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I'm sure Bauer hired his agent based on her extraordinary negotiating skills and wealth of experience, doing something.... But regardless, he's the same guy who asked for an arb number that involved 420 and 69 in it, and likely lost his case and some extra money in large part because of it. And he turned around and threw the ball into the stands or towards the stands when getting pulled out of his last Indians appearance in a public hissy fit. For an overpaid #3 starter, I don't really think he's worth that much of a headache. Hoepfully Cease and Kopech develop as desired, because if they do, people will forget about all of this outside help stuff rather quickly.

And Obama is a White Sox fan. Who cares? What does politics have to do with this?

Right now JR has sent a couple of expensive bottles of champagne to KW and RH for ridding him of this.

I believe his already solid defense and base running will improve with a bit more experience and teaching. The few mistakes he made seem exaggerated by the very small sample size. The kid will hit, get on base, move runners over, and score some runs. What more do you need from a 9 hole hitter?

Part of this is also having a beat writer who respects that his audience cares about this level of detail

This is now a sexist comment.

No. I don’t care this is half personal. No. Go somewhere else.

Bauer is a so much more logical pick then Springer. It's not even close. Any World Series team can win it with a guy like Eaton in the lineup. Superior pitching every day will enhance your chances much more. Add Bauer and maybe you don't have to get the most expensive reliever on the market. Hendriks is a built in excuse not to add big money to the starting rotation. If Bauer is truly interested in just about any type of contract ,that's in the Sox wheelhouse. He may just be the guy that doesn't want and the longest highest contract he can get.

Thanks! There is a thread for that.

Just go the next logical step further. The federal govt owns and operates the sports leagues. Teams are portioned out such that all areas have 1 team and that 1 team represents a consistent population size. Players are government employees whose salaries are capped at a minimum and maximum, and bonuses are collected into a central fund and then portioned out at the end of the year equally based upon statistical performance. Players are well-paid patriots, all monies coming from al aspects of the enterprise including monies from private companies purchasing licensing rights, etc. are re-routed to fund educational structures and other necessary aspects of society such as infrastructure development and repair, etc. Why? Because when the Chicago White Sox play the Cleveland Indians in America before an audience of the people, Chicago and Cleveland, and their populaces and the country as well, are the ones who should "get rich" out of it, or profit out of it, if anyone does at all. The reality is that it is the reinsdorf White Sox vs. the dolan Indians, and the entire thing is funded by the workforce and predominantly the working class, and yet there's always this finger pointing between a bunch of overpaid players and a bunch of fat fuck owners as to who is broke / can't feed their family and who can. Etc. In reality you only need paying viewers and players, and there's no need for owners at all, and they are easily the most useless and unnecessary drains on society overall.

If Biden ran 4 years ago, none of this would have happened.

Ummmm...quote from Suze Orman? It sounds almost Hitlerian when you consider the redistribution is away from minorities/women and towards upper class whites. If you could prove it was going more towards those under 35, that would be at least one positive spin for the country, notwithstanding the completely unnecessary nature of inflicting most of this on ourselves.

Oh ok. Well, welcome to Soxtalk yourself then!

It is a greeting of warm salutation.

They’ve seen him a bunch physically in last year. He made it clear that from a baseball standpoint, he’s not far away. He needs to assimilate culturally though and learn how to play every day. The grind is a bigger issue. I’d bet he goes to Winston-Salem

My kind of guys. We do have the same owner who, in his reign has never, produced back to back playoff teams. Hopefully that changes this year but I'm not going to take anything for granted like making the playoffs every year for the next 6 years. If we can't win a World Series in the next 3 years there isn't going to be one in the following 3 years. It takes this team 10 years of coming close before they realize they can't/won't spend enough to get them over the top before they tear it down again. The Sox had good teams in the 90's. We kept hearing about 2nd highest winning percent for a cumulative period. It never got them in the playoffs in back to back years. It didn't get them a World Series . They won 1 World Series because ,in an unlikely chain of events, a lot of good things happened that you could say was planned, based on a number of roster decisions ending up working, but ,in the grand scheme was just so much going right at the same time, it can only be described as luck or fate. The Sox aren't real good at actually planning to win because they don't do it that often. They always suck at one thing or another , drafting, trading for or signing bums or trading away superstars ,international draft, MLB scouting but mostly not really caring about winning.

Yeah except he hates the media because it won't kiss his ass. He doesn't give a shit about whether or not the media is subconsciously racist like most of America.

I hope the next White Sox ownership group are affluent sportsmen - not these egocentric bean-counters. Actually, they'll have to be affluent to keep this budding star-studded team together. Reinsdorf bought the Sox for pennies on the dollars and got a great deal with the state - with the expectation he could then use his resources to turn the Sox into perennial contenders. We got played and that's why I loathed him. (And don't get me started with the way he's ran the Bulls needlessly into the ground). And unless he was bowled over by some Balmer-like premium, P.T. Barnum 2.0. will never give us the satisfaction of watching him hand over the keys to the White Sox kingdom to a new ownership group. He has a monopoly on NBA basketball in a tri-state area. That family will never sell the Bulls.

Katz will fix em

The #1 goal is to win a WS. I think it is foolish to think this is going to be some sort of dynasty especially with this owner. I am not suggesting to upload the farm for some mid grade players, but giving a closer a 4 year deal shouldn't be a problem. Win the WS, and then we can talk about the possibility of a dynasty.

To me this Hendriks pursuit is like watching a bunch of kids having an easter egg hunt in the back yard, and you know there's a landmine in there because you just saw the dog take a dump in the grass this morning, and you're just sitting there watching and hoping that it's not your kid who ends up stepping into the pile of shit while trying to win a prize.

I’m sure I will get pushback on this, but what exactly was Cooper doing with these guys the last few years

FWIW, I think it's cool that she's trying to break into a male-dominated business as a young woman. I think the people on Twitter saying she's going to cost Bauer a ton of money cause she doesn't know what she's doing is pretty sexist. Do I think that some of the stuff they're getting involved in on social is counter-productive? Perhaps. Bauer was doing that shit on his own anyhow. But I also doubt teams would not pay a guy as talented as Bauer just because he and his agent don't act like the rest of the agents in baseball. I do find it weird that they vlog all day and are clearly more than just friends. I'm not sure how many players would admit to having their significant other/girlfriend as their agent. But then again, Bauer is just weird like that.

In his first 29 career games last year Madrigal hit .340, and here we have a 6 page thread with people complaining about him. So bizarre.

We...don't know. Especially when some of the Capitol police aided and abetted the attack on that facility, and there were other people from law enforcement nationwide in the mob...I would call that a legitimate concern.

Can you please tell this to "The Chicago White Sox", rather than to their fans? Because their fans are responding to their behavior, where they seem to have a strong payroll limit where they are flat out unwilling to go after the top players. Consider our competition in San Diego. This offseason, they just added a starting pitcher, highly paid but very effective the last year and a half, under contract for several years. They are about to sign their second $300 million+ contract. Some of the moves they make will not look good at the end - some already don't, but they realize they can beat the Dodgers right now and are acting like it. If they take losses the next year or two, they believe it will be worth it because they can bring a title to San Diego. Compare that to the Chicago White Sox. They see Lance Lynn, who has been almost as good the last few years, and say "this is a guy we need to add!". Yes! We can win this year! Then, they see a major hole in right field, where White Sox fans have been eyeing George Springer, a playoff proven player who would be a nearly perfect fit, who even hit righties better than lefties the last 2 years so that platoon thing isn't a big worry - and they say "We signed Adam Eaton for $6 million before someone else could get him!!!". They look at their need of a reliever, in this thread, where we could get this done right now if we were willing to go to about $50 million give or take, and see "yes, that would be a fair contract for that player, he is the best reliever on the market and would absolutely be a perfect fit for our championship team the next 2 years, and that's why we won't pay that price and will only take him if he's a bargain." If the White Sox are operating with such a stringent payroll requirement that they cannot risk losing money like the Padres, even though their stadium has been 1/2 full for a decade so there's plenty of opportunity for revenue growth and they've been immensely profitable in recent years...then they need to act like it and hoard years of control. If you cannot afford to play with the big boys in San Diego of all places, then you cannot give up 6 years of a potentially decent starter for 1 year of a hopefully very good starter. You cannot waste money in noncompetitive years (2019's wasted $50 million), you cannot trade young players for expensive closers who you hold in 1 competitive season, you cannot trade away your international signing dollars because your scouts are lazy and your owner is stubborn, you cannot put a potential long term starter in your bullpen rather than starting to stretch him out and preserving his service time, and this list of issues could go on. If you have such a salary limit, you have to run with the things you can develop and already control, and you have to try to steal guys with years of control. You may have a more money to play with, but you have to think like the A's, Baseball Club Cleveland, or Rays, and pinch every penny. Maybe you have enough money you don’t have to trade away every good player, but you have to constantly be thinking long term. If the White Sox are going to trade controlled young players for 34 year old starters who have been very good the last few years but have 1 year of control remaining, then they need to act like they're going to win right now and they're willing to lose money to do it.. Hendricks's contract may be Herrera bad in year 4, but if you have 2 straight world series appearances and a title, congrats on the 38,000 season tickets sold in 2024. If you're right, and this roster could be substantially weaker after 2024, then they need to act like the 2nd of these. If they can't afford to, then they shouldn't have put themselves in a position where they are giving away players they control after that point like Dunning and spending years of control on Crochet in the bullpen. Pick a path.

Unfortunately our man has already moved into inflation threats and his brain has already retconned these thoughts

This is the one mistake the Sox made that no matter how hard I try, I can't stop being bitter about it.

Exactly

Yeah...not even in the same stratosphere in terms of stealing bases

My god these people are stupid.

At that price...big nope.

So the Nats replace Eaton with Schwarber and Schwarber is more expensive.

Free agency works apparently.

I’m excited to see what this young man can do for our young arms. The harsh words for cooper are unfortunate, as he was an organizational asset for a long time, but the time had clearly come to say goodbye.

I think everything you say here makes sense and I applaud the process was flawed approach. But I wouldn't put much faith in what Keith Law said about never seeing him play. The Sox hired Marco Paddy to specifically find and sign guys like Tatis. Sons of ex ML ball players are always a good commodity to take a chance on. Obviously because of Paddy recommendation having scouted him and seen him play the Sox signed him : The following is from MLB.com dated July 2, 2015: The headline read: Tatis Jr. among White Sox finds on int'l market The White Sox signed shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., ranked No. 27 on MLB.com's Top 30 International Prospects list, for $825,000, and outfielder Franklin Reyes, ranked No. 30., for $1.5 million. Additionally, the White Sox signed Brayant Nova, a 6-foot-1, 170-pound, switch-hitting infielder, and Santo Vasquez, a 6-foot, 170-pound shortstop. Both sixteen-year old players are from the Dominican Republic. The article went on to say : The son of former Major League infielder Fernando Tatis, Tatis Jr. has a strong arm and fluid actions on defense. The right-handed hitter has displayed raw power to his pull side and has a knack for barreling up the ball. What's more, his repeatable swing has impressed evaluators. On defense, he could end up at second base or third base." You notice SD did not end up with Franklin Reyes , younger brother of Franmil Reyes who was signed in the same class for $700K more than Tatis, Jr. nor any of the other guys mentioned. Like most teams such as what the Cubs just did they went for the Shortstop with raw power and son of an ex MLB player who once hit 4 HR's in a game and 2 grand slams in the same inning. You can bet your bottom dollar SD knew who to ask for. The process of course could still be flawed because why hire Paddy to fix your international system and then throw in one of his prize signings in a trade. Can you imagine an exchange that went like this? Hey Rick since we're paying part of Shields salary we need someone to sweeten the pot. I like those 2 kids you just signed Reyes and Tatis .Is Reyes off the table ? I know you paid a lot for him . .... Padres then settle on Tatis jr. knowing all along that's who they really wanted. So it's pretty obvious that someone saw him play. The higher ups had to see video of him and trusted Paddy's judgment. I would think specifically KW saw film of him since he started as a scout with the Sox in 92 then was Director of Minor League Operations and after that VP of Player Development. Maybe they never saw him play in person but Paddy did and that's what he's paid to do. At some point you have to wonder was Paddy even consulted.

Agreed he was great for baseball.

I remember when that deal went through. There was a rumor of the deal on SoxTalk for like a week or more before it actually went down. I remember thinking that no matter how that trade turned out, I was in favor of it and I couldn't really criticize it. Erik Johnson was a change-of-scenery guy whose time here obviously was up, and Tatis was a wildcard / lottery ticket that was so far away it was very unlikely that anything all that great would ever happen. I saw then how quickly Tatis blew up, but I didn't feel like I could criticize it until I read Law say that the Sox never would have traded him if they actually saw him play. At that point I was pissed and felt they absolutely should be criticized, and severely. At that point I immediately thought about extending Sergio Santos and dumping him immediately for Nestor Molina who was a serious WTF?! move, and also, I remembered reading a Billy Beane statement after the Sox traded McCarthy for Danks (which turned out to be a great move) where Beane was very surprised the Sox made that deal, and Beane said he didn't even know McCarthy was available, and implied if McCarthy was available, that the A's would have made an offer. At that point I was pissed because it was obvious it was yet another total lack of due diligence kind of move which typifies the Sox, whether it is in teh realm of hiring managers, or in another example, giving the keys of the farm and the purse strings too to Dave Wilder and just letting him do whatever without any checks or balances. Stuff like this is what is maddening. So now looking back at the Tatis deal, they traded a guy they didn't even bother looking at. How the fuck do you spend $300K+ or whatever it is on asset with growth potential and then manage to deal it away without even taking a look at it? Probably the same kind of process that leads you to trade players without shopping them, let your friends run the show, hire people immediately out of a gut feeling instead of following a proper process, etc. That's how. And that's why the deal is shit, because the process was shit. If the process was different then you could either say that (a) the Sox missed on their evaluation of Tatis or (b) Tatis sincerely grew/developed beyond their fair, reasonable, and sesnible evaluations perhaps in some similarity to the same processes by which Albert Pujols or Mike Piazza blew up. But you can't say (a) or (b) because no evaluation was made. And then the cherry on the top is the salary relief factor. Bad contract James Shields for busted top-100 SP prospect Erik Johnson 1-for-1 is already a very fair deal on paper. But to get some more salary relief they threw in the asset which they never even took the time to properly evaluate. For savings for the dorf. This is added insult to injury. And even though the same process, were it to be repeated (sign INTL FA for $300K+, immediately deal him for some apparent MLB value blindly without even looking at him beforehand) more times than not will yield a positive result purely out of the fact that most prospects bust anyway, it does not mean that the process itself isn't a bad one. It's still a shit process, even if it works. Image putting a bullet in a gun that holds 6 rounds, and you spin it, and put it to your head and pull the trigger, and every time you do so and don't die, someone gives you a million dollars. Sure it is an extreme example, but regardless, maybe some people will try it believing the reward is worth the risk, but eventually that behavior is going to kill you. it's still a bad process that shouldn't be followed, even if sometimes it can/could/would/does work.

Do you think I should tell him most businesses fail and those who try sometimes lose their entire life savings.

No, it's not an opinion. It's a fact. The bolded just proved my point. Is that statement not true? Will you be able to survive without a job? And yes, it is an everyday interpretation of how the world works. The opinion comes in on where we draw the line. That is opinion.

The 6th Commissioner has it right. We don’t need every piece of life turned into a commodifiable asset. We let a single man or a boardroom control the prides of our city. I mean all we have to do is look at Cleveland for what bad teams can do to a place. Our own city applauded the death of a man because he held our hockey team hostage. Private individuals owning our sports is questionable but when they do it while concerned about ROI and asset growth it’s ridiculous. I only want to ever care about how much an athlete is making when they put a salary cap on the league where players get the majority. What has someone like Nutting in Pittsburgh done to deserve any profits from continuously fielding one of the worst teams in the league? Having initial capital shouldn’t be the qualification for getting to run a piece of American history.

Time for thousands to cry about freedom of speech while ironically exhibiting that they don't know how it works

Seems like just repeating "stay tall" may not work with everyone.

I don't see any scenario where he jumps Lawrence.

MLB needs to significantly raise the luxury tax threshold and add a spending floor. If the Yankees want to hand out to spend on star players whose contract will eventually hurt them later, let them. And honestly, it's pathetic that teams like the Indians and Pirates have what, $40 mill payrolls?

RIP to one of the coolest characters baseball has seen.

Yeah even I agree with this.

I see Soxtalk is Soxtalking. Madrigal has played a grand total of 29 games and has had 109 plate appearances at the major league level...and we're writing him off as garbage because he made a few rookie mistakes. He batted .340 in those 109 plate appearances and played a pretty good second base. Maybe we give him a full season before deciding he's trash.

I don't want to derail this thread any further, but Moncada's speed, power, and elite eye can do everything you want Grandal to do batting 2nd without clogging the order or making lazy outs ahead of the heart of the order. He also scores from 1st on anything in the gaps or into the corners. He's my 2 hitter every day he's healthy and on the field. Grandal can stand like a statue working walks lower in the order after the Sox put a few across the plate ahead of him.