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I really don't understand the thought process of going after relievers. Nate Jones will be the veteran down in that bullpen. There are only so many spots and the Sox need to see which of the young guys will be here long-term. On the left side they have: Jace Fry, Aaron Bummer and Caleb Frare. Those guys should be given every opportunity to pitch in the big league bullpen next year without having to worry about beating out some veteran signing. I think Medeiros and Schryver could come quickly as well. Nice stable of high leverage lefties. From the right side: Nate Jones as I mentioned. Ian Hamilton, Ryan Burr, Thyago Vieira, Carson Fulmer, Jose Ruiz and Juan Minaya are all on the 40-man roster. This doesn't even include guys like Dylan Covey and Jordan Stephens that could end up in the bullpen. It also doesn't include Zack Burdi, Zack Thompson or Tyler Johnson. The Sox farm is loaded with relievers. They won't all pan out. Taking away innings from these guys in 2019 with veteran placeholders is the last thing the organization should do though.

This is the sort of misinformed tripe I was talking about in my last post, and why the Filibuster is better off closed. Thanks for proving my point.

Considering we're living during a time of relative peace and economic stability, calling this "the most important election in history" illustrates how out of wack our politics have become. Elections in the 1850's, 1920's, 1930's, 1950's and 1960's may have "trumped" them. I'm not even counting the 1910's, which challenged our resolve during a war which saw 37 million people die.

Jesus. Shut this thread down too.

You guys can discuss the closing of the Buster, but otherwise, do not turn this thread into a mini-Buster. That's just gonna be a blanket warning to stop. Don't get into politics in this thread.

It doesn't seem like you believe this based off your posts. Not everyone thinks the way you do or has the same feelings. It is all opinions and personal preference. What might be good for you might not be good for some one in South Dakota.

This is the right move. I applaud the staff for coming to this decision. I have never been interested in talking politics with people, it is literally the most toxic subject you can ever talk about. Until Americans can get over their stupid political opinions and ideals, it is 99.9% of the time a pointless exercise to even undertake such conversations. I will never understand people who actually enjoy shoving their political garbage down others throats. There's so many better things they could be doing with their time.

All you do is make vague references to Wrigley and their “loyal” yuppie fans when there are NUMEROUS franchises who are better comparisons and who have also lost that same exact 50% over the last 10-15 years. If I cited ALL those numbers, you still would be casting the same aspersions, which is that fans of the team with the worst record in baseball the past six years are being unusually disloyal when it happens nearly everywhere (see Houston 2012-14 as well.) If you can’t accept that the Cubs or Cardinals (due to their historic success and franchise history) are anomalies and not the norm, there’s really nothing to say, is there? You’re also basically the only one consistently making this same argument. Or we can look at Mets/Yankees, A’s/SFG, Angels/Dodgers...the only team even close to getting out of its neighbors shadow is the Angels, and look at how many hundreds of millions more that Arte Moreno has spent to attempting to close that gap. Repeating this same line over and over again doesn’t make it more true. In fact, compared to other franchises, the Sox ROSE in the attendance standings while being less competitive. Other franchises are bleeding even more fans than we are.

What other fan base in MLB is blamed for the team's failures other than the White Sox? Did Houston support the Astros by buying tickets or watching on their RSN in 2012~2014? Not at all. It's like blaming Sears' customers for them going out of business, MySpace blaming Facebook, etc. If you're not willing to do what it takes to provide the fans more value for their money, they will turn elsewhere with their entertainment dollars. Quite simple, really.

I honestly think it's a smart move and wish all sports message boards took this leap. Another board I'm on dropped it for a bit...then brought it back and honestly all it does is stir bad blood. Times we live in I guess. Good lord...the responses on Facebook or news pages are bad enough. One of the reasons I dropped Facebook (I have a fake/burner page now and don't follow any people). But the vitriol is ridiculous. Each side digs in and won't back down thinking "their news source" is the accurate one lol. It's tribalism at it's best. Personally...I think that's how our "leaders" want it...keep the masses at each other's throats...and it keeps them in business. Plus...I can't imagine having to moderate that bullshit. Anyway...I applaud the move.

Eh. People can talk politics on another site if they want.

Given the current political climate, Soxtalk has decided to close ( filibuster forum. This move was not taken lightly by the admins/moderators (and for transparency, not everyone agreed with this move), however, given the current political climate, and how that climate can become so toxic (on both sides of the aisle), we have decided it is in the best interest of the forum to remove the "no holds bar" filibuster in an attempt to ensure increased civility on Soxtalk. Please note that while Filibuster has been closed, we are not banning "news" type stories from being posted. There are many topics discussed within the filibuster which can now be discussed within SLAP, however, the flexibility to be "less civil" will not exist. If you want to make posts, you need to stick 100% to the news. There will be no "slinging of mud" tolerated. Posts will be removed and suspensions will be levied. Purely "by the aisle" threads (republican vs. democrat) will not be tolerated, however, we do intend to have pinned threads around shortly before / after the election, to enable healthy dialogue around the elections (again, adherence to the rules will be key). Similarly, financial threads, etc, are all fair game (and those threads have been moved to SLAM), however, again, the focus should not be on the partisianism of the topic, but the facts. This change is one that we will continually evaluate in the best interest of the board and certainly look at all the members for various feedback in terms of how its going and ways to make it better. Similarly, when it comes to the rest of the site, we always look for similar feedback to help ensure we are having effective discussions and cordial communications. We are going to give everyone a "clean slate" from any past issues/run-ins on the political front, but on a go-forward basis heed the strong warning and remember, if you want to purely talk politics, there are other avenues to have more heated discussions and debate (whether you want to debate the other party or prefer to live in your own "ecco" chamber). The threads that evolve into "light political" talk can remain, however, follow the rules. Do not make blanked comments around "republican are X or democrats are Y", etc. If you want to have those discussions, you can take those to a forum focused on that. This is a White Sox site first and foremast which has evolved into so much more. It truly is a community, one in which has new faces emerge and old faces sometimes depart (or go on hiatus before re-emerging). It started in the days before smart phones and has survived friendster, myspace, facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. Remember that "unity" we all have in common and treat people with respect. If you have questions feel free to post. We've always embraced open dialogue and feedback, but please remember the golden rule and think of the below quotes when you post on the site.

100%. The convos here were far and away better than elsewhere on the internet.

Maybe so but it is not impossible to have a substantive debate. I truly am curious if it would be possible to have the Fillibuster come back and have people debate the issues, not the party. Discussions on local issues and the midterms mean more than if Trump took a dump outside the White House. I hope the team here reconsiders this decision and comes up with some new rules for posting politically. The Fillibuster was more tame than Facebook and had a lot more intelligent conversation than I think people gave it credit for.

You are the smartest person on this site, no question about it , your comments are all correct, this organization is a perfect saying of mine which is just because you are rich doesn't mean you are smart.

Unfortunately the White Sox do not get the benefit of the doubt here.

Putting the title of the thread aside, the topic is meaningful. Rebuild or no rebuild, the FO should be reviewing all the coaches performance at the MLB level as well as the minors. Losing 100 games does not mean someone should get fired. But being in a rebuild, should not mean everyone gets retained. The organization should have some objective and subjective criteria to judge their employees. In addition, someone above the FO should be judging the FO staff as to their performance.

Sox fans have not cooperated. That is a fact. But it is also a fact the current front office hasn't done a stellar job. Ultimately you are based on wins and losses. Cleveland has had a couple of AL Central dominant stretches. Minnesota had a dominant stretch. Detroit had a dominant stretch. KC sort of had a dominant stretch. Why can't the White Sox compete with these teams?

C.) Don't care and want to complain

Which fanbases in the Heartland and Rust Belt haven’t experienced the exact same phenomena when their teams were losing on an extended basis or rebuilding? The Royals are WAY down now just three years removed from a World Series title. Detroit is struggling mightily after filling the park under Ilitch. Pirates are worse than Sox with much more competitive teams, and certainly an amount of relative/recent success. Twins are way down despite a playoff appearance and new outdoor stadium. Cleveland is still back up to just 23-24,000 after all those years of sellouts at Jacobs Field, and that’s with a long run of sustained success and more recent run of historic fan loyalty. Tearing playoff teams apart twice really hurt, and they’ve never recovered after the 90s and financial crisis. Baltimore, the same. Cincy, the same. 7 in the same geographic region (roughly) that behave exactly like Sox fans, especially if you correct for newness of stadiums. The reality is that unless you’re talking Cubs, Cardinals...nearly every franchise’s fans behaves fairly similarly. Not too long ago, the Cubs and Sox had attendance numbers exactly on par, unless you accounted for the additional “tourist” fans who are mostly from outside of Chicagoland or traveling fans of teams visiting Wrigley. And it’s also not typical for the Cards to give out a plethora of deals for over $100 million, they have always maintained a mid-market mentality when spending. Now if you want to argue Mariners, Brewers, Rockies and Padres fans are “better” somehow or more loyal...go ahead. It certainly hasn’t resulted in much on-field success or immensely increased spending, other than those teams with $50-100 million more to allocate due to new RSN agreements.

Extremely well said Mike!!!

Why do you think this though? The Sox didn't acquire all these young bullpen arms and put them on the 40 man so that they could pitch in Charlotte. Which of these guys won't be in the major league bullpen to start next year? Ian Hamilton, Jace Fry, Ryan Burr, Caleb Frare, Aaron Bummer, Juan Minaya, Jose Ruiz? That's 7 guys. It doesn't even include Jones, Vieira, Fulmer, Covey, etc. They may add some veteran relievers on minor league deals. I don't see them filling the bullpen with veteran FA signings though. They didn't acquire Burr, Frare, Ruiz and Vieira so that they could just discard them for veterans immediately.

This thread is going to to run out to be a fillibuster thread. I never go there anyway. I like places that are free of political stuff. I hope mods will also remove or edit any political jabs people throw in their posts. I've seen this happen with newer members.

Again, in 2019 coming off of a 100 loss season, it isn't about who may be good or not, it is about finding out who IS good. If guys fail, you move on to the next guy. The Sox still aren't trying to win next year.

As just a piece of the behind the scenes stuff. The filibuster alone has results in more suspensions and bans than the entire rest of Soxtalk combined for a really long period of time now. It generates more discussions between staff about problems and potential problems then anywhere else as well. For what is supposed to be primarily a baseball message board which was created long before there were the explosion of social media options available for people who want to discuss anything under the sun, it generated a gigantic share of problems for the message board. When it was created it was an afterthought to add a place for discussions that was a good idea at the time. We have lost a very high amount of posters due to interactions in the filibuster over the years, again WAY higher than what we have lost due to problems in any other board over that period of time. The political and deeply personal nature of the discussions frankly have caused too many people to lose their minds for periods of time and partake in unacceptable behaviors. No matter the warnings and the flat out begging for that to change, it never did, and frankly probably never will (and that goes for both an individual basis as well as a collective one). This also has been something that has been discussed for a really long time with all of those arguments, attacks, and unconventional behaviors happening in the background. It just got to the point where the option to host those kinds of discussions was hurting Soxtalk more than it was helping it.

Lol - you and your psychobabble talk. You are our resident Sox psychologist, I guess, ready to assess emotions at a moment's notice. Such a service you provide - keep up the good work! Meanwhile, going back to the topic at hand, referencing one, two, three, four, five, or even six decades of the recent White Sox fan experience is actually very appropriate, particularly when reckless and inaccurate accusations of the fan base being "impatient" are being tossed around willy nilly.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Great joke.

No doubt. I was just giving another option for the poster's point. Its good business for the sports team to have someone else help pay for the stadium. It doesn't mean the politicians need to fall for it though.

I'm increasingly okay with this. If a sports team wants to be in a city I live in they need to pay taxes like everyone else does, otherwise they can go fuck themselves. This has never really been an issue in Chicago (save for Reinsdorf when I was a little kid, in different times) and probably won't be, but it's the principle for me.

As Americans, we like to think the world revolves around us, but it really doesn't. The tribalism we're seeing isn't unique to America and it's not solely an American phenomenon. It's a global phenomenon fueled by technology. More people have access to information, and with that comes divisiveness. There are a ton of parallels to the advent of the printing press and how it impacted the church. In the end, civility still won out. We'll survive. I apologize for turning this thread into the Buster.

This. I lol’d at the “most important election in history line”. #BRINGBACKTHEBUSTER

Two thoughts: 1) Of all times to close it, 19 days before the most important election in history? 2) Of all times to close it, the offseason after one of the most boring years in White Sox history. I still visit often out of habit - when I have nowhere else to go I type in www.so - and the rest fills in. But I'm sure that habit will fade. Sad.

No one is calling anyone a bad fan. It’s just frustrating that several posters around here continually pretend like the team isn’t rebuilding. This thread title is absurd. Why would someone “fall on the sword” because the team’s record was bad? It’s meatball nonsense. Everyone that wants to see the front office literally murdered in public — don’t worry, this HAS to be their last chance. But it isn’t over yet, so you’re gonna have to let them finish. It does not make sense to murder their families and change course now, everything would be for naught.

I think you guys are being way optimistic here. Right now we have one guy who we can pencil in Fry who may or not even be good. Are we really going to be able to find 6-7 guys who can hold it together for the whole season in the minor league because I could easily see us going through at least ten to twelve guys after accounting for injuries and people just not getting the job done. Also one of main draws we have over other clubs is we can offer a player like say Cody Allen the closer job and a chance to rebuild their value. Why not take advantage of that?

I agree with Fan O'Faust. Our fans are great. Whenever I'd get depressed over fans on here wanting us to lose games, I'd see how our fans reacted when we did something positive in games at The Cell. Our home fans are into the games, at least the ones where we aren't trailing 7-1 after 3 or 4 and only wonder whether Davidson will pitch tonight.

I like the negative Balta as he offsets the ever positive southsider IMO.

I wish we could get back to the "cockiness" of Balta from last off-season, talk about decimating/owning the AL Central year after year beginning in 2020/2021. Those days seem to be like a half-decade ago right now.

You are correct in everything you said, but unfortunately we do not have smart baseball people running any part in this organization, the bottom line are wins and our Chicago whitesox have the fewest of any team in the last 6 years.

And even the Marlins have those 1987 and 1993 championships. The Brewers were in terrible straits in the 70's and for most of the 80's....with the exception of 1982, and then for the last decade enjoying all of the advantages of having your former owner as MLB Commissioner and all the ancillary benefits that accrued to that franchise, as well as a wonderful new stadium. The Mariners, Brewers, Padres, Reds, Indians, Orioles, Pirates, Twins and Tigers should all be considered "peers" of the White Sox, although the Sox have/share the largest media market of those particular teams. TB, Oakland and KC are "anomalies" in the first tier. Also surprising the Braves are 'only' 13th after their run of success in the 90's and early 00's.

It never gets said (with the lone exception by you) because it’s utter nonsense. Blaming the continued futility of guys in the front office, who get paid the big bucks to produce a quality product on the field but don’t, on the fans defies reason. It ain’t our fault, pal. Your decades-long grudge against the fans really skews your thinking on this matter. To even merely suggest our fan base, who has only seen our Sox go to the playoffs a scant five times since the 1959 World Series, is somehow “impatient” is absolute crazy talk. It’s the exact opposite. We are arguably THE most patient fan base around, what with so little we’ve had to cheer on during October our entire lives.

You all are acting like this is new. Take a look at this. The White Sox have been providing the poorest product in baseball since the beginning of baseball. The lowest percentage of playoff appearance among all teams. I believe they have 9 total appearances. 2008,2005,2000,1993, 1983, 1959, 1919,1917,1906.

I had to think about this topic for a bit. I am not sure anyone had to fall on the sword for the team record. After all we were warned that it would not be pretty in 2018

Yes, the Cubs have had a nice 4 year run. Do you disagree that the White Sox were one of the 7-8 best franchises from 1990-2010?

Name the other professional sports franchises (or just MLB) that blame the fans for their failures. This should be good. The Montreal Expos and Marlins? Seems they had Loria in common. The A' s and RAYS? TERRIBLE STADIUMS. Maybe the Pirates, but they never gave fans a pennant winner and dealt their two franchise players in McCutcheon and Cole away. At least the Indians did something to bring their fans back after betraying them twice. Something called repeated success that we are unfamiliar with. Other teams also give their fans weather protection (Brewers/Rangers/Astros/Mariners/Jays/D-Backs) or much better climates in general for the sport, like the Padres.

I see no reason to throw money at relievers this offseason. There is a wave of really intriguing relief arms at or approaching the upper levels right now, some of whom will be the core of a bullpen on the next contending team. I'd like to see all of them get good playing time. Now obviously if some dumpster dive player seems like a good cheap gamble, I'm not saying you don't consider it. I just don't think it should be something to go out looking for.

I’m pretty sure Bruce has dementia and should be re-assigned to Great Falls.

Yikes. Only reason I really visited this site anymore.

No individual post; It's been a discussion point among the mods for a few months and I believe I had even posed the question to the general board a couple months back as well.

That's unfortunate.

What.. the left handed hitting players from the NL playing for Washington not catching your eye? I mean what can possibly go wrong?