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pretty much every criticism of castellanos has stated more than his defense, so it's hard for me to believe someone could pick up that people were criticizing him and not understand why they were criticizing him.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32486646/los-angeles-rams-owner-stan-kroenke-angers-nfl-owners-financial-pivot-related-lawsuit-st-louis-move-sources-say I wonder if this will have effects on how much league may help Bears with new stadium. Trend has been toward financial assistance from league, but we'll see if that changes.

Oof

Bravo working TLR and a video clip into this again somehow.

We have a good commissioner to lead us all through this

He’s a good player and good players are in general good, but Seems just a bizarre choice when we walked away from the Astros series thinking we were too heavy on right handed, poor defensive corner infield types and then sign Nick Castellanos.

The good news on point one is that come trade deadline, it is usually the most abundant thing to acquire. Hopefully bulls are performing well enough we think that adds a real edge. For point 2, I think the other side is they just need to shoot more of them. Vuc/Ball/Lavine/Williams should all be launching more than they have. Caruso too. But it will be very important for Coby, he's such a good set shooter, we need to see caruso/ddr create those looks for him when he comes back.

1) this is great content 2) Oh man, I can see a world where Ozzie actually becomes heel and takes that heat from machado/tatis, I can also see the world where ozzie gangs up on Tatis with Machado and makes everything worse Overall, managers don't matter really. Their organizational pitching system needs to be figured out, not sure Ozzie solves that.

I don't really think there is much of a difference between Michael Reinsdorf and George McCaskey, I think (hope) that Reinsdorf just nailed his search and McCaskey has not. My interpretation is they both just want to hand it over to people to run, support them, and have them be successful. But they don't really know what successful is supposed to be or look like and fall in love with everyone in those positions and end up shocked when things aren't working out. So if Reinsdorf took over, do I think anything would change? Maybe, it depends on if Hahn truly has a more progressive vision for running the front office maybe we'd see it. But reality is I think we'd see KW and Hahn just continue to run the sox and if it went into the ground we'd hope he brings in a new group that does well. So I don't see anything particularly magical about him, wouldn't be happy or upset until he shows otherwise.

It's a fun, classic caulfield quote because correcting it makes it wrong in a new direction.

who is a top 5 draft pick

Missed the fourth, sorta glad. Happy for Lavine that winning 4 games in a row stat is put to death. I think this team kinda needs Coby in that second unit. Caruso, DDR, alize/green/djj/tbj don't have a lot of shooting. Especially where Caruso is lead facilitator and Coby can be a spot up shooter or get the ball at ends of breakdowns I think he adds a lot. He just wasn't a PG. Pats rebounding numbers are so putrid. That's something that I'm concerned is either there or isn't. He feels like he's in Tony Snell territory right now, and I wonder if putting him in the second unit and putting more scoring demands on him wouldn't help.

I'm not surprised though, with there only being 4 preseason games now.

non-covid illness or vet rest day, who can tell.

I will say when he outlined the team he wanted in his beginning press conference (long, athletic, swinging ball from side to side, aggressive) this team is a lot more like that then it was before. But I think other than that the bulls may be the biggest black box of an org in the city. Maybe some of the writers eventually make relationships, but there did not seeem to be any national writer or local that had the finger on the pulse of what they were gonna do.

Just to avoid the game of telephone, I don't think there is a chance in hell the sox sign bryant. Someone asked for dream acquisitions, and I was putting together what a "best free agent" list would be like without any constraints. My argument for Bryant would just be that if we addressed our RHP/contact/groundball issues with 2b and DH, then he would be the best RF acquisition in my opinion. And I actually think there are people who may say Marte maybe better or still stick with an upside play in conforto, and I think tha'ts interesting. But I still really like Bryant a lot. But no, the white sox are not getting Seager and Bryant and Schwarber and Max Scherzer

Tonight will be interesting without Vuc. So much of the offense goes through him, through pick and rolls. Will be interesting to see how they adjust (like maybe moving Williams to 5 and starting caruso?)

I don't disagree. I think he benefitted a lot however from Cubs showcasing his positional versatility. He really is a tremendous athlete. I wouldn't want to pay bryce harper money for Bryant. Really the best case scenario with him is you get a large contract with an opt out and he plays amazing and opts out. But more likely he injures his arm and you have a start to gulp pretty quickly. You do worry he ends up as this Evan Longoria type for years, but so hard not to look at and think each year they go back to that bankable production.

I am not someone that thinks the sox need to hit the perfect equilibrium of player to position. Sox may need to discard Kimbrel, Keuchel salaries, but they don't need to discard of anyone just for balance/playing time. They can just add more players.

The Astros and Dodgers who have owned the last 5-6 years have done a good job of balancing their team to be able to counter any one trend. They have guys that throw hard, they have guys that throw all offspeed. They have power, they hit for contact. In 2015, the astros stormed to a WC birth behind the cy young Keuchel season. In 2016, they either re-signed or re-added that with Jason Castro, Colby Rasmus, Luis Valbuena and Carlos Gomez. Castro had years of high obp, but had 30% Krates. Rasmus K'd 30% of the time. Gomez was not always that bad Krate wise but under astros was 30% krate. Valbuena high 20s. They had a powerful lineup that could not make enough contact. They didn't run from power, but that year signed McCann, Carlos Beltran, Josh Reddick, Nori Aoki and Yuli Gurriel. McCann with a 15% career K-rate Beltran with a career 17% krate (and wasn't good with Astros) Reddick with a career 16% krate Aoki with a 12% k-rate (again, not a great player) The previous year, signed 32 year old Yuli Gurriel out of Cuba who has had a career of 12% k-rate. Obviously, 2017 cheating, fun stuff, I've tried to bring in their pre-acquisition historicals or overall career. The sox could have had a path where the team they put together had all the right trends that year in route to a world series, and may have not been able to keep that level again. The cubs are a great success story, but I think people think of that. The nationals had years of talented teams that couldn't find right balance. So I think the things we are pointing the sox to improve are important, and the lack of power the sox showed in the playoffs would have not been as big of a deal had we had more players who could be more likely to make contact (sequencing improvement) but especially contact not in the ground (gb rate), and better odds vs LHP. But, what I think is dumb is thrashing against the good players that the sox have just because they didn't carry over the series. Or looking for things that show they weren't as good as we thought. Raising your sight from winning a division to winning the world series is exciting and discouraging when you realize there was farther to go, and still can make mistakes. But this team is good, could do more things to shore up weaknesses but that needs to happen while protecting strengths. And needs luck. Like the sox had to face the astros dominant McCullers twice, the braves/red sox didn't. He was particularly fucking ridiculous vs. us.

I feel like if we are doing the "with no FA budget what are the additions to SP, 2b, RF, DH that most improve the sox" I think it's SP: Scherzer 2B: Seager RF: Bryant DH: Schwarber

I would guess people on the low-end for Conforto might have pictured like 4 / 55 or /65 (the AJ Pollock deal), but I think in general people think he would be expensive but also a long term solution. With so much of the league circling the infielders, hopefully a guy like that falls through to us. But also just want to stress, the sox have some pretty specific needs in hitters. If you make a list, there are not that many hitters with great vs RHP splits, good at contact/obp at either RF/2b positions. You are going to get a lot of board consensus there.

I also see him pressing for an opt-out

I get things might have soured, but I don't see Gallo as a guy the Yankees are going to veer from. They definitely want more contact, but also to be more LH. I suppose he could force his way out, but to me I feel like they are going to prioritize their middle infield, catcher, DH spots to diversify their contact, handedness issues rather than trade out Gallo.

I feel like if what @Harold's Leg Lift says it's true it's because Jerry will have bent the will of the CBA toward his favor. Always feels like pre-contentious CBAs he'll make a big deal of staying within the rules, then post CBAs he'll go to the organized top end as a sign of like, good will. Take for instance the sox spending all of their draft capital after years of staying into the slotted amounts. Or Albert belle signing post 94. Just a thought.