Leaderboard

I don't know if you have any control over this or not but I humbly request that the 10-1 Astros over our beloved Sox game score be removed from the right side of the Soxtalk headquarters page. It just sucks to look at that every time I come here and if the work stoppage causes games to not be played it will suck more. Thanks in advance for all y'all do!

Yes, everyone who posts here knows you hate Vaughn.

To become a mod you need to display undying love for Vaughn

The owners could have accepted any of the offers the players made and still made money. It's b.s. they are still dragging their feet trying to win every petty point.

Expansion talk sucks because they really haven't even grown the game in all of the cities that are currently occupied. Miami got a new stadium, nobody cares. Even with 2 titles, nobody cares. Diamondbacks are currently in a stadium that is apparently not desirable to them anymore and needs a lot of repair work done, plus nobody cares about the team either. The Rockies owner is complaining he doesn't have the money to run his team. Tampa is literally a World Series contender for the last 5-10 years and can't even get people in the building for a World Series game. Three out of the last four expansion teams struggling with attendance, and they want to add more teams to what will probably be a smaller city compared to the current array of cities. Just stupid. They need to start by letting the entire United States see the games they want to see, then they can add more teams when the interest level jumps. But nah, gotta push that cart before the horse

Ah good times....

I'm not optimistic either. I'm not certain we really know at this date the areas that will ultimately be the core issues. Two months ago I would have guessed details surrounding free agency were going to drag out. It still seems like the owners are touching the line of not bargaining in good faith. Until they really show a willingness to end this I'm remaining pessimistic about a full spring training.

woof sorry I forgot how annoying that backend is. Not today satan.

Jimenez/Vaughn, Robert, Schwarber sounds like a really tough situation for White Sox pitchers. Robert is excellent defensively, but also coming off a massive hip injury which could cost him some speed permanently. The others are just various flavors of bad.

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

Watch the Spurs run the pick and roll against the Bulls is painful

Here's some January 28 trivia for you: Magglio Ordonez was born on 1/28/1974. He was replaced in right field by Jermaine Dye, who was born on 1/28/1974.

Bullplop. Those teams are extremely profitable and well run teams with low payroll are regularly competitive. None of them are filing bankruptcy, even despite actual and significant losses due to COVID. Furthermore, the Royals won a World Series recently. Cleveland and Tampa Bay made World Series appearances. They don’t want to compete, they want to take home a big paycheck for the owners.

This is so regressive man. Why have divisions, just put all the teams in one lump and the team with most wins at the end is champ the end bye.

What do you find so shocking about the best team in each league having qualified for the WS? I understand that baseball wants the money generated by playoff baseball so we will never go back in time. In 1959 we were undeniably the best team in the AL. Some fluky .500 team didn't get to represent the AL in those days.

It's easy to "make progress" when you're as far apart as these sides appear to be. I expect negations to completely break down as we get closer to March and probably there will be plans for replacement players before the union comes back to the table in April or so. On a selfish personal note this time of year is so hard on so many folks including myself. With the COVID surge it's been especially trying and usually we'd be full of excitement for pitcher and catchers in two weeks with everything to look forward to as a playoff contender once again. So much for all that.

Thankfully most of us got in before the standards were raised.

I am the interview committee.

Yeah - I'm not worried about defense - but in particular - you get a bunch of smart people and one who hasn't led a full offense - and do you end up with chaos, egos and other stuff. I don't know - just something to watch for.

The one thing I will say is - it seems odd to have green / first time OC's coming in when you have a defensive based HC. I would have expected an OC who had been there. Don't get me wrong - seems like bright individuals - but they are just so green and if you get too many smart minds and a green chief (as OC) - will you end up with the cohesion needed.

Wait, there is a front page?

The requirements are that if you don't know the requirements, you don't qualify. We will keep your resume on file.

Lol I forgot about the front page I just go directly to forums now

God, he so much potential. Jim Margalus' post every offseason speculating whether Beckham finally figured it out was a Soxmachine tradition while he was on the team..

That's what really burns me about the whole thing. Ownership is still going to make money hand over fist in whatever new CBA is signed. But here we are two months into a lockout with no resolution on the horizon and time rapidly running out before the season is delayed, no closer today than we were in November.

Unless both sides lock themselves in a room to hammer it out over the next week+, and there seems to be zero sense of urgency from the owners, spring training definitely isn't starting on time.

The players dropped the requests for earlier free agency in their most recent proposal. In terms of increasing payrolls, I think it’s extremely important that baseball forces those teams to do that. They are getting $100 million in revenue sharing before they sell a single ticket and then putting out teams full of AA ball players while the owners are pocketing the difference. This is a big reason why those franchises have no one caring. To build a fan base with an expansion team, you need to get people interested and keep them interested for years, make it something they live with and grow up with. One wild card appearance every five years is a franchise no one cares about. 20k will go to the games, but the franchise will never grow interest. A minimum salary where they pay some of their own players more, where the “losing on purpose” strategy is less profitable, and where there are new strategies to building a team like sending along bad contracts in trades more often would be a benefit to baseball as a whole. Your owners pocketing those big profits is great for them, bad for fans, bad for those franchises long term, and bad for baseball as a whole.

I guarantee you there would be many days where you would care. You just have to hope none of them wind up being really important days.

Also imagine the Sox trading a cost controlled solid 2B that was a great team fit (on the field), a former top 5 pick and quick mover for literally nothing, and then turning around the next season and trading your cost controlled future middle of the order bat who was also a top 5 pick for a 2B. Lol. It’s literally comical to imagine. I would lose so much faith. Doubling down on stupid.

Just get Doug Pederson and keep DeFillipo. Pederson is a super nice dude by all accounts and know how to run an offense and design them around his QB. He knows Filipo well from his previous time and I like there chances of helping Fields.

Continues to make less than no sense.

Playing at the same time was something I didn't worry about initially because I was simply saying I like the old way of a balanced schedule to arrive at an AL or NL champion. It is obviously easier to work around even #'s but not impossible IMO. I have no desire to keep up this silly back and forth because it isn't going to happen under any circumstance. Half the problems that are trying to be solved about non-competitive balance are because we have too many teams from small market cities.

How do 15 teams play at the same time? One team would not have an opponent. You need an even number of teams in each league.

@The Beast I agree. I'm hoping for a Phil Jackson / Tex Winter type situation.

It’s a risk I am willing to see them take. Fans probably wanted Harbaugh or Payton after seeing Nagy go but they weren’t all that realistic. I would have preferred one candidate with experience as a GM or HC, but I like the upside that Poles was with multiple GMs in KC and Eberflus (or Eberloose, like some dumbass who called the Score to b****) is a teacher. He apparently gets a lot out of guys who are undrafted, like Fangio did. I would have liked hiring a football minded team president to oversee Poles, but I bet he wouldn’t have come to Chicago with them hiring someone to be his boss, especially since he can report to just McCaskey. If they bring in a veteran OC, I will feel better, but if it is a young passing game coordinator, I will be concerned because of the lack of their experience. I also want to reserve judgment until I see the rest of the coaching staff and front office staff. Right now I’d grade the moves a C+, with potential to move up or down depending on who is hired. That grade is going to fluctuate with results and in the end, none of us know if the experience gap will matter until this new regime ends with a Super Bowl or another house cleaning.

The "unanimous" thing was for show. All the scouts were supposedly the same way with Trubisky.

There is a decent reason to be a little concerned, but all the great ones had no experience at one time as well.

Too many years of bad ownership and management decisions caused the issues so a good house cleaning is needed.

After the first 10 picks or so there is a massive drop of in average value. http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/06/draft_picks_and.php Basically for a second rounder you expect less than 5 war, so basically a guy who is a utility guy for a couple years. You hope for more of course and some second rounders do become good players or even stars but the average outcome of a second rounder is probably danny mendick or adam engel. Hansen obviously was less than that, you would have at least expected that he makes it as a middle reliever to the majors for a couple years as a "floor" but it isn't a super unexpected outcome either, if the average second rounder has 4 war over his 6 control years and some are much better than some also have to be much worse.

I will also point out - Beckham was one of the players I was more wrong about - in terms of how their career panned out. I thought he was a shoe-in for 2000 hits and at a minimum a long above average career. That rookie year his swing was compact, with power to opposite field. Dude was an extra base machine, but between his rookie year and following year - something happened mechanically and he could never get back to that short swing he had. Defensively he had plenty of great plays.

Another one of those hyped second rounders who ended up disappointing. Most do. For every Kyler Murray out of OU, you will get a boatload of Hansens and Steele Walkers. The cruel reality of baseball. More or less the minor league version of Erik Johnson, where nobody could quite figure out how to fix him…another victim of injuries and the psychological aspect of the game. Feel like there’s a Yogi Berra quote relevant here. “90% of the game is half mental.” That’s also why it’s so easy to appreciate someone like Lucas Giolito, who had some horrific major league numbers but managed to find a solution with his mechanics. Or even one half season of brilliance from Carlos Rodon.

I believe that if the WS played their 14 rivels 12 games each that would require 168 games. Since the WS would be 7 games or 9 or 11 whatever...the total # of games would be in the neighborhood of today's 162+3 or 5 +7.

If the NL plays a balanced schedule against each NL team...one of them will have the best record. Same with the AL.

What a roller coaster minor league career he had....best of luck to him going forward. I too had held out hope that he could be a decent bullpen piece....but I also did the same with Carson Fulmer til the bitter end so I guess I always hope.

In the winter of 2017-2018 I was more excited about Hansen than Kopech.

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.

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.