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We. are. not. trying. to. win. this. season. We. are. giving. young. players. a. chance. to. take. their. lumps. The. team. is. rebuilding. Roach. is. a. AAAA. player.

JR should be commended for the deal he negotiated. It's a great business deal. If you're mad at anyone, be mad at the stupid politicians who agreed to it.

You keep saying this, but I think you know that the plan IS for the Sox's highly-touted farm system to turn out a core of elite talent comparable to Houston's. If all goes according to plan, Eloy, Moncada, Robert, Madrigal, etc. will be comparable to the young cores of Houston and other successful rebuilds. That's the whole idea. Now, nobody yet knows for sure if that will happen since they are still just touted prospects and not established MLB stars (just like Altuve, Correa, Springer, and Bregman a few years ago). You don't have to believe it. Maybe the baseball world was wrong about Moncada and Eloy. But the Sox have built a top farm system with projected star power, which is all you can really ask at this stage of a rebuild . Your issue really seems to be with the talent the rebuild has assembled (and the projections for that talent), not the rebuild process. And if you just think that the talent in the Sox system is no good, we're pretty much sunk and free agent signings aren't going to save us.

Obviously it's not all you hope for, but you have to be realistic. If being bad for 5 years is a guarantee for years upon years of greatness, everyone would do it, and not every team can be successful at the same time. It's a zero sum game. The White Sox will always have the Yankees and the Red Sox throwing big money at their problems. If winning the WS consistently was fairly simple, someone would actually do it. They should be able to dominate their division like Cleveland, Minnesota and Detroit have all done at various points. Even KC had a decent stretch, considering the advantages they have over their division opponents, but then you get to the playoffs and who knows how that will go. Besides, if they had made the playoffs those other years if it was formatted as it is now, you can't say they wouldn't have won.

Sure the Astros were built mainly from the farm, but it is delusional to think that the Sox can replicate that. You are assuming then that the Sox FO, scouting, and development people are as good as Houston's. The last 7 years or so provide evidence that that is simply not the case. Let me know when the Sox develop four positional players as good as Altuve, Correa, Springer, and Bregman. Look at the Dodgers payroll. They have definitely spent $ on pitching and had to pony up to keep Jansen and Turner in town. They also didn't trade away their stud lefty at any point. I'm trying to figure out when the Sox think there competitive window should start. 2020? 2021? 2022? No one seems to know and that is scary to me.

You sure about that first comment?

Then there's only one thing to do....lose the whole freaking thing!

Here's an in-person game report from the AZL last night, where Nick Madrigal made his professional debut. It includes a couple videos and photos of Nick, and some context for his performance that day.

He's hitting like a guy who wants to stay. Can we trade him and even get someone decent at this point? How far has his value fallen

Just love paying the dumbest players on the court the most money

They don’t have enough talent to let him walk.

Like they are ever going to sign 2 max guys. Child please.

He has been 100% consistent on never wanting to leave the White Sox. He loves it here.

No wonder this thread has been so quiet

Do you actually think that player payroll is the only cost of doing business?

This is definitely not the expectation. The goal should be to compete for 5-6 years and make the postseason at least 3-4 times during that window. Hopefully it culminates with a WS appearance but you can't plan that. The ideal outcome of the rebuild would be what the nats did 2012-17 but with a few more playoff series wins:).

Heath Phillips. I thought he was the next Mark Buehrle. Even got him to sign a baseball for me and told him as such... ?

"Suck" is definitely not how I would describe either of those players. Both made all-star games here. Podsednik once led the league with 70 steals (309 SB's total) and finished 2nd in ROY voting. Career .281 hitter with a .340 career OBP. Crede especially - in his first 4 1/3 years in the league were damn good prior to hurting his back for that first time. He was elite defensively. 4.8 WAR and 30 HR's/94 RBI's in 2006 (.283/.323/.506) OPS of .829 (one of two seasons with an .820+ OPS) In those 4 1/3 or 4.5 seasons (whatever you want to call it - he came up for good to play 53 games in 02) he hit 104 HR's. Keep in mind, these were different times in the immediate aftermath of the steroid era... and consistently averaging in the mid-20's for HR's was quite solid. His OPS lines were .826 .741 .717 .756 and .829. This is also a guy who was possibly our overall post-season MVP in 05. .949 OPS with 4 HR's and 11 RBI's. 1.000 OPS in the ALCS and a 1.100 OPS in the World Series. Podsednik was also damn good. Both were hugely clutch, of course. Crede, just overall - big time clutch player. I don't understand saying they "sucked". Clearly both above average major league players. Crede was eyeing a 300-350 HR career before his injuries. Maybe you mean to say "they were both favorites - despite better players being on the roster"?

Rodon, Lopez, Kopech

While losing right now may be understood, I would also add that the fans have every right to be pissed about it. The losing in 2018 is a direct result of choices the White Sox were making in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, and the people who made those choices have suffered no consequences. By the end of 2016, Rick Hahn didn't just deserve to be fired, he deserved to be tarred and feathered. After the Shields trade people should have been burning Rick Hahn in effigy. The only reason they weren't is that after so much ineptitude, nobody really cared any more.

We also want to get value from the guys we end up dumping if we can. I'm not advocating anything drastic just saying would have been fine with me if Roach got a shot but we'll never know and that's OK too. There's a lot of names on the team now who will be gone including plenty of the guys who play mostly every day and those in the starting rotation. We aren't trying to win either so if you aren't trying to win it means you're OK with losing as part of the plan.

One postseason appearance and zero trips to the WS. Is that all we are hoping for with this rebuild? If the goal is to just make the postseason once and hope for a 2005 type playoff then the Sox should have kept Sale, Eaton, and Q. They could have signed Lowrie, Moustakas, Matt Adams, Sabathia, and Chacin for dirt cheap.

One postseason appearance when 4 teams total made it. They were in the playoffs with the current format in 1990 and 1994 if no strike.

So is the rebuild. Yet you and a few others refuse to acknowledge that fact. Even with where I stood on the rebuild process, I have moved on and am not pursuing meaningless trolling of something that is dead and gone.

You guys are the ones attacking people with differing opinions. Not everybody in Chicago is on board with the tank job. Of course most fans simply don't care as the White Sox become less and less relevant. At least we anti-tank people care.

And by golly you whine about every single day. Go get a new hobby if the Sox rebuilding causes you so much angst & misery.

The early 90s Sox made one postseason appearance. The Twins are a yo-yo and don't look close to being a real threat. That is not what the Sox are going for. The plan is to have sustained success year after year like we are seeing on the North Side. The Cubs tank started in 2012 and lasted 3 years. The Sox are now 1.5 years into their tank. Does anyone realistically see this team competing for a trip to the WS in 2020 without some major FA signings? Heck, we might be lucky if LuiS Robert has 100 games played in milb by then.

Deserves every "like" after that one.

Honestly, I think it's because you come off as condescending. I'm sure you have good intentions and all but you have a way of making it sound like you have all the answers. I'm not trying to be a d*** about it. I know I come off as a tool at times.

Can't even open a thread these days without seeing people upset that the White Sox are a profitable business.

There's always a place for the eye test — I felt like Avi was going to be fine by watching his at bats early this season despite the fact his numbers were no good because he was hitting the ball hard. That said, there is really very little justification for throwing out the defensive metrics as useless. They aren't some weird computer thing divorced from what's really happening out there, they are based on humans using the game tape to judge the speed and location of batted balls and using years of data on equivalent plays to see how often the balls are fielded. Nobody's eye test can unite the single play observation with the data in that way. When people say the fielding metrics aren't reliable in small samples, they don't mean that they are meaningless in small samples. They mean a half season of fielding data is about as informative as 40-50 games of hitting data. We pay a lot of attention to 40-50 games of hitting data and see it as basically informative even if things are liable to change as time goes on and with the knowledge that a small number of games may play an outsize role in determining the season total and may not replicate in the long run. For outfielders, we have even better methods now thanks to Statcast when it comes to judging an outfielder's ability to catch the ball. It builds on the same logic that UZR, etc. do but with extremely accurate measurements. Soon I expect us to have similar information from Statcast for infielders and I expect that to really affect the game once we do. I'm sure the teams are already generating these metrics for their own use and MLB's good people are still haggling over the best version to present to the public.

I'm going to go really deep on you guys... Rangel Ravelo I always defended him and really thought he was going to be a big league hitter, lack of power be damned!

Donn Roach is almost 29 years old and has a career MLB ERA of nearly 6 in about 40 IP. You would've hated and complained about him as well.

Jerry Owens

You know, we have an actual function for that now... right?

I think the Sox need to invest in rebuild counselors for the fans.

You are well on your way to fulfilling this month’s quota of meaningless, useless, and totally throw-away comments you are evidently expected to post. Nice work.

So 4-8 weeks given other precautionary decisions of late

+1

White Sox are 3rd...only Mariners and Padres fans have waited longer.

Rick Hahn is really in a can't lose situation right now. If the team plays above expectations than he can say that things are moving in the right direction and quicker than expected. If the team is terrible like our current one then he can just say that rebuilding is a fluid process and there is expected peak and valleys. Being God awful also brings a better draft pick and that can be sold to fans later down the line.

They haven't set a public timeline and will never do so as it serves them no purpose. The rebuild could take another two years or it could take another 7. Just gotta have patience.

And the White Sox are in their 6th straight below .500 season. I count the Cubs from when Theo was hired; the Astros from when Luhnow was hired; the Phillies from the season that they traded Cole Hamels (which is prior to when their current GM was hired). The Braves won in 2013, had an unexpected down year in 2014, and late in 2014 decided to rebuild: it took 3 years. So if my premise is wrong then the White Sox are in year 6 of the rebuild.

The Astros were below .500 for every season between 2009 and 2014, including 3 straight seasons for losing more than 100 games. The Cubs were below .500 for every season between 2010 and 2014, including 3 straight seasons of 90 or more losses. The Braves spent 4 seasons under .500, including 3 straight years of 90 or more losses. The Phillies were below .500 for every season between 2013 and 2017, with at least 89 losses in all of them, but 90 or more losses for three straight years. Your premise is wrong.

If the White Sox are not involved in this year's FA market, heavily, then the people who have said that the ownership group are way too cheap...will finally be right. Last year we could make the excuse, correctly, that they still had bad contracts on the books (Cabreroid, Frazier, Robertson, Shields). This year, some of the money they saved went to Robert's huge bonus, and they've still got a payroll of $86 million. They've only got $50 million committed next year counting Abreu and Garcia, and there's no $50 million international signee excuse.

Stealth. Elf.

Basic accounting and math.

Seems like a team that needs more than a college catcher

Local broadcasts are supposed to be biased.