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And that's my philosophy upgrade but always keep the future in mind. But what did the Sox do in their pursuit of Machado while, mind you, rebuilding ? They signed, Alonso, Jay and Kelvin Herrera, wasted a bunch of money on stiffs with no future instead of what should have been a continuous search for guys with some upside. Yea we had our share of Palka's, Cordell, Tilson, Rondon but you would think every possible resource during a rebuild should be spent combing other teams minor league systems and spending your money in the international draft instead of trading it away . Either they didn't know how to run a rebuild or they had temporary insanity thinking Reinsdorf would pay top dollar for Machado or even worse that some half baked scheme to get him to play with friends and family was more important than Machado's bankbook. And remember it wasn't just Alonso and Jay . How do know they didn't sign his other team mates from the WBC team in order to lure him ? Welington Castillo, Alex Colome and Ivan Nova were all his team mates on the DR 2017 WBC team. This is what I mean by this franchises' penchant for screwing up a good thing . Signing retreads made us just good enough during a rebuild to get a 3 ,4 and 2 11's in the 1st round. The Astro's from 2012-2015 had 3 No. 1's a 2 and a 5 because Brady Aiken who was a 1-1 didn't sign because the Astro's tried to get cute with saving enough money on him to go over slot on some other rounds ,got them Alex Bregman with the 2nd pick and Kyle Tucker with the 5th pick. The Astro's were good at sucking. The White Sox sucked at sucking. If Renteria was so bad why the hell was our highest draft pick during a rebuild a No. 3 ? But anyway I'm glad you think at least some prospects can be traded.

Sometimes you can find valuable things that get thrown away. James McCann , Max Muncy ,plenty of guys, and there will be a lot more on Dec 2nd.

The last fastball Kopech threw for the Sox in spring training was 101 and 6 of 11 pitches were 100+

The Big Red Machine , those Oakland teams, it was a different era . Even cheap owners like Charlie Finley could put a good team together. The only thing I have to go on is the 125 year history of this franchise and when you go that long without making the playoffs in 2 consecutive years and only have 2 championships in over 100 years well I will take another championship any year. Keep dreaming big. I always remain hopeful better days are to come but it is tempered by realistic optimism . It's just too hard too win championship. The Dodgers as much money as they have ,hadn't won one since 1988.

Have you done the math on your expectations ? How long does Keuchel last, or Giolito ? How many years are our core hitters signed for? What if we have already seen Moncada's best year and due to Covid he is never the same player ? What if none of the pitchers you listed becomes a TOR starter ? How does COVID play out in developing pitchers to pitch full seasons? Will the CBA be a major disruption ? If you want to talk upper limits, fine. I want to win the World Series every year in our competitive years starting last year. Reality tells me for a franchise that has never gone to the playoffs in back to back years that having a Cubs type run will be the actual upper limit. You need a lot of luck and a pretty big payroll to keep a core together for your dynasty . Every year you make the playoffs winning the World Series should be the goal. Patience only gets you unfortunate decision making and purposeful lack of a killer instinct with this franchise that constantly puts the team behind the 8 ball. Put your dream behind you and hope we can win 1 World Series in the next 3 years. If you want to talk about a floor I can think of a lot worse.

What a total waste of a rebuilding year that was signing Alonso ($9M ) and Jay ($4M) to lure Machado and signing Kelvin Herrera for 2 years $18M. They could have got some real talent for all that money and that's while I'm not trying to figure out who else they spent money on that off season. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019-mlb-free-agent-tracker/

Last Portillos Tweet he says "reunion" which I take to mean the Sox have had him before which I am pretty sure they haven't. May be mixing Garret Richards up with Clayton Richard. And what happened to ACB as a signature to Al's tweets ? Has he made any tweets with the signature since he said he was going to use the signature ?

Weimaraner

I'm surprised no one said anything about him having a staff. So it's a twitter account with multiple people tweeting on it ? Seems odd but then again all of Twitter is odd.

Was this said in jest ? Right now Jake is a Nothing Burger for, at the minimum ,another year and a case can be made for saying he may never see any playing time for the White Sox . He'll be 25 in April and needs a minor league season desperately when we have no idea if there will be minor league seasons. Even if he can get a healthy and quality season in AA when does that put him in the majors ? When he's 26 or 27 ? He'd have to get some positional versatility as well. The only one I can actually see getting protected is Johnson.

He hasn't played in a game for any team affiliated with a major league team since 2017 but he has been playing again. The Sox kept him in Schaumburg over Sheets. They would play some SIM games without outfielders but I'm sure he faced plenty of pitchers there above A ball since some of our best minor league pitchers were there and our recent draft picks Crochet and Kelley. Before they brought him to Schaumburg he played 12 games in the Car Shield Collegiate League. He was just happy to be getting reps again in Schaumburg.

2021 Taijuan Walker

If the season doesn't start in July

I never said it was a fact. I said "it appears". Free reign to spend lol good one !

Again decisions like these are all discussed between all the key decision makers. Firing RR was a group decision with RH, KW and JR the key decision makers . It is more than likely that JR was the driving force behind the TLR hiring and according to statements by Hahn and Williams it was discussed among the 3 of them and they made statements on that process where it appears that JR got his way because he has the most power among the 3. Publicly they have to show a united front and are all "pulling from the same rope. "

So those things count and his .340 BA and his 108 OPS + don't . Got it. So rookie mistakes and errors can't be fixed and he can't possibly make adjustments and wait til the pitchers make adjustments to him and outfielders play right behind the infield and he will be useless. I understand now.

Imagine the ammunition you would have had if it was .240 in those 29 games. And yet the Madrigal bashers seem to always mention his bad base running, baseball IQ , and bad fielding that occurred in those 29 games.

This is the correct take, If we only had a choice of the 2 we took the lesser or 2 evils .We have had polls on the subject and the majority wanted someone other than either. This poll is one that said 76% of those who voted were NOT in favor of firing Ricky and hiring Hinch. Yearnin' says "the majority here DID want Hinch" when the evidence to the contrary is right here in the thread he created, then patted himself on the back in a thread he bumped to do that and he's still wrong with the poll results staring him right in the face. On one hand he's saying" haha you all clowned me because you all didn't want Hinch and I was right" then turns around and tells us the majority did want Hinch. He seemed very confused.

It's "all of a sudden" by the way. Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back. So you thought Hinch the Sox might be a good fit once his suspension was over. You want credit for being Captain Obvious ? The majority here didn't want Hinch. They didn't want LaRussa. We mostly wanted someone who wasn't controversial and a solid citizen with a track record of success. The team didn't need a side show. Best way to market the team was/is to focus on the players.

Even though I don't support a Darvish trade where we give up too much , I will say that Darvish is about as unique a pitcher as they come. He's got about 6 or 7 pitches he can throw and throw well. That game where he made the Sox look stupid he broke out a cutter he hadn't used since 2017. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/video/tommy-hottovy-details-where-yu-darvishs-nasty-cutter-against-sox-came

Thanks bmags. The Tim Beckham signing somehow escaped me .

You explained it perfectly and the modern fan doesn't understand the way the game used to be played. It was all about who owned the plate. No pitcher could be a great pitcher without some combination of stuff,control and fear. The fear factor has been removed from the game with hitters with body armor, making it that much more reliant on stuff and control/command. Now hitters go to the plate without fear knowing a weapon has been removed from a pitchers arsenal and because after an ump give you a warning even a pitch that gets away from you and you get kicked out of the game which means pitchers now lose a portion of the plate giving the hitter a huge advantage. A pitcher knocking a guy down often wasn't retaliation for hitting a HR it was the pitcher saying I made a mistake letting you own the plate and I am not making that mistake again.

There you have it . Trading Madrigal is bad luck waiting to happen. If Madrigal is somehow traded for Darvish then Darvish is injured and ineffective for 2 of his remaining 3 years. I understand the reason for wanting to trade him. He's not an impact player like Tatis, jr. ,but if his rookie year is any indication the kid can hit for average if not power. His fielding and base running should improve as he adjusts to the speed of the game and his own limitations. Hitting for average is a good thing around a bunch of guys getting extra base hits. He will score a lot of runs and sustain rallies, knock in a few runs. Look how long the Sox stuck with EE . Nicky brought way more to the table than EE without a single HR while EE hit 10. Nick had a .745 OPS with 3 lousy doubles among his 35 hits and a 108 OPS+. EE had a .627 OPS and 70 OPS+. Nick hit better than our DH for most the the year who cost the Sox $10M. It's hard to take a stance for acquiring guys when we start thinking old often injured guys contracts are worth it coming off a top year. No one liked Abreu's new contract and he was younger than Darvish without injury history. Do not overpay for Darvish . 3 years is too many for a 34 year old with too many injuries and too many incomplete seasons and with his best season in recent memory being one where he pitched 76 innings. I was against EE last year. I was against Shields and LaRoche. I thought the trade for Samardzija was idiotic. It's all in black in white somewhere in the archives. No more costly aging injury prone players.I'd rather trade a Steele Walker 100 times for a Nomar Mazara. 1 minor leaguer for a MLB young player with upside. It's really too bad he flopped because even with his normal production from his 4 previous years we win the division easy and if he had broken out imagine the trade chip he would've been. I want upside, not guys coming off their best year with the likelihood of age and injuries taking the toll they always take.

I guess I would've phrased it differently by saying we are not getting the 2 bests free agents on the market ,but are making a strong push for Springer. Or no chance on Bauer but they are trying hard for Springer. Jimmy's the only one I really pay attention to, the rest are just entertainment .

Ok I get it now, it's the combination of Bauer and Springer that is unlikely. I thought he meant separately each of them is unlikely. LOL i guess I couldn't wrap my head around anyone thinking it would need clarification that we wouldn't get both. That seems fairly obvious.