greg775

Fan and owner impatience used to be why teams succeeded. But then baseball TV money exploded and owners don't care as long as they have a low payroll and are raking in $$$ while waiting for tank-led rebuilds to bring WS titles someday.

Quite frankly this tanking stuff is ruining sports. The only reason we couldn't win with Sale and Co. is the front office was so inept at bringing in real talent. You know what? We had a playoff workhorse pitcher in Sale. We had closers in the past. All we needed was some better set up guys. It's really ridiculous to think tanking for draft picks and making 2-3 trades will win us divisions and WS. The Sox have so much work to do still it's ridiculous. Eloy better be a fricking phenom. And the Sox have to sign so many relievers and maybe 1-2 veteran starters to go with hopefully 3 guys who pan out from the rebuild trades. If I were commissioner I'd be kicking some owner ass in meetings if I suspected them of tanking. It's sickening really. Fans wanting teams to lose and to trade any decent player they have is just wrong. I hate to break it to the tank people but if you trade Avi and Abreu you are really setting back this rebuild cause the White Sox are not going to win it all without some veterans. Jerry R. should be ashamed of what is going on in his sport.

I know. It makes sense Greg loves him as I stood up for him a long time last year. But I don't understand how a few walks have made the mean stat crowd think he's a piece for the future.

Read this column!! The behavior of the left is helping Trump immensely. By Mark Thiessen Wash post Washington — Democrats have a new theory for how they can win back Congress and the White House. Just like “soccer moms” helped put Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in 1996, and “NASCAR dads” helped George W. Bush win in 2004, Donald Trump, the theory goes, was elected because of “#NeverHillary” voters who didn’t particularly like him but despised her. Axios reports that Democrats are targeting the “20% of Trump’s voters [who] told exit pollsters they didn’t like him” hoping these reluctant Trump voters will help power a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms and defeat President Trump in 2020. One problem with that theory: The left’s nonstop, over-the-top attacks on Trump are not peeling those voters away from him; they are pushing them further into the president’s camp. In recent weeks, Trump derangement syndrome on the left has reached critical mass. First, there was Robert De Niro’s “(f-word) Trump” tirade at the Tony awards, followed by Samantha Bee’s calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless (c-word) on her TV show. Then the owners of the Red Hen restaurant threw out White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she works for the president, while chanting protesters heckled Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen at a Mexican restaurant. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., added fuel to the fire by openly calling on mobs of left-wing activists to “absolutely harass” Trump officials. Then, there were the countless Trump opponents in the media, Congress and on Twitter who compared family separations at the southern border with Nazi Germany, and the Time magazine cover depicting Trump staring down heartlessly at a crying migrant girl and implying she was separated from her mother (until it emerged that she had not in fact been separated from her mother). And now come the threats to block Trump’s Supreme Court nominee before he has even nominated one. How do liberals think that 20 percent of reluctant Trump voters respond to these displays of unbridled contempt? They are outraged not at Trump but at his critics. The unhinged hatred for the president makes these voters almost reflexively defend him. Don’t take my word for it. The New York Times recently interviewed dozens of tepid Trump voters who explained how the incessant attacks are causing them to rally around the president. “Gina Anders knows the feeling well by now,” the Times reports. “President Trump says or does something that triggers a spasm of outrage. She doesn’t necessarily agree with how he handled the situation. She gets why people are upset.” But Anders, who the Times says has “not a stitch of ‘Make America Great Again’ gear in her wardrobe, is moved to defend him anyway.” When she hears the “overblown” attacks on Trump, she says, “It makes me angry at them, which causes me to want to defend him to them more.” Another reluctant Trump voter, Tony Schrantz, agrees. “He’s not a perfect guy; he does some stupid stuff,” he tells the Times. “But when they’re hounding him all the time it just gets old.” These are exactly the voters Democrats are hoping to win back. Instead, they are doing the opposite. Polls bear this out. Two weeks ago, Trump’s Gallup approval rating hit 45 percent — the highest it has been since his inauguration. (It slipped slightly to 41 percent last week). Trump’s approval among Republicans is at a near-record 87 percent, comparable to the levels of support for George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Think about that: The left’s attacks on Trump have had the same rallying effect for GOP voters as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. So, if appeals to civility, decency and conscience won’t work, then perhaps an appeal to base political pragmatism will. Democrats are deluding themselves if they think they lost because of “#NeverHillary” voters who will come home when she is not on the ballot. They lost because they have become a party of coastal liberal elites who have lost touch with millions of ordinary citizens in Middle America — working-class voters who are struggling with factories closing, jobs leaving and an opioid epidemic that is destroying their families. These voters concluded in 2016 that Democrats no longer care about their problems and that Trump does. Spasms of anti-Trump outrage are not going to win them back. If anything, they are confirming these voters’ conclusions that Democrats still don’t get it — and don’t get them. The left’s miasma of contempt may feel cathartic, but it is the best thing that ever happened to Trump. Indeed, it may very well get him reelected. — Marc A. Thiessen is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.

You guys are dreaming with this scenario. How often does this happen in baseball? Unless the player is a retread like Hector? Geez. If we trade Abreu he's not going to be dreaming of a return to the Sox. He'll get used to his new team for gawd sakes or just go to another.

I love Davidson obviously but I can't understand why you guys do. He seems to not be that good this year IMO. Does the fact he draws walks mean that much to you all?

11-4 is no rally. But I understand what you are saying. Anytime Palka hits a bomb its a good day. He is a beast.

I don't like them making money. I'd rather have them suffer like the fans until we get good again. Then they can make some money.

Man I can't believe this is Balta and not an impostor. Tonight's game was disgraceful. Great post. Wonderful post. I love it.

I turned it off. I hope Avi homered.

Baseball shouldn't allow teams as bad as the Sox to play a good team. Just make them forfeit if they are tanking. Or just play home run derby or something.

But some of us feel the Sox could and should resemble Kansas State basketball, then with just one or two graduate transfers become Kansas basketball. Just like that.

You guys are the ones attacking people with differing opinions. Not everybody in Chicago is on board with the tank job. Of course most fans simply don't care as the White Sox become less and less relevant. At least we anti-tank people care.

How can you say they are wrong in wanting Gio in the minors instead of failing miserably in the majors? Their position is reasonable.

You guys don't understand that we do understand. However we disagree with everything tanking stands for. It is an insult trying to lose just to get a fricking top 3 draft pick in baseball, the one sport in which tons of top draft picks fail or are nothing special. We do understand fully what's going on. I personally think it's sick and sad. Guess what? It's a reasonable position to say Gio and his 7.00 ERA could or should be in the minors figuring things out instead of learning in the bigs and taking his lumps. Young Sox pitchers are walking way too many batters. Partly the umps and their refusal to call the strike zone is to blame. But if a fan thinks Gio doesn't need to be stinking up the majors right now, that is a reasonable position even if you disagree and simply cry "REBUILD!"

Finally. A Greg-like post. You'd think I wrote it.

Of course wait. Always wait. Wait til next year. And next year ...

I had nothing against your post.

Kudos to them. Why the anger? The articles I read mentioned nobody but the Seals.

Keep me posted. I did not know other countries sent experts. That is what I desire(d). Cool. I want experts to save those kids and coach.

Good article but I don't respect KW for lying. At least admit the losses are not only acceptable, but desired. Glad the article had a negative tone about the rebuild at least.

I said I like him a lot, but he has little to no trade value. He's a proud White Sox but he is just another guy. To be clear, I love the guy.

Why is Covey pulling a Humber? Excellent then horrific?

And Bill Veeck arguably is THE greatest owner in baseball history. What a special man.

Phil Humber II.