South Side Hit Men

This will be the Sox last home series until they return to Comiskey Park II on July 4th for (barring rain outs) the Prince of Darkness Jerry Reinsdorf's 6,666th game as White Sox owner. Boston is again without their Ace Chris Sale, who has one year left on his deal barring some miraculous 2024 season to vest 2025 (Top 10 Cy Young plus not on IL at YE). Friday: Brayan Bello vs. Lucas Giolito. Brayan is a 24 year old with 22 starts and 116 2/3 innings under his belt since his 2022 callup. Pitching well this season lasting on average just over 5 innings per start, with a 3.49 ERA. Lucas has pitched very well over his last four starts, going 2-0 with two no decisions and six earned runs allowed over 23 innings including 6 innings of shutout baseball in the Bronx. Saturday: James Paxton vs. Lance Lynn. The Sox last saw Paxton during his tragic April 6th start two years ago in Seattle. He returned to The MLB two years later, and has pitched well over his seven starts. Lance Lynn is coming off his best start, and can hopefully continue his good form against the Red Sox. Sunday: Kutter Crawford vs. TBD. Kutter has 19 starts under his belt, similar results to Brayan in terms of a higher ERA vs. FIP last year, and a big improvement YTD 2023. Red Sox doing it with starters at the ML minimum. Hoping the White Sox start Scholtens who seems to be a better option than Banks. I expect attendance to be the highest series for the first half of the season, with a lot of Boston support in the stands. The Sox need to average 14,564 per game from here on out to avoid having their lowest mark at Comiskey Park II, though they likely already have clinched it via pre sold tickets including this series plus the Yankees, Cardinals and Cubs.

Oakland = Dunn ($56M). Similar results.

And Hahn was there every step of the way. Game 3 Oakland was Hahn's plan. Tony may have pushed Hahn around, but in the end Hahn approved of the 2021 plan. Pedro isn't pushing anyone around, so Hahn led the 2023 plan unequivocally.

Well, the playoff structure is farcical since there should only be 4 teams under the traditional 90+ year format, or 6 maximum with the current divisional format (2nd and 3rd seeded division winners best of 3/5 and then the LCS would be the upper boundary). If the season ended now, Atlanta (NL East .644) vs. Arizona (NL West .600) and Tampa Bay (AL East .675) vs. Texas (AL West .622) under 7/8 team divisions would reward the teams with a truly great season. You'd also have the great playoff races and Best of Three Play-in Games for Division Ties that are now gone, replaced by with just about any team .500 or better walking in and tie-breakers. It's really sad and a significant reason why most fans don't give a s%*# about the playoffs anymore unless their team is in it. AL East: Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Nashville, New York, Tampa Bay, Toronto. AL West: Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Oakland, Seattle, Texas. NL East: Atlanta, Cincinnati, Miami, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington DC. NL West: Arizona, Chicago, Colorado, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Saint Louis, San Diego, San Francisco. Hahn Era Proper Playoff format (Prior World Series champ in bold): 2023: Atlanta .644 vs. Arizona .600 & Tampa Bay .675 vs. Texas .622 2022: (Atlanta vs. New York .623) vs. Los Angeles .685 & New York .623 vs. Houston .685 2021: Atlanta .547 vs. San Francisco .660 & Tampa Bay .617 vs. Houston .586 2020: Atlanta .583 vs. Los Angeles .717 & Tampa Bay .667 vs. (Minnesota vs. Oakland .600) 2019: Atlanta .599 vs. Los Angeles .654 & New York .636 vs. Houston .660 2018: Atlanta .556 vs. Milwaukee .589 & Boston .667 vs. Houston .636 2017: Washington .599 vs. Los Angeles .642 & Cleveland .630 vs. Houston .623 2016: Washington .586 vs. Chicago .640 & Cleveland .584 vs. Texas .586 2015: Pittsburgh .605 vs. Saint Louis .617 & Toronto .574 vs. Kansas City .586 2014: Washington .593 vs. Los Angeles .580 & Baltimore .593 vs. Los Angeles .605 2013: Atlanta .593 vs. Saint Louis .599 & Boston .599 vs. Oakland .593

So a cherry picked five years, with the other 13 years consumed by three changes in ownership, a potential move to Milwaukee, and a broke Bill Veeck saving the team in 1975. Let's give Tony La Russa Three HOF Plaques while we are at it. Plaque Number 1 - 2013: Veterans Committee: For his success under Alderson's A's, Jocketty's Cardinals and Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO). Plaque Number 2 - 6/19/2023: Bob Nightengale: For Tony being "the only" person to win with this team, despite the fact Ricky had a playoff lead, better playoff record (with no home games) and better regular season record (albeit the 60 game sham season Jerry orchestrated via yet another owner lockout). Plaque Number 3 - 6/21/2023: For Tony leading The Best White Sox Five Year Stretch between "Golden Era" (1951-1967 - One A. L. Pennant under Veeck in 1959) and the we are broke, sold three times, thankful Bill Veeck saved the team before The Sunshine Boys tried to move it to Tampa Era (i.e. 1968-1985).

I thought they may have pulled Kopech for decreased velocity / potential injury concerns, but he was pulled to give him an extra inning of rest. WTF? Why not put in Touki at that point to get multiple innings? Sox would have been in the game, perhaps one it, if they didn't punt with Lambert who now has a 6.85 ERA, and hasn't looked good beyond mop up / low leverage situations. This was a chance to win the series against a solid team, and they threw in the towel. A new GM needs to bring in a new manager ASAP. Both are severely out of their element. The bigger picture is to let this guy try to get through the fifth if he's healthy, build up experience for future games when he needs to suck it up and pitch through adversity.

2023 OD Payroll / Team / Record Top 12 Payrolls currently outside of a playoff spot: $210M Toronto 41-35 . 539 1/2 GB WC $181M Boston 39-36 .520 2 GB WC $243M Philadelphia 38-35 .521 2 GB WC $184M Chicago N. L. 36-38 .486 3 1/2 GB NLC $249M San Diego 35-38 .479 5 GB WC $331M New York N. L. 34-40 .459 6 1/2 GB WC Teams 13th - 30th in payroll $181M White Sox 32-43 .427 $180M Houston 41-34 .547 A. L. Wild Card #3T $177M Saint Louis 31-44 .413 $172M Colorado 29-48 ,377 $154M Minnesota 37-38 . 493 A. L. Central $137M Seattle 35-37 .486 $122M Detroit 32-41 .438 $119M Milwaukee 38-36 . 514 $116M Arizona 45-30 .600 N. L. West $101M Washington 28-45 .384 $93M Miami 42-33 .560 N. L. Wild Card #2 $92M Kansas City 20-54 .270 $89M Cleveland 35-38 .479 $83M Cincinnati 40-35 .533 N. L. Central $73M Pittsburgh 34-39 . 466 $73M Tampa Bay 52-25 .675 A. L. East $61M Baltimore 45-28 .616 A. L. Wild Card #1 $57M Oakland 19-57 . 250

Sox remain stuck with two series wins over teams with winning records, one of which is currently under .500. 2023 series wins against winning teams through Summer Solstice: 2-1 vs. Minnesota 17-12 (May 2-4) 2-1 at New York A. L. 36-25 (June 6-8) Part of the reason is his team is like an NBA All Star Game Team playing defense. 2023 BIS Defensive runs saved runs lost per year (Baseball Reference - Through Tuesday Games): 22 C Zavala 16 RF Frazier 13 CF Robert Jr. 0 LF Benintendi -2 1B Vaughn -6 2B / -10 SS Andrus -8 3B Moncada -11 RF Sheets -16 2B Sosa -16 3B Burger -17 SS Anderson -28 C Grandal -28 RF Jimenez -29 RF Colas Fire Rick Hahn.

18,962 plus one disappointed Wagner in attendance tonight.

I agree, but I'm holding out hope he gets hot and someone offers something not even Hahn will turn down. Those rumors of Eloy and Yermin for Pedro Lopez haunt me to this day.

Deadline or offseason, I'm good either way. Best chance IMO is to keep him healthy at DH for 4 weeks plus the ASB, hope he can hit 6+ HRs despite his aversion to DH, and they can flip him before he goes down again. He's a -28 Defensive Runs saved in RF this season.

If Eloy is traded at the deadline, all this losing will be worth it.

Baltimore is done, but they will likely move to Nashville. I was thinking Oakland and Miami as the top two contraction cities, Tampa and Pittsburgh if they go to four teams. Four Divisions, Four Playoff Teams. Protects the integrity of the 162 Game product, insures no fluke BS team is "World Champion".

Even cherry picking Tony's five year stretch (1980 and 1986 were bad), this is not true, Best Five Year Stretches (1968-2022): .562 428-333 1990-1994 .542 439-371 2002-2006 .529 399-355 1981-1985

If baseball owners were smart, they would contract 2 or 4 teams, with each of the remaining teams having a larger portion of where the main profits are at, national TV and internet revenue.

He's a cost controlled player for a stretch where they are just looking to sell 14K-15K cumulative season tickets. Let's go Sevy and bring the Sox back into the mix here.

Get yourself a churros to cope through the pain.

He's 25 and will keep improving. Development squashed between the Owners Aborted 2020 season and the La Russa debacle of playing him regularly in Right Field and Left Field.

Andrew making haters pay.

As in Flukey,

And this ball game is Ovah! I'm changing my signature to Created Game Thread Record, not counting this L.

Hahn doesn't make decisions, he executes Jerry's decisions poorly. They are selling regardless of what their record is or where they are in the standings. That's why Hahn said what he said Monday, saying they are sellers if they don't feel they can compete in the playoffs. Fans aren't paying to see this garbage, so they will cut bait and payroll like they did in the offseason, and then take much bigger cuts over the next two seasons.

I have 75 million more reasons to hate Hahn. Hope the Sox bullpen and batters can dig deep, because 3-1 and Kopech with 25 pitches left looks like the Sox need another miracle tonight.