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For the love of god he’s had two bad weeks. Please step back from the edge. He hit 300 last season in high a and is young for the league.

This is such a terrible nickname. I hope it dies a gruesome death.

Always remember the money Hahn spent on these bums. $4.3 million for Ervin Santana $9 million for Yonder Alonso $4 million for Jon Jay who isn’t even near playing $17+ million wasted on scrubs. Hahn is terrible.

Chris Carter did similar back in the day. He had a strong rookie ball debut after getting drafted in the 15th round out of high school. They put him in Kanny for his first full season and sent him down after 13 games of .130/.231/.261. He mashed in Great Falls and then mashed in Kanny the following year. Carter ended up having some productive seasons in the majors so even if they send Bush to extended before Great Falls, it's not a big deal at all.

I remember way back when we traded for Alonso, a lot of people were pissed because AB's would be taken away from Palka. Well here we are now.

Yes, because the Sox gave up so much.

Jason Benetti still can‘t tell when a ball will end up foul by a mile.

We should be done with this bullshit. Time to put some wins on the board. If the utes are playing well, idgaf if the Sox pick 12th.

What a total freaking waste of 4 mil dollars. No idea what they saw from him. Stoney sounds pissed.

That was a gift from the scorer

Yonders purpose on this team is to demonstrate how awful Abreu is at first

Three pitches in and you can already tell it‘s gonna be a long night.

Yep. Need like an 11-5 stretch, though that seems like a pipedream.

What an idiotic signing Jay was. It seems like the Sox lit 4 million dollars on fire by signing this guy. They could have had a fan promotion where they put 10 dollar bills into one of those air blowing machines that you step into instead. Anyone who buys a full price 100 level ticket for an April afternoon home game gets 10 seconds in the tank to grab as many ten dollar bills as possible. The line for that would have stretched all the way to the Dan Ryan and most fans would just spend the $ on beer and concessions anyways.

16 games of Royals, Tigers, and Orioles. Here's your shot, guys.

If the coach has no tangible effect on the success of the players, who cares if they are fired?

Nelly Fox played for the Sox half a century ago

I have hated their last couple 2nd rounders. I would have taken different guys in the first round, but as you said, I understand those, and I don't have all the info they do, so those are fine. What I haven't liked about their second rounders is taking guys with the similar profiles. With Burger they took Sheets. Safe college bat. Corner IF, big power, good eye. Not a lot of project-able talent left. Same thing last year. Madrigal was advanced college bat, great bat to ball skills, limited power. Walker, basically the same offensive profile. They need to diversify their thinking. If you take the safe college bat with the first pick, take the HS bat or pitcher with the 2nd pick. Balance things out. If you always take the low risk option, you will never hit it big. Not that they should always take that high risk player either, you need a balance. The Sox play not to lose. And it results in them losing. They stick their money in the mattress because the market is too risky. A guy like Jeremiah Jackson, or even the much discussed Alek Thomas would have been much better picks (even forgetting they may be suppressing Walker league-wise because of too many other OFers at the same level), just because they would have added more upside to the system. They probably look back at Hawkins and Barnum and say --- "ugh that was terrible, let's not do that again." but they have done it again. Taking those guys wasn't terrible, but using 2 guys with the same flaws and the same downside is what killed them. Take a HS kid. High in the draft. Not exclusively, but don't count them out just because they are HS kids either. That pushes what is probably the most premium talent off to the side because of a flawed philosophy.

You get an nice giant F for your piss poor attempt at trolling son. ?

Harper, Kimbrel & Corbin probably would have made us WS contenders as early as 2020. Robert Moncada Abreu Harper Jimenez TA Collins Anybody Madrigal thats the best offense in baseball. Why the EFF didn’t they sign that huge lefty bat that was available.

He was unlistenable for anyone with a 5th grade education or better. Thank goodness we were able to replace him with a professional broadcaster. We are so lucky to have Jason

Remember the rumor heading into offseason that Jerry wanted to make a big move to put butts in the seats? Instead he did enough to drive fans away.

What the fuck does the Cubs or Astros rebuilding have to do with Jerry Reinsdorf wanting to win or not? And to answer your dumb question, those teams wanted to win so badly they decided to take on short-term losses to set themselves up for sustainable success. Moving past your nonsensical post, all owners want to win, the difference between a good owner and bad owner is what they do to support winning in a handful of areas. 1) Are they willing to commit as much of their financial resources as they possibly can into the team. 2) Are they able to hire smart baseball people to run their organization. 3) Are they willing to create a culture of accountability and replace leaders that fail to build a winning product. 4) Are they willing to allow their front office to operate free of restrictions and shape the organization as they see fit. Reinsdorf fails in all those areas. He refuses to invest in his club preemptively to build fan interest when it could pay dividends long-term. He also refuses to go into the red even when there is strategic merit for short-term losses. Jerry wants to win as long as there are some profits to be made and he isn’t forced to go into cash reserves. For 2 & 3, he has had the same two guys lead this organization for the last 15 to 20 years and the results have been very poor to the say the least. Part of that is due to short-sighted decision making that saw us go for it year-after-year despite our owner not willing to commit the necessary financial resources to successfully execute such a plan. However, the lack of investment in analytics and player development is probably the bigger crime and has put us way behind most organizations. Unfortunately, Jerry’s culture of unwavering loyalty allows for stubborn & uncreative thinking and prevents an influx of new voices with fresh ideas. Finally, for item 4, Reinsdorf has a vast history of interfering with operations. For years we couldn’t go over slot in the draft because he was buds with Bud. We couldn’t offer pitchers too long of deals because of his risk tolerance. And there is no doubt in my mind the constant “go for it” mentality we previously operated under is the result of Jerry dictating the strategic vision of the franchise. I have no doubt Jerry would rather win than lose, but his actions (or lack thereof) have been a deterrent to the organization’s well-being and he is no doubt a bad owner for the reasons I highlighted above.

The great pitching guru Don Cooper has been living off 2005 for far too long. I'm well aware the Sox are in a rebuild, but Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito have taken noticeable steps back this season, and the Sox pitching staff now has MLB's worst WHIP (1.67). Reinsdorf's loyalty (see Gar-Pax and the Bulls) has got to stop. Replacing Don Cooper is long overdue.

People correctly identified that if they had something there, it would be at DH, not RF. And if he had worked out as a DH (where he outperformed Alonso offensively last year), it would mean the sox have an additional $9 million to work with. Seems like a good plan when we are still rebuilding.

Davidson

I could not agree with this sentiment more.

Blaming the pitching coach is such a meatball hot take. Just like blaming the hitting coach if a team isn‘t hitting. People were overjoyed when Greg Walker was fired. Yet, I don‘t think you can point to any tangible change. It reminds me of people blaming the teacher when their kid is just a dumbass.

Yeah, it’s really hard to evaluate his drafts. Just a year ago, that 2016 draft was looking fantastic with Collins, Burdi, & Hansen all cracking top 100 lists. There is still hope for all three of those guys, but the potential outcomes are all over the place at this point. However, last season saw the rise of Lambert, Flores, & Hamilton and that’s helped offset some of the uncertainty with the higher regarded guys. That 2016 draft could literally be anything from an epic disaster to an absolute haul. It’s really going to take another couple years to find out. To me the biggest issue is how safe he’s been with his drafts and to your point that’s primarily tied to not drafting HS kids. Last year was an improvement by taking three high schoolers in the first 11 rounds, but at some point we have to be prepared to take one in the 1st or 2nd. This year in particular will be the ultimate test if Adley & Vaughn are off the board. IMO, skipping on Witt and Abrams in such a scenario would be very troubling.

I wrote these two articles last month to offer some context on their drafts. http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2019/03/white-sox-should-be-pleased-with-third-pick/ http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2019/01/sox-draft-philosophy-focused-on-long-term-results-not-top-100-prospects/ I think it's generally too early to judge any of Nick Hostetler's drafts. With that being said, the system does lack upside. The lack of HS talent really shows. The drafting method of the past few years has insulated a terrible system with talent and I believe there are a lot of big leaguers in the system. While the lack of upside is apparent, having many big leaguers helps with trades and filling in around stars. I'm a big fan of the Zack Collins pick and I understand Jake Burger with that particular selection. Their 2nd round strategy leaves much to be desired but it's still too early to judge the drafts IMO.

Yea, I don’t get it. Both the Sox and the entire fan base were so fixated on Machado while Harper was always the better fit. Plug him into RF and #3 hole for the next 7 years without thinking twice. A complete no brainer. And from a $$$ perspective (since that’s Jerry’s #1 priority), he pays for himself in tickets, merchandise, television viewership, etc.

Yes, Honda. You made a misinformed post that the Sox don't pay for top talent anywhere - citing an announcing job. He pointed out the Sox have the most acclaimed in-park voice in sports. As well as the two people I listed.

They had the best trainer in sports for multiple decades and have the best grounds keeper alive. People clamoring for Hawk and ripping Benetti are an interesting group. Benetti light years better at this point. Edit: I forgot about Honda as well.

Let the record show this person does not recognize the value of Steve Stone or Gene Honda, who are both literally two of the best in the business.

You mean like how he’s a multi sport commentator and recognized as one of the rising stars in the business? Or the fact that you can literally watch him do a national broadcast any time of the year? We are unbelievably lucky to have him. He’s quickly becoming the Gene Honda of sportscasting. And for the pay for top talent crap; Gene Honda is literally the best in the business and so is Steve Stone.

For the benefit of "Turnin' two," or anyone else who might have misunderstood my post, regarding Bishop's yet untapped potential, allow me to clarify. The point is simply that, while he is the nation's leading collegiate hitter, in most offensive categories, there may still be tremendous upside, owing to the fact that he has only recently focused on the sport of baseball. There is a difference between drafting a great athlete, in hopes of turning him into a baseball player, and drafting a proven baseball player, who still has untapped raw potential. The logic is compelling and shouldn't need to be corroborated by a great number of examples. For every Joe Borchard, and Jared Mitchell, there are plenty of Tim Andersons, Joe Mauers, Kirk Gibsons, Todd Heltons and other 2, or 3 sport athletes, who regarded baseball as their "second sport". Who would question whether, or not, Bo Jackson could have become one of the best all time baseball players, if he had stayed healthy? Hunter Bishop has already done enough to establish himself as a baseball player, but it is reasonable to assume that he still has more room for growth, because he hasn't played the game as long as most baseball players, his age. Adam Engel had a similar background to Bishop's. He was also a star high school football player, with aspirations of playing in the NFL. Instead, like Bishop, he decided to play college baseball, also as a center fielder. Comparing the college careers of the two, should underscore what Bishop has achieved. A quick glance at Engel's junior year stats will illustrate my point. In 256 at bats, he hit 1 home run and batted .236. His OPS was .668. Although Engel is a far below average MLB hitter, he is probably a better hitter now, than he was, as a college player, which suggests that he was very raw, when drafted. Compare that to Bishop's remarkable performance, in his junior year. It is the combination of the raw athletic ability and the already accomplished production, that I find so intriguing about Bishop.

This is a terrible take. Hawk was so much more entertaining to listen to than Stone and Benetti who half the game are making really dorky lame jokes.

Isn’t Robert more exciting to everybody? That’s a given dude. What I’m saying is it’s super cool to be excited about everything. The lineup is already shaping up on the MLB team with Moncada, TA, Abreu & Jimenez looking plus. Add LuBob, Madrigal and even a Collins and it looks awesome. Scotty Pods only hit 20 some doubles every season and was lucky to OPS .700. He stole a shit ton of bags, got on base , wreaked havoc and scored runs. Now imagine he didn’t gobble up a corner outfield spot and played 2B instead. That’s a great player to have hitting 1 or 9 on an already powerful lineup. That’s Madrigal if he pans out. Everybody needs to chill out. We don’t want all sluggers. It’s okay to have different skill sets operating.

The idea of Madrigal is exciting. The Sox are about to be a monster.

Will be turning 22 in May

I believe he's 22 so that would be age appropriate for an actual MLB prospect.

But it’s true. If you want to win, you spend money. The Sox talked a big game about it and ended up with neither Machado nor Harper and an offseason of trash acquisitions.

In all seriousness, could he join as an ambassador role similar to Contreras?

Two more things: A.). He HASN’T won recently, if you haven’t noticed. He HASN’T won in over a decade, and is presiding over the 4th longest playoff drought, and B.) If you truly believe he “wants to win”, how do you explain how every other team in the A.L. Central, which includes three small market teams, has had a total team payroll at one time greater than anything Reinsdorf has ever shelled out in a given year? You couple that fact with the disgraceful display of full-on cheapness we saw this past offseason, and you have no leg to stand on claiming this mongrel “wants to win”. As a few other posters have mentioned, “actions speak louder than words”.

Talk about “soft takes”... Did either of the Astros or Cubs use the same sh*theads who were responsible for the need for their rebuilds” when they decided to “blew it up”? That’s the difference here. Both the Astros and Cubs’ success was due to subsequent and superior management folks coming in and cleaning up the mess of their inferior predecessors to build their eventual, sustainabitable products. That is what our franchise and fan base so desperately needs: new ownership, and with that, a new management team, and a complete and new fresh look as to how to take advantage of the market our White Sox play in.

If you don't want to pump money into the organization and lose a very small amount of money every year fuck the hell off. Every MLB team is worth over a billion dollars, cash out and let someone else give it a shot.

Just because someone says “JR wants to win” doesn’t mean it’s really true. Actions speak louder than words, and he sure doesn’t seem to be putting his organizations in the best chance to succeed.

If that’s the best you can say about the man, that he “wants to win”, well, that’s almost damning with faint praise. Every owner “wants to win”. Name us one that doesn’t. The difference is Reinsdorf either doesn’t want to win as badly as his peers, won’t expend the resources necessary to do so (see past offseason), or an unfortunate combination of both. Surely you see a disconnect between your claim he “wants to win” and his miserable record over a 38 period of doing so. Why hasn’t his wanting to win translated into far more of it? Just bad luck?

He “doesn’t know how”? The longest tenured owner in the game “doesn’t know how” to win? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I could see saying something like this about a new ownership group like what Jeter has going down in Miami. But saying this about a guy who’s been at this for nearly 40 years now screams out “failed ownership” more than anything else that could possibly be said.