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Cooper is 63 years old, he really can’t much left in the tank. To me, he’s the number one guy who has to go in the organization as the game has clearly passed him by IMO.

Mel Stottlemyre is dead...

No, I do not think Jose Rondon will be back next year

??? Just remember, the more you defend the White Sox, their front office, and their crappy players, the better a fan you are.

Glad to see the flat earth coalition is still having their meetings.

Ok it’s just one game in a rebuilding year

Is your brother Greg?

I agree. Most athletes get better with age. Its normal for 39 year olds to become elite power hitters due to the fact that the body gets better hand eye coordination as you get older. I know my eyes and my physical abilities got better north of 40 years old.

Dude, enough. All players don't just completely tank cuz their team is out of the playoffs. Your posts are all just to defend Abreu's garbage stats.

Abreu with just a pathetic game tonight.

No, you need to reserve all your power and ridiculous posts to defend Abreu and his .791 OPS and shoddy defense.

AAA seems to have done wonders with Engel.

Look, Reinsdorf and/or Hahn/KW may very well fuck things up this offseason, but we should have more money to spend than any other team. There is no legitimate excuse for failing to land what we need. And the fanbase should fucking riot if it doesn’t get done. Potty training time was the Machado pursuit last offseason, now they need to get serious and drop that heat square in the bowl. Misses are no longer acceptable.

Yeah Cease really isn’t ready for the majors. His fastball command is total garbage.

If the Sox were better, Abreu catches that. He sucks defensively because of the team around him.

Damn...looks like I was late to the party.

and Moncada

My brother has this super meatball approach: - Cooper should get the job for life because of 2005. I responded that that was 14 years ago and while there are wins (Sale, Quintana), there are big losses. He responds that that's on the pitchers. Also worth noting, my brother: - Thinks Ozzie got a raw deal by the team and would always welcome him back (his favorite player) - Thinks we shouldn't be made about Voldemort being traded by the team, because he was a 17-year-old at the time, you should always go for it, and we have Tim Anderson. Also, "prospects never pan out."

Unless they have a starting rotation of 5 legit aces, a lineup 1-9 of players that could make the ASG in any given year, that all play above average defense, and a bullpen that very rarely blows a lead, people are always going to have something to complain about. Also, if the Sox don't win 100+ games every year, people are going to complain. There are some people with unrealistic expectations that can never be pleased. They're miserable fucks who don't deserve your time and energy. They all know who they are. Every bit of progress just raises the bar for what is and isn't acceptable to them. They're always moving the goalposts until they get so high that it is impossible to reach. Nobody is allowed to have a slump, or a bad start/outing, let alone a bad season. These are the last people in the world I'd want to be my boss, and to those people, ask yourself if you'd want your boss to treat you like that at work.

With all the crap and chaff on the roster I don't understand why people are coming after one of the few guys that has looked like a legitimate major leaguer.

As many Bulls and Sox fans know JR leaves himself open to this sort of speculation because his orgs have a history of weird setups and personnel moves and rewarding loyalty above competence. I'm not going to give a blow by blow of every instance of it but the history of nepotism and intentionally opaque management structures (can't blame someone if nobody is in charge!) is out there in history for anybody to go google.

Your narrative is so tired. I too don't want to trade legitimate assets for 2.33 years of Mazara, but depending on the what you'd be giving up, its worth at least exploring. The Sox badly need a LH RF, and while he isn't a perfect fit, he's not an awful option.

A rumor!

What could have happened in the last week that would make him (or anybody) no longer excited about the team's future? Did I miss something?

The hot takes around Giolito are quite impressive. The kid is 25 years old and has gone from worst starter in baseball in 2018 to legit 4+ win pitcher in 2019. Even when bad, he looks night & day better than last year and now has the stuff to support being a legit TOR starter. The kid is not a finished product and will continue to get better, so there is absolutely need to panic over a semi rough patch.

lol like people haven‘t b****ed about the Sox and their ownership here or on WSI when they were legit contenders. Some people love to complain. Using the team‘S futility as an excuse to be whiny 24/7 is pretty rich though. Good one.

That is a highly premature take. Cease has been struggling with control issues all year which is why he hasn't been able to go deep. I would give him at least 2 full years before you can make that kind of determination.

Well considering you specialize in inverse logic I would say we should get him.

That's not what my Mom said last night... Wait, I don't think I did that right.

I said this years group wasn't ready and I didn't want us to waste big money on Harper and Machado. I still believe that. Because we still don't have a good idea of how far away we are my preference would still be to do 1-2 year deals. This club still has major holes in the rotation and certain positions. There will be bounceback guys like Porcello forced to accept 1-2 year deals. That is where our energy needs to be.

Both the Dodgers and Braves are going to have 40 man issues this offseason. These are the teams that theoretically you should be able to extract the most value from because they'd rather get something for their assets as opposed to holding and creating roster casualties in the offseason.

Thank you! Dude needs rub one out or something, because his level of anger / obsession is reaching unhealthy levels.

One of the things that has pissed me off all year is not letting guys like Fulmer and Collins get more playing time in a year that doesn't matter. Taking fliers on guys like AJ Reed, Despaigne, Cordero, Detwiler et cetera instead of seeing what we actually have in a non competitive year is maddening. Yeah, Fulmer probably is nothing but he should have been up all year or at least a bigger portion, he has nothing to prove in AAA, same with Collins. JR is going to have to shell out a bunch of money in the off season and it would have been nice to see how some of these guys performed for a bigger portion of the year. Oh well

I am starting to think Hahn simply acquires guys based on draft position and not the Sox own scouting. Either that or their scouting must be putrid. How could the Sox and their scouts have been after A.J. Reed for years, as it has been reported a few times? What did they see about him that we aren’t? The guy is an overweight DH with a massive hole in his ridiculous uppercut swing.

You can’t honestly believe Hahn has done a good job the last 3 years? The trades have worked out well, but the free agent signings have been a disaster for the most part. He’s done a truly terrible job at finding potential pieces on a contending trade from deals outside the big 3 pieces. Everyone likes to compare the Sox rebuild to the Astros and Cubs, but those GMs could have only dreamed of having guys like Sale, Q and Eaton to deal. Instead they struck gold trading FA signings like Feldman, whereas seemingly half of Hahn’s FA signings vanish from baseball after a year or so.

Ss2k5?

Nope, still was and is a perfect response in my mind.

That probably sounded way funnier in your head.

Am I back to being the only Giolito fan on the board?

If i got a nickel for every time I have read inane stuff like “The league has figured Buehrle out, you can‘t pitch with a 85mp/h fastball anymore “ around here, I would be a millionaire.

Eh, just over an .800 OPS in the minors (AA and AAA) for a corner outfielder? Not a surprise he is a .750 OPS corner outfielder in the majors.

True, his minor league track record wasn't even that good and he only has two years of control left.

"Illegal". At worst it's an ordinance violation.

Get over yourself. Stfu

yea that would do it. Now add 5 starters, 3 relievers, a 2B and the Sox might win 84 games.

Yah, I like this. We’re on the same page.

Wait a second, what happened to Cole and Ozuna? Your free agent expectations are already dropping? Also, when I mentioned Puig as more the Sox style due to their past interest, I got jumped on.

They will 100% spend big money this offseason. To me, the only free agents that seem to be a stretch are Rendon, Cole, & probably Strasburg (and I still believe they pursue both pitchers). Ultimately I see them settling for Bumgarner (who I like but is seriously overrated around here) or Wheeler (who I think is criminally underrated here) as their primary starting pitching upgrade. I fully expect a second rotation addition simply due to our lack of depth and Wood would be a fantastic option, although I could see them going cheaper there. Assuming we keep Colome & Bummer, I think only one bigger bullpen addition will be needed (Betances is a guy I’d love to add) as I’d expect Lopez to likely move to the pen at some point. I fully expect Abreu back on a two year deal (in the $25M to $30M range). I still think they pursue Grandal to fill the left-handed void in the middle of the lineup and as a plus he won’t cost us a draft pick. Him, McCann, & Collins could basically rotate between C & DH for half a year until Vaughn is ready. They will also most definitely acquire a RF upgrade one way or the other, with a stopgap like Puig (until Walker or one of the AA guys is ready) a potentially cheaper option. I do like your Nimmo trade idea as well depending on the price. So in summary let’s say you add Bumgarner ($20M), Wood ($10M), Betances ($12M), Grandal ($20M), & Puig ($12M). That’s ~$75M in payroll added to a base roster that’s probably sitting around ~$55M after extending Abreu and bringing back Rodon. All in you’re looking at a payroll of ~$130M, which would basically be league average. Lineup: Madrigal (2B), Robert (CF), Moncada (3B), Jimenez (LF), Abreu (1B), Grandal (C/DH), Puig (RF), Anderson (SS), McCann/Collins (DH/C) Bench: Garcia (UT), Cordell (OF), Mendick (IF), Collins/McCann (BC) Rotation: Giolito, Bumgarner, Cease, Wood, Lopez (*Kopech to start in AAA) Bullpen: Colome, Bummer, Betances, Fry, Herrera, Marshall/Hamilton, Covey/Banuelos (*eventually Lopez) That seems completely doable to me and would be a team that should challenge for the AL Central title and/or second Wild Card spot in 2020.

I am always playing catch-up since I can’t get on all the time. Just don’t have the access. Anyway, do you guys think signing big money players is the way to win? All everybody cares about is the BIG signing. It doesn’t matter what the price, you’ll be guaranteed to win. I’ve noticed some saying we’ve only had 2 big signings and it was a long time ago. How’d that work out? Why don’t you show me how that worked for other teams. I can bet that percentage is very low. I’d like to know what big signing helped win a championship. I know there are a few but like I said, the percentage is pretty small. The White Sox didn’t have a big signing when they won. As a matter of fact, I remember having to argue with almost everyone when Lee was traded for Podsednik. God, every talk show, would just complain about how stupid that trade was. It seemed like I was the only one to like it since it fit our team need. We had plenty of Lee’s. Anyway, going off topic, the point being, signing for big money doesn’t guarantee anything unless you were the Yankees and got everyone. The teams that are successful are the ones that make smart signings. We have put ourselves in a great position to sign anybody with no bad contracts being locked in. How great is that and most want to sign just because we are so low. If the right one comes along, sure but right now, how do you know what we need? I hear Grandal, really? For 14 million more he’ll make us that much better. Seems like a lateral move to me but I forget, he has the name recognition. Who cares about anything else. I do think we need a starter and possibly an OF. But until I see how they do next year, am not sure. The first 5-6 spots in our lineup seem to be taken. I don’t want big names. If one falls in our lap then sure. I want what fits our team need. Being this early still, not sure how anyone knows what that will be.