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^Whoever posted the laughing face smiley to this is a loser. I'm really sick of seeing this crap here. If you disagree, make a comment as to why. Remember that this is a discussion board. The Cubs are likely going to nontender Kris Bryant, the former face of their franchise, because they don't want to risk having to pay him like 4 or 5 million more than he's worth. Meanwhile 1.5 years ago Darvish was a bad contract who refused to opt out and test the market because he knew he couldn't get anything near what the Cubs owed him. And Heyward has been a bad deal since Year 1. There's a "quote" button if you have something to disagree with. The laughing smiley icon is just lazy. Whoever did that, fuck you. Not only are you stupid but you're lazy. Also that's not a personal attack because the person who did it is anonymous.

He’s going to be a force when he hits puberty

Okay so here's the thing. I saw some confusion yesterday and I'll try to clear it up. I think the White Sox are more likely to trade for pitching if they get an impact guy. They're absolutely interested in George Springer. Will they get him? I have no idea. I'm not sure how soon he even wants to sign but I think the White Sox are approaching it the same way they did with Grandal. Whether it works or not will be determined later I guess. It's insane the number of fake/insider accounts out there right now. It won't dissuade anyone but I've never needed a nonsense account. I just post from mine. I also run the FutureSox one sometimes and one for the track and field team I coach. I don't have time for another account and if I did, it wouldn't be as clever. The Portillos one actually has some solid intel if you go back to last year which is strange. I think everyone should be patient but I know that won't happen.

Yeah when the left handed sluggers available aren’t as good at hitting righties as the right handed superstar available

Not that we need another TLR thread, but I just want to say my peace where it might get noticed. Tony LaRussa was hired for one purpose - to help the Sox win playoff appearances, Division titles, Pennants, and World Series Championships. No one alive today has won more of those things in baseball than Tony LaRussa. Yet, the fanbase and commentators across baseball have widely derided this hire as a massive mistake by the White Sox. LaRussa himself has been criticized as: 1) out of touch with today's athletes, and the Sox players in particular, 2) unable to incorporate modern analytics into his managing, 3) racist for his early rejection of kneeling during the national anthem, 4) incompetent because he hadn't called his players as soon as he was announced as manager, 5) a relic of the past because he hasn't managed since 2011, 6) too old, 7) a drunken irresponsible person for getting a second DUI arrest, and many other things. Sox fans and others have also derided the process by which he was hired, as an edict from Jerry Reinsdorf that in their eyes directly contradicted Rick Hahn's wishes, thereby neutering Hahn's role with the Sox going forward. These commentators refuse to take Hahn's comments during the press conference announcing LaRussa at face value, assuming he was lying to cover up a broken process. I think nearly all of that is irrelevant. Tony LaRussa may or may not succeed as the Sox' manager in 2021 and beyond. But he should not be judged on the process. He should be judged on whether he gets the results he was hired to achieve - playoff appearances, division titles, pennants, and WS championships. The man has managed 5097 games. His teams have made the playoffs 14 times in 33 seasons. They have 6 pennants and 3 World Series titles. He won the World Series with an 83-win and a 90-win Cardinals team, which suggests he doesn't need the most dominant team in baseball to win it all. He's had a winning record at all three stops - Sox, A's, Cardinals. Whatever process Tony LaRussa has used to achieve these milestones, with 33 different collections of players, is okay by me. I defer to his expertise and experience in these matters, because like every other fan and commentator on TLR, I've never managed a major league baseball team or game, and I don't pretend to know more than the guy who is third all-time (about to be second, and the only one to manage during an integrated league) in managing major league games. If you are so disgusted with the Sox over this hire that you want to boycott the team or the games, or give up your fandom, that is your right. And you can continue voicing your criticism of this hire if you like till the cows come home. For me, it's all about the Ws, especially during crunch time. That's where Rick Renteria failed, and it's why he had to go. I expect Tony LaRussa will get better results.

When we traded Sale, Q and Eaton they all had high value in their contracts. Darvish and Bryant are very well paid. The Cubs need to be happy with unloading salary...not so much the return. I'm not giving a Madrigal for the privilege of paying Bryant or Darvish salaries. Use the money on FA's.

I hate that so many posters want to trade Madrigal. Fangraphs talks about 2b being one of the worst positions for talent in MLB right now. We have a guy that looks like he could be a 4 WAR per year guy and we want to get rid of him to take on an enormous salary? It seems to me the thing the White Sox have lots of depth in is young exciting pitchers. If you set the cut off at 26 years...we have Giolito, Cease, Kopeck, Dunning, Lopez, Crochett, Stiever, Kelly, Thompson, Dahlquist, Lambert and Pinklington. I count a dozen really exciting young pitchers. All are either on our current roster or top 30 prospects and all starter potentials (lots of good young relief arms too). Why would the Cubs not want to trade Darvish and his salary for three guys like Stiever, Kelly and Lambert? Sort of like the package we sent got for Eaton...though Eaton was cost controlled position player. I should think you can package three of these arms to a lot of teams that want to dump salary and rebuild for the future. For the Sox...you get one sure thing for three future things.

If the Sox took on Darvish and Heyward at once they should get a top young piece, and on the other side should be just "names." E.g. Darvish + Heyward + Marquez for Collins + Lopez + Engel + Marshall

Wouldn’t it be funny if the Cubs went through all of what they went through for an extra year of control with Bryant to ultimately not want it?

y2jimmy can you confirm?

All the owners in Chicago just seem like super swell people.

So far the results are that we are the laughing stock of baseball, a major free agent said he wouldn't sign here, and a top coaching choice wouldn't come here. Smashing successes so far.

Man, to think they were one rain delay speech away from getting no championships at all -- what a story that would have been.

This mentality is why Nomar Mazara played right field for the Sox in 2020. I don’t care what side of the plate a guy hits from as long as they can actually hit.

There was a Texas case where a 12-year old Muslim boy built a wooden clock as part of school project. When he brought it into school, he was suspected of bringing in a bomb. The clock was taken apart and, of course, there was no bomb. Despite this, the cops were called and the kid was hassled by an officer. Maher was all in favor of this. No one's rights should be violated like this. This is not calling a spade a spade. And usually, school terrorist acts in the form of shootings are done by white Christians. Bill Maher. What a guy.

Honestly this is the only message board where crap twitter accounts like this are good to go.

There you have it . Trading Madrigal is bad luck waiting to happen. If Madrigal is somehow traded for Darvish then Darvish is injured and ineffective for 2 of his remaining 3 years. I understand the reason for wanting to trade him. He's not an impact player like Tatis, jr. ,but if his rookie year is any indication the kid can hit for average if not power. His fielding and base running should improve as he adjusts to the speed of the game and his own limitations. Hitting for average is a good thing around a bunch of guys getting extra base hits. He will score a lot of runs and sustain rallies, knock in a few runs. Look how long the Sox stuck with EE . Nicky brought way more to the table than EE without a single HR while EE hit 10. Nick had a .745 OPS with 3 lousy doubles among his 35 hits and a 108 OPS+. EE had a .627 OPS and 70 OPS+. Nick hit better than our DH for most the the year who cost the Sox $10M. It's hard to take a stance for acquiring guys when we start thinking old often injured guys contracts are worth it coming off a top year. No one liked Abreu's new contract and he was younger than Darvish without injury history. Do not overpay for Darvish . 3 years is too many for a 34 year old with too many injuries and too many incomplete seasons and with his best season in recent memory being one where he pitched 76 innings. I was against EE last year. I was against Shields and LaRoche. I thought the trade for Samardzija was idiotic. It's all in black in white somewhere in the archives. No more costly aging injury prone players.I'd rather trade a Steele Walker 100 times for a Nomar Mazara. 1 minor leaguer for a MLB young player with upside. It's really too bad he flopped because even with his normal production from his 4 previous years we win the division easy and if he had broken out imagine the trade chip he would've been. I want upside, not guys coming off their best year with the likelihood of age and injuries taking the toll they always take.

The obsession with trading Madrigal (usually for players with question marks) on this board is so irritating. No one apparently wants Brantley or various other players due to "injury concerns" yet we cant wait to offer up a young, cheap, controlled potential all star who just hit .340 in his rookie season AND MORE for a definitely injury prone pitcher. I want a star SP too, guys. But trading Nick is not the answer.

Portillos has mentioned 15 players in tweets since yesterday...not counting Springer and Marquez.

There is no reason to believe the Sox would consider trading Madrigal, no reason the Cubs would have interest in him and no reason to believe that PortillosHamburger has any information on anything.

I wish Portillo's guy would stop tweeting and call out my number for my Combo and Fries while they are still warm. Dipped with sweet peppers. Have my own hot peppers at home.

The Cubs have had a great run. It fizzled out a little but 3 NLCSs, 3 division championships, 4 90 win seasons and, a WS in 6 years is pretty good. The Dodgers, Red Sox, Astros, and Giants are the only teams to have better runs the past decade.

I'd be willing to bet Bryant outproduces Springer over the next five years, if it weren't for the fact I don't have patience for a five year bet.

Yep chisox was right with everything but I think a lot of us are skeptical.

Trading the depth is stupid, short sighted, and always bites you in the ass. I'd rather sign a B level pitcher and roll with what we have then trade anyone of substance. Give the new pitching coach a chance. Cease, Lopez, Kopech, and Dunning might be all we need.

It's going to be interesting to see what Bauer signs for. Mentioned this in another thread earlier today, but the only way he gets close to $40M AAV is if he takes a short term deal. Cole is better and just signed for $32M AAV a year ago pre-pandemic. I'd happily pay Bauer $32M AAV over 4 years as opposed to trading two of Madrigal/Cease/Dunning to get Darvish on basically a slightly below market deal. Plus, now they have to go spend at least $10M to fill 2B via FA, and now a future rotation fixture is also gone. The cost for next year is basically the same once you add in the 2B FA. I am all for trading pieces that don't really fit our future puzzle, or moving some premier guys for a super elite player (such as Yelich, just as an example). But I am not really looking to fill a hole with an expensive injury prone vet and create a hole that was filled by a cost controlled future fixture that will cost less than $1M for the next few seasons. Doesn't compute to me unless the Sox are going to all of a sudden be one of the big spenders in baseball, and if that is the case, just go sign Bauer.

WHY TRADE OUR GOOD YOUNG FUTURE CORE PLAYERS WHEN WE CAN EASILY SIGN THE PLAYERS THAT WE NEED? IT STILL MAKES NO SENSE TO ME.

Maybe

I’d rather lock up a potential 5 win OF to a below market contract for the next half decade instead of basing all my decisions around 2021.

How does Bauer not fit in the clubhouse? Seems to me his swagger would fit in just fine. Not saying the sox get him, but I'd probably prefer the Sox offer 4/$130M to Bauer and sign a stop gap in RF than sign Springer to 5/$115M. Obviously I'd take either, but I think the money is better spent on an absolute stud in the rotation. Sox offense will still be really good without Springer. Can't say the same about the rotation without another TOR SP.

Nope. The process is, was, and always will be completely fucked up. Our concerns are not irrelevant, despite knowing we are stuck with him. The Sox might win with TLR, but I will never be ok with the hire. The ramifications of which are still yet to play out completely.

I love Buehrle. He's not a HOFer. I feel the same about Paulie. Maybe down the road when the stench of the roid cheaters is gone from baseball? OF the guys on that list, my only HOF pick is Omar Visquel.

Mark's my favorite baseball player of all time but I wouldn't vote him in. That said, this is probably the best chance he could have asked for with the way the ballot shaped up this year.

Never forget the insider trading done by Epstein to get Rizzo. Traded him to San Diego from Boston, then got Hoyer, then SDs GM, to trade him to Chicago, then hired Hoyer.

Prolly coming to the South Side after Rick steps down.

Scarred forever from statements like this but yes I do like for once being in a favorable environment for salary (currency exchange)

Past the NFL trade deadline, so not much to do there. The hard part I have with Pace is, yeah, he missed on Trubisky - we all know it and there are some other misses (including spending the money on Quinn vs. focusing on the oline). But he has drafted Whitehair and Daniels (Both higher end investments) + signed Massie via free agency and given extensions to guys like Long. So he has invested in the position but offensively he has definitely had a number of misses. But on the defensive side of the ball - he has had some massive hits (don't get me wrong - he's had his misses; Floyd never ended up becoming the edge rusher we had hoped, but he was always an underrated linebacker and is having a great season in LA this year) and ultimately has built a pretty darn good defense. And despite Kmet not emerging (at least not yet - also no TE has really done anything this year), this years draft still looks pretty good. He also invested much needed money into facilities and had clout and vision to do that and in my opinion has been pretty honest when it came to admitting his mistakes (was not shy to cut his guys). His record - obviously poor - but he inherited about as crappy of a set-up as possible and instilled Fox, whos shifted the culture and Nagy, who as a HC has done a decent job with culture, etc. He just is a complete turd offensively (I'm sure he has things he's good at - just not owning the whole thing when it comes to offense design). I actually seriously wonder - how much of the offensive failure is on Pace (including some of his higher profile misses like Dion Simms, or Jimmy Graham (too much money - clearly was a need) or even on the oline (never quite figuring it out - they've used finesse guys after Fox had built a power running scheme - but the finesse scheme/oline thing was very much a Nagy concept...probably too focused on getting cute vs. reality). I really wonder - how much did Pace fail because Nagy really didn't know what he want / wasn't able to really provide effective clarity around what he needed. GM's job is to trust coach to some extent and work with them on desired scheme, etc. I think Monty was a guy Nagy wanted and Nagy has always raved about him. I am probably grasping at straws - I just really hate having to completely start over again because I think Pace has some good qualities. To be frank - Nagy does too - but running an offense isn't one of them and well that is a damning failure. Will be really interesting to see what this team does after the bye week. I legit think they need a spark and maybe Mitch can do that. I do think the offense has always liked him and you've seen guys like Cohen almost hint that they need Mitch back (and we know Zach Miller has been saying for weeks more Mitch). Reality is nothing is saving this offense - it just sucks. I legit don't understand why as a Bears fan I've literally never been able to see any offense. I literally can think of one years a kid with Curtis Conway and Jeff Graham, who put it all together for 1 season and than there was a year with Cutler and Martz where the offense was clicking right before Jay hurt himself tackling someone in a blowout win against the Chargers (huge win - followed up by the Caleb Hanie experience). You had the Trestman era where the offensive talent was legit (Marty B, Alshon, BMarshall) but personalities were insane and Trestman couldn't handle it...but that is basically it. Outside of that - pure & utter crap.

How sad. Listening to Trump used to only clean out your bank account. Now it can kill you. A South Dakota ER nurse @JodiDoering says her Covid-19 patients often “don’t want to believe that Covid is real.” “Their last dying words are, ‘This can’t be happening. It’s not real.’ And when they should be... Facetiming their families, they’re filled with anger and hatred.”

Not political at all, except when you tried to frame the argument around politics. The DUIs are an issue separate from his politics. When you start endangering people's lives, there is a big problem.

What kind of a person defends TLR right now?

I saw Eno Sarris mention something on Twitter today about the Blue Jays bring competition for the White Sox on Springer. My takeaway was just him acknowledging the Sox are in on, and possibly most aggressively so, Springer.

There is some logic in committing your financial resources to the position player rather than the pitcher. I’d still pursue Bauer above Springer, but if that’s a no go for whatever reason George is a tremendous consolation prize. He basically gives you a positional core that’s more or less locked in for the foreseeable future. Robert = 7 Vaughn = 7 Jimenez = 6 Madrigal = 6 Moncada = 5 Springer = 5* Anderson = 4 Grandal = 3 Abreu = 2 Honestly, that allows you to commit a significant amount of your talent pipeline to pitching like we saw this year with Crotchet & Kelly this year, Thompson & Dalquist the year before, and Vera as a LatAm free agent. Obviously most of those guys are far away from helping, but if you constantly have an influx of cheap young pitching you can hopefully keep that positional core around while they quickly increase in cost. To me, it seems like our best for building a mini dynasty.

So let me get this straight. Some fans want to fire Matt Nagy with his win percentage being the best since Lovie Smith? Why not pick tackles and a quarterback high in the draft since they finally have a first round pick and see what happens since fans believe the Bears have an “elite” defense? Wouldn’t it set them back to hire another head coach and GM in terms of roster turnover and yet another scheme? I’d give Pace and Nagy one more year. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/chi/coaches.htm

Defund was a cry of desperation from the BLM movement to get everyone's attention. It is the view of outsiders.

"We offered Springer 5 years and $110 million dollars, with the last two years being controllable team options of $20MM per season. I'm not sure why we lost out to the 5y/105 no option deal."

Everybody is racist now a days apparently. We better cancel him. Hate on Bill all you want, but he's right. There's plenty of "simpletons" that agree with him. The "holier than thou" attitude shown in your post is a big turn off to those simpletons.

Bill Maher is a first class prick. I stopped watching his show a long time because I can't stand his simpleton bull shit, not to mention his racism and sexism. Jesse Ventura is another simpleton who likes to say dumb things just to get attention. This stuff about Antifa is more bull.

Thanks Greg. Be sure to give my post a "like". Jessie Ventura - Bill Maher ticket!

Bill hit the nail on the head regarding the Democratic party's failure in the Senate and house elections. Defund the police is one of the worst and dumbest political catch phrases out there.

Severely too - it’s too bad cause with this oline he is clearly a better option in my humble opinion.