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All teams have injuries. I posted a story a few days ago about WAR injury impact. The Dodgers and (if I remember right) the Rays lead all of baseball in WAR lost due to injuries. Both those teams are still going to make the post season. Hell the Dodgers may wind up winning 110 games. Bottom line the White Sox have every opportunity to have a good minor league system, to sign high quality free agents to provide depth (instead of stiffs, has-been's and retreads) instead they take a half ass money driven approach. There's a saying in the Bible...you reap what you sow (and that includes in my opinion an incompetent medical, conditioning and training staff)

Yawn….maybe say these things in May….not with 2 days left in August. We’ve watched all year and it’s been the same crap, so now your “angry”. (Insert Joe Kelly pout face)

The sad reality is they are still in it. I have not been excited about this team since the beginning of last offseason that saw no moves and then a lockout. It soured my view and nothing has changed it. I got a little excited after the early start of 5-3 or 6-4 or whatever but since the first losing streak in April I have no faith. They should fire Tony install Maddon or Guillen to simply get the process going. This should have happened in mid-May or at worst when the schedule got easier. Losing 3 of 4 should have ended it and if getting swept at home v AZ didn't wake anyone open, nothing will. There is some BS going on with this organization and the fans are paying dearly. I had a 20 game plan, I went to the first 9 and am just blowing off he last 11. I don't ever give them away. I can walk to the games so I spend nothing on them but time but do not even want to give them that. I hate this organization so much right now I am not certain I could even be considered a fan. I have been to 40 opening days in my 46 years of living and have had season ticket plans of various degrees every year since 2000.

"Due to an abundance of caution, SoxFest will be canceled this year. We hope to be back next year....unless the team sucks again. Feel free to leave a voicemail with your questions or concerns for any of the coaching staff or front office....that number is 1-877-328-7448....once again that number is 1-877-EAT-SHIT."

But what WAR did you expect from Yaz? What did you expect from Leury? The team wasn't counting on Leury to be valuable (well at least we as fans weren't). But this team needed Yaz to be valuable. And Yaz is -1.2 in bWAR. Yaz makes 13 million more this year than Leury. There has to be a sliding scale in how they are measured.

Leury becasue LaRussa puts him in positions to fail. He is a nice defensive player but has zero offensive skill. His home run in the playoffs last year is equal to Kerry Wood's in '03 I think it was. He is terrible but gets lucky once or twice a season.

The Sox are playing at half strength because they're inept at keeping their staff focused and healthy for a full season. What, did you think it was just a coincidence that all of the sudden a large portion of our starting lineup started getting hurt multiple times over the course of this (not even concluded) season? The trainers aren't respected by the players, so they're just half-assing their between game preparation. This isnt a serious baseball team, but guys like Hahn and TLR have convinced people like you that they are.

Then quit, you crusty old fuck.

here is a general thank you to the staff and mods and all the posters that make Sox Talk what it is -- as not just a premier Sox forum but one of the premier forums anywhere online. we've all been through a lot as sox fans but it's nice to know whatever happens with the team we can always come here to celebrate or share our grief and anger.

Sox should fire LaRussa and Menechino now so they can see how the team performs for a different manager and hitting coach in the last month of the season. It will give them some additional information when deciding what to do in the offseason.

One of the problems with Reinsdorf is he is a long time owner. I'm not sure of any other current hands-on owners have been around for 40 years. In the 80s, major league baseball was still fresh with the memory of an actual franchise bankruptcy in the seattle pilots. League health was a real concern, and even worse in his other franchise the NBA. Your location was everything. Jerry bought into the white sox as a baseball franchise, but was also buying into the MLB. And 40 years later I'm sure a lot of the ridiculous work he did to shore up the MLB leads to today's game. Your location is not near as important as it once was. National revenues, MLBAM at one point, and revenue sharing give every franchise an easy floor. Basic new owners are buying fun toys that may lose them some cash in any given year but have a steady appreciating asset that makes it no high-stakes purchase that will dent their wealth. Look no further than the LA dodgers sale earlier this decade, used and abused by a ridiculous owner in dire financial straights and divorce, forced to sell, somehow breaks all records and sells for 4 billion. Smart new owners are realizing they can use the power of the local popularity of sports teams to add layers of commerce and retail around their stadium like LIberty Media has done. But Jerry's focus has, since the mid-80s, prioritized "league health" (/sarcasm) over his own franchises competitive edge. He'll collude with other owners to keep salaries down. He'll go hard against the union and destroy one of his teams best chance at a world series and cancel a season. He'll refuse to let his org set markets on player contracts. He'll dictate to his org that they must not go over the recommended slot bonuses for the mlb draft. He won't let his team go big on international market until the new system was set, while, for instance, today's Rays were built on an incredible haul in 2014. And an owner whose teeth were cut seeing franchises actually get in trouble by overpaying for unproductive talent knows you don't overpay for 16 year olds. Stay out of that game. Millions for a high schooler? Remember Kris Honel? No, no, the game is won by ignoring the trends and just focusing on getting those tried and true productive players at your price. It's possible the league enters a different place at some point. That sports is no longer the holy grail of live viewing and gets split to death like all other content. And maybe then the current owners will turn to the wisdom of a JR. But instead it's just sox fans paying the price for an extremely outdated owner who is extremely arrogant about how excess can lead to pain for a franchise. Whose pain? Well the owners pain. Not really the fans.

Valid point. And why is it that we had to replace those players with Elvis, Leury and Adam? Because Hahn didn't do ANYTHING to improve this team since the 2020 off-season. Last year's trade deadline weakened the team. Nothing was done in the off-season to improve (I know we signed Ceuto, but that only came as an emergency move when Lynn got hurt. VV was Hahn's choice and he gave him a ML contract.) This trade deadline was nothing because Hahn gave away any valid trade pieces the last 2 years and our minor league system was at the bottom of baseball.

The only thing that would really concern me is that once again, the Sox would conduct a sham search instead of doing a legitimate one casting a wide net and see who would be interested...someone from outside "the family" with new ideas and a new way at looking at their issues.

Better and more exciting than MLB, by far, to me.

When you just don't play baseball well, that is a problem. By the way, I really think I have a problem. When he started talking about the schedule that was left, I thought "hey they do still have a shot at this. The Braves got hot at the end of the season last year." I need some sort of professional help.

I've bought up 30 Kelenic rookie cards. Gonna be able to retire at 35.

Come on, let's get real here (those voting for Leury). Despite dumbass Hahn giving him a 3 year deal, it's for $5.5 million per season. Grandal is making $18.5 million It's not even debatable here.

1. Rick Hahn and 1A. Tony La Russa, these players didn't just show up here out of the blue on their own. Bottom line is Lynn ($18.5M), Grandal ($18.3M), Moncada ($13.8M), Pollock ($11.0M), Graveman ($8.0M), Kelly ($8.0M) and Garcia ($5.5M) have a combined net fWAR of 0.0, and all but Grandal and Moncada were signed/acquired between July 2021 (Lynn) and Opening Day 2022.

Sorry couldn’t bring myself to vote for just one.

How in the world are we still referring to it as “the” problem? TLR is A problem. The offensive approach is A problem. The list is goes on and on and on.

Yes but it was Arizona not the Yankees or Houston and the Sox were at home, and even your statement that at full strength they wouldn't have swept us whilst true it would probably have been a split series.

They beat our second and third string players for the mist part. If we were at full strength, they would not have swept us. . You cannot replace TA and Elvis , Moncada with Leury, or Pantera with Engel and expect to win. You cannot start minor league pitchers and expect to win in August. The Sox are playing at half strength.

Difference between the 99 win team they should have been at this point in a rebuild and the 89 win team they are on paper? Rick Hahn. Difference between the 89 win team they are on paper and the 79 win pace they’re on right now? Coaching staff.

I have confidence they can dig an even deeper hole.

The Sox aren’t flushing their 1/4 CSN ownership down the toilet to chase down some hillbilly 30th tv market in the country. Las Vegas and Portland will also offer horseshit TV revenue. Montreal is the most viable city and baseball is not returning since Canadians aren’t building these billionaire fat cheapass fucks free stadiums.

All - with the season heading down the tubes I am taking a last ditch extremely superstitious effort to get the club on track and will be working through some upgrades to the forum software sometime next week. Intent is for it to be a one day outage but given size of this board always a risk it drags a bit longer. If it does I’ll get a back up forum up in the meantime but want to make sure I get everything upgraded given some of the slowness issues people were running into on their mobile device etc. Wanted to give you all a quick heads up - I’ll post a more updated timeline as I get closer to it.

Here is the link to the story I put together on his career: https://www.southsidesox.com/2022/8/29/23328178/bob-locker-white-sox-pitcher-dies-at-84-1938-2022

2022 White Sox: Better Than the Clap

Unwatchable.

Agreed, theres no way they are facing the fans after this season.

I wouldn't even waste time talking about a guy like Leury Garcia or Adam Engel. How can you be in a conversation about value when no one values you to start with? This list has to be between Grandal and Moncada based on them having actual expectations for this season.

This could be HUGE.

Veeck had his failures as well as successes, but he understood the average fan and what kind of fun the fan wanted to have at the ballpark. Never would have wanted him making trades, but he did what he could to make the game fun. JR didn't understand the average on buying the team, and he doesn't now. There's the difference.

So what would you like the Sox to look like in 2023? What improvements need to be made, who's in the dugout, who's the GM?

Hopefully they’ve finally learned that god damned lesson… doubt it.

There really isn’t much of a path to sneak into the playoffs at this point. Effectively 6 GB with 34 to play. Probably have to go 24-10 or better to have a chance. There’s just no way unless Cleveland plays like .333 baseball rest of season.

Tuesday is the likely day - first thing in the AM PST. If something changes I'll let you know - there may also be some moderate down time tomorrow when we look to do some pre work on the server side.

Harrison, Velasquez, and Andrus are free agents at the end of the season. The only reason to DFA them now is that you need to use the roster spot for someone else. And hell, no one’s healthy anyway. No reason to do that. Moving Hendriks makes the white Sox worse next year, all it does is save money. I don’t really care about saving Reinsdorf money. If a move doesn’t make the white Sox better long term or short term why do it? Giolito has a solid chance of being better next year than this. He’s not going to be overpaid next year because he’s still in arbitration, and if you’re moving him for scraps, why not hold him to the deadline and see if he’s worth more? It’s not like he’s blocking a set of starting pitchers who are ready to come to the big leagues, if they move him they will be spending his money on a Quintana or someone like that this offseason anyway. If the return is a pittance, might as well hold onto the guy and try a new coaching staff.

Jerry is strictly relying on selling Sox and Bulls hats to Peoples Nation at this point.

I believe someone predicted this a few pages back…

Haha Leury batting for Seby. God I love this shit

What have you seen through the first 128 games of the year from a team that is .500 (if they win today) and think they are going to magically put it together the final 34 games of the year to win the division let alone do anything in the playoffs??

34 games left. This team isnt winning anything.

So let's see. 1) The Owner buys the CWS for pennies on the dollar. 2) Gets a notoriously sweetheart of a stadium deal from a near bankrupt state. 3) MLB inserts CWS in the Central Division where they've remained the sole major market team for decades. And in current ownership's 40+ year tenure all we"ve gotten is a one-hit wonder.

You know things have gone really bad when the Chicago media is saying “fire everyone”… https://chicago.suntimes.com/white-sox/2022/8/26/23323627/trying-and-failing-to-imagine-jerry-reinsdorf-holding-white-sox-employees-accountable-tony-la-russa

TL;DR Fire everyone and sell the team

Changing The Game...Into Something You Don't Want To Watch.

D.U.I.

Maybe he will get with a more motivated group of guys and come back ready to win next year.

On the subject of a “rebuild”, I continue to believe the only option for the white Sox is some version of running it back again next year. They have too many guys under contract who have performed so poorly they can’t be moved for what you’d need to get to justify a rebuild. Robert, Moncada, Eloy, Grandal, Giolito, Lynn, Pollock, Kelly, Anderson - you’d be selling low on any of them, and Grandal is on the edge of DFA. For example, moving Lynn or Moncada might save them money next year, but you’re unlikely to get anything back that makes the team better other than saving money, and you might even have to send money with them. Does moving Moncada for no return, saving some money, and having Burger start at 3b make this team better? Does moving Lynn for scraps and having $15 million to spend on the FA market make them better if Davis Martin takes his spot? With all of those guys, continuing to play them and hoping for improvement remains the only realistic option. For some of them it gets you through their contract, for others maybe they can stay healthy or have a comeback season and that rebuilds their value. They have guys they could trade to bring back a solid haul such as Cease, but doing so doesn’t get them out of their current contract situation. It does them little good to trade Cease for a prospect haul that helps in 2 or 3 seasons while they still have to pay Grandal, Lynn, and the others next year. What happens if a few of those guys return to form, but you traded away Cease, so you’re still only an expensive .500 team? Furthermore, there’s no reason to think Cease or Kopech will be worth vastly less next offseason if it does come to that point. Change the entire coaching staff and front office, parade Rick Hahn through the south side after being tarred and feathered, make some tweaks around the edge to the roster with the limited room you have, and hope that a new staff can reinvigorate some of these players next year. If they can, maybe the team competes, or at least maybe someone like Moncada regains some value. If they can’t, then you’ve cleared a couple contracts (Kelly, Lynn, Grandal), and now you talk about moving a Cease or a Kopech at the deadline next year or in winter 2023-2024.