nrockway

hopefully just a mild strain. probably misses time. great play by Sosa though.

did Mead's noodle just get Vargas injured?

lol I just checked the box score like 5 minutes ago and it's 4-0 Yankees. Now I'm about to turn the game on and it's 4-4? sweet.

I would’ve said something to him but I didn’t realize it was him until I’d passed him. I actually lingered around the corner while I waited for an Uber, if he doubled back (in the direction of the ballpark), I was planning to jump out at him and make cat noises and yell LA PANTERA!!! Everyone is grateful he didn’t turn around before my ride got there. Dude is really tall btw, like 6’6 probably.

lol I just walked past Schriffen walking his dog in Chinatown. No comment on my Barons hat. Whatever, dude.

I don't think anyone, certainly me, expects everyone to look at the team as 'glass half full'. I don't actually give a s%*#, it's a ball game and it's supposed to be fun, a form of entertainment. I make the point that, one, it's too early to even indicate success based on past evidence of how sports teams rebuild and that the predictive discussion is simply fun banter and a worthwhile endeavor to better gain understanding. The debate is fun, it's less fun when people don't back up their perspectives beyond base emotion and just act rudely to the people they disagree with. It's a lesson I could learn myself. I like when people disagree with me because it's something to talk about and learn from. I change my mind all the time. It's not like we're discussing the merits of Nazism, it's a fuckin ball game.. Some philosopher I sometimes like, Jurgen Habermas, put forward the concept of 'communicative action', essentially that groups of people can arrive at a clearer idea of the truth through debate. Debate and argumentation is a good thing, but there ought to be some structure to it and rules of civility that everyone plays by. It leads to new insights, a common understanding. It's in essence a 'pragmatic' approach which strikes me as a pretty good philosophy. It is a method not without its critics. Regarding the Chicago White Sox, a team we all seem to like talking about, and to the topic at hand, I try to argue my point of view that we should feel heartened about the future. I don't want to beat a dead horse and say why, I don't say with 100% confidence that I'm correct, but I feel as though it's a reasonable point of view and is open to critique. Some of the remarks, like, "you're trying to force your views on other people and produce a groupthink" or whatever is simply untrue. It seems like an ironic statement coming from a few different posters, frankly. Many of the remarks make me reevaluate my perspective though. With that background in mind, to the actual topic, I think looking at present W/L record during a rebuild is a fruitless measure of future success. It's pretty obvious that if a team that trades major leaguers for minor leaguers, it's not conducive to immediate improvement. Baseball players take time to develop, seemingly more so than in any other sport (besides maybe hockey). There might be better baseball team-building strategies, but 'tanking' is not necessarily a bad one. Things that we fans have complained about in the past, namely organizational deficiencies, are seemingly being addressed (discussed ad nauseam). Will they actually work? Can't say for certain. Depends if the biomechanists, if the pitching and hitting advisor, if the new DR complex, if the new international scout are actually good at their jobs. Maybe Getz hired a bunch of buffoons, but it's one of those things that 'winning' organizations seem to do that the White Sox did not previously do. To go point by point (briefly, I want to go to bed), the "middling farm system" was a top farm system until players graduated, and those graduates have shown some success already in the majors. Colson was allegedly a bust, look at him now (so far, I think KLaw's recent points are fair and I'm personally skeptical about his fastball hitting). Crochet was a doomed reliever until he wasn't. Brooks Baldwin, someone we didn't think about at all two years ago, is maybe an actual good ball player. Bonemer, Antonacci, McDougal, that French guy, that guy who went to my high school are showing actual promise as major leaguers, among other players. The farm is deep, but no longer stacked at the top. On the trades, I agree with you about the Cease trade, but I also wonder if he was ever considered to be that valuable by other teams. SDP couldn't really trade him and he has a 5 ERA right now. I think it's a similar story with Snell who didn't get the big contract he desired, these guys have great stuff but can't actually go deep into games. Think we probably could've gotten more nonetheless. Jury is still out on Thorpe and Sammy (the only guy I liked in the trade) but he is actually producing the last month. Can he continue it? Dubious. Iriarte looks like a bust. The Booser, Mena, Bummer (adding in those last two) trade look like total failures to me. The Mena trade is particularly disappointing, it made no sense, but I suspect Barfield made a good pitch for Fletcher. Probably could've done better with the Greg Santos trade too, but Berroa looked nice before the injury. Maybe the guy we selected 68th, Blake Larson, turns into something good, but I have no opinion on the 19-year-old. Ultimately, they're relief pitcher trades. Mead, I think, was a worthy venture but I'm losing faith. We'll see. Houser is also at a 5.32 ERA with the Devil Rays and is a guy picked up off the scrap heap. Fedde is another guy picked up off the scrap heap and that trade is actually something (Fedde just had an OK game with the Brewers in relief, but tagged with the L...bet they wish they had Shane Smith instead of him). Getz being "fired tomorrow" is not a reasonable perspective. He's not going to be fired tomorrow. I give it until 2027 to bear fruit then I might change my mind. I've been pretty consistent about this. If he fails over a longer period, I'll absolutely eat crow. I'm on record thinking last year's team might've been OK if every player played to their potential, anticipating Yoan or Benintendi or Eloy might've done something. That was pretty dumb in hindsight. I can't quibble with the rest of your "ramblings" 😆. My own post is rambly and I'm not going to edit it because I'm sleepy. Probably there are some glaring errors in my logic or I skipped things worth replying to. I'd simply say, it's a fun discussion and it's not fun when everybody agrees with each other one way or the other. "Groupthink" and conformity is boring. Critiquing ideas and not people is, in my opinion, a good way to be. edit: ok I edited one thing

I think it's good idea to add the marker and it looks great. What I worry might be uncool is what they're going to charge to sit there. Hopefully nothing more than what is typical, but "the market" will almost certainly determine it to be a valuable seat. If the Sox don't charge extra for it, the resale market might be nuts. Maybe they reserve it for special guests, Catholic or otherwise, and keep it vacant so folks can come take photos of it/with it. Not like the park is selling out any time soon lol. The mere association will likely draw new fans to the ballpark anyway. I think they're partnering with the local archdiocese and when they held that mass a few months ago, they only charged $5 for a ticket. So maybe they charge a bunch for it but donate the funds to the archdiocese. Profiteering off the Pope strikes me as sleazy at best and so far they've been pretty good about it. The merchandise companies, don't think you could say the same.

Yeah, seems certain at this point.

If it’s any consolation, the cubs are also getting rocked.

They're talking about their chess club lol

I wonder what Kyle Teel's Elo is

woof

I'm describing front offices. Both of "my are fanhood teams" hired have new ones. There's nothing ironic. And I was trying to be nice to you. A lot of you guys are internet bullies, plain and simple. Being a bully on a fucking sports forum is definitely something.

lol wut this reddit user was on to something four years ago

Just be nicer. It's only baseball. Baseball is fun. If baseball isn't fun, there are other hobbies. I don't think any of us are doing 'mental gymnastics', but any reasonable person would view the remark as personally insulting. I try to back my point of view up with data and argumentative evidence; I may be wrong, who can predict the future, but it isn't 'mental gymnastics'. I have literally zero stake in whether or not the GM is good at his job or not. I think the Bulls GM is bad at his job and my thinking would reflect that if we talked about basketball on this forum. I think when Getz was hired, I probably made some posts to suggest he wasn't actually qualified, I certainly thought that, but I feel like the burden of evidence is that I would've been wrong at that early stage. Historically, I like the Bulls more than I like the Sox. I only started posting on this forum because I'm fed up with the Bulls management, and if I felt pessimistic about the future of the team, the tone of my posts would be much different. There's obviously still a question about ownership, but that hasn't really been the discussion. My feelings aren't hurt, but there's probably a level of discourse that we could strive toward. Don't need to be on the attack. Take a walk to the Unity Temple, feel the aura of the Prairie School. No bad feelings when you're sitting in that park outside Pleasant Home. Take a bike ride along the Des Plaines River Trail, you can take it all the way up to Wisconsin and connect to their trail systems and explore a beautiful state -- in keeping with the theme, ride to Taliesin. Sometimes people have different perspectives on the team, there's no reason to be mean-spirited.

That's incredible. Love the insight. The Bob Gibson story is so funny, it just adds to his legend. Fun insight into "Jimmy" Leyland too. I'd be lying if I said I knew anything about Marc Hill except that he played for the '83 team -- what a cool team and now I know a little bit about the backup catcher's personality. This post makes it that much more personal. I'm sorry that we have lost him at a fairly young age. PS: I really like those "this day in White Sox history" posts, but we haven't seen one in a while...no pressure.

Sosa should've at least knocked that one ball down, right? I guess it wouldn't have made a difference. Meidroth might've made the play and the out. The thing I'm hung up on is before they even got into a bases loaded situation. Taylor had Pasquantino down 0-2 pumping the fastball then threw him a curveball in the middle of the plate. My caveman brain knew something offspeed was coming, it was so telegraphed, and it was a bad location.At least throw it way off the plate or keep going to the fastball. He finally hit the spot with a slider to Salvy and he struck out trying to check his swing, after shaking off Teel, after pumping him with the fastball to get ahead. Then he threw Yaz a great fastball before another softly hit curveball in the middle of the plate. At that point, he's in trouble, and hot India made a nice hit on a fastball that was 2MPH slower than what he was throwing to the other guys. Alexander just blew it. I think he's generally been pretty good, but not in that situation and not over the last month. He doesn't have upside and he's not a closer. Someone else in the gamethread suggested to just keep Taylor in and see if he could work through it. I agree with that, let it be a learning experience for Taylor since he's tagged with the ERs anyway. Wilson should've been the call to begin with if we were actually trying to close out a win (and he came up clutch), but it ended up not being a learning experience for the rookie and Alexander is just some guy who might not be around the MLB much longer. I've thought all season Venable is too obsessed with 'splits', left on left or whatever. But I guess any manager would call to the lefty pitcher when 3 left-handed batters at the bottom of the order are coming up. Alexander has looked like s%*# all month though, that should take precedence to 'the splits'. edit: kinda think Teel doesn't look so hot calling a game. Lee should be the backup catcher, I thought Teel could play left field. IDK about Quero, but at least he has a cannon.

Better ERA than the Dodgers or Yankees or Phillies. The ERA, before tonight, is 14 points better than league average. Dunno how that changes with ballpark factors. The peripherals suggest the ERA should be better, I think we saw that tonight with a series of softly hit balls resulting in a bunch of runs. Bad calls to the bullpen. Bad pitch calls. And a defense that is 5th worst in combined defensive fWAR with lefties pulling the ball to the worst defender on the team. I'd put this L on Venable. They pull Tayor because 3 lefties are coming up for Alexander who a 5+ ERA in August before tonight and was put into a tough, bases loaded, closing situation. Eisert hasn't pitched this series and has a sub 3 ERA this month. But threw 24 pitches on the 24th in a blowout. Gilbert threw 22 last night in a blowout. Either one of those guys was a better choice tonight based on the trends. Can't say with confidence those two guys also picked up off the waiver wire would've performed any better, but at the very least the recent trends suggest they might have. Shuster or Booser should've been the guy, but they were failed acquisitions to be sure. All in all, pretty marginal, inexpensive relief pitchers in a down season. But might've made the difference tonight if Getz acquired, I dunno, Aroldis Chapman. But he's earning $10mil and why sign a reliever to that contract when the playoffs were never in the cards? Actual good left-handed relief pitchers are rare and expensive. Or they're in arbitration. I think it's a question of why are the Sox using the sparse lefty relievers they have left for multiple innings in blowouts. Seems like the exact situation to use Wikelman or Taylor to help the rookies build confidence and get some innings without pressure. Use the lefties situationally. Don't expect Grant to just be a stud immediately, he threw 16 innings of good ball at A level before being crowned a star. Then was really good at Birmingham before making the leap to the MLB team and being expected to close and deal with tough situations. Seems pretty bad for his development. The box score goes down as 0 earned runs for Alexander, but that call blew the game and it was actually blown the last two games. Should've been thinking this situation might come up. Hopefully it's a learning experience for the rookie manager.

I think it'll be up to him (mutual option). $10mil is good value for a team. But he's pretty old, will a different team give him more? He should have 4-5 more starts, let's see what he does. Could price himself out of the option.

tough loss

he was pumping the fastball, then two curveballs for two hits right in the middle of the plate. Lost the velocity against India.

how did he foul that off

feel like they should give some of that ERA to Teel. bad pitch calls on the first two hits.

not the worst 7-9 I've ever seen

CLUTCH!!