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Pedro is the same guy who last week said he doesn’t ask the training staff if a player is ok. If he doesn’t hear from them, he assumes they’re fine. He truly is the worst, dumbest Manager possible.

There is a lot of bias toward TA. There can be no doubt that some of it is due to the fact that he is an African American player...a group that did not have one player in the MLB until Jackie Robinson came up with the Dodgers. That group is still under-represented in the league. It is interesting to note how some perceived this fight from who they think started it to how they characterize AV for dragging TA off.

I'd rather have diarrhea for a week

Burger slashing .278/.366/.472/.838 since joining the Fish. Eder meanwhile has given up 9 ERs in 5 IP. Early returns.

I think I heard that the picture is years old. Sucker punch? Anderson threw the first punch. The first three, in fact. I’ve only been back a couple of months, but it’s pretty obvious that you’re a troll haha.

Burger today for the Marlins: 3 for 5 with two RBIs including the game winner. I hate how this organization traded away the popular players and left us with this mess. I don't begin to understand it.

He comes in too often with no control. He also fields his position abysmally. I'd be more than fine trading him in the offseason. He has gone downhill under Katz imo.

Sorry but TA was the instigator, he threw down his glove and put his fists up in a fighting pose just because someone pointed at him. I am not denying that racism happens in sport as in real life, but the reaction here has more to do with him getting knocked down after trying to act like the tough guy. 'Team loyalty' should not be blind, if one of my players is being an idiot I will call that no matter what his ethnicity. As for your point about Ali (before my time) undoubtedly some of that was racism but also some of it was because of the arrogant bragging persona that he adopted before fights. I resent the implication that anyone who doesn't support TA in this is automatically a racist.

Pedro has to be in the top 5 percent of worst managers that ever made it 100 games. This guy is bad, and everyone knows it except the White Sox.

Well...... if we deconstruct that quote, it makes a lot of sense. "Accountability" is not a problem. Similarly, "Polio" is not a problem....... neither exists within this organization.

Ramos with an early oppo HR. Not gonna be able to keep him off Top 100 lists for long.

My condolences.

Of course not everyone is a racist but you cannot deny how remnants of it remain in baseball decades after Jackie Robinson, even among players like Josh Donaldson and announcers like Hamilton. As far as who instigated the fight that is arguable. Do you defend Ramirez for his post game comments that TA has been disrespecting baseball for a long time ? That was basically an admission that he was holding a grudge against Anderson. And do you think that Hamilton announcing "Down goes Anderson, down goes Anderson" was appropriate? This stuff is part of baseball...it is unfortunate but it still exists. TA should have been the bigger man , walked away, but it would have been nice if Ramirez got taken down by Vaughn and others before the fight ensued.

Looks like one of Ozzie's Sunday lineups. Season can't get over fast enough.

Gave this a lotta thought. Betts was wrong. What were the Sox supposed to do, go after the winner of a fair fight? They did the right thing by getting Timmy the hell out of harms way, thx, AV.

I had no desire to even make any more GameThreads, but when I saw how pathetic this lineup is today, I HAD to. Good thing Luis would "Probably play Friday, if not then, then Saturday" huh Grifol? Clown show.

Yeah I wish Benintendi was on someone else’s team. Going to be a long 4 years.

Not happening with Pedro but the good news is the Sox laying down and dying to the Brewers kept them in first place and screwed the Cubs.

It was amazing to see Pedro up against Craig Counsell, who’s one of the top 5 managers in the game imo. He couldn’t light a candle to Counsell and managed the team out of at least one, maybe two wins this series.

How can someone watch this ball club and think the answer is Javy?!

I would just tell Eder not to listen to our coaches and write down everything he was told in the marlins and just read that every day

"Jake Burger is the hero, the Marlins come all the way back" ~ Paul Severino, Marlins pbp guy . i'm probably watching more Marlins baseball than White Sox . i'm not getting any younger, and can wait around for this horrible team to get it's act together.

I knew they'd get swept to screw cubs. Should start sports betting. Meanwhile jake burger walk off and hitting .317 for Miami

https://x.com/pitchingninja/status/1689727461330673664?s=46&t=71MXoLHNRHMnMgMcAw3hrw

Burger trade was a mistake. He is a popular first rounder slugger who was coming around. We need sluggers at GRF. He is making more contact with the Marlins.

So just absolutely disastrous starts for every pitching prospect acquired at the deadline and Korey Lee has looked like dogshit. That’s about right.

I think the word is untradable.

Playing the vets and still losing is genius level s%*#. And Elvis leading off? WTF are we even doing here Pedro?

You guys seem fun at parties

1. Jose Ramirez instigated the fight by shoving Tim's leg and then getting up and aggressively wagged his finger within inches of Tim's face. Do that in a bar or on the streets without MLB security to protect you and you're liable to an asswhupping at minimum, possibly several bullets in your body now since we are in 2023. 2. Jose Ramirez made contact with the ump, instigated the fight, and should have gotten an equal suspension term. 3, Tray didn't say anyone who didn't support TA is racist. He said there is an element of racism to some of the comments.

Fire Pedro. He's somehow worse than Robin which is incredible, to say the least.

The perception of TA is what I was referring to. The denial that racist views are part of the reactions to TA impress me about as much as Josh Donaldson calling TA "Jackie" and then denying he is a racist. Down goes Anderson, down goes Anderson... then getting dragged off by Vaughn. That was just too perfect of a scenario for some people, but go ahead and enjoy. Yea, he deserved it and that trumps team loyalty and even results in TA getting twice the penalty that the instigator received, even though he brushed back an umpire. As far as minority vs minority, some here may recall how a lot of people hated Ali (referencing "down goes Anderson" by Cosell even though it was Joe Frazier...) and wanted him to get beaten, even when he fought other African Americans like Frazier. There was just something about him they didn't like, and sure, OK, it had nothing to do with race. Give me a break.

Let’s all change to pickleball and find a much better team to support, lol…

1. Yes, but it is dropping quickly the past two seasons. I'm guessing there is more bias away from TA. Right not he is "all hat and no cattle" on and off the field. 2. Of course there are racist people in the world. So that's an easy statement to make. But that doesn't make everyone who sees someone instigate a fight and not like it a racist. I believe I can criticize his two family lifestyle as well without bringing racist. 3. There are so many factors why Americans aren't playing baseball. Some are as simple as real estate space to play. Others are more subtle. I doubt any come into the discussion here. 4. Interesting what you're seeing in the fight also.

Easier to move? Lol.

But he was squaring up to another 'non-white' player, so how does that fit in to your narrative? TA did start it by throwing his glove down and then putting his fists up. It is not as if it was a fight between an African American player and a White player and people are siding with the White player. People are laughing at TA because he squared up like a tough guy and then got knocked down by one punch. And as for AV he was trying to help out a teammate by saving him from further harm, the fact he is White is irrelevant. And not everyone is praising him some on here think he should have been throwing punches, so that equally doesn't fit your narrative.

You could appreciate him by spelling his name correctly!

That is why I can't wait until JR is long gone.

I guess my thinking is more derived from the fact that pretty much every baseball fan thinks both Central divisions are a joke. I could look up the statistics on how both Central divisions have performed in terms of W/L over the years, but it's not easily accessible without doing the analysis myself and I already spend too much time writing sports forum posts, but I recall that the Central performs demonstrably worse than the other divisions in the aggregate. I feel as though W/L is a better determiner than World Series Though, regardless of division or W/L, the disparity in payroll is absurd and it strikes me as unfair that some teams have 300 million dollars of wiggle room to spend on free agents -- so then, how much can they spend on front office staff to live in a desirable area like Florida or California? This applies to less desirable coastal cities like Baltimore who essentially just so happened to strike gold in their farm system (and won't pay them) or Tampa. Still, the bottom payroll franchises are big jokes and, aside from a few franchises like Washington, they're not rebuilding they're actually trying to win. Salary cap feels like a no-brainer idea...maybe it isn't all regional but I feel like the perception people have of the Central is the same perception people have of the Midwest in general. It offends me! Great song I've never heard by the way, thanks for sharing. Makes me feel prideful, there really isn't a finer place!!!! only issue is they're driving SOUTH to reach downtown

Playoff "appearances" are meaningless beyond extra revenue for owners. 16 teams made the playoffs, what some fans here want to make permanent, rendering an 162 game season less relevant than a five or seven game series. The 8-12 team playoffs were watered down enough. Baseball played seven decades with 8 or 10 (1960s) team leagues, World Series lone playoffs. This guaranteed only the top few teams would be crowned world champions. Now you can finish fourth in a five team division and win the World Series. It's absolutely ludicrious and a complete and utter sham. I will join 97% of America and not pay attention to it. This wasn't the case prior to 1994 when teams had to earn a post season appearance, not merely play around .500 baseball.

The NBA and NFL are primarily national television contract driven leagues. Their payrolls and revenue have a much narrower window than MLB or even the NHL. Can't have a salary cap unless the owners share everything, and they keep building revenue sources not subject to sharing (real estate). The Yankees haven't won or appeared in a World Series since 2009, the Mets 2015 (1986 last win); Anaheim once ever (2002). It comes down to owners willing to actually compete, and having a competent front office to do so. I don't believe geography doesn't give the teams the significant advantage you are stating. The non coastal cities were well represented the past decade plus (2010-2022), covering half (13 of 26) of World Series teams: World Series Winners (5): Saint Louis (2011); Kansas City (2015); Chicago (2016); Houston (2017 & 2022) World Series Losers (8): Texas (2010 & 2011); Detroit (2012); Saint Louis (2013); Kansas City (2014); Cleveland (2016); Houston (2019 & 2021) Chicago >>> Houston Plus Dallas already has a team, they aren't getting two. The Sox are staying in Chicago, Baltimore (to Nashville) and Oakland (to Las Vegas) are the likely two possible moves over the next few decades.

Houston is basically Chicago with a shoreline. My argument doesn't apply to Chicago, it actually makes the Sox and Cubs look even worse. DFW is where the Sox will move once Jerry dies. That metro area can handle 2 teams better than Chicago will be able to.

This is an excellent idea (especially adding back Montreal...otherwise I'd pick Charlotte before Nashville ?) but I think you run into the same problem with the Midwest division. I don't think it's a popular opinion, but I'd probably prefer to see all the divisions (regions of the country) represented on a regular basis than strictly the "best" teams which are probably the teams that are based in financially-sound, more appealing (for whatever reason...weather, money, things the midwest can't offer) markets. I think a salary cap begins to address that. It's an "owner-friendly" term but I bet it would be better for the sport and could be balanced out with a million different concessions to give to the players union. I tend to think arbitration and delayed free agency is the big thing for the players union to go after. My thinking is that this regional disparity exists more in the MLB than in other American pro leagues. I only watch basketball aside from baseball, but the financial parity in the NBA is pretty great (even if the product gets worse year by year) and the incentives given to players to re-sign long term with their small market team are unmatched by other leagues as far as I know. Look no further than how the Nuggets perform relative to the Rockies. Prudent drafting and trading (good management) won them a championship because they were able to pay more than big market teams to keep Jokic and their other free agents around -- while still being able to go out and sign effective players with limited cap space. The Nuggets won because Jokic is an all-time great but you also have to give a lot of credit to the organization for finding him in the second round and then building an effective team around him, despite injuries. The Bulls and Nuggets made similar trades around the same time with the Magic for their big time pieces and the Nuggets got their championship starter for scraps while the Bulls mortgaged their future for a guy who simply wasn't good enough (even if I like Vucevic). I think you see in the NBA that you can get lucky and win by having the #1 pick in a strong draft or you can build a contender through effective management. Either way, the parameters are pretty much the same for each team. If an NBA owner wants to act like John Fisher or Robert Nutting, the salary floor means he has to pay up regardless. Then the matter of a 'cheap' owner vs a regular one becomes a matter of if they're willing to pay the luxury tax rather than if they're willing to fill out the major league roster with MLB-caliber players. In an MLB-type environment, Jokic is probably playing for the Knicks or Lakers. The Knicks should be like the Yankees but they're constantly mismanaged and are constantly bad; as it should be. The NBA's financial system seems to work pretty well, but it's not one-to-one because one player in basketball can be the difference maker between a struggling team and a championship contender. Still, the best teams tend to perform well regardless of where they're based. Watch for Oklahoma City and Utah to be championship contenders for years to come This post became sort of rambly and off-topic, but I guess it lends credence to the fact that the Sox are a lot worse consistently than they ought to be. Under the current framework of the MLB, there's basically no excuse for a Chicago team to be outperformed by all these other rustbelt cities in the division. It's doubly true for the Cubs, the team that the majority actually likes, but they won a WS recently so they get a break.

They probably would have lost anyway, but Pedros bullpen management delivered the exact result everyone was watching would have predicted. I try to think of one thing he is good at as a manager, and come up.empty.

The good organizations have a lot of things at the disposal from the right people to the right machines (computers , cameras, biometrics . Think of it like this. Have you ever watched special features from a movie that uses a lot of CGI where they attach things to your body to get computer images of your exact movements from head to toe ? . The right people can analyze your mechanics a lot better using that stuff than their eyeballs especially if they have some type of CGI template for the ideal pitching mechanics. Same thing for swings and swing paths or ways to speed up your bat. I wish I could've been a fly on the wall to see exactly what the Dodgers did for Outman. Most interviews only talk about it in general terms. I'd love to hear about it step by step, like a daily journal from him and the people involved and detailed looks at the computers , programs and data analysis from breaking down his swing then rebuilding it.

Bridgeport is thriving and becoming the next hip neighborhood in the city. It would be insane to move the team. Just put a good team on the field and the rest will take care of itself.

That was my best bit of this whole sorry incident, only Eloy could potentially injure himself by getting trodden on by one of his own players.

No. The NHL is a physical game played within an enclosed space, and the league has largely eliminated fighting with the instigator, third men in and other offensive minded rule changes. Teams do not have the luxury of carrying a "goon" in their active roster. Also, there is a difference in leverage in skates vs. firm ground, and NHL players have helmets and other equipment which protects the player in a fight, whereas outside of a batting helmet MLB players are more exposed to a fight injury, plus you have guys like Eloy coming close to injury just observing and milling around. With the recent rule eliminating allowed contact with the catcher, the remaining physical contact plays (HBP and what should be unintentional contact at a base) are not common and typically do not rise to the level of fighting.

Vaughn did the right thing. Had TA taken another punch, he probably would have been in concussion protocol. The fight was over as soon as he was knocked to the ground. None of Ramirez's teammates continued to throw punches. There was a lot of yelling and minor pushing, but it really wasn't a brawl. To call out the Sox for not defensing TA is ridiculous. Why not call out the Guardians for not backing up Ramirez?