nrockway

those are the old men that are supposed to be leaders and hold guys accountable, so it makes them look bad. lance probably thinks it's funny that Soto (or whoever) is falling asleep on the job. man, you're 40-years-old. tell him to stop. middleton criticized them for it it seems like with the WBC/spring training remark. I think Giolito tried earlier in the season to be a leader and was rebuffed because there's no expectations from management or even a pecking order and he's also kind of a nerd and not very charismatic it seems like. I think another issue is that half the lineup comes from Cuba. Not Latin America specifically, but there has to be some bond between all of them about all having to defect from their home country in order to fulfill this dream. Probably a deeper bond than one between typical teammates and I feel like you probably have two clubhouses. I've said it several times but the only reason they hired Grifol is because someone in his lineage was born in Cuba once upon a time and so the front office thought he would be the guy to bring Cubans and Americans together as a team. What a stupid idea, I think even the wealthy Cubans are not fond of Gusanos.

Ramirez is such a p****. He talks and looks like a weasel too. I thank TA for remembering how to treat a division rival, they're not your fucking buddies. My only issue is that I don't he actually landed a punch and he kinda just toppled over. Not a great look, but he's also a professional athlete and these guys are some of the worst fighters I've ever seen, so he gets a pass. LOL at "fans" who want to take Ramirez or the Indians' side of things. Pick a different team to "root" for

I don't think it's a matter of 'wanting' to leave but rather that the city will not kick in money for a new ballpark and that there's essentially zero real estate development potential in the area surrounding Comiskey (compare that to around Wrigley or what is growing and will soon absorb the UC) so it's less profitable to build in the south side of Chicago than it would be in a 'trendy' area of Bumfuck, Anywhere else (Charlotte maybe). Another poster made the point about Seattle leaving for OKC, the market size isn't the most important thing. San Francisco Bay Area is a similarly large market and couldn't support two teams. If it's strictly about market size, You could put a third or fourth team in New York and it would still have a larger share of the market than the White Sox would of Chicago. One might also expect that Dallas, Atlanta and Houston metro areas will surpass Chicago in size in the next 20 years, Dallas/Forth Worth/Arlington in particular seems better positioned to support two baseball teams than Chicago going forward. However, it also doesn't seem to matter if you're in a 'big market' or not when it comes to making money in sports. Sport team owners are first and foremost land speculators and real estate developers and expect the public to subsidize all of their capital expenditures. There is no 'mixed-use ballpark district' coming to 35th and Shields and the taxpayer is not going to fork over money for a team that nobody cares about. I've already made essentially this same post on this forum but I feel like the writing is on the wall that when Jerry dies and his kid sells the team, the ballpark will become an issue and the Sox future in Chicago will be up in the air.

this is absurd. like a wrestling match.

what the hell

Interesting. It won't be for a stadium though, the yuppification of the West Loop is extending out and this is for speculation purposes or to turn it into a planned development. He bought another lot near here too last year. Probably more. Note that this is happening near the UC and not near Comiskey. There is very little real estate development value around the ballpark which suggests that there won't ever be a new Sox ballpark. The team is gone when the next ownership group decides the stadium is done.

He's oft-injured but he was drafted to be a starter. People thought he could have stretched out in the Minors this season but was shortsightedly put in the bullpen for a "playoff" run. He still seems to think he can start and hasn't been told otherwise by the team. Maybe he physically can't do it, how should I know?

Me too actually. Fraudulent publication, they got everyone hooked by hiring good journalists with the promise of a return to "old school" sports journalism, ie letting them take time to do research so they actually have something interesting to report on. Then they realized it's far more profitable to have a couple "famous" "reporters" who break the news on player acquisitions (aka PR people for sports agencies) and provide some mediocre analysis (this trade is a B) than it is to actually do journalism. 99% of being a journalist in 2023 is being on twitter. Too bad. Anyway, I hope Crochet starts next year. Why not?

He played at Berkeley with Vaughn. Good power but haven’t followed him much since. Looks like he grades as a better catcher than hitter now. Wouldn’t surprise me if the bat comes back around. Pleasantly surprised with all these moves.

Sure, but no other player on either team was if I recall correctly. Maybe he's just extra cautious compared to his peers. Again, I don't think COVID is to blame for his poor play, but his precipitous decline in sprint speed correlates reasonably well with his illness, and media at the time reported that he was feelings the effects months longer than what is typically expected in the majority of COVID patients. It wouldn't surprise me if it factored in but I tend to agree with you that poor performance is almost certainly a result of poor nutrition and training (though I don't know how he trains or what he eats so I reserve judgement). Someone mentioned Derrick Rose but eating a bunch of candy didn't make him tear his ACL.

I don't buy the excuse necessarily but, anecdotally speaking, people can have very different reactions to COVID. I got it twice and was completely fine a week later, a friend of mine got it and still doesn't breathe well or taste certain foods years later. Yoan wearing that mask during the Yankees series was kind of telling.

I thought initially his defense was the only thing he had to offer, at the very least he has a cannon for an arm and a great CS rate, but his bat has also really turned around. April OPS: .561 vs July OPS: .899. Altogether he's improved from .501 OPS at AA/.671 at A+ in 2022 to .770 this season. Looks promising, I don't know why he's rated so low.

I really wish baseball teams weren't also real estate developers and that city governments didn't encourage turning their municipalities into amusement parks for perpetual-toddler professional/managerial types. "Meaningful development" he says, what nonsense. Meaningful for who? I mean, I get that there's no longer tax revenue outside of real estate or tourism, but c'mon, maybe you could encourage businesses to create a product and employ people and do something sustainable rather than spend public money to subsidize developers building condos and restaurants and PUD's and brag about "creating jobs" via minimum wage part-time Starbucks and Chipotle employees. The only good jobs that come out of this are construction ones and those are temporary. We see this fun inversion where cities are now playgrounds for well-off 'consultants' who want to spend $300 a night playing arcade games and bowling and drinking ginseng lavender cocktails who then go home to their $3000 a month 1 bedroom apartments; while the collar suburbs (south and west ones) are now basically just a place to stick the working class who don't want to live around crime and pay $600,000 for a home (check out home prices for new construction in Grand Boulevard and Douglas). New York and LA figured out how to displace the poor in this way, it's a little harder in Chicago -- and you see the reaction to this whenever you go downtown on a weekend night. They're actually trying to do this to Englewood, Auburn-Gresham etc and wasting tons of public money building these ghost towns (see: INVEST South/West...maybe the new mayor will cancel that but I doubt it). It makes GDP look good and appeals to bond credit agencies like Moody's but basically just creates more poverty and crime. It's a strategy that will only work in the lakeshore area connecting the Loop to Hyde Park. Kansas City is in an even worse position than Chicago to encourage this kind of development. Kind of long-winded and pointless post but, on topic, the Rockies scoreboard guy seems like an idiot who should try his hand at second city.

It's a fair point and I'm glad for it (for our team) and maybe those teams can work with Lynn and turn him back into a productive player. I'm a big fan of his, but teams find a new way to beat him every time. I also 'think' K's are incredibly overrated but I don't know if it's the truth. Sure, contact might advance the runner, but why not just look at the fairly large sample size that whatever Lynn is doing is resulting in a bunch of earned runs. Same thing with Cease, you waste a ton of pitches trying to strike a guy out and then you're done after 5 innings. That strikeout logic applies to relievers in my view, not starters.

One would think you just look at the results, not roundabout 'predictors' which don't actually predict anything.

Did the rookie just jog to first base?

Are there actually multiple teams interested in Lynn? Why? If I'm the Rays or Dodgers or Orioles I want Scholtens instead. He's frankly a better baseball player right now. Baseball teams are obsessed with pitchers who strike out a lot of batters for some reason. In a show of irony, baseball teams also don't really mind batters who strike out a lot so long as they can hit with power.

I think he's gonna be a great player but he didn't really say anything interesting. "My mindset is to hit the ball. I'm competitive. I like playing baseball and I want to play in the Major Leagues. Arizona is hot in the summertime. I work hard." Oh OK. Not a slight against Montgomery, but against sports journalists in general. Probably could have asked him more interesting questions, I imagine. Chat-GPT could ask these questions. Problem with guys like Merkin is that they're employed by the corporation they're supposed to report on, ie it's propaganda. They're just proving that their job can be automated.

this was a decade before I was born but the early 80s Sox is my favorite (non 2005) rendition of the team. Lots of fun players and a much better logo/jerseys.

Am I the only one who can't stand that little "I drive the bus" thing they all do when they get a hit? Very corny imo, maybe I'm just now noticing it because they're actually getting hits two days in a row.

The quality of journalism is almost always better when you’re paying for it with a subscription than paying via ppc advertisements. Less rushed clickbait, more thought out and researched. Generally speaking. This doesn’t seem to exist anymore, those publications realized they can charge money and still publish blog posts. See: the athletic. Canceled my subscription after they fired fegan

He’s looked better to me since about that game. I don’t know how it plays out statistically but it seems like he’s hitting the ball harder and off the ground more often. Baby steps in the right direction, I’ll take it.

Power shift

I'm not the one who's obsessed, you are, I just call a spade a spade and stay true to the idea that I like sports for the sporting aspect of it and not the TMZ-esque personal drama. If I cared about that, I'd watch the Kardashians instead of baseball. You might prefer that brand of entertainment. And obviously there's a giant difference between rooting for a guy who cheated on his wife (wow incredible an athlete, had an affair...) and one who is accused of criminally assaulting his spouse (regarding Clev. I'll still cheer for him to have a good ERA because whatever investigations took place didn't find anything. I bet he has anger issues that affect his personal relationships even if he isn't a criminal and I hope he figures it out for his own sake. In the mean time, I hope he pitches well). Don't be obtuse to compare the two. I speculate that it stems from some personal insecurity that infidelity is a worse offense to you than an alleged assault. I also speculate that it's racially motivated but I really don't want to have this discussion on a baseball forum and won't mention it further. It's just I think kind of obvious why some athletes receive this bizarre level of personal hatred from the fans who are supposed to be cheering them on. I bet if Luis Robert spoke English he'd get the same level of it. People call him slurs too and I think it's sort of disappointing for a baseball team that's located on the south side of Chicago...anyway. It is true of all athletes (pretty much any public figure) that fans will redirect their personal hang-ups onto them. That's part of the reason they get paid the big bucks, they have to have thick skins and deal with it. I still think it's weird. Few days off of baseball so now let's talk about how shitty they are as human beings. Some of the remarks about Giolito getting a divorce, it's like....maybe this is actually a Catholic church forum and I got lost somewhere. Who cares? I wish him the best through it as I would anyone else but I really don't care about a stranger's divorce!! Why should you? You care more about Tim's infidelity than his wife does, get a life!

I completely agree with all of this, I just think it rests on people over Pedro's head to institute it. I think any brand new manager without a reputation would be fine with using data to address these things you mention (which stand out even by the 'eye test' and if you don't look at the aggregate stats) but there's obviously no willpower within the organization to do so. It's actually pretty strange because the Bulls operate this way too (though the 'advanced stats' are less important in basketball), it's like Jerry just thinks statistics are made up and tell you nothing and anyone who thinks there might be a use has no voice. I think there's a debate about which 'advanced' stats are more relevant than others, I read a good argument recently about why batting average might be a better metric than OBP, but these are debates that people in the multi-billion dollar organization should be getting paid to have in order to achieve the goal of winning games and a world series and keeping fans interested in the product and spending money on it. Winning games is obviously not the most important thing to this organization, the profit stream exists regardless of whether or not fans are engaged. I don't think it's the manager's fault per se but he was clearly not the right guy for the job by any metric...I don't think they actually want to hire just 'yes men', makes more sense that they just misevaluated Grifol's ability to do the job.