WestEddy

Isn't it that in all sports? I hated the Indians during the 90s. Every year, they seemed to clinch in Chicago. They traveled better than Notre Dame. Oh, I hated those fuckers, waving their AL Central Champs banners while beating the crap out of us, boasting about their 455 sellouts. After 2005, they're just pathetic. I even root for them when they're in it. Like an old man you used to be scared of, and now you bring him bagels. I hated the Steelers in the 70s, the 49ers in the 80s, the Cowboys in the 90s. And they were all great for the game. I was in Belfast around 1987. Went to some "hidden" bar, the bar tender was making fun of me for being American, while wearing a Raiders t-shirt.

I'm amazed the people who talk this way even watch sports. Are the best run NASCAR teams supposed to drive slower to make it fair?

Sure they are. But if British Soccer were 12 Leicester Cities, nobody would give a s%*#. It's Manchester United that gets people's attention going. (I guess it's Manchester City, now)

I think that for a window, if we wanted to have a certain Cuban player, all we had to do was pay them. All things being equal.

By exploiting their baseball workforce? Think outside the box, man.

It got them a lot. Alexei, Abreu, Robert... And if JR were more aggressive, they might have been able to do with Cuba what the Dodgers are doing with Japanese stars, right now. The model's been established.

That's silly. Tampa Bay regularly is in the post-season race. St. Louis used to be until recently. I believe the "giving up" is just posturing. The Yankees and Dodgers have a wider margin to mess up. Rickets - dude doesn't admit that "profit" is a line item in their budget. So, yeah, after they pay out profit bonuses to the partners as dividends, they "break even".

Why? Without looking it up, I'm guessing the Dodgers have maxed out the set penalties (international pool, draft picks), so at this point, all they're doing is paying dollars to spend dimes. And if Sasaki, Yamamoto and Ohtani are bringing in the money to pay those overage fines, they're really setting themselves up to be the team for which Japanese kids dream of playing for decades. You're already braying about the Dodgers signing an African player. Anybody else could build a baseball diamond in South Sudan, and start training kids to play baseball. If the Padres weren't in an ownership fight, and maybe spent a little more judiciously, they'd have the money to sign Tanner Scott. They're also going to lose Jurickson Profar to somebody with their dithering, and we'll all cry that baseball is broken, again. The Dodgers have built the prospect machinery to add their initial round of free agents to, then build a brand in Japan. That's exactly what MLB wants.

Everything doesn't have to come back to a Getz dig. I think Preller has written a bunch of ill-advised contracts. Hosmer and Myers are just two big examples. Is Bogaerts a bad contract? If 2024 was a blip, maybe he bounces back.

The Eric Hosmer and Jake Cronenworth contracts were unforced errors. Wil Myers? I guess that's what "trying to win" looks like. San Diego had every opportunity to be right there in some of these signings.

The earlier start times save money on lighting. They also ensure workers get home earlier, and are more productive the next day.

I don't know if this deserves a new string. For the last few weeks, my brower will refresh, or something, and I go to this page: https://www.soxtalk.com/forums/?app=core&module=system&controller=ajax&do=instantNotifications&csrfKey=10d66629f674db7bc25c7d32b97f9e00&notifications=0&messages=0 I end up having to cut everything out after "forums" to get the site back. Just information for you guys.

And that makes zero sense. Perhaps you should ask the guy who started that dumb narrative what on Earth it's supposed to mean.

The organization just became insular. They stopped acting like a lean and mean company. David Keller and Getz at least seem hungry. Sure, it's interesting to talk about Africa, India and Europe as "untapped markets", but it would be great if we tapped into the Dominican first.

As of now, only 2 of MLB's top 30 White Sox prospects are Paddy signings (Ramos, Veras). It's quite possible that Marco Paddy had significant input for the acquisitions of Batista, Iriarte, Quero, Perez, Albertus, Bergolla, etc. My beef is with the "oh, only Getz was doing a good job in the old regime?" narrative. Like Chicago White Sox dude said, Paddy failed in his job. Yes, he delivered some big names, and his connections probably made guys like Colas and Vera tip-ins. There's plenty of blame to go around, between an outdated Dominican training site, reticence in adopting newer developmental ideas, and a wariness of Dominican prospect ages. International should have regularly contributed half of the top 10 prospects. The fact that your list regularly shows his contribution as 0-2 tells its own story, and not that the guys he recruited graduated out too quickly to rank.

Mic drops are fun, until we're knee-deep in microphones.

I have no idea where you're going, here. Are you now saying that the Sox don't use networking to hire people? You just seem to be arguing anything.

Walt Hriniak had a .586 lifetime OPS in 111 pro plate appearances. Nobody believes that a hitting instructor must have won multiple batting titles in order to be able to teach hitting.

50-80% of all jobs are filled through networking. I can understand thinking that an assistant minor league hitting instructor is a job that requires many rounds of interviews in order to get the perfect guy to be the best assistant hitting instructor, but like most entry level jobs, you just want a guy who will listen and learn to do the job the way you want it done. If he doesn't pick it up, you have dozens of new candidates next December.

Doesn't he also own half the neighborhood from the proceeds of that charity?

Baseball players spend their entire lives learning and honing a few, otherwise unmarketable skills. The fact that Adam Engel, Trayce Thompson, Kevan Smith, Daniel Palka and Tyler Saladino aren't all coaches for the White Sox tells me they're somewhat discerning on the prerequisites for the job.

I'm really not sure what Caulfield is doing. He seems to be praising Paddy, while mocking his contributions.

Oh well. He's our prospect, now. The Dodgers paid him $10k, and we basically got him for free. Pretty good deal.

Are we rooting for "scout of the year" awards? Is that even a thing? Can you post those odds?

I think it's generally accepted that the Sox targeted the odd 21+ year old Cuban who defected, not 13 year old kids who would sign in 3 years. I don't believe they started out the year looking for takers for their international slots. They hung on to it in the event there was a showcase, then if they didn't use it, they'd trade the surplus. Weird how Getz doesn't have the "don't sign 16-year-old Dominicans" handcuffs that Paddy did. You appear to be mourning Paddy, right now.