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Korey Lee should be our catcher

Lol Chuck talking about how excellent Maldonado is defensively and to ignore last years stats. Literally a second later he airmails it into center on a stolen base.

Poor Aaron Bummer just can't escape his tragic BABIP luck...

Moncada heard they were going to play the last five games like regular season games, so…

Still don't know why you aren't GM. Your eye for talent can't be beat.

Soroka has really good ST numbers. How has his stuff looked?

must not be a Grifol guy he wasn't FAST like me

56-61 for me. I don't think some people have caught on to the new schedule quite yet. We're going to get beat up by the West and East and the Central too, to be fair.

Bell curve is starting to form nicely. I went with 76-81. Not that I think its plausible but more so voted so on the off chance it happens I can say "I told you so" to everyone.

7 7 wins.

If everything goes well I can see them going 75-87, The other thing I wanna see is good play. Good play even in losses. It's a building block to take the next step. Yeah I'm high on silver and black kool-aid

I'm hoping that the team surprises us by not being the worst ever but I can't see them winning more than 70 games.

79

I really like Braden.

Miss me yet?

When I met him at a signing he was kind to myself and hi8is Sr.

How dare you doubt the skills of Martin Maldonado

Every day on MLB trade rumors, there's another story about a pitcher going down with arm problems. It seems like that's kind of a risk of pitching. Or maybe 30 organizations are abusing pitchers by making them throw baseballs hard. Pitchers pitch. If they're healthy, they throw 90-100 pitches a game. Weird how, in 2022, Rodon went to SF, in a system overseen by Brian Bannister, threw 90+ pitches in his first 6 games, and didn't break down. Some of those were with only 4 (gasp!) days rest. Look at his 2022 game logs. Pretend he was pitching on the White Sox that year. Pretend he got hurt like he pretty much did every single year on the White Sox. Now make up an argument about how he was misused. See how fun this game can be? Seriously, I don't care who you think has credibility or not. You think that a pitcher should take years and years and years to come back from injury, or turn from reliever to starter. I'll stick with listening to the guys who are getting paid to oversee pitching for major league teams, and not an internet guy who complains about every single development.

Yeah, this isn't like how it was 2 years ago. We play our shitty division less.

You know, 7 wins a month would get them between 40 and 50 wins...and unfortunately I could see that happening. This is a good time to remind everyone that great seats are still available.

So we're EXTRA FAST?

I think they're that bad that they might lose 110 anyway despite the fact the ALC is ass.

This dude owes us a semi-team friendly deal (buying out arb years and at least one year of free agency) if this works out this year. Started his service time in the same year he was drafted and lost a year of control due to missing a whole season.

118 wins

I'll be shocked if they don't absolutely suck. With that being said, I'm still looking forward to getting this season started because you never know and yes I know I have a problem....I'm a White Sox fan.

Bob Feller was something of a prick in real life (early teenage memory). He had a pretty bad reputation at autograph shows of being fairly surly and resentful of the money that modern athletes were making...whereas he was forced to hock his signature all over the country to make ends meet. Another reason that Mickey Mantle autographs (featured at ST recently, lol) aren't nearly as valuable as one would expect...way too many of them out there. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

This is the nastrini train sir

Also a "you can cancel the post-game show" button for how often their first hit will likely come in the 4th and 5th innings.

So this is pretty much the putrid starting lineup right?

I agree with Rusty

Part of me feels like better than last year, but that isn't saying much. We also are missing any real decent pitchers this year, like we had for parts of last year, which is scary. I guess we see who steps up, but it feels like the depth is much better than the last few months of 23. I wouldn't bet on it, but it feels like a Beatles year... when I'm 64.

85 wins.

71 wins. Better than last year but doesn't make for a great season. There will be other more telling things than win totals.

Too generous

71 - 75 wins... There I said it....

Maldonado's batting average: .059

We are more than due for a homerun trade and I love the videos I’ve seen of Zavala (plus that .420 OBP) and it just feels like Thorpe is a dude who is going quietly produce #3 SP numbers for a long time.

I dig.

I do respect fans who remain optimistic like yourself. Believe. me, it's taken a lot to beat me down to this pessimistic wimpering excuse for a Sox fan, just about ready to 'finally' punt it and start following the Royals and Cubs since they appear to 'maybe' have a clue. Cubs more than Royals. ... I wish I could be optimistic but when I see an up the middle combo of Maldo, DeJong, Lopez truly I give up. And to pitch a guy on Opening Day who won't go more than 3 innings makes me puke to be quite frank. I love our optimistic fans like yourself. For years on this board I've stood up for some players hated by others. I never gave up my love for Oz and even in my depressed state I am grateful for 2005. Hell it's tough to beat out all other baseball teams and we at least got one in Jerry's lifetime. .... Have pity on those of us who now despise the current Sox roster and current Sox manager and GM and owner. We don't want to be this negative, believe me.

This is bold as hell after our last two big trades. We can’t wait until Moncada and Eloy are gone and Kopech just got demoted to the bullpen. At least one of the four big names from the two trades panned out to recoup this trade.

It's the same tune that can't help but mention having a 25th-30th ranked farm system for most of the last few years until recovering in the most recent calendar year. Let's put it this way. Ozzie always said you win with talent as a manager, first and foremost. And Don Cooper is undoubtedly the "best" pitching coach of most Sox fans' lifetimes. He had the greatest collection of young arms in baseball from 1998-2001 coming up through that system. Other than Buehrle (on the periphery of the Top 10 prospects lists back then) and Garland (for Karchner), he won a WS with Contreras, F.Garcia and the likes of Jenks/Politte/Cotts, etc. Was Cooper a failure with youngsters like #1 prospect Rauch, Kip Wells and then all those guys who got hurt...or were they all pretty much overrated...or was he a near-genius due to the Sox results from 2004-2012? Once again, somewhere closer to the middle than genius. Maybe it was Herm Schneider who was the real genius for keeping them all so healthy until Danks. Or was it Cooper who's equally to credit for teaching the pitchers not to go for max velocity...? Anyone watching the Sox from mid season 2021 through the end of 2023 would identify lack of talent as the #1 issue with this organization, especially on the pitching side as the veterans aged out or got injured and Cease (2022) and (previously) Giolito and Rodon (2021) had their runs at Cy Youngs.

Other than the names mentioned...it feels like keeping Giolito together with baling wire and duct tape until he could really get paid (well, almost $40 million) is one of his most significant accomplishments. Because his Red Sox 2024-25 contract numbers certainly weren't based on his brief time with CLE and LAA. When all things are considered, one would say Katz pretty much deserves a "neutral" rating and that the next 2-3 seasons will be his truest test of all. Even then, other than Schultz, he's lacking a slew of "top" pitching prospects, so approximating the Guardians/Brewers/Braves in terms of major league development would be a massive crowning achievement. This "exercise" is not unlike trying to assign Marco Paddy a grade without taking into consideration JR's pocketbook controls, the supposed underage ban in the org and what actual resources were made available to him...you'd have a difficult time isolating exactly how much he's even responsible for the last 5 years or so of limited upside Cubans after the "Connection" had already worn out. Alexei Ramirez, Abreu, Robert, Jr., and Tatis, Jr., pretty much amounts to a lifetime contract/tenure. Plus, he's never been directly tasked with "fixing" the Dominican, and that's probably one of many reasons the Sox are still struggling there 15 years after Wilder. Yes, two wildly different debates, certainly...but the tentacle-like influence of JR, TLR, Hahn and KW touches nearly everyone, doesn't it? And it can't easily be separated in any easily quantifiable way.

Good point. I think Garrett is going to miss his playoff start.

And I like it when my trains are engineered properly and stay on the tracks.

I am very high on Nastrini. The change can really help him, and his best slider is nasty. Boy, do the Dodgers know how to draft and develop players. Remember, he was expendable to them. When he got to the Sox, he pointed out how much easier it was to advance in systems that are not good at development. Hopefully, they learn the lesson and start developing their own Nastrini.

Also the sheer number of notre dame fans that live in chicago where it was the only game they saw of him and how fans love to take the position of someone being "overrated"

I think we will look back on this trade in 10 years and all agree it was an A+ return when Zavala ends up being a legit star posting .400 OBPs year after year with 25+ bombs per and Thorpe has made 200 (mostly quality) starts for us.

None of it will matter, 0%, if Caleb Williams is the real deal. Even if Fields goes on to show more than he did in Chicago, if Williams plays at the level basically every scout and prognosticator projects him to, I wouldn’t bat an eye if they just had to release Fields. If he’s another bust in the long line of busts, then Poles won’t be here long and it will be another GM in his seat still searching for that QB the Bears can’t find.

Big day for my QB1 Bagent

I will state - I wish Justin nothing but the best. He was a class act in Chicago and I hope he does well in Pittsburgh. I also hope Caleb Williams ends up being a total badass kick butt stud qb for the Bears!!!