chitownsportsfan

JR turning Thibs into a martyr is one of the dumbest PR mistakes I've ever seen. They handled it about as poorly as possible and now this narrative of "oh, poor Thibs who was undermined the entire time in Chicago is now fired because he pissed off his bosses" is bulls***. Thibs was a large part of the problem in Chicago and it speaks volumes that nobody wanted to trade for him when you've got washed up has beens like VDN and JVG interviewing for jobs. Thibs just isn't that in demand around the league. He's a solid coach but he's not a long term winner for many of the reasons Ptac mentioned.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 28, 2015 -> 02:06 PM) If Chris Sale can't throw his slider more than 10% of the time without getting injured they need to have Chris Sale throw his slider 20% of the time for a month or two and then trade him. No s***. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. There isn't a single shred of evidence the Sox have some magic elixir to keep pitchers healthy. Throw the f***ing slider.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ May 27, 2015 -> 08:44 PM) White Sox Motto: The customer is always wrong. SouthSider2k has to be on the payroll. I have no idea how a fan comes to the conclusion that it's the fans to blame!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 27, 2015 -> 06:42 PM) It is the schtick. Then there is reality. Reality dictates that a team understands the nature of its fanbase and try to cater to them to some extent. It is the entire reason we have never seen a completely sell of like the Cubs can do because of their fan loyalty. It is why the team was looking for near major league ready talent in most of its deals a few years back, instead of waiting for a process that could take half of a decade or more. Even if it failed, a slow erosion of fans being better than the bandwagon all emptying at once, and stupid stuff like BLACK FLAG coming back into vogue with the more meatball portion of the population. It is why as soon as the rebuild even started to look like it was turning a corner, the team went out and bought a bunch of major leaguers at market prices in an attempt to bring back some of the bandwagon. If Sox fans want to paint themselves as smart, they have to be able to take an honest look at the whole picture, and understand all of the pieces of the puzzle, not just the parts that generate calls on the Score. If you are ignoring parts of the story to paint your narrative, you aren't half as smart as you think. But no, let's go ahead and resume the whining about what a horrible 35 years it has been, and people can't take the horrible pain anymore. WHY ME? WHY DOES OWNERSHIP DO THIS TO ME? I AM ENTITLED TO BETTER! So, your argument is that the fickle nature of the fans caused the team to rely too heavily on veterans during the last 5-7 years, and that also because of the fans, the team spent 50 million this year "in an attempt to bring back some of the bandwagon". Correct me if I'm wrong, but basically your argument in this thread boils down to "the fans are the problem".

wow, kite, can you expound on that "sell" comment? I know that JR has been slowly losing power in MLB, culminating with the Manfred appointment. Is he ready to move on?

Well, they won, good job. That said, starting to get to the point in the year where you look at pythag and go "this team isn't very good". A 5-3 victory in extras against the Jays is a nice start, but this team has a long way to go to turn it around.

Ramirez needs to sit for a couple days. He's on pace for -1.2 fWAR and his defensive metrics are the worst they've been since his rookie year. Sit his ass down and tell him that nobody on the team is guaranteed a spot every day no matter how long they've been here.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/venturo01.shtml He's a career .454 manager and 49 games under with the Sox. If the Sox can't spin this in their favor using those stats, then they should seek other careers because baseball isn't for them.

No offense to swirsky, as he's a fine professional, but if he's the new choice for play by play -- FML. He just screams vanilla to me. I'd much rather move Stone to play by play and get another color guy. Also, this team sucks, but you knew that. Hard to keep watching, in fact, I"m turning this one off. Going to go outside and enjoy the sun.

This team has so much more talent (on paper) then the 2012 team. That's why people are upset. That team was held together with duct tape and wire and depends for the all the veterans. This team was supposed to compete and right now they aren't competing. They have the worst differential in the AL. That's unacceptable. I'd have fired RV weeks ago but you all know that.

I don't begrudge any fan that wants to take a step back after the last 30 year of mostly futility but "renouncing your fanship" seems absurd to me. The White Sox are in my blood thanks to my pops, I won't ever quit them but I will vote with my pocketbook this year. When they come to Safeco I won't go to all three games and I won't plan a trip to the Cell until the prove they are a good team again. But I will continue to follow the team, no matter how bad it gets.

This team sucks right now. Please, for the love of god, move on from Ventura. Strike while the iron is hot, not before they go on some mild winning streak to give everyone false hope. This team is under performing heavily, someone needs to take the axe.

good win. Offense needs to come around however or they will continue to flounder around .500 or worse.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 22, 2015 -> 07:29 PM) Players are just playing really bad. This team is going to be out of contention in 10 days if they don't start playing better baseball. Check the saber thread, I posted a link from the HBTs today -- the odds aren't good.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 22, 2015 -> 07:24 PM) "Every organization in baseball is giving the green light to run at will on the White Sox until they gameplan a counter against it." From batting practice conversations..... DJ But it's not on the coaching staff. It's all on Hahn for Flowers and Soto. Wow. Honestly some of it is on the staff too. They have been awful holding runners.

QUOTE (Condor13 @ May 22, 2015 -> 07:22 PM) Our hottest hitter not in the lineup tonight, this games just feels like we will put runs on the board early and often Yea, runs to the fridge for more beer after another 1,2,3 inning

He should have sat the day after he asked out. Common sense.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 22, 2015 -> 05:13 PM) Good luck, Cubs have always been for the bandwagon/front runner/fair weather crowd. A team that hasn't won a WS in 100 years and last made the playoffs 8 years ago has a bandwagon? Not a good example.

A good read and sobering news for Sox fans, when you see "10% playoff odds" on Fangraphs and the like, don't blame the messenger, that's about the odds right now: http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-meaning-o...ord-in-mid-may/

[a meeting is assembled between JR and his fan marketing team of Dick Allen, and SouthSider2k] JR: "boys, what can we do to improve attendance?" Dick: "we already do more to sell tickets than anyone else" JR: "sorry Dick, wrong answer, you're fired"." JR: "how about you SouthSider2k, what say you?" SouthSider2K: "we need to bump payroll into the top 1/4 then maybe we can spend enough to win another world series, then those fickle fans will come out" JR: "wrong answer, you're also fired". Brooks Boyer enters the room carried on his litter after 25 years of loyal service to JR, the number proudly hangs from the side in big bold letters Brooks: "you fired those guys right?" JR: "yea, I did, you got any better ideas" Brooks: "nah, I already came up with the Shark Tank, that's enough right?" JR: "yep, you're right, thanks for your loyal 25 years with the Bulls and Sox and GO Irish!." Brooks Boyer just nods and his litter carries him out, business as usual continues at White Sox HQ

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 22, 2015 -> 12:49 PM) No team tries harder to sell tickets than the White Sox. You're right, for example, not many teams have moles like you that are on the payroll and blow the sunshine on the fan message boards. I'm only half kidding. Is there anything about how the Sox go about their business you'd change?

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 22, 2015 -> 12:30 PM) Comparing our attendance to that of Detroit does nothing to add to what we are talking about here about our attendance problems. And apparently you are not reading anything that doesn't fit your own pre-set agenda, either, which is to blame attendance on fans making excuses, because you were asked to back that claim up with evidence and you didn't. Whatever. In the meantime, we agree to disagree. The club has a very bad attendance problem. I optimistically suggest that would be fixed over time with more sustained winning. That's what I believe to be true. You don't agree, which is fine, and I don't care if you do or not. You're entitled to your opinion. But if what you say is, in fact, true, that sustained winning won't solve the problem, and you are convinced the "small bandwagon" fan base just won't show up for one excuse or another, then Mr. Reinsdorf ought to think about selling the current ballpark that seats 40,000 and building one that only seats 20,000, because to your way of thinking, that's all he'll ever need. If the fanbase is small, how about trying to grow it bigger? Winning helps, but there is much more marketing that can be done.The Sox marketing is awful, I'll say it again. When is the last time the Sox made national headlines for any sort of marketing ploy, failed or otherwise? We don't need a "disco demolition night" but how about a social media account that actually stirs the drink a little? How about they market more to the hispanic audience in Chicago? They have quite a few Spanish speaking players. In fact, they should have an entire division of the marketing department dedicated to spanish language promos. The Sox are a stale brand with stale ownership imo. JR has been slowly losing influence in MLB and his club hasn't been consistently entertaining for almost 30 years. I am lucky to have grown up in the "good guys wear black" years with Robin, Frank, Blackjack, Alvarez and the rest of the crew. Those teams didn't win a ton, but they were competitive and exciting and young. Kids younger than 15 don't know s*** about the Sox except that they are usually filled with declining vets and don't win much more than 85 games. Team needs a reboot from the top down.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ May 22, 2015 -> 12:24 PM) Salazar had no fear against our best hitters. He just went after them and they had no answer. He was nasty at times and the few times he got behind in counts the Sox got antsy and bailed him out. Cleveland has some nasty starters. The Sox needed to win the other games in the series when they had the pitching advantage on paper. Danks verse Salazar isn't fair.

Lloyd McClendon had a great quote today about how his guys are pressing and it's leading to them swinging at pitches out of the zone and how he's been emphasizing "take your walks" all week. We'll see if his message gets through to the Mariners but the Sox would do well to consider similar advice. I will say that I thought Jose and Avi got "aced" a couple of times last night with RISP, and there wasn't much they could have done to work a better count. But there were certainly other opportunities this season where it made sense to take a few freaking pitches with a wild pitcher on the mound.

I will say that I liked every signing at first blush except the LaRoche signing. Then I talked myself into it. Well, so far, he's looking like a bust and a lot of it is the Sox refusal to bench him against most LHP and play him moreso than Jose at 1B. He should be playing 1B 100 games and Jose 62, instead it's going to be like Jose 120 and LaRoche 42.