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What in the absolute f*** are you talking about.

For the last several weeks I've been working on a story trying to find out what is going on with this organization in an extremely crucial off season. It may be the last chance they have to get the rebuild/contention window right. The Sox of course are being very tight lipped as per usual, Sox Fest has been cancelled, no chance for anyone to ask the brass any questions... so I went to a half dozen sources who know the organization to try to get a handle on what may be happening. If you read the story I describe those sources in general terms but not specifically because I wanted honest answers. I believe what they've told me on a number of issues. I've been a Sox Fan for 62 seasons NO ONE wants this rebuild/contention window to succeed more than I do, but I've got to tell you, based of what I've been told, I think the chances are very slim. This organization simply is "mired in mediocrity" for wont of a better word and in my opinion until new ownership and a new front office is brought in I suspect it will be more of "one step forward, two steps back..." But we'll see. Here is the link to the story: https://www.wsiforumstoo.com/74118-the-state-of-the-sox

Who ever knows. The more people who use the ignore feature the better.

Grandal is toast. The best you can hope for is he goes back on the juice and gives them a passable 60-70 games. He should be released.

Elvis Andrus put up a .662 OPS over a 4 year period from 2018 to 2021. Josh Harrison over that time period put up a .683 OPS. Andrus is generally a weak baseball player at this point in his career, he is a backup at best for any good team. He came to the White Sox, and all of a sudden put up strong numbers because one thing happened - his HR rate on fly balls skyrocketed. Compared to even earlier in the 2022 season, his exit velocity on hits went down, he was less patient, his ground ball rate went up, but his HR/FB rate went from 7% (close to his career mark of 5.9%) to 19% (up there with the best power hitters in baseball). He squared up a handful of HR balls and it worked out really well for the White Sox, but unless he is turning into Barry Bonds, his HR rate isn't going to triple in his mid 30s. That means - as nice as it was that we got this performance and as hard as it will be to replace - counting on Elvis Andrus to do anything like that next season is as unlikely as counting on Cesar Hernandez to keep up his high HR rate from the first half of 2021 through the second half, and we saw who made that mistake. Elvis Andrus is going to come out next year and be a 0-1 win player, putting up a mid 600s OPS, because that is who he is at this point in his career. If he's a backup somewhere on a competitive team and he gets 300 plate appearances for $2 million, that's fine. if he's on a team likely to win 65 games and he plays 150 games, that's fine. He is not a starting player on a competitive big league roster. If Anderson is traded away and a rebuilding White Sox team needs someone to cover short for a year until Montgomery arrives, sure that's fine.

I can’t stop reading this. It’s one of the dumbest posts in the history of SoxTalk.

I like this from Fegan in his recent Atlantic article… While Grifol is a first-time major-league manager, he is described by friends and colleagues as a baseball lifer who has served in almost every conceivable role during his tenures with the Mariners and Royals — scout, farm director, minor-league manager, roving minor-league instructor, quality control coach, bench coach, catching coach and hitting coach. Hahn said the new manager will play a central role in determining their coaching staff, and those close to Grifol expect him to bring along previous associates. A potential name to watch is Royals special assignment hitting coach Mike Tosar, since he worked closely with Grifol during breakout power-hitting seasons for Jorge Soler and Salvador Perez.

I've said this in a couple places as Lip has posted pieces of this, but it strikes me while reading this how much of the attitude running through these comments are the "old school/meatball" attitude. Some examples: "no red-asses like they had in the past." "Adam Engel faced the music afterwards, he made a mistake and owned up to it" "Moncada would strike out and just walk back to the dugout like no big deal, he fouls a ball off and now he can’t play for three days? His contract makes him untradable but he needs to go." " The catcher (Yamani Grandal), third baseman (Moncada) and shortstop (Tim Anderson) need to go. They need to get guys with a higher baseball acumen, the lack of urgency, the way they beat themselves this season was embarrassing. Anderson needs to go because the organization gave him the keys to the car and he drove it off the cliff. " I agree that they had a lack of urgency, but I take a look at quotes like "adam Engel faced the music on the triple play" - sure he did, but how did that affect him the rest of the season? He had that key error against Arizona, so did it really make a difference for him at all that he owned up to it? No, owning up to things didn't make a difference at all. Moncada strikes out and it would make a big difference if he got angrier or if someone yelled at him more? They need to just dump players because they're not baseball smart"? I pretty much agree with none of those things. I want guys to be smart, not yell louder. I want guys to be prepared, not stress out because they struck out once. I want my coaches to have guys ready to go, well prepared, and more intelligent. I want them in the right position, not trying to make a heroic play. I want guys who don't dwell on strikeouts, but who recognize what the pitcher did to them and come back next time with an approach to prevent that. If a guy is apologetic, that's great, but then what does he do to change things up next time? A guy has a bad attitude and that makes him unsalvageable? Naw, come on, figure out how to put this player in a position to succeed, how many guys did the Dodgers turn into all stars after other teams gave up on them? This whole set of sentiments feels like it is coming out of one of the guys in the room in "Moneyball" describing why they shouldn't draft someone because their girlfriend is ugly. They never talk about people needing to be smarter, they talk about people needing to be yelled at more. They don't talk about guys putting in their time in the film room to be prepared for the next game, they talk about how things make them feel. It has a very "It's all about TWTW" kind of feel to me, rather than anything to do with the level of professionalism and work ethic you see from the top franchises in the league.

Were you in a Chicagoland hospital a few months back by any chance, Lip, sharing all of this with a hospital employee? ? There are some things that just don't make sense to me, which could be a matter of folks injecting their own narratives into what they tell you. For instance, you've got one source saying Moncada spent all his time at Jose's locker and another source saying Moncada has his money and doesn't care about results any longer. Unless we're to believe that Jose, clearly an influential person to Yo and a clubhouse leader, let "his guy" just perform poorly and not say anything to him about his performance, these two sources' stories just don't jibe, imo. Regardless, interesting insight and really punctuates just how rudderless of a ship this franchise is. Whomever owns this team next, I sure hope they do a full housecleaning.

…ope

What’s funny is the Phillies did a poor job of developing their core, but went out and got the necessary pieces to supplement (four of their top five players this year based on fWAR were acquired via trade or FA). If Rick Hahn was just better at capital allocation and focused on adding impact talent we’d be a monster now. We could basically have Harper & Wheeler right now and it would only cost us Keuchel, Pollock, Velasquez, Kelly, & Leury. Unfortunately Hahn and his staff couldn’t build an effective farm system and used free agency as a crutch to add depth that more times than not brings little value to the table.

Does it really matter at this point? We have a payroll dominated by relief and starting pitchers that we are stuck with, an 18 million dollar catcher not worth 5 million, players that are constantly on IR OR DL list. Robert, Jimenez, Kelly, Engel, Moncada now Anderson got hurt. Yasmani and Moncadas contracts are not tradeable. They won’t play Corlas and give him a chance. We are loaded with 1st basemen and DH’s. We’re not going to resign Cueto or Andrus. Andrus could have solved the 2nd base problem for at least this year. Diekman and Kelly are a waste of money. We still have no legit right fielder or second basemen. Not going to resign Abreu. Super Joe piece of crap 3rd base coach still around, is Frank M still the hitting coach? Are the bullshit training staff that don’t know how to get players ready still around. We get bigge4 problems then Pedro. Terry Francona if everything stayed the same would have the same record as Pedro. Believe me I hope I’m wrong.

HE GAWN

Fin

"hired in the past 20 years"

I think and this is just my opinion, that part of the thinking behind the comment of "drove it off the cliff" were the suspensions, flipping off the fans in Cleveland, the confrontations with umpires and in general the arrogant comments especially in spring training.

I don't know what it was, but it also wasn't just Anderson. I still go back to the first 8 game losing streak the Sox had this year, game 2 was against the Guardians, Keuchel was on the mound, and the entire infield forgot how to catch the ball. Anderson was the worst of these, he had 3 errors in the first couple innings and then followed that up with 3 more errors the next 2 days...but it wasn't just Anderson. Abreu had one error that was credited and another that was put on the board and taken away. I believe Moncada may have had another bonehead play that day, and then 2 days later we started getting the "Leury Garcia is hitting 3rd, 2nd, and first" bullcrap. Anderson was a key part of that messy losing streak, but he was not the only part of it. There was clearly something going on involving Anderson, but it wasn't just Anderson, there were things hitting several people at once and LaRussa doing his maddening "Leury is awesome" stuff. They never really got going again and spent half the year fighting to recover from that losing streak.

I was called out back in June on 2 different sites for saying we had dumb and lazy players and lo and behold those issues were addressed in the article. I've been a baseball and Sox fan since 1952 and I'm pretty sure I can figure out what my eyes tell me and nothing in that article surprises me. The front office is going to have a tough off season with figuring out how to move some of these guys hopefully starting with Moncada. It wouldn't surprise me that the Sox were turned down by many people that the Sox wanted as manager, who would want to step into this mess.

It's puppies and rainbows time. Reality will set in soon just how far away they are from the elite teams in the league. They would get curb stomped by every team in the playoffs.

Spoke to his homeroom teacher from Cienfuegos. He was the best speller in class and always cleaned the blackboard. Would often steal signs.

RH already said "we're not throwing money at the problem" (i.e. Tony already signed too many garbage relievers to long term immovable deals so all we can do under current budget is make small changes here and there even though any RHP worth his salt will shred the lineup. Again.". Ofcourse Philly "threw money at the problem" and signed multiple savages and now they are in the World Series.

Well, that's depressing. We need to plan a party and dance in the streets once JR becomes worm food.

And lol what the hell happened to white sox interactive

Feel free to scroll through thread to get the answer to this, which was brought up several times and answered... or don't and ignore them...whatever.

It’s not, but ?

I think it was 1983 or 82, i just moved back from SoCal to where I am now, I went out and bought a TON of Reeses P butter cups in anticipation of Halloween, anyway I sat home that night and waited but IIRC it stormed and rained cats & dogs and I didnt get even one trick or treater that PM. I was so disappointed, back then even though I was into competiive bodybuilding, I got depressed and at about 8PM i said F it and proceeded to smoke a bowl, got the munchies and must have ate 30 Reeses cups and went to bed. My blood sugars must have been thru the roof I vote more fun as a kid

Sorry Eloy but you are a DH.

Agreed. To me, Gavin is a placeholder for 3-4 weeks until Colas arrives and then is in AAA purely as an injury insurance. Gavin is a fine depth piece to have around to fill in for a couple weeks when needed, but he's close to worthless as bench piece. He has an option; hope to Sox abuse it this year. Same goes for Burger, btw.

I haven't chimed in on this thread yet (I don't dislike the hire) but just wanted to say that the more Gavin Sheets plays in 2023, the more the Sox's season will be disastrous. The less he plays the better off we all are. Gavin is the type of player you want on a rebuilding squad. He is not a meaningful major league asset to a contending team.

That's....not happening. He keeps saying it, but it continues to not be very likely at all. However, Grifol being a catching guy may want the FO to find a catcher that is a much better receiver than our options. Or maybe he can just make Seby into a better one. So perhaps the chances of Sox just cutting bait with Grandal went from 1% to 5%. Still think you just gotta hope Yaz legs are healthy this spring and he can be useful as a part time catcher and pinch hitter. The shift ban will help him a bit. Its unlikely he just completely forgot how to hit; he was playing on one leg all season. The other angle is here is Grandal may factor into the 1B rotation a bit more this year. Assuming Pito is gone, when you pinch run for AV late in the game, someone has to play 1B. Gavin may be around early in the year, but its going to be hard to keep him on the roster if its fully healthy once Colas arrives. Now this roster staying fully healthy is very unlikely, but point being, Yaz is probably going to play more 1B than he has the last 2 seasons. Not like 1B is a hard position and you can stick Leury or some s%*# there if needed, but not a lot options after AV/Sheets/Grandal, unless you want Eloy to try to learn how to do it occasionally.

Yeah, a new manager and new coaches is a step. A step up a steep mountain. The Sox can either make some tough decisions and massively overhaul the roster (and spend money), or they can twiddle around and spend money on crap like they have been doing. I don't see huge changes coming, but it's the only way to put together a team that could even hope to compete with the perennial playoff teams.

yeah, roster/budget management since we accrued the “core” has been atrocious. i have no idea what they are trying to do and it’s a way bigger issue than who’s sitting in the dugout (unless tlr was somehow responsible for overallocating resources on the bullpen and over-the-hill vets).

We don't have spending money, we don't have a good farm system, and we don't have a truly competitive team.... good luck.

The Sox are a mess. The last game of the season says it all. 10-0 loss right? To Minnie? Sox appear to be a team that doesn't care when it plays a Central Division team. The team generally plays well against teams in other divisions. They can't be bothered to excel against their division neighbors. The manager hire is a big yawn which is fine. It's the same as most teams managers. Renteria should still be manager. At least the teams were exciting. Sad state of affairs. Sox sadly are going nowhere. Not sure what it will take to get the team to wake up.

Great article. Thanks Lip! “The problem is some of these guys just don’t care, they want to win sure but they already have gotten their money with these contracts before they proved anything. Moncada would strike out and just walk back to the dugout like no big deal, he fouls a ball off and now he can’t play for three days? His contract makes him untradable but he needs to go.” Is there hope? “It could happen, maybe there’s a 5% chance this front office could get it right. But first the front office has to admit they made mistakes. The catcher (Yamani Grandal), third baseman (Moncada) and shortstop (Tim Anderson) need to go. They need to get guys with a higher baseball acumen, the lack of urgency, the way they beat themselves this season was embarrassing. Anderson needs to go because the organization gave him the keys to the car and he drove it off the cliff. And he’s getting up in years (Author’s Note: Anderson will turn 30 this season), get something for him while you can, some talented young players. The organization also needs a major off season from the scouts, they have to find guys they can buy low on with a good upside and hope they produce.” That's what I've been saying for a while.

He's tied to this manager. If Grifol doesn't work out, Hahn needs to be shown the door.

The fact that it seems he's going to be allowed to bring in his own coaches is certainly a step in the right direction, no question about that.

Menechino soon to be single. Get it?

Charlie Montoyo for bench coach has been rumored, if you missed that.

White Sox hired Tony twice, he must be a great manager for someone. Lol

Good reporter. Pretty good singer too.

Gone. There will be a new hitting coach.

Matt Spiegel is reporting that Joe McEwing and Darryl Boston are both gone. Sounds like Katz and Hasler are the only coaches returning.

I feel much better now having read through this thread. I'm still leery of this clown shoes org getting a hire right, but Grifol looks like a much more qualified and legit candidate than I initially thought. I do like the addition of Montoyo too. Hopefully we soon say goodbye to Menechino, McEwing, and Boston next. Very interested in who the hitting coach will be.

Peter Griffin

No there isn't a window any more. The Sox have been playing .500 for 1.5 years now. I know people some times need to be be hit over the head with a brick to believe it but they are officially bland now. (again)

I truly hope DJ makes it.