the owners were getting rich off of the Sox. This has never been true. There was also the complaint that our payroll was too low for being in the 3rd largest city in the US. Now we have the 5th largest payroll in all of MLB, including higher than that crosstown team who happened to draw about 1 million more fans and made the playoffs last year. Let me ask you flat out, would you rather have higher prices and a higher payroll, or lower prices and a lower payroll? Because those are your choices when it comes to White Sox baseball. Whether you're happy about it or not, you're still complicit. As for payroll vs. prices, I don't really care what the payroll is so long as the team is competitive. And teams need not have the highest payroll to compete. The Sox's payroll has gone about 50 percent since 2005 and the team has gotten worse. Of course I want the team to compete and win, but I'm not shelling out $44 for an Italian beef sandwich or my monthly car payment to park. And as far as ownership getting rich off the team, Bill Veeck once said that you don't make money operating a baseball team, you make money selling your baseball team. JR and his ownership group bought the Sox for $20 million. I'm guessing the club is probably worth $350-400 million today. I'd say that's getting rich off the Sox. I'm not begrudging JR for making a good investment, good for him. But let's not kid ourselves.