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Are we really now ripping TLR for flying like a normal person and being a nice guy by talking to fans? ?

My only thought is being forced to talk for 3 hours to my row mates sounds like hell. Poor TLR

You didn't "cast doubt". You essentially called him a liar. Learn the difference. I don't have any idea if it happened and neither do you. You come across as such an arrogant ass.

I know Tony has become a father like figure to you so my words hit you very close to home, but there's no need to bring my family into your fantastical stories.

It wouldn't have cost them Madrigal + Heuer if there weren't other teams bidding aggressively for Kimbrel in July, and not enough has changed since then to significantly change his market.

This is the very definition of the sunk cost fallacy.

Well, it's not beyond belief that a person wouldn't want to have their 80th birthday bash in the middle of covid. Maybe they feel better about the situation and decided to have it now. Why not in July, you ask? Well, with so many baseball people involved in it, it's also reasonable to think that they would wait until after the World Series. Didn't that just end? No MLB manager would say those things in the media. How they talk in person off the record, I have no idea. Apparently, TLR and Sammy Hagar have some history: https://fullinbloom.com/sammy-hagar-tony-la-russa-showing-me-how-to-throw-a-baseball-properly-flashback-friday-2007/ https://patch.com/california/walnutcreek/calendar/event/20210311/995064/tony-la-russa-s-arf-stars-to-rescue-virtual-2021-walnut-creek "Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) once again brings a dynamic mix of talent with the 30th annual Stars to the Rescue, this time in an all-new virtual format. "This year’s star-studded show features musicians and comedians from the past 29 years of Stars to the Rescue for a special reunion special, including Gloria Estefan, Luke Combs, Trace Adkins, Sammy Hagar & The Circle, Bruce Hornsby, The Doobie Brothers, and more! " Maybe the guy offered to buy him a beer and didn't realize that SW wasn't serving beer. Or, maybe he offered to buy him a beer after they got off the plane. Or maybe he's just one of those people who seem to reflexively offer to buy people beer to be friendly. But once again we will defer to your omniscience and ability to definitively make claims after being presented with only shreds of evidence.

People like ray ray will say anything to make TLR look bad. Sad.

Southwest isn't serving alcohol right now. Torre is 81 and his birthday was in July. No mlb manager is going to say a player is gone or that a lock out is happening. Gotta wonder why people like this make up stories online.

This post is just stupid.

Did “look here, pal…” start the conversation?

Maybe the 80th birthday was delayed because of covid? Tony seems like a really friendly guy by all accounts. Story seems legit.

Lmao Quick, everyone start posting photoshops of yourself and TLR on flights with wild rumors.

I saw this on Instagram seems legit

Sports are a young man's game. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/checking-in-on-the-aging-curve/ Players don't get better, they only get worse.

Perhaps. Or maybe it's the GM who, once again, refuses to face the reality that he overpaid for and overrated yet another veteran. Squandering assets takes its toll.

Quite the shitty response.

Recency bias.

Cub fans still love Kimbrel. We could probably get Madrigal ++if we would pony up 8 million toward Kimbrel's salary. Just for the record....I'm not joking.

Crazy story. I was just on a cross-continent Amtrak train for 2 days with Ray Ray's mom. She told me he used to wet the bed until high school. I offered to buy her a beer but she said she only prefers "the hard stuff." Nice lady.

It’s the only way it makes any sense. They have to know. This team (and basically no team) is in a position to have 30 mil tied into 2 RP’s, one of which was an absolute joke in a set up role.

Braindead decision

I hated the trade, and was not shy about it at the time. But you have to remember that the winning bid on free agents is the HIGHEST bid. It's really difficult to imagine that the winning bid for Kimbrel wouldn't be a multi-year deal. 2/20, 3/36? There's value there. I think 1/8 is just way off. Though if you think 1/8 is it, then I can see why you wouldn't like it.

Did you watch the World Series, Jack?

More stretches of terribad? Do you ever do any research or just spew non stop garbage? Here is a breakdown of Kimbrel’s stats of the last three years: 2019 (Full Year): 20.2 innings | 8.00 FIP | 4.75 xFIP 2020 (July only): 1.1 innings | 33.94 FIP | 18.78 xFIP 2020 (Aug to Oct): 14.0 innings | 1.12 FIP | 2.36 xFIP 2021 (Apr to Jul): 37.2 innings | 1.10 FIP | 1.97 xFIP 2021 (Aug to Oct): 22.0 innings | 4.71 FIP | 3.85 xFIP Over the past few years he pitched a total of 95.2 innings and had a 3.88 FIP and 3.29 xFIP. However, in the middle of this period he had a 51.2 inning stretch across 2020 & 2021 where he put up a 1.10 FIP & 2.08 xFIP. 54% of his innings during this period, including the vast majority of 2020, have been elite. I love people rip his 2020 season for being part of his “downward spiral” but don’t have a clue that it was greatly understated because of one horrific inning to start the year. So again, I ask you why does he suddenly suck? What changed when the calendar turned to August and he changed uniforms? Is the velocity drop due to him being gassed out with a large innings increase? Why are you weighting his go forward performance so much heavier on the last 22 innings rather the 51.2 innings preceding them? I know you’ll have no answer and will just say he sucks and go back to living your incredibly pessimistic life, but it would be nice for once if people like you could actually have rationale arguments when declaring someone sucks with full conviction.

If Dominguez is the best we can do...I don't see why RH would risk a QO. I think RH would have released Kimbrel and spent the 18.4 million elsewhere. I believe RH knows something that we don't on this one.

Seems like White Sox attendance baseline is about 20,000 fans a game. When they are really good...mid 90's, mid 00's...they averaged over 30,000 a game. Last year after they opened up to full attendance it was 27,000 a game...with still some COVID hesitancy. At the peak, 2006 they drew more than 36,000 a game. I think this is a very exciting team, Cubs are on the downside, people are ready for sports again...an average attendance over the next five years of 32,000 fans a game doesn't seem aggressive. That's 12,000 a game over 80 games means more than a million additional fans (from baseline which I'm sure is how JR sees it for budgeting purposes). A million extra fans with all ancillary spending would suggest $100 million extra revenue per year from base for the window. Take half of that for extra spending and yes...I would be REALLY pissed if they didn't hand out a couple of big contracts this off season. As for the haters on this site...we were a top five spending team in the 80's, 90's and 00's when we had a competitive team. JR spends when people come to the game...sadly our baseline isn't great when the teams not great (like Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs who draw no matter what) his "cheapness" is a myth. PLUS he's a baseball fan who is close to death and would like to see them win again and we all think they are close...I would be less surprised at an offseason signing of Semien and Rodon than an off season signing of nothing.

Yep, same GMs. How come you aren’t taking shots at the front offices of the Dodgers & Rays who were also highly interested in him? But hey, I remember you saying on July 31st that the closer with a 100th percentile xwOBA and HoF track record was certainly going to fall off over the next two months.

I think you've been overlooking the fact that Kimbrel has shown deteriorating skills for 4 years now, not just 1/2, and if any stretch of his performance was an aberration when compared to the past 4 years it was the first two months of 2021, not the last few. That year (2018) is when his stuff really took a dip from where it once was too and now he'll be 34 years old for the bulk for of the 2022 season. I actually think there is some validity to the idea that the Sox are making a poor judgement here; the rest of the league thought they gave up more than Kimbrel was worth at the time of trade. If there's a market, it's not a market that is going to return a likely-impact-player in return IMO. I guess time will tell, but of all the areas of this organization that have grown in the past five years, the one I still have zero faith in is MLB scouting; it's amongst the worst in baseball and they always seem to be the last team to get the memo on guys who have lost the extra inch that once made them really good.

Keith Law wrote his velocity and command were down. He assumed he would be bought out and thought Kimbrel could get 1 year $10 million on the open market. if that is for giving up nothing, how do the Sox get something for 1 year $16 million? For whatever reason, he was pretty bad with the White Sox. i'd rather they spend that money on a cu\uple of pitchers, or a really good 2B or RF.

I was there it's all true.

I'll be very surprised if we get anything useful for him.

That's the only excuse for picking up the option. Everyone watched Kimbrel in August and September. He sucks. Nobody wants a shitty reliever for $16M. I think that if they think they're going to extract some value back they're sorely mistaken. Kimbrel at $16M has negative value.

If the story is true - kudos to Tony for being just an all around good dude to the people he sat next to.

This is excellent humor. You two should start booking a tour.

So, this is my question:

Being stubborn and obviously spending money unwisely is acting like a big market team? Results don’t change their process? I wonder what Allen Thomas would think about that statement.

I'm talking about trade capital, not money here. They traded Madrigal and Heuer so they think they have to pick up the option.

Please trade him. I never want to see him pitch again.

I just don’t trust Carlos to be what we need him to be in October. Definitely agree on a multi-year deal, which would be reckless.

Lol what? Yes, I'm sure larussa told this fan that rodon was done with the team. I'm sure this entire story happened, because on the internet everything is true and real. You got me. Way to put me in my place for casting doubt on a story. You have defended that man's honor and I commend you for that. You are an amazing person. He says in his own story he offered to buy him a beer on the plane and then again after. You seem to know more about the situation than the guy who was "there." Ps. Sorry for calling your dad a liar.

The trouble with COVID is that it is so new that finding treatments is still an on-going process. Anti-vaxers grasp at straws because they fear the vaccine for various reasons. But taking home remedies or putting some weird stuff in your body doesn't make sense. In addition, all kinds of false information gets spread. Rodgers has a high profile and he really isn't helping things with his nonsense. Enough of the self-pity.

Since they're in their window? An extra 500,000 fans at $100 revenue per fan is $50 million extra to spend. $25 mill per on Robbie Ray and $10 mill for Taylor...and JR and the boys still have a nice bonus.

What a waste of pilkington

Avi has been good defensively the last two years

1997? Damn it sucks getting old. ? Re: Cleveland, go with Cleveland Baseball Team

So glad this trash has only won one World Series, when they faced an equally karma challenged opponent. They could have done the right thing, changed their team name to the Hammers, replaced the Native American music with MC Hammer, given out hammers for fans to use. Thirty years later, MLB is still facing the same questions, and have doubled down in the ignorance. MLB had over 30 million viewers for the 1990 World Series against two small market teams (Cincinnati and Oakland). 30 years later, they have a commissioner supporting the racist Chop, handing out "The Piece of Metal", and have lost 2/3 of the audience, with 10 million watching the first two games in 2021 with the seventh and eight largest television markets playing. Cincinnati is 36th, Oakland is 6th only because it is lumped in with San Francisco and Santa Clara, and despite a 1/3 increase in population over the past 30 years.

Obviously he should have been in long, long ago and enjoyed it himself. He was second best AL player 1951-1961, after a late arrival to the American League for obvious reasons. It’ll be nice when they right a wrong, but completely bittersweet.

And once again the ones carrying water for the owner will claim that next year we will spend. We have 40 years of evidence that Jerry is just a cheap owner. Luckily he isnt immortal.