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Unfortunately, none of those were the fatal mistakes. The single fatal mistake of the sox org can be encapsulated by the idea that they aim to be good enough not good as possible. Good enough gets you faster attrition as other teams pass you by. It makes injuries more impactful. It makes windows shorter.

You could hang these last two kopech starts in a museum. Perfect team wins.

Losing out on Zack Wheeler and then pivoting to Dallas Keuchel to be our big pitching addition was a massive blow to the rebuild. Being afraid to sign impact talent and instead spreading the wealth across multiple B & C tier free agents (mainly relievers) was a waste of resources. Taking safe college corner bats and a 5’ 6” 2B at the top of the draft during the rebuild years resulted in a low ceiling farm. Failing to address 2B & RF year after year despite being obvious holes. Not being creative or aggressive enough and finding a way to add interesting depth to AAA, in particular, of the pitching kind.

Watch the home games closely. Other than the weekends, it’s depressing…although the small crowds do their best to be small and supportive. As noted many times, the attendance is heading towards a historical low…prices in numerous areas were actually increased coming off that disaster of a season, and the team now has the biggest YoY decrease in attendance in the majors compared to 2022 base years. What does that tell you? The fans are not buying it…which leads to payroll decreasing and decreasing. But when the fans bought tickets in 2022 based on the 2020-21 seasons and multiple championships and unprecedented financial flexibility, we got NONE of those things. No stars…just solid, overpaid veterans, and spending in all the wrong places. I still watch or follow most of the games, but it’s now largely for Robert and Burger…with the rest of the once promising core just a year or two remaining with the Sox. There’s nothing anyone can do to change things, but we’re also not going to trick ourselves into believing we are a legit threat to advance past any first round playoff opponent with the current roster composition. I mean…look at the Bulls for a similar comparison, they will tear down their Big 3 again coming off another playoff disappointment. That’s the reward to fans for having the best home attendance in the NBA. So if one of the most profitable franchises in sports doesn’t care about its fans, why would we expect the White Sox to? JR simply thinks of them as a headache and hardly profitable and is more concerned with extra gambling revenues than reinforcing the sinking rebuild. Period.

This is precisely why I rarely engage here anymore. The primary dozen posters on Soxtalk are White Sox haters or trolls. Anyone that tries to find a fun narrative is hunted by the mob. I write a commentary about things being darkest before the dawn with a bunch of reasons why things got ridiculously bad (that first forty game schedule was unbelievable especially for a new manager) and why they could turn around and your response back is 1) personal insult, 2) Personal insult, 3) personal insult, 4) made up argument that makes me sound ridiculous though I never said anything like that 5) tired old story about something that happened 30 years ago that could be viewed negatively. Hey, all of you, enjoy your hatred. Abandon all hope yea who enter Soxtalk.

Props to you for the optimism, but this team has been in total decline since about halfway through 2021. This isn't a 2023 issue, the issues have been festering for a few seasons now.

The o in kopech I made a zero because just capitalizing the K wouldn't have been that clever.

I said it the other day and I’ll say it again: thank god for this shithole division.

Seby should be paired with the three top pitchers the rest of the season. Grandal can handle Lynn and the 5th starter. There is a reason the White Sox are only two games over .500 (versus 21 overall) in games Grandal has played his entire White Sox career. 2023 Splits: Kopech: Zavala .636 OPS 3.34 ERA vs. Grandal .993 OPS 6.97 ERA - Doesn't include Zavala start today. Giolito: Zavala .634 OPS 2.75 ERA vs. Grandal 1.435 OPS 15.75 ERA Cease: Zavala .684 OPS 3.22 ERA vs. Grandal .740 OPS 5.45 ERA

Asking Seby about Kopech in the post game...."What is it about his fastball?"....."They can't hit it" ?

Super outing again by Kopech, great to see. Sox make the most of 4 hits with 6 runs. On to Detroit for 4 games, need to win 3 of them.

Whatever drug you are on...I would love to try some. Not even sure Baghdad Bob and the Russian war ministry could put such a positive skin on every single thing that has gone wrong with this organization. Maybe you can get ghost writing credit for the potentially best-selling Rick Hahn biography. I guess Scholtens is also on his way now with a potential RoY campaign, too. I mean, this is an owner who gave up on winning in the late 90s when the team was only 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 games behind the Indians at the time, basically in order to save a ton of money.

- Chips pushed all in on starting core. - No depth put into minor leagues, thus no next wave to support starting core. - No marquee FA signings to supplement core. these things mainly

Counting on the same players who are often injured year after year, for some crazy reason, hasn't quite worked out.

I do appreciate your positive optimism and rally cry. I'm thankful you informed us nothing is wrong and all are panicking is too much and way overboard. As you summed it up, it looks like the Sox are making the playoffs, which will be easy sailing by going 40-20 in the next 60 games. Here is what you are missing: 1. Yes we are only 5.5 games out of first place. However in the last 15 games we have played 12 of them against teams under 500. We play in the worst division in baseball and still 9 games under. 2. Your assumption that Tim Anderson will get back to his lofty numbers from a few years ago is ridiculous optimism. It's not just because TA's stat line is the worst ever, he has no power with zero HR's and hits mostly groundballs, weak flyouts and more strikeouts. He has some serious mental issues and his arrogant attitude...that he is still the best player on the field, is now beyond annoying. He was quoted the other day saying, he understand why no pitcher would ever want to throw him a fastball. That is comical! Two games ago TA struck out with two men on with no outs in the top of the 7th when we just went ahead 4-2. Tim's last two swings and misses were basic 94 mph fastballs in the zone. He not only can't hit off speed pitches, which was always his weakness, but now he can't catch up to the fastballs, even though he told us he will kill FB's when he eventually sees them again. Hence why he has a stat line of: BA.244. OBP.284, SLG .282, OPS .565, WAR -0.5. 3. Your analogy of the Sox being a Porsche with a flat tire is wildly exaggerated and hilarious. Even if when we get Eloy back in this lineup, we are still flawed in plate discipline, situational hitting and hitting with RISP. Even with Hendricks coming back and Crochet now back, it will take time for those two to be major contributors. Crochet because he is coming off TJS and Hendricks coming off fighting and beating cancer, while having his strength zapped from such intense chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Yes the starters look good lately and the bullpen is looking better, but if we get any more injuries like Clevinger, we are dead on arrival. 4. You stated the Burger "feel good" story is now over because he had a couple of bad games. I don't recall reading any poster on SoxTalk saying the Burger's run was over. Yes we all mentioned he had a couple of bad games going 0-15 in the last 4 games. However I do believe imo, a large majority of posters here still believe in Jake and want him in the future lineup daily once Eloy comes back. 5. Even if this team has this amazing turnaround and wins the worst division in baseball as you are predicting, do you really think they have any chance to go deep in the playoffs? 6. Finally, most of the people here that you are are complaining about that have reached "Maximum Crazy" is again exaggerated. The posters here are die-hard Sox fans just like you. However these Sox fans are also stating the obvious facts of the 2016 rebuild debacle. We still remember vividly the promises of multiple championships and the arrogant comments about, "I'll see you at the parade." Not only has the rebuild been a failure, the biggest crime is the way Hahn and the FO mishandled and destroyed the farm system for now and into the future. The Sox farm system was ranked 29th in 2022 and now 26th this season. The most important prospects in any farm system are the pitchers and the ability to keep developing productive pitchers. This is the glaring failure for the Sox. Even if we win the weakest division in baseball this year, we are screwed for the next several years with the farm system. Case in point: In AAA, the Charlotte Knights pitching staff in the 20 team Intl league is dead last with a team ERA of 5.97. If that wasn't enough going wrong, the AA Birmingham Barons are also dead last in the Southern league in team ERA at 5.49. I ask you seriously, based on this flawed roster, an injury prone team, terrible situational hitting team with RISP and one of the worst farm systems in baseball, not to mention the worst Owner and GM combo in the league....how could you ever compare this team to a Porsche, even with a flat tire? I am not being negative. I want this team to win as bad as anyone here. However I won't be burned again and set my expectations so damn high and then get let down again. I did buy into the multiple championships. Going forward it's better I go forward with concerns and reservations and not get too excited. If they prove me wrong, then god bless them and we'll call that a major "blessing in disguise."

Funny how facing the bottom of the barrell of baseball lets you pad your stats. We all know what's gonna happen when they face <insert any Non-ALC team> I'll start to get mildly interested when they prove that this last stretch of games wasn't a total fluke

Twins next series: Blue Jays .531 Astros .571 Guardians .429 Rays .700 Blue Jays .531 Brewers .551 Good time to take over the "AL Comedy Central" as @Greg Hibbard coined it last night.

The starting pitcher has taken the tension off of the bullpen and as such the bullpen is what it should be. Still need to see better production out of the lineup. When 4 or 6 runs is " a lot", you are not going well. Still I'll take 7 of 9 against teams they normally lose to. My Sweet Lord the Guardians offense is bad.

Was that a 6 pitch inning? That only happens when the Sox are batting.

Yikes. Just do the right fucking thing and send Vaughn to either a platoon or AAA. There's literally no other franchise dumb enough to try this. He will either hurt himself, removing our best current hitter, or he will miss routine plays and put even more pressure on our mediocre staff.

Frazier looks like a good pickup. I do not want him playing CF very often but he looks like his bat will play.

Seems like a caulfield post on this should be incoming

You can tell that Frazier not been with theSox long. He worked a count and took a Walk, and then stole second. Romy failed to move him over to third…

Vaughn hittin clean up. Gulp.

I really hope they don’t do prep pitching in round 1

Kopech vs. Quantrill Kopech following up an absolute gem of a start. Lets grab another series win and start a streak!

Very nice win. Kopech has been outstanding the last 2 times out. Burger can't wait to get outta Cleveland....Romy loves it there. Anderson with a nice hit up the middle with a RISP!!! Jimmy Lambert started Game 1 in Cleveland and finished Game 3. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

If Giolito, Cease, and Kopech are all pitching well, suddenly there's a road to a dream season of 81-81 again.

Kopech seems to have flipped a switch. He went from meh to the guy we hoped he could be from one start to another. And then he continued it into another start. Hopefully we'll see much more of this guy moving forward.

There is nothing impressive about Cleveland. Or Detroit. Or Minnesota. Now let's see if the Sox can get to .500.

Yep, more brain dead decision making by this top notch organization

Lenyn Sosa dinger.

How does someone win soxmath 4 days in a row? Is there only 1 person watching

Jerry is cheap, at least by standards of an MLB owner. We all know this. What I don't understand is this: if he's going to be cheap on spending for talent (which he clearly is seeing as the White Sox are one of a handful of franchises that have no 9 figure contracts in the history of their organization), why not go all out and build a world class scouting and talent development organization? The annual cost of doing this would be less than 20% of an average MLB payroll, and the massive amount of dividends it would pay would be well worth the expense. Even from a purely business perspective, it would massively increase the team's profits by allowing them to consistently put a competitive product on the field without having to compete for the top spot in payroll. And if he's not interested in doing that, he should sell the team to someone who actually cares about fielding a winning product.

So many absolutely horrendous at bats by both teams. This division is absolute garbage. You couldn’t put together an elite lineup if you combined all 5 teams together.

That top farm system was completely top heavy, and they failed spectacularly building any depth or that mythical pipeline of young talent to supplement the core. They sold nearly everything for prospects and called it good enough. What they called a rebuild was the same half-assed effort we’ve known since forever.

Well they have six weeks to prove it on the field and prevent a sell-off, perhaps buy a piece or two. I think much of the pessimism before Opening Day was not filling the 2B and RF positions, par for the course, and the offseason swapping out Abreu's salary for a corner OF with no power and a 5th starter with various issues. I stayed away from here for 3 months, but came back and have been grateful being engaged with the Sox playing well. Perhaps they are playing bad teams now, but I remember when the Sox were solid and lost to these same bad teams, so I'm glad they are taking care of business and perhaps they will have a healthy Eloy, Tim, and Liam back when the stronger teams hit the schedule in June.

Simple answer: An incompetent, dysfunctional and inept front office led by an owner who feels "fiscal responsibility" is more important than winning despite the fact MLB is a 10 Billion dollar a year business.

Man, Haseley is right there.

The initial sell-off trades in 2016 were good. That was phase 1, but there are more important phases that have to occur in subsequent years that went seriously wrong. Here are the problems: - Unwise draft picks between 2017 with high picks in 2017 Sheets 1B, 49th, 2018 - Madrigal 2B, 4th, 2019, Andrew Vaughn 1B 3rd. - Horrible trade deadline trades with Madrigal and Heuer for Kimbrel, Reese McGuire for Jake Diekman and Konner Pilkington for Cesar Hernandez. - F grade for Free Agent signings and not landing one high end significant Free Agent and settled for Kuechel, Grandal, Benintendi and Clevinger. - Complete debacle of scouting, drafting and developing prospects in the farm system after the initial first few years of the rebuild. When the Sox brought up all the top prospects they did nothing to re-stock the farm system. In the last five years the Sox farm systems have been ranked 2019 - 9th, 2020 - 11th, 2021 - 16th, 2022 - 30th and 2023 - 26th. With the shambles the current Sox farm system is in, the Sox will probably be even lower than 26th going into 2024. - After the Sox fired Renteria, the next manager LaRussa was an utter disaster and Grifol isn't that much better. - Bad choices in hires of pitching and hitting coaches. The Sox plate discipline is one of the worst in baseball, as is their situational hitting. Katz is over his head and has done nothing to improve the pitching staff. - Most important failure was when things went wrong in the rebuild, we had the worst owner in baseball who did nothing to make any changes in the front office...to stop the downfall of the failed rebuild.

Big game for the Sox. A win today and peeling off another few in Detroit would get them to 24-30 at the 1/3 mark. It’s bad, but not a season killer. Helluva division.

Soxtalk is reaching maximum crazy. Two playoff seasons followed by a devastating injury year that still ended up .500 and now a slow start which was a combination of new manager, key injuries and the hardest schedule in baseball the first 40 games....and we are writing the obituary?? If we had only spent money like top four spenders, the Mets (.500 and 4.5 games out), Yankees (3rd place 5 games out), Padres (under .500 and 8 games back) or Phillies (under .500 and 7 games back)? Where did it all go wrong as we stand hopelessly...checking...checking...5.5 games out of first after 50 games....with the easiest schedule the rest of the way? Do we put the 25 year old Andrew Vaughn in the same dumpster as the 26 year old, often appendix victim, Jiminez? Jake Burgers feel good story is now over because he's had a couple of bad games? Tim Anderson's 3000 career .750 OPS is an illusion and his last 85 post injury OPS of .471 is the new normal. Colas and Sosa are now AAAA players because of 80 bad, cold weather, at bats against the five best teams in baseball? Kopech has no future. Lynn is toast. Cease was a fluke. We have no relief pitchers. Yet we are less than 14 months removed from many BB writers in the country saying we had the second best MLB talent...and yes since then the luck has all been bad. But baseball is a marathon and luck changes. We still have starters, relievers and 7 position players that at their best in the last three years have been all star levels. This year the Sox are like a Porsche with a flat tire...it looks great in the driveway but on the road its ugly to watch. But the tires getting fixed. The weathers warming up. Jiminez is coming back, Crochet is back, the four top starters all looked great and went 4-0 in their last four starts. Robert is turning into the superstar we thought. Anderson will burn up the league in June. Vaughn is so close. Burger will continue to be a nice surprise. The bullpen is rounding into shape and It would not be crazy at all to see the sox go 40-20 the next 60 and be 5 games up at the 110 game mark. Then Liam regains his form and becomes the rallying cry for the team...Colas and Sosa unleash their talent. The first six weeks of the season was gut wrenching for all of us...but this happens in baseball. Let's let it play out into the summer. I think this is going to become a really fun team.

People are allowed to be negative about bad players, it’s ok

Yes. 2021 was a good year, but there were clear weaknesses, and those weaknesses were barely addressed. The FO wasn't totally committed IMO. They tried to get by on the cheap, and where they did spend their money, it was wrong. I think they were mesmerized by the fact that they were in the AL Central, and putting a juggernaut on the field wasn't necessary. I look forward to some day having an ownership and front office committed to being the best they can be, and not just trying to be good enough.

Comparitively speaking my Sox vibes are pretty good. Maybe not elrockin good. It's just that this is the 4th year they've been team mates and not once have we ever seen them both hitting great in the lineup for any extended period. I'd take a nice 50 game stretch of Eloy and Robert bashing at the same time.

They can all come back on board, the water is fine.

Offensively, Anderson — who led the majors with a .335 batting average in 2019 — is ‘‘an [at-bat] away, a game away from taking off and hitting .320 the rest of the year,’’ Grifol said. ‘‘I’m not concerned, I’m not panicked.’’ ? "I’m the best player on the field every time I step on the field. I think everybody knows that." -Anderson to Merkin Wednesday.

At the time of the 1994 labor impasse with MLB shut down in August the Texas Rangers were in first place in the division with a record of 52-62. Given there were only 48 games remaining the odds of them getting over the .500 mark were very slim. They would have played the Sox in the first round if the season continued. Every team in the division was under .500 at the time of the stoppage.

Can we as a fan base stop with this? Every time another team releases some overpaid bad player, "maybe the sox should sign him" ... is this how we've been conditioned? To be ok with 3rd rate castoffs from better run orgs?