JoeC

It seems like this front office / pitching coaching staff knows what they’re doing and/or looking for in pitching reclamation projects. If the team can develop and flip assets like Houser without taking away from legitimate development of the future of the team (guys like Burke, Smith, etc.), then I see no reason not to keep strategically dumpster diving. There are enough advanced stats and metrics these days to supplement “eye test” scouting reports to: 1. Identify legitimate flip candidates 2. Beef up validity of small sample sizes to legitimize quick turnarounds Given that, I’m in favor of signings like Houser, dumpster-diving-ness aside.

…so Elko is basically Gavin Sheets 2.0?

Getz was with the Royals in 2015. What more do you want? #JR

Are we allowed to?

It probably paid him money.

My thoughts, all inconsequential: 1. A "lifetime" ban should end when the player dies, since his "lifetime" is over. 2. I think that even betting on your own team to win should be grounds for a lifetime ban, unless you were betting the same amount on each game. If you're betting on your team to win one game and not another, that cracks the door open for impropriety. I wouldn't believe it if anyone told me that Pete Rose, the dude who went balls-out and steamrolled catchers in All-Star games, ever "threw" any games, but it's incredibly stupid to open the door to any sort of possibility for people to believe so. 3. I'm glad baseball is at least recognizing the hypocrisy of accepting money from gambling companies while banning players who gambled on the game. I still don't personally agree with the idea of leagues partnering with gambling providers, but at least they're moving toward consistency of stance.

I'm confused - didn't they all get traded and/or allowed to walk away as free agents? In the case of Baines, he was traded away at two different trade deadlines. Durham was literally dumped at the trade deadline for (for all intents and purposes) nothing.

That looks way too much like "TLR TLR"

Probably thr 2024 Sox who set that record, if I had to guess. I would also guess that the record would have to be normalized for era.

So only another 40 years or so until there's enough turnover in the HOF voting membership of the BBWAA to have those guys seriously considered for voting.

Oh, for f***'s sake.

A Vatican Series to open the 2026 season?

Yeah, maybe a cheap shot, but as someone who is largely agnostic, this is the “best” thing to happen to my team this year. An off-the-field event that didn’t even happen on our continent.

My goodness. This is what my fandom has come to - being happy about religion.

RIP.

https://www.si.com/fannation/mlb/fastball/news/chicago-white-sox-outfielder-oscar-colas-makes-painful-blunder-in-spring-training-game-vs-chicago-cubs-hit-in-head-by-fly-ball-highlights-01jmsm8ere9s Not the top of the head, I suppose, but just this year.

Apparently so. Confirmed his GB% is high on Fangraphs. Yikes.

https://www.rotowire.com/baseball/article/5-unlucky-players-expected-to-breakout-92467 FWIW, the batted ball metrics seem to indicate Vaughn has been unlucky so far. Does that mean he’s worth holding onto to see if he breaks out of it? Or is it a “sell now before even his batted ball stats start to decline?”

If he’d lollygag like the Hall-of-Fame skipper wants him to, it wouldn’t be a problem, now, would it?

No. One or the other. Greatness or total failure. There is no in between. It's the Soxtalk way.

I love that “Bred in Chicago” is a side slogan on this, with the logo being a tube sock.

I can see how you'd see that. Pretty sure those are streamers or whatever that are hung from the light posts.

Yeah, a season of success followed by a season of abject failure. They literally had to re-build him from the ground up. I would argue Montgomery isn't the same, but it's the closest thing I could come up with off the top of my head.

Fair enough. I guess my point is.... baby steps. At least acknowledging failures is the first step to fixing them. I have no faith in their ability to fix things on the scale they need to be fixed, but at least they're not just doing nothing before giving up.

In summary, we may have gone from: To: …but at least it’s trying something different, which is (I guess) progress from where the org has been.