nrockway

I want to go to bed but I've already come this far...

the announcer definitely thought it was. this guy is so ready to go back to his hotel.

what a fucking game. if this goes 16ish, do we start seeing starters?

swing at some more balls, lukes.

dumbest send I've ever seen. Vlad was up...

Man-handled two teams that are supposed to be better than us. Good depth, Vuc is doing his thing, Matas (was bad this game) but looks to be blossoming into a proper number one option. Trey Jones has been fantastic. Giddey has been alright. Julian Phillips is starting to look like an NBA player. It seems like a well-built team finally but still not a title contender. If Coby can play like he did in the second half of last season, Matas takes a leap, Vuc gives 20ish/11ish efficiently, Giddey performs to expectations and the bench continues to show out, I think we actually have a top 5 in the EC squad this year.

Sure, but baseball is not like football or basketball in this regard. In the latter two sports, the better team usually wins and this is reflected in the win percentages. The White Sox's "worst team of all time" has a winning percentage similar to 4 or 5 NBA teams every year. There are multiple NBA teams every year that would win 130+ games if they played 162 games a season. MLB playoffs are a crapshoot, bad teams can beat good teams in a 5 or even 7 game series, hence teams can 'sneak' into the World Series. I mean, our Sox swept the 92 win Guardians in 2024, that doesn't make them a good team. Financial parity is objectively good for any league. Take it out of the owners' hands. NBA and NFL players and owners make money hand over fist too with a salary cap. They also have a salary floor. Leveling out spending is simply good for the quality of the product. If the NFL was like MLB, teams like Buffalo, Kansas City, Green Bay (especially) would not be any good at all because they'd have no money to spend relative to the J-E-T-E Jets, Giants, Chargers, etc. In the NBA, Oklahoma City and Indiana are not playing each other in the NBA Finals under the MLB financial system.

I was living in the Bay a couple years ago when this ordeal was going on, the city council voted to invest like $1bil in an A's stadium/'village' at Howard Terminal and give them the land for free. Prime waterfront location that everyone was in agreement about...besides Fisher and the Union Pacific railroad company. The environmental remediation was too expensive or something. UP's concerns were more reasonable that the adjacent tracks might pose a threat to pedestrians. The Coliseum is out of the way and outdated. Oakland is the little brother to the Giants in the way the Sox are to the Cubs, but people probably would've showed out to Jack London Square from all across the East Bay (easy commuter rail and BART access and even San Francisco. It's a cool place. A ballpark there would've been perfect.

Well, we now have hindsight to say that the worst team of all time was not in a contending position. Varsho on this team might be helpful next season but then we'd probably lose him for nothing or otherwise have to re-sign him for a bigger payday, making the trade as pointless as simply keeping Cease to play out his contract. It might've been a good deal in the sense that Varsho is probably more valuable than Cease the last couple years and could be traded for better prospects. Whether or not we got good players in return for Cease, it was definitely the right idea to get guys whose MLB clocks haven't started yet/have barely started. Varsho is one of the guys I'd like to add to this team and we might be in a position to do so, but the trade route wouldn't have made a lot of sense. Still, I think this is a good bump in the sense that people were laughing at you for thinking Cease was far more valuable than Varsho. He probably still is because ironman starting pitchers are quite rare, but Varsho is simply more productive. Although I doubt he hits above .800 OPS again.

Lucky us. Lamar is one of my favorite players in the NFL so I hate to see him missing time, but it bodes well for da Bears continuing the win streak. We're winning 11 games this season and a little bit of 'luck' like this is how it happens.

I think he's added to the 40-man because he'll be in the starting rotation with the White Sox. I bet Schweitzer is on the MLB team too. The interesting one to me is Sammy. He's no where near ready for MLB so I bet a team wouldn't really want to have him on their MLB roster, but he is still semi-promising. It would be a shame to lose him for nothing. I probably wouldn't roster him. Shane Murphy, to me, is an easy choice, particularly with the team's dearth of left-handed pitchers. Schweitzer is a little more questionable but he looked genuinely very good after moving to a relief role. Projecting better than Ellard or Eisert or Booser. Hard to find useful lefties unless you wanna pay up. I wouldn't wanna pay up for relief pitchers. Just my opinion.

Many things about Mason Adams scream that. A pitcher getting injured is irrelevant. As everyone else has said, the dude is simply quite good and many teams would want him. It's not even a Shane Smith scenario, Mason is an actual prospect.

he's a UFA after next season. a nice replacement for Robert. I stand by my previous post despite the fact that we probably got ripped off on that Cease trade. Thorpe and Sammy haven't actually done anything yet, but both look pretty bust-y to me. Varsho on his arb contract wasn't gonna do anything for this team the past couple years.

Called it.

goes to show how incompetent the M-E-T-E Mets are.

DA BEARS are an actual good football team. Caleb is incredibly mediocre, he might get better, but the rest of the team is rock solid especially the defense. I don't know that they're better than the Packers or Lions, but they look like a playoff team and could very easily go up to 7-2 before the schedule gets hard again.

They were calling it 20/30 grade control coming out of college. But he's cut down slightly. I think he could be an impact multi-inning reliever but I don't see Philly being too keen on keeping him on their 40man. The walks are scary and he'll basically be 27 when the season starts, but he has such crazy movement on his fastball and a good pitch mix that I'm sure some MLB team will take a shot and try to keep him in the zone, even if it's still, like, 4-5 BB/9.

https://www.mlb.com/milb/news/rule-5-candidates-in-arizona-fall-league-2025?t=arizona-fall-league-coverage https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/one-difficult-40-man-roster-decision-for-every-mlb-team/ Two relevant articles. I need to bite the bullet and start paying for baseball america already. https://thelibertyline.com/2025/10/16/phillies-rule-5-draft-2025/ from a Phillies blog. I actually really like Griff McGarry. Big stuff and MLB ready-ish.

It’s genuinely a really easy comparison to make. Two of the longest tenured managers in baseball history with a roughly equal winning percentage. Multi- time managers of the year, World Series winners. Both came out of retirement to manage again (though Tito’s retirement was considerably shorter). Terry will have to win one more WS and manager of the year to catch La Russa though. I’m unsure what point you’re trying to make.

I could see some cheaper, Josh Rojas price range type guys being effective options. Winker, Conforto, Austin Hayes; maybe Mullins, Bader or O'Hearn at slightly more money. One of O'Hearn or Bader and Mullins on 1 year deals would be a nice offseason to me. Mullins isn't great, but can hold down CF well enough if Robert is traded/never plays due to injury. But I bet O'Hearn and Bader sign for multiple years somewhere. Mullins on a 'prove it' deal seems possible though. Although I could see the Mets bringing him back or heading to a different team where he could be the opening day starter at CF. Bellinger or Tucker would be obvious choices who would help the team for years to come, but simply impractical. Even if the finances were right, I'd think they'd want to go to a contender.

this is the way to beat LA Dodgers. Toronto has been doing this all season. I think the Mariners don't stand a chance if they end up winning this series. Guess LAD hasn't gotten there yet either but it feels inevitable.

Francona wasn't a realistic option for most teams. He was retired and the Reds seemingly convinced him to come out of retirement. I'd rather have a guy like Venable who is 25 years younger and just beginning his career. I think it makes a lot more sense for the Sox to get a guy like that. The talk at the time was that Venable was the most sought after manager compared to guys like Skip Schumaker, Phil Nevin, David Ross. It's interesting that Venable chose not to interview with the Mets or Guardians the year prior and also decided not to take over for Bochy in Texas. Shouldn't the Mets gig have been a perfect opportunity for him? I can totally imagine what this board would've said if Francona was hired and the Sox performed exactly the same as they did this season. TLR part 2 sans drunkenness. Would've been called an over-the-hill flop for sure. I was a little underwhelmed by some of the choices Venable made this year, but he was so much better than Grifol in their respective rookie seasons. I think the sky is the limit for Venable especially now that he can bring in his own staff. I wish he got angrier at umpires, but his cool demeanor seems to work for the players.

Thought Fletcher was fine for a fourth outfielder, maybe even get a chance to start in right over Tauchman and keep the spot warm for Braden. He played OK in Charlotte and in limited time for Chicago last season. Adequate defender. Not exactly a worldbeater, but probly should've gotten a lot more play than MAT. Hopefully they change some players' positions and get a real free agent. Need real guys behind Robert and Tauchman who you almost expect to be injured.

I don't mean Prior specifically, I mean a guy like him who felt it was important to finish college in addition to playing baseball. Craig Breslow is another example of a solid pitcher turned executive (director of pitching for the Cubs/Chaim Bloom's replacement in Boston) who apparently graduated with a double major from Yale and deferred medical school so he could play baseball. I think this sort of background is less important for hitting, but you might like a guy who could look at the large amount of pitching data, biomechanical or traditional, and be able to implement some programs based off it at the game level. One thinks Katz wasn't so good at this.

if I had to wager a guess about the pitching coach, it'll be Zaleski. Or Bannister has some guy in mind from outside the org. I like the idea of someone with Tom House kinds of credentials, even Mark Prior, solid MLB pitchers who maintained an interest in academics during/post playing career. Someone who actually knows how to teach.