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No one answered this so I will. 2017 and 2018: Kopech starts off both years in the minors. He sets up a pattern, he struggles with his control early in the year then his control and performance improve during the year. He looks like a guy with a big arm but who needs work to find his control. In 2018, there is a game early in the year where he walks 5 in a short outing and it shows in his stats. Then he goes the month of July and barely walks anyone, he has clearly found a groove, and gets called up. He pitches 4 games and leaves with TJS. He is out through the end of 2019. Some people have disputed whether he should have been called up at the time, it was controversial, I personally had no problem with it as I felt he had done what he needed to do in Charlotte and it was time to give him some big league innings before the season ended. In 2020, for various personal reasons, he opts out of the shortened COVID season. While this isn't the team's fault at all, this does mean that he hasn't thrown a pitch in anger in nearly 3 years by the time he comes back in Spring Training of 2021. So you have a guy who has a live arm, hasn't pitched competitively in 3 years, and had a couple cycles of of "Needing to build up innings so that his control would improve". This seems like a guy who should absolutely be sent to the minors to start 2021, or at least given a method to be able to start for a part of a season, he needs a chance to throw as many innings as he can. Personally I would have put him in the minors and said so repeatedly at the time, they should have been trying to push him up to 100+ competitive innings to strengthen his arm. They put him in the bullpen to start the year. Ok, fine, they moved him to starting in May when someone was hurt, and then he hurt his leg and went on the IL. When he came back, they brought him back without any minor league rehab stint, brought him back right before the all star break so he had extra time just sitting around, and then buried him at the back of the bullpen for 2 months. He had a grand total of 2 outings that reached 2 innings in all of July and August combined. He didn't throw 3 innings in an outing again until September 29. Don't get me started on how he was used in the playoffs as that was LaRussa stupid too. He threw a total of just over 70 innings the whole year. At the time, I guarantee you I was saying "Fine, this might work for this year, but you're taking the risk that the guy will not be able to find the kind of control he was developing in the long seasons in 2017 and 2018, and you're risking whether he can strengthen his arm enough to be a starter with this short of a season." What are his problems now? Control, use of his secondary stuff, and a few additional injuries. Now that's not necessarily the only problem he had, 3 years off is going to be tough to come back from for anyone. He may well have other personal issues, I don't know anything about his current work ethic, and Ethan Katz may well have no good solutions for him. But in terms of mishandling him, for both Kopech and Crochet they put them in the 2021 bullpen to "Win now" and one of the risks of doing so was "This might help you right now and leave you with both of these guys struggling with injury and control if you try to move them to starters." That is precisely what happened, and I continue to believe that this is no coincidence, the White Sox gambled these guys' future as starters was unimportant compared to their 2021 success, and wound up with guys who can't handle themselves as starters.

Great post. If you are a sports fan this suckitude of this degree really can get to you. For instance in a long icy winter it's nice, awfully nice when spring training rolls around. Now there's absolutely no reason to want spring to arrive sports wise. There's absolutely no scenario that can fix this team quickly. It'll be 10 back in mid May again

Hey, how about we just make Shaw the opener every single game? He's going to pitch anyways so let's get it over with right away.

The late 80's Sox teams were brutal. The 90's and 2000's teams overall were fun to watch. The 2010's were a nightmare during the final Ozzie seasons and the Robin years. But this 2023 season has been an absolute train wreck from the top down. Jerry finally makes the right decision to fire KW and RH, but decides to immediately dilute any sort of hope by doing the lazy internal approach by bringing in Getz. And Getz made the immediate lazy approach by keeping arguably the worst White Sox manager of my lifetime in Pedro Grifol. As a Sox fan, i'm at a loss. I have no hope. The roster is beyond flawd. The manager is brutal. The GM is unworthy and inexperienced and the owner is hijacking any sort of hope in 2025 by attempting to patchwork a roster in 2024. A roster that currently has flaws all over the place. Yeah....this is bad. It's really bad. I think we all know that this will be bad until Jerry is officially gone. It sucks, because i'll always love this team. But I know, putting in alot of effort as a fan is not worth it anymore. I won't be following other teams, but I will definitley watch less baseball. I'll watch playoff baseball every year. But this regular season, I haven't watched a whole bunch. This is in part of the shitstorm that is white sox baseball. Thanks a lot, Jerry!

mmm gonna add this to the list of completely normal things other teams do that white sox apparently cannot without ruining them. Giving shortstops new positions? Destroyed players. Say they are good? death.

This joke was gold. Screw you guys!

I dont discount that he's not in the Sox future. But I tend to be on the side that 2020 (COVID year) and 2022 were his only bad years while everyone around here acts like he's been a waste of roster space his entire career. I think in some ways he gets an awful reputation around here for things like "all he does is party" when I'm not sure that anyone around here actually knows that he case. He made music in the off season and everyone equated that to he doesnt give a s%*# about baseball which I think is an unfair assumption as well.

First thought: This really feels like them limiting his innings + help him get his groove back Second thought: The 2024 rotation Cease (because he destroyed his value), Touki, Schlotens, Kopech-Crochet alternating starts and it's called "innovative," Davis Martin — now pitching with his left hand, Tanner Banks regularly pitching a bullpen day, Oscar Colas stretched out as a pitcher. Then Mena and Nastrini get called up and Pedro says they'll get playing time when they're ready, just not yet. Inexplicably, they play right field.

There are 8 billion things to destroy the White Sox for but this is a bizarre one. All guys that highly touted get that type of hype. Hell, Keith Law had him as the number 1 pitching prospect in the game. That's just what top prospects go through.

Here is "midseason" top 30 prospects list: https://www.futuresox.net/2023/09/07/futuresox-2023-midseason-chicago-white-sox-top-30-prospect-list/

Lol I thought you were gonna say something about his workload or development. But you're just saying they referred to the top prospect as a top prospect?

Shirley didn't have enough juice with those goofs but he'll have it with Getz.

CTR-L C CTR-L V Save you some time

Sadly the Sox will become like the Detroit Lions were for me during the Millen to Patricia regimes, which was just something I followed mostly to laugh and shake my head. As a huge Lions fan growing up the team just became so painfully awful year after year after year that there was absolutely no point in fandom. Once you get into your 30s your teams really do need to be good once and awhile. When you're younger hope can sustain your fandom but that runs out after awhile. I'm not going to follow the Sox' offseason. I'm not going to bother with a spring training trip or buying tickets for when they come out here. I'll just follow them at arm's length like I did the Lions and if they ever get new management (like the Lions) that proves they know a little about winning I'll start following more closely again. It's not being a bandwagon fan it's just realizing that rooting for a bottom 1/3 club for a decade isn't rewarding, and in some cases can actively impact your real life attitude -- that's when it gets too much. Getting angry or sad about these sad sack franchises just isn't it.

The problem with Kopech is he can't throw strikes. How does making him a reliever fix that problem?

Tanking trades remaining players: Cease Age 27, 1.0 bWAR Kopech 27, 0.9 Jimenez 26, 0.3 Moncada 28, 0.2

From as far back as when they bought the team in 1981, the philosophy towards the Cubs was best expressed by Eddie Einhorn, "We're Chicago's American League team..." They never grasped the fact that the Cubs are their competition. They've always had the mindset 'we only care how we are doing.' Very big mistake. The only time someone in the organization took on the Cubs was Brooks Boyer's brilliant ad campaigns "Us vs. Them" and when someone put up the billboard across the street from Wrigley Field that said, "Real baseball played 8.1 miles south..."

Certainly the least likable

Please relocate these posts to another forum.

I think White Sox fans have alot to look forward to in 2024. All Getz has to do is get a good second baseman, catcher, 3 good starting pitchers and one good closer for the bullpen and the team will be fine.

POST OF THE WEEK!!!!

I guess next time he's going to have a no hitter through 7.2, and the Sox will somehow win 9-0.

Yikes, can we stick to the thread theme here @Texsox? Pizza.

I believe it was mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he was finally feeling better. He came off the DL for his back on July 25th the last time. Which does line up with this....

I think this should be a new game thread theme. let’s talk about food.

Of course our best pitcher is one of the 3-5 most unlikeable in baseball and has that annoying "ants in his pants" nervous pre delivery routine.

Getting no-hit would be such a 2023 White Sox moment.

Agreed. The problem with sausage outside of Chicago is the seasoning isn't correct. Pepperoni is just below pineapple and above anchovy on the topping list.

Colas sure can't recognize spin very well.

I agree but I'd also say some of these events were in his control too.

Can you imagine if the AL Central team in first place was actually good? The Sox would be 74 games out of first place.

Is that one of those lock the barn door after the horses have already gotten out scenarios???

I think they trade him this winter

It’s been one game buddy

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/barstools-dave-portnoy-speaks-out-about-dragon-pizza-feud-its-like-living-in-a-bizarre-world/3130297/

Vaughn is having a better year than the guy he replaced, Jose Abreu. Better BA, power numbers, almost the same number RBIs, and a positive WAR! I think many of us thought they'd have similar years, but Jose's dreadful start gave Vaughn a head start. If (big if, I know) the Vaughn we're seeing now is more like the Vaughn we'll see going forward, I can't complain. If he can be a perennial .265+/25+ HRs/80+ RBIs guy along with playing a serviceable 1B, he'll be far from the biggest problem on the team in 2024 and beyond.

i had season tickets for 30 years or so. I've seen a lot of bad baseball. But I always stayed for the whole game, even when it was hopeless, even when James Shields gave up 7 runs in the first inning. But starting last year, there was just something different about this awfulness. i would leave games in the 5th inning. I didn't renew my tickets. That turned out to be a good move. It was even worse this year. I still want them to win, but knew this season was over in April. They don't want to throw us a bone, and commit to being good. JR said hiring Getz was for the fans. If the fans had a say, Chris Getz would not be working for the White Sox in any role. More of the same. I wish MLB owners would put some pressure on JR to sell. This is a huge market. He is turning a lot of people away from baseball.

The Kopech, Crochet, Lambert, Bummer, Santos bullpen next year is gonna lock s%*# down!

Not sure if it's my health issues, or the fact that this organization is dead in the water and sinking by the bow, but for the first time in my life I really have no interest in watching the White Sox . I have them on like always, but mostly ignore it, while i'm paying attention to the Marlins broadcast, which I have much more interest in now . wondering if this is going to be it for me as a Sox fan, or if the interest will return . it's very weird and depressing.

....so will he be penciled in as the #2 or #3 starter to open 2024, then?

Crochet has thrown 19 innings since 2021 (and he only threw 54 in 2021) and can't stay healthy. He isn't going to be in the Sox starting rotation next year. He needs to build innings.

He's been raking since the promotion, .869OPS and 4HR in 23 games in WS.

I never understood that attitude (we're Chicago's American League team) either given the fact that both JR and EE spent a number of years in Chicago first off at Northwestern Law school (Einhorn was actually a vendor at Comiskey Park in the 1950's). They HAD to know that Sox fans were never going to root for the Cubs and Cub fans weren't going to root for the Sox. If you wanted to take control of the market you had to be aggressive.

I kinda wish I could believe the bolded, I'm pretty sure they stopped caring about that several years ago too.

I hope JR notices how well the northside team is doing and I hope it hurts his pride, if he has any left!

I honestly think we may see a historic loss season next year.

Nice backflip Rainer don't ever fuckin do it again.

i dont see how this dude can keep is job... man tonights fiasco... no way this guy deserves this job

Pedro.the brown nose.