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The logic here just seems off. Money by itself doesn't guarantee success. But a quality FO + money theoretically had the opportunity to turn a $200 million into a playoff team. Some of that could have gone to a good free agent signing. Some of that could have been picking someone like danny valencia off waivers or trade with what sox had. Is danny valencia good? No, but in 2015/16 he returned a lot more than we did with Gordon Beckham and Conor Gillaspie. Sox could have signed Justin Turner in 2014. Sox could have kept Junior Guerra. Sox could have signed Rich Hill. And people will say "well you can't just take all of the success stories as if those teams knew" but the white sox have sure had bad luck with every free agent since jose abreu while other teams have signed on, traded or by some way acquired non $200 mill contracts that have been big contributors. There is a total lack of surprise players in this org. The best example it feels we had was tommy kahnle

The thing is, it just feels like an actual good front office can acquire talent even with an $80 mill payroll, an $120 mill payroll or a $200 mill payroll. The sox said they were shifting to talent accumulation in 2013, with shifts in the road back and forth. I am very underwhelmed by everything aside from their returns to trading some of the most valuable, cheap talent available in baseball. Milwaukee found great value on waivers. So have Dodgers. Padres found great value in LatAm market. So did Braves. Red Sox found great value in mlb draft. Yankees and Astros found it everywhere. The white sox have really only shown to find great value by trading all stars on cheap contracts.

It's funny how hard it is to think of a city that will be successful. It feels like MLS has prospered in heavy transplant cities, where they can adopt a hometown team because the newcomers didn't have strong allegiances to a childhood team. But NFL really seems to struggle in big transplant cities for years. But OTOH, while attendance may be less of a problem in say, San Antonio, who knows if tv ratings would be as good as even a struggling LA team.

I think I care more about Anderson Comas over Booker at this point. Same with Mieses.

players like Polo (and booker, and rivera), need everything to go right. His injury really seems to have taken it out of him. They don't have years to lose to injury.

It's been mentioned a lot, but NBA is starting to resemble a lot of the same behavior as the EPL and prominent soccer leagues. People will say this is bad, but those leagues are also very popular. It's definitely different, as parody will obviously be a difficult goal for NBA to try and drive on.

That is a particularly bad lineup of games, but you guys are too hung up on the only thing that matters is who wins the championship. I'm pretty excited to see Orlando this year and whether Isaac's summer play was for real. Milwaukee with Budenholzer could be dynamic, and jump into the top echelon. Pacers and heat are fine fodder of teams. They play hard, have fun players on both and are tough outs. Brooklyn and Memphis aare the only truly bad teams there, and even then maybe they rebound and JJJ will be good.

Gonna post my top 5 before I open to see if I'm right 1) LaMarre 2) Fisher 3) Polo 4) Dedelow 5) Rutherford

I like that he's capable of being a corner OFer. Could be a fun signing, if nothing else, would like to see white sox create relationships in that region.

DA - this is a something that has been gnawing at me put perfectly. I am not a pessimist on the future, I think the sox collection of talent is pretty good. But for a while you used to say "Why would you support a rebuild with this same group" and for a while I felt that the sox brass was capable of making the right decisions...they just weren't. But the "half-in/half-out" line is what worries me. It feels like in terms of operating, sox goal is to never be too far behind the best practices, sit comfortably, slightly above average. It has been a long time since I have seen an example of where the sox consistency in personnel has paid off. That, for a while, was pitching and health. But cracks are appearing in the dam.

edit: Deleted post asking who will win tonight. Wow I thought today was thursday. Man.

I can't stop laughing at this:

And zero of those teams did it with the same management staff. The sox model is very strange.

If I ran a team I would make the hitting coach into a traveling fellowship type deal. Each year a new guy comes in, gives different perspectives. The FO/manager/player would track overall progress to ensure nobody is getting completely revamped every year. If players (or specific player) love a guy you keep him on and STILL have a new person come in and have two hitting coaches.

So rebuilds happen and sometimes they are painful, but I still kinda think Steverson should be fired.

I wouldn't hate this but I did mainly want to use money either on short term deals or big money elite talent purchases. A lot of people saved up for this FA period, and I think a team that loses out will pick up Eovaldi for more than Chatwood. But I do think it's an interesting pickup, I'm just not sold on the payoff being that big. But he may very well be the jhoulys chacin of the fa period.

Yeah it was a doppelganger thing but even then, trout seems so much bigger than engel in the batter box. I never really saw it.

It's the offseason.

Bulls fans are gonna be so pumped to find out about our new advertising patch on the uniform!

I hadn't thought about it but I think I'm going to eliminate kickers from my league. There is much more strategy with def than there is with K.

"Have you ever heard of health savings accounts?"

I would be surprised if hawks are better than bulls. Other than that their ranking of the east feels right. I think Orlando/DET are two possible surprise teams. I don't think much of DET longterm, but I like Casey and they have vets that can take care of the trash on most nights.

Right but that's what I'm saying. Baseball isn't impossible to win just because of money deficit, as it was in moneyball. The perspective of the article and of what I"m talking about is around the fan experience. Ignorance was quite frankly more fun. I miss thinking the team could surprise people and pull one off. I love baseball, but I struggle to maintain interest when team is losing. I want that champagne locker room footage. I want playoffs. And it sucks going into season after season knowing how unlikely it is. They are not one player away. They are not 2 players away. It just sucks some of the fun out of the actual season.

The Dolphins secondary is actually very good though. Last two games is easier to swallow than when a 6td game skewed the first 4. The last two games his YPA is over 10. That's what we're hear for when you have a 70% completion percentage, not that 5.5 YPA crap. I also think we are starting to see what chemistry means. He finally seems comfortable with gabriel going long. He was way off to start year. Then started throwing ropes, now is getting more comfortable with loft again. He still has a long way to go, but yesterday actually feels better than TB to me. What hurt the narrative more than anything was the cohen fumble. He was answering TDs with TDs, and he was driving well when cohen fumbled.

Three of the by reputation best defenses in the league have all given up 30 point + games now to pretty meh offenses in the jags, rams and bears. Ravens of course have been pretty suffocating, so have bills.