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Can’t imagine why they canceled Sox fest with stuff like this. Such a pathetic franchise. They can only compare themselves to themselves and are so impressed by what good boys they are. Bring up that we can see the twins sign an actual premiere free agent, that the tigers can sign an actual top free agent, and that the guardians can re sign one of the best players in the game while you were too timid to send a QO to a pitcher that went on to guarantee over $200 million dollars the next two years because you were too scared he’d accept… well that would pierce their Truman show.

You guys need to embrace that in Rick hahns tenth year his teams once again settling into his 75-78 win comfort zone is objectively hilarious.

So he’s bragging he spent the money and the team is 81-81. How low can the bar go?

Christian Sáez or Juan Alvarez could be intriguing names to keep an eye on. Alvarez is cleared to sign, Sáez isn't at this point.

I am going to predict that this season is going to be 2016 2.0

Rick has a point the money HAS been spent. The problem is, it has been spent stupidly, foolishly and without a lot of thought because of an incompetent, dysfunctional and inept from office. ?

I forgot Sal Perez’s contract is bigger than benintendis.

“The hot takes on ‘the money will be spent’ issue are perhaps among the poorest of White Sox Twitter, in my opinion, my biased opinion,” Hahn said, “I’ve seen that criticism mentioned a few different places, and it’s actually one of the very few that irritates me. Don’t get me wrong: criticism is part of this and to be expected. I just believe they should actually be grounded in fact, which ‘the money hasn’t been spent’ really just isn’t. The fact is that since the time that I made that comment, we’ve made a number of high-dollar commitments. “That includes guys at or towards the top of the free-agent market like Hendriks, Yas, and (Dallas) Keuchel, as well as long-term commitments to a number of our own core players like Yoán, Eloy, Luis Robert and (Aaron) Bummer. Basically, in terms of either annual salary or total guaranteed dollars, we have significantly surpassed both of those thresholds when talking about ‘the money.’ Plus, no one has said we’re done in terms of potentially adding to this group should the right opportunity arise. And, all this is despite the fact that since the time I made that comment, a global pandemic has wreaked havoc on the revenues of just about every business sector of the economy worldwide. Like I said, criticisms not based in reality bug me.” https://soxmachine.com/2021/02/white-sox-twitter-rick-hahn-money-will-be-spent/ A certain team from one of the 2-3 smallest MLB media markets has already given out SEVEN contracts for $100+ million in the last decade, and yet another bigger one to Will Myers ($85 million) than the Sox deals to Grandal and Abreu. A proposed new deal for Machado will be #8, totaling four for over $280 million and that’s not even counting Juan Soto’s $23 million arb deal for 2023. A team that encountered their biggest offseason problem in accommodating 50,000+ fans for their FanFest and not having enough autographs to go around even with nearly every member of the roster showing up.

Mired in Mediocrity, the Rick Hahn Story should be coming to bookstores soon. It will be 400 pages about nothing.

While Rick Hahn had his second consecutive offseason so bad it’s hard to describe, and I don’t think the White Sox are a World Series contender by any stretch, this percentage is BS. I don’t know how you can possibly have the over under for wins they are sporting, and a 333 to 1 shot of a WS, especially in the division in which they play.

Me too.

It's not like the Sox have a great history of out-playing their projections.,,

It's my understanding they can't put him on admin leave because they haven't paid him yet and players do not get paid during spring training. If MLB doesn't hand down their suspension before pitchers and catchers report next week this asshole is going to spring training and it's gonna be a total s%*# show. At least the cowards will finally be held accountable and step in front of a microphone to explain to their fans how they even signed such a s%*# stain to begin with so I'm all for him reporting to spring training. Let the chaos begin!

Right and for hockey fans, we saw the false accusations that Patrick Kane had to deal with. We need to let this process play itself out.

Honestly? My read is the Sox had an option on Benetti and he was likely asking for more freedom to not do his main job AND still get paid, possibly even a raise. I hate the organization as much as the next guy, but the Sox had an option, they exercised it, and Jason wants time off from his original agreement, to go work for another company. I'm sure that won't be simple for any club to sort through. You don't need to be a #SoxMath wiz to do the math here.

You ae 100% correct, the White Sox are very good at pissing away good talent. The loyalty thing seems to go out the window in certain cases and this is one time where I thought it would come into play for the good. My hope is that the White Sox see it clearer and the next agreement is more smooth. My hope is that Jason has exploded and that is the issue here and they need to figure it out. Brooks Boyer seems to have gotten really bad at his job lately.

You’re right those are issues that do need to be dealt with. On the other hand, how many quality young TV guys are there that won’t receive any national interest in broadcasting something else? There’s half a year when they could be doing basketball or football, for example. Didn’t Jason do a “stat loaded” broadcast for the college football championship a few weeks ago or was that a different game? I’m sure I had one of those on recently. He really is good at his job and people recognize this. That is a good thing for the White Sox, employing a guy who is good at his job and who will be around for years. The fact that Fox wants him doing games is a testament to this. Employing people who are good at their job makes the whole white Sox organization better, it helps build the brand and it’s another way to bring national exposure to this franchise. Presumably it also makes Nationwide insurance a bunch of money too. One sacrifice of that is losing him for some games, but the gain of that could be having him broadcast the World Series in a few years. How many of the most well known broadcasters for teams had arrangements like this, where they did Big Games for the national networks on the weekend and were available the rest of the season? I’d say many of them. If you don’t want a guy who has demand from Fox, you can find that, by going with worse broadcasters. This may save money in the short term, but in the long term it again sacrifices a chance to build a following in exchange for a quick buck. The good news is there’s no other instance I can think of where the White Sox have behaved that way, otherwise I’d be shaking my head saying “here we go again.”

Benetti can take these guys. otoh, Reinsdorf sports franchises have outlasted quality people going on 50 years.

And here I thought Brooks was a solid guy. He sucks too. If I have a choice of believing Jason or ANYBODY in the WS organization, I'm going with Jason all day long.

Yeah, definitely not a positive read. When I see frustrations by the front- line talent met with "that's how we do things here" by management... the only thing i can think of is that "the way we do things here" sounds shitty. Sounds like the obvious question is "what if the way we've always done things is wrong?"

Dogshit organization

sox are setting a record for creating bad looks in one offseason.

Your case for the under is like 3 times as long as your case for the over. Just saying.

Seems like a good number based on the responses here. Sports books trying to get you at 50/50 end of day. Case for over: Everything that could go wrong, went wrong last year at 81 wins. (save Cease who was incredible). You're rolling it back with seasons of health from TA, Eloy, Robert, Lynn, etc. etc. You should have improved OF defense with Vaughn in his proper place & you should have improved seasons from Grandal, Yoan and Giolito. Overall, 81 seems like the absolute floor with 90 a reality. Case for the under: The biggest holes were 2b and RF and we did not address them. Our SP depth is very suspect and if Clevinger doesn't suit up, you now are relying on Davis Martin for an extended role + undoubtedly the injuries to the pitching staff. You're going to have to find 100+ innings out of someone and that someone isn't going to be very good. Hendriks is an AS caliber closer and without him, you're blowing 3-5 games more than last year. Cueto was a sponge eating innings and keeping us in games. You lost your rock and #3 hitter in Abreu which will be a giant crater. We've seen enough of a track record out of our talented guys in Yoan, Eloy, Robert to know what we have, and it'll take a perfect scenario for those guys to not only stay healthy but be productive. Grandal's knees are shot and we have no real backup C. Relying on Colas is weak as his plate discipline is suspect and likely will need to rely on Sheets in RF for extended periods of time. We can't just rely on playing AL Central teams to prop us up anymore which will lead to more losses. There's no leadership in the locker room and the fan base has given up. Have a cold start to the season and Giolito + Grandal + others will be out the door. This team has a real good shot to limp into August/September. 77 wins may be a good guess. Reality: Somewhere in between 90 and 77 ... cut the difference or ... 83.5 wins.

Thank you. I always see the "everything went wrong last year and they still won 81 games" line, but I couldn't disagree with it more. Had Cueto and Andrus not shown up and played like it was 2011, last year's team probably wins more like 72 games. Elvis Andrus was a 7.5 fWAR/162 player for the White Sox last year. Things like that don't happen in a year where "everything goes wrong," and the true worst case scenario for this team is accordingly much lower than 81 wins

I don't know, that would be Leury who was one of the worst players in baseball. One Armed luis robert had a 52 wRC+ in the second half. Leury had a 44.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Except: -They picked up Johnny Cueto off the scrap heap and found their second best pitcher of the season. The only reason he was even available when he was signed was the lockout. Had Lance Lynn not gotten hurt, they never sign Cueto - who outperformed everyone other than Cease in their rotation. They had a replacement for Keuchel because of this. -They picked up Elvis Andrus off the scrap heap and got 2 months of darn near MVP performance from him. He was a notable upgrade over Tim Anderson for those 2 months, they got better because Anderson got hurt. We will probably never see that kind of upgrade from a midseason veteran put on waivers again in our lifetimes. -Seby Zavala, per innings played, was one of the most effective catchers in baseball. Effective offensively, avoided some of the defensive issues that plagued him in 2021. This combined with McGuire turned the White Sox' -The guys they brought in off the scrap heap were so effective that it basically offset almost all of the losses to injury (except for the stupidity with Robert's wrist). Had they been the healthiest team in baseball, they're basically the same team in the end, because of how effective these guys were. -They weren't all that banged up anyway compared to the rest of the league. For example, "the White Sox had 3 pitchers hit the IL" compared to "Detroit's entire opening day starting rotation was on the IL when we faced them for a 3 game series. Ponder what the White Sox's losing streak would look like if they lost all 5 starters for a month. -Their competition was weaker than expected, particularly Detroit because of how banged up they were. 19 games against that banged up Detroit team. They outscored Detroit 100-59 on the season. -They outperformed their run differential the whole season. Say what you want about ineffective management, this is generally a sign of luck that can't be easily repeated. -Their bullpen performed extremely well in close games. Their record in 1 run games was top 5 in baseball, tied with Cleveland for that performance. This was notably better than their performance in the same type of games in 2021 and will be particularly difficult to repeat now that Hendriks is out for the year.

The Sox won 81 games last year despite the following: They were managed by a corpse who's decisions more often than not seemed like he was actually trying to put the team in a position to lose. He also set a precedent that hustling was not important. Luis Robert recorded 2 RBI and 0 HR after July 14th - yes 2 friggin RBI - despite appearing in 25 games. Missed 64 total games, but played 25 with 1 hand. Robert basically missed the entire 2nd half of the season. Tim Anderson missed 83 games, although wasn't himself even after returning from the May groin injury. Yoan Moncada missed 58 games, and when he played, he posted a wRC+ of 76, a significant drop from 120 in 2021, and WELL below his career average of 108, which includes the awful 2022. Eloy Jimenez missed 78 games. While he did post a strong wRC+ when he played, he still missed half the season, although expecting Eloy to play more than 120 games is fools good. Yasmani Grandal was -0.4 fWAR and 68 wRC+ player after posting 3.6 fWAR and 158 wRC+ in 2021. Chances are Grandal didn't completely forget how to hit a baseball at 33 years old. We now know he was dealing with significant injuries all season. I don't have high hopes for Grandal finding the fountain of youth in 2023, but I think it'd be very difficult for him not to improve on his 2022 in a time share. The Sox spent the vast majority of the season playing two first basemen in the OF leaving them with easily the worst OF defense in the game. This turned a 113 wRC+ effort from Andrew Vaughn into a negative fWAR player. The days of Vaughn being anything more than an emergency OF are over. Lynn, Kopech and Giolito all missed starts, with Lynn and Kopech missing significant time. Bummer missed significant time. Basically, nearly everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong in 2022. Despite all of that going wrong, the Sox still were as close as 3 games back in mid September. I can understanding looking at this group and being discouraged. We lost a franchise pillar in Jose Abreu, which sucks. But in doing so improved the OF defense immensely which was, in my opinion, the biggest team need along with getting more left handed. While we didn't get as left handed as I would have liked, adding Benintendi and Colas will balance the lineup a great deal, especially if Moncada and Yaz bounce back, even modestly. This offseason sucked. Jerry is the worst. Hahn appears to be puzzled, and handcuffed. The Clevinger thing is terrible. Lots of bad. But this this squad still has a boatload of talent, and the division still isn't good. The Twins have hardly improved on a team that finished 3 games behind the Sox. The Guardians are the Guardians, and frankly were bad for most of the season before getting hot at the right time. I think all three of those clubs will finish above .500 and we'll have an entertaining 3 team race all season. I would be really shocked to see things go as poorly for The Sox in 23 and they did in 22. I have this team winning 88 games, and I think 90+ is in the cards if their best players can stay healthy enough play 130+ games. I, for one, cannot wait for April for some White Sox baseball. I think this club will surprise, and I think Grifol will be the freshest of fresh air for the boys.

They were a .500 team last year, and yes no more TLR should be a boost, but does Beni replace Abreu and then some? No Cueto, no Hendriks, whatever scrap heap replaces Clevinger, that's a lot to overcome. Even before we start talking about how much we can actually bank on any of these guys to remain healthy and produce like we once believed they could.

Mired in mediocrity.

and they lost their best hitter and second best starter, haven't replaced any of them but they're going to be better. Ok

Whether over or under is correct is not the point The point is actually that we are in the heart of a decade long franchise defining rebuild, and it is perfectly damned legitimate for betting experts to set the friggin over/under at 83.5 and there are perfectly damned legitimate arguments as to why that is probably accurate within 3-5 games either way. It is a devastating notion. The over/under should be at ninety friggin five. This is a dumpster fire of an organization. I would rather this team loses 120 than wins 83.5 or anywhere within 5 games of that range. That debating 83 vs 85 vs 81 is acceptable is further proof that this ownership group is not serious about contending in the sport of baseball at the major league level and should be boycotted until further notice. They contemptuously laugh at the fans while they cash their checks and pat themselves on the back while checking all the “valuation of the team” boxes while paying us all just the right amount of lip service. What a bunch of reprehensible clowns we have running this franchise we can’t quit, huh?

Over 90 wins.

If by 90 you do mean loses…

Easily over 83. More like over 90.

That was not a positive read.