South Side Hit Men

I stand corrected. Still want him benched for 2023 purposes.

Somehow, Abreu will likely avoid leading the American League in Grounded into Double Plays for a fourth consecutive season. Even with Jose's 18th and latest, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is six ahead of him with two weeks left in the season. Jose needs six to tie and seven to pass Harold Baines for third on the all time White Sox GIDP list. 271 Paul Konerko (9,258 PA - 3rd) 190 Frank Thomas (8,603 PA - 4th) 172 Harold Baines (6,797 PA - 6th) 166 Jose Abreu (5,470 PA - beyond 10th place Minnie Minoso 5,917)

Far better, he will always be able to rake. Adam Engel (.630 career OPS), not so much. Leury is a better hitter (.644 OPS).

You never know. That's the beauty of sports.

Andrew Vaughn with a spectacular home run robbing catch! (at least per Len and DJ on the radio)

Would have been far less holes without Tony and Hahn pushing for Kelly, "everyday" Leury, Pollock and other garbage acquisitions. The Sox need to dump old and injury prone younger players and stop signing new ones. Tito lives in the present, the Sox in the past.

No, he'll get $2M more if he plays out the season. They should have benched once the Sox pulled the plug on the season by passing on adding at the trade deadline. Pollock would have looked for a new team in 2023 plus the $5M player option if he was only due $10M next season. Now that the vested option is up to $13M - $14M, based on the plate appearance incentives the Dodgers knew he wouldn't reach with them because he isn't an everyday player, it's doubtful Pollock is topping that on the open market. Lucas with 8 Ks today, still think the Sox are in it tonight with Detroit's bullpen.

Tatis Jr? Marcus Semien?

Pollock, you are absolutely worthless. Bench his ass.

Rally Engel! Rally Elvis!

Take that back or Tony might travel to Texas to challenge you to a brawl.

Nice story, Brah.

AJ Pollock continues to play everyday. He needs 10 more plate appearances to lock in $13M next year, 60 to lock in $14M. One way to encourage him to take the player option and sign elsewhere in 2023 it is to sit him for the rest of the season, IL Robert, and let Payton and or Haseley to play everyday.

Get someone up Miguel.

I track the closest wild card team, which is Seattle. Toronto and Tampa can also mathematically be caught in the Wild Card race at this stage. The Sox current wild card elimination number is seven.

9/23/22 White Sox Division Math Cleveland 4-8 White Sox 12-0 Cleveland 3-9 White Sox 11-1 Cleveland 2-10 White Sox 10-2 Cleveland 1-11 White Sox 9-3 Cleveland 0-12 White Sox 8-4 9/23/22 White Sox Wild Card Math Seattle 6-7 White Sox 12-0 (Baltimore 9-4 or worse) Seattle 5-8 White Sox 11-1 (Baltimore 8-5 or worse) Seattle 4-9 White Sox 10-2 (Baltimore 7-6 or worse) Seattle 3-10 White Sox 9-3 (Baltimore 6-7 or worse) Seattle 2-11 White Sox 8-4 (Baltimore 5-8 or worse) Seattle 1-12 White Sox 7-5 (Baltimore 4-9 or worse) Seattle 0-13 White Sox 6-6 (Baltimore 3-10 or worse) 9/23/22 Games with Playoff Implications (Team(s) in Bold): American League Detroit (Rodriguez) @ Chicago (Giolito) Cleveland (Morris) @ Texas (Gray) Toronto (White) @ Tampa Bay (Springs) Houston (Urquidy) @ Baltimore (Kremer) Boston (Hill) @ New York A. L. (Cole) Seattle (Gonzales) @ Kansas City (Singer) Los Angeles A. L. (Ohtani) @ Minnesota (Varland) National League Milwaukee (Lauer) @ Cincinnati (Cessa) Atlanta (Odorizzi) @ Philadelphia (Nola) San Diego (Manaea) @ Colorado (Feltner) New York N. L. (Bassitt) @ Oakland (Irvin) San Francisco (Rodon) @ Arizona (Henry) Saint Louis (Quintana) @ Los Angeles N. L. (Heaney)

For shits and giggles.

Would likely be Len and Beckham in 2023 if Stone and Jason leave/aren’t asked back. I just nominated who I would replace them with in this “dream thread”.

David Wills is a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan, born and raised in Oak Lawn. Did pre-post game for the Sox and filled in for Dan Rooney back in the day. Left here for a promotion to work full time for the Rays as lead broadcaster, switches PBP and color in game with Andy Freed. Dan Shulman is the Blue Jays announcer and previously also did Sunday Night Baseball. Both would provide a solid White Sox Broadcast without the cornball act, or Steve Stones vitriol against Sox fans. Broadcasting either all or a good number of games in Spanish (I’d also be for 40-50 games on WGN) over the air would help the Sox gain the growing number of fans vs and potential young fans among the growing number of people cutting cable. The Sox can take over the city over the next generation with the Cubs limited to the pricy Marquee Network. It would be a reversal of fortunes from the 1980s, when Jerry sent Sox or fans of both teams to the Cubs after he shifted all broadcast games to Sportsvision, and the Cubs had Superstation WGN. Would be smart to be the first team to present all games to the growing Spanish speaking fanbase, provides a venue for former Sox players to contribute, and non Spanish speaking fans can still watch. I watch the World Cup exclusively in Spanish, forgot the English speaking four letter network announcers.

Owner: Michael Jeffrey Jordan Jerry Reinsdorf President Baseball Operations: Dana Brown Kenny Williams General Manager: Randy Flores Rick Hahn Field Manager: Joe Espada Tony La Russa Cable TV Announcers: Dan Shulman & David Wills Jason Bennetti & Steve Stone Spanish TV Announcers (162 Games on WSNS-TV Channel 44): Hector Molina & Ozzie Guillen

It has been an organization wide problem for decades. Ricky held players accountable, but was allegedly fired in part because he team did not improve with fundamentals. Tony was supposed to do improve fundamentals and hold players accountable, but did neither. Unwritten rules bullshit (Yermin, Bean Balls) and taking care of his guys were the only things Tony cared about during his tenure. The team regressed in defense, baserunning and opponent scouting and game plans under Tony. Veterans openly stated they were ignoring Tony, were playing whether Tony penciled them in the lineup or not. Younger players followed suit. Eloy says f*** DH, it's for old fat guys (check the mirror Eloy). See also Moncada's "efforts". Fans and media have blamed players for arrogance and reading their own press clippings (Tim "We're the best fucking team"), but the arrogance starts at the top with Rick Hahn. He had two smart moves in a decade; acquiring and flipping Adam Eaton, and convincing Jerry to pawn off the players inherited from Kenny to get a rebuild and several more accountability free years of employment via tanking/rebuild. Hahn has no demonstrable baseball acumen, ability to construct a roster, or hire people who can evaluate and develop players and trade/draft targets beyond Marco Paddy (also inherited from Kenny). Couple that with Jerry's arrogance and penny pinching that stole from Paddy's budget to save a few hundred thousand here and there on contract buyouts or trade acquisitions. Jerry also has starved the future pipeline by dumping a large portion of the scouting organization in 2020 and eschewing investing in analytics beyond hiring Tony's friend's son as a favor to Tony. Despite several years of high draft picks, the Sox farm system is once again bottom five in baseball. The Sox are also bottom five in scouting, training, strength and conditioning, talent development, talent evaluation (internal and external), defensive positioning, analytics, draft performance, free agent acquisitions, fundamentals, defensive metrics, plate discipline, advance team scouting and opponent game plans. It's also a bottom five destination for free agents beyond players seeking their last contract with nowhere else to go. Players around the league talk and note the bullshit, be it the pre-tanking Sox with LaRoche and other crap, or the past few years with Tony. Same thing happened to the Bulls with Jerry overseeing the day to day, solid veterans refused to come despite cap space, the ones who did had no better alternatives (winning or basketball culture) due to the dysfunctional incompetent organizational mess over the past few decades. This is a reflection of Jerry. his permanent FO righthand men, and his crony managerial hire that blew up in his face. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18, KJV Go Blow Rick!

Owner doesn't give a s%*#. GM doesn't have a clue. Manager wanted to be players friends, reward cronies from a decade ago. Veterans mostly (Abreu definitely not among them) did not give a s%*#. Young players mostly did not give a s%*#. No incentives for any of the above to give a s%*#. This is the state of the organization heading into the 2023 offseason.

I have the same exact plan as heading into 2022. Fire everyone (FO / Manager / Staff) but Paddy and perhaps Katz Trade or dump as many Hahn acquired veterans as possible, for younger players. Target top late age 20s Free Agents for the holes. Improve analytics and defensive shifting. Here was my 2022 Plan: My trade proposals were with Miami who was interested in Eloy and Yermin (Pablo Lopez), Grandal for Gallo, Burger, Collins and prospects for Contreras, and FAs Robbie Ray, Yan Gomes, Leury Garcia (though not for $17M), and a few RPs. This lineup, dugout staff and a proper manager would be preparing for October at this stage. This year, I don't believe there is a firm path to postseason success, and would seriously consider moving good players with bad, depending on teams needs like the Dodgers. If you can couple Anderson, Liam and or Lynn, who they want (Anderson if they aren't resigning Trea Turner) with contracts they will eat or DFA (Grandal, Pollock, Kelly, a smart GM could use that payroll flexibility to field a stronger overall team in 2023, or continue moving pieces to target 2025 (Colas, Montgomery, others).

Would say there are only five teams below the Sox who were actually competing this season: Los Angeles, Minnesota, San Francisco, Boston, and perhaps Texas. The rest were "tanking" or spending minimal, also the case for Baltimore and Cleveland currently ahead of the White Sox.

White Sox, come out an playyyayyy!!!