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The Poles hire is 10x more important than the HC hire, IMO. If Poles gets this right, the coaching staff will be fine. If Poles is in over his head, no staff has a shot in hell.

I'm underwhelmed, but a lot really depends now on who comes in as OC.

Man, after that 2017 season I was so hyped for him.

You'll figure it out in time.

I go Schwarber, Castellanos, Conforto. I think Schwarber and Castellanos are locked in. They found their swings and they're gonna go on an extended run where they will continue to destroy baseballs. I think Conforto will find it again but I'm not as sure of him as I am the other two. That said I'd be happy with any of them. They need a big bat.

I'd rather them sign Schwarber.

Are they still talking daily? I haven't seen any news today.

Agreed. Dude needs to bring in excellent offensive staff.

Look, I know next to nothing about Kevin Patullo, but hiring an inexperienced OC is the very reason I didn’t want a defensive-minded HC.

Sure, I get the thought process behind it. But there is simply 0% chance I am trading Eloy right now. That would be nuts. Dude has the upside of one of the very best hitters on the planet. He's coming off a dreadful season. Eloy is my DH for the next 5 seasons. I would allow him to play a little LF in 22 and 23 to keep him happy, but the Sox are much much better off with Eloy at DH at this point. He's a risk to himself and everyone around him in LF. So Eloy stays. I fully expect him to pop out over 50 homers - while also hitting for average - one of the next couple seasons if the Sox commit to DH him 80%+ of the time. I am not a Sheets guy. I do not expect him to be anything other than a Brandon Moss type if everything goes well. Now that is a wonderfully useful guy to have around at the moment because we need lefty bats bad, but he cannot field a single position and we have Eloy at DH. I put him in AAA to start the season and wait for a need - one will certainly arise. He's got 2 more option years - lets use them. Vaughn is my LF for my aforementioned reasons. He'll always be a 1B. We can always move him back to 1B when father time eventually catches up to Jose. But we all know 2022 isn't Jose's last year in a Sox uni. Don't get me wrong - Ketel Marte would be a great addition. But we simply cannot add him without meaningfully subtracting from this roster. He's a luxury we don't need. Put on your big boy pants and give Conforto 4/$80M. Bring in one of Villar, Miller, Solano or Harrison to platoon with Leury at 2B and fill in around the diamond. We don't need a star at 2B. That roster is loaded.

I am not sure I like that trade but I'm going to give the logic. Given that Abreu will probably fossilize before he's no longer crewing 1b for the White Sox, if there's a hole that it is ok to open on this roster, it's trading one of Vaughn, Sheets, and Eloy. That's 3 guys covering DH and LF, and those 2 positions are generally fairly easy to fill with people from the minors or at the trade deadline, DH in particular you can fill pretty readily by just giving guys extra rest and playing your bench more. Furthermore, those 3 are perhaps the least flexible players on the roster as you can't exactly move them to CF or 3b if someone gets hurt; carrying all 3 actually creates some roster limits as 4 man bench with Vaughn and a backup catcher means you have 2 players left who need to be able to cover CF, RF, 3b, SS, and 2b on any given day. If one of those 2 spots is Engel, you almost need a 5 position-player bench to make sure you have depth if 2 IFs go out. Out of those 3, Vaughn almost certainly is the only one with value to a team like Arizona. In this case you are filling a hole with Marte by trading from the only position on the roster where you have too many players.

I can't complain - want to see what he does from a staffing perspective; He is a seasoned coach and seems to be a good teacher and I suspect will be very comfortable in his own skin. His defenses have been good and he seems to preach discipline, etc. I do think for Justin Fields sake - it will be important to find him a nucleus of coaches that can excite him in his development.

I don’t think it’s all that hard to imagine Vaughn improving immensely in 22. He was asked to do a ton in 21 with an enormous jump in competition and having not played at all in 20. AV is going to be an excellent mlb hitter.

What, Trestman and Nagy "offensive genius" hires weren't good enough?

I just want a staff that isn't gonna give me Trestman staff vibes

I mean he is a DC so I don't really feel like that OL stuff is going to transfer so well

Not if he comes out and has a next season that was comparable to his 2021. His value would drop dramatically then.

?

Except right now would be selling low.

The good about eberflus is while he has a marinelli background, he made a lot of changes consistently to his Defense. Again - would love to see if he can nab Patrick Graham for defense. For offense, boy. Offensively, funny stuff, he was on Eric Mangini's cleveland browns that had Daboll as OC. In Dallas, I don't see any coaches I'd like. Seriously, please no Derek Dooley as OC. Kill me. (he was with eberflus in Dallas and became OC at Mizzou) Indy? Well they just lost Sirianni. So I don't know who he's bringing. Please be good.

They just need to trade for Matt Ryan.

Are we selling high though? If selling high is the plan, let him rake this year and then trade him. He's my primary LF for the next few seasons though. No problem mixing him in at DH and 1B here and there, but he was plenty capable in LF and I want Eloy out of the field as much as possible so he can actually do the one thing he can be elite at....hit.

They're never getting rid of interleague play. Play each team in the other league 2 games home and away (60 games). Play each team in your division 8 times; 4 home and 4 away (32 games) Play other teams in each league 7 times; 4 game series and 3 games series rotating H/A annually. (70 games) As close to a balanced schedule as you can get. I wouldn't be opposed. Will never happen though. Way more 2 game series, way more flying around the country.

Get rid of it. I'll take my interleague play in the WS.

So Ben R officially retired. Sean Payton going to TV. Tom Brady up in the air. Who knows if that will lead to Arians to retire again. Quite a passing of the baton moment. With McVay vs. Shanahan, the Allen vs. Mahomes matches, and Burrow-Chase it seems like it won't skip a beat (vs if this happened all at once with them all joining Manning out the door)

Things people on a White Sox message board write by instinct: ”September baseball is meaningless crap”.

I didn't quit watching the rest of the tournament but I sure didn't bother watching teams 65-68 play.

Of course, I want playoffs, but I don't want mediocre teams participating. I don't care about upsets. Like I said, it's all a con. Owners don't have to invest in building a great team when everybody and his brother gets in. Yes, get some team winning the mid-80's in, and the owner can tell what great things he did for you. Not only is second place great, but so is third. You must know that this is nothing but a making money easy scheme. Superior teams belong in the playoffs. Shit teams need to stay home. The owners can go to hell.

How's this...not illegal?

Even if you take ONLY the roster of the Sox TODAY for the team. The best combo is Leury at 2B and Moncada at 3B.

Here’s the problem - a very young roster shouldn’t be bumping up against the luxury tax with several glaring holes.