Balta1701

I do think BOB is much more of a cautionary tale than described here as he definitely became an attitude issue and then totally dismantled the organization in the process. He won’t get credit for their 15 losses this year but that’s substantially on him. You guys think Pace is bad about giving away draft picks…

Someone should point out that the down year with Cam also was a year where they had huge cap issues due to Brady leaving and a dead space associated with that, and had a whole bunch of COVID opt-outs, most in the league IIRC.

Meyer wasn’t fired because of the poor performance of his team.

And Jerry can finally use his non union replacement players. After all, his negotiating in 94 was so smooth that a court stepped in and pointed out that the owners had broken the law.

I have every confidence that the chairman is saying the same thing right now, that all the owners have to do is hold out long enough and the players will crack.

Ok Mr. Chairman.

They might chirp a bit but there’s not a ton of people heading to Houston from Austin on game nights. Having a rival might help create interest as much as hurt through a little loss of TV eyes.

What kind of rocks?

I think there's a decent chance that the Steelers and Tomlin mutually part this year. At the very least that setup seemingly has gotten stale and he's struggling to keep things together. He might not want to go through a rebuilding with no QB in that spot over a couple years. Add him to your list.

It winds up depending heavily on whether they are willing to spend for 1 more pitcher in there or if they keep trading for 1 year pieces like Samardzija and Shields. If they keep doing that, they miss the playoffs every year after 2012. If they take the money they did spend and go after Scherzer...that team makes the playoffs in 2016 and is at the top of the AL Central in 2017 along with a very good Cleveland team, and one of those teams is probably taking out Houston. They might have also had a shot at the 2015 Wild Card.

All right I'm changing the rules a little because this is kinda fun. I'm changing 1 draft pick. Only 1. With the 23rd pick in the 2009 MLB Draft, the Chicago White Sox select...Mike Trout, Millville Senior High School, New Jersey. Assume he follows the same path and the White Sox don't accidentally trade him in 2010 for an overpaid pitcher. 2011...Alex Rios, Alejandra De Aza play a fair amount of CF. Rios has an utterly awful season, so there's plenty of room for experience for Trout. The team still finishes a few games below .500 because Trout isn't a difference maker. Ozzie Guillen still quits on the team, Robin Ventura is hired. 2012. White Sox finished 3 games behind 88 win Detroit Tigers for AL Central, most common CF is Alejandro De Aza who puts up 2.3 rWAR. White Sox are a 90+ win team and a legitimate one, also beating Detroit on WAR. They struggle down the stretch again as their pitchers tire, but their lead was substantial by midseason and the White Sox win the AL Central by several games. Robin Ventura gets his contract extended here. 2013: Disaster. Pitchers get hurt, offense falls apart. Team originally won 63 games - now they're a 71 win team. Jake Peavy is still traded midseason to Detroit for Avisail Garcia. 2014: Now here's where it gets really interesting. They draft 6th, just before the Philadelphia Phillies. Carlos Rodon is off the board, let's assume he went to the Cubs. The White Sox have a choice between Aaron Nola and Jeff Hoffmann, who fell due to TJS. The White Sox go ahead and draft Nola (you want to run this the other way, you go ahead). The White Sox still need a 1b and the Yankees and Red Sox are still out, so they still sign Jose Abreu. Unwilling to sign a $100 million deal, they choose not to sign Trout to the same extension that the Angels gave him. The trade for Adam Eaton, involving Hector Santiago, still makes sense for the White Sox, so they acquire him as a corner OF, effectively moving De Aza and Viciedo out of the lineup. Garcia still gets hurt as Ventura is still the coach. The White Sox finish as a .500 team. 2015: Trout's first arbitration year. The White Sox are convinced they have a shot in the AL Central. Rick Hahn is still alive and Robin Ventura is still the manager. Therefore, in the offseason they trade Bassitt and Semien to the A's for Jeff Samardzija. They sign Adam LaRoche to DH, but they do not sign Melky Cabrera as they don't need an extra OF. Aaron Nola is rushed to the big leagues as soon as the extra year of FA is available in April, he's a little more effective than Rodon but not much. They no longer have the least effective position players in baseball, but they total about 35 fWAR. They finish a couple games above .500. In an alternative universe - Rick Hahn retires and Jerry Reinsdorf passes ownership to his family, ,the White Sox realize they need to be aggressive with only 3 years of control left on Trout, and rather than trading for Samardzija, they take the money they would have spent on Samardzija + Cabrera and go for a big pitching splash. Both Lester and Scherzer were available. In the process, the White Sox hold onto Semien and Bassitt. The draft really doesn't help unless the White Sox strike gold and select walker Buehler, who was the only good pick in the 2nd half of the first round. 2016: Trout's second arbitration year. They have 2 years left before he signs the biggest contract in MLB History. In the real world, Cleveland won 94 games with a huge winning streak midseason, they put up 42 fWAR. The White Sox put up 32. But, Eaton moves to RF, Trout moves to CF, Nola struggles a fair amount in the rotation. The Wild Card winners that year only won 89 games. With Trout in the lineup, the White Sox make it a 3-way tie for the Wild Card, with the team still underperforming some. The White Sox still make a midseason deal for James Shields, correctly thinking they need pitching help. Shields continues to be awful and it's the worst deal any of us have ever seen. In the second alternate universe with a new owner, the White Sox signed either Lester or Scherzer in 2015. They hold onto Semien, Bassitt still gets hurt, but they know they need additional offense on the IF and they know they need a LH bat somewhere in their lineup. Rather than Frazier, they acquire Chase Headley, who was dealt to the Yankees the year before (and the Yankees still wind up rebuilding for a year in 2016, they got themselves out of the multi-year penalties around then). Semien takes over an IF slot and while he struggles on defense it isn't a killer. In this universe, the White Sox take the AL Central. Cubs White Sox world series is possible if both teams advance. Oh, and a kid SS who no one has seen play has a breakout campaign in their minor leagues. 2017: Trout's last year with the White Sox. Avisail Garcia has a breakout season, 5 WAR. Chris Sale has a 7 win season. Aaron Nola has a breakout season. Jose Quintana is still ok. Jose Abreu has his best season. Tim Anderson is working into the IF. Adam Eaton gets hurt in the OF, I don't have a good candidate to replace him. This team is strong even if they still made the Rick Hahn moves. If they made the "not Rick Hahn" moves and signed a Scherzer, held onto a Semien, and therefore never traded for a Shields...Cleveland and Chicago both win in the high 90s in games, and who knows if a trashcan is enough for the Astros to win that title? And oh, the next year the White Sox have the #1 prospect in baseball. 2018: Garcia and Abreu struggle. Trout has departed for the Yankees. Nola puts up his best season, Sale starts showing some injury issues at the end of the year. Anderson is up and has taken over SS, while Semien has moved to a different IF spot. Quintana falls apart. This team misses the playoffs. 2019: Chris Sale goes down for TJS and then re-signs with the team for a short term deal. Aaron Nola isn't as good as the previous year. But the White Sox's infield is now Semien, Anderson, Tatis, Abreu from 3b to 1b. Robin Ventura is still managing this team.

The only thing that bugs me is when the White Sox don’t try. Most of the guys the Astros just beat us with signed for less than $100k, so whatever strategy they use my only evaluation metric is whether they spend their allotment. Leaving $1.7 million unspent because there’s a Cuban who might decide to sign this year sounded “very White Sox” to me and the article seemed to suggest that. I will put a hold on that criticism pending further details.

Any chance people would be willing to Spoiler tag this movie through the point it gets a Disney+ release?

Fair enough. Did I miss the article outlining that?

The fact that the White Sox still have a huge pool of money uncommitted is a joke.

I like how the Facebook version of this included the one other candidate.

Since no one answered this? Minor league international signings including the signing day and scheduled start of a new minor league signing period in January are unaffected. They can continue as planned. Major league international signings such as the posting of the OF Suzuki from Japan are on hold until the lockout ends.

But here is my problem - you can’t just say “I don’t care about the system as long as the team is winning” because the system remains the lifeblood of the team. How are the Astros still on top? They’re bringing up guys like Tucker, Valdez, Garcia, and Urquidy to contribute as guys like Correa and Springer hit free agency and leave. Those guys who beat us are why they can put together their roster. That’s why they can afford to keep a Verlander or take on the contract of a Greinke. Contrast that with the White Sox - who wanted to add a major piece at the deadline, and forgetting about all the scouting failures for a bit, what did they have to do for that trade? Their system had nothing people wanted again, so they had to package their 2022 second baseman and a 2022 reliever, leaving 2 holes. What is the end result of that? They had to spend $8 million a year on Graveman, and they’re now $14 million from the previous luxury tax line with holes in RF and at 2b, and they could also use starting pitching help. They didn’t have guys to replace what they traded away, and now they’re trying to clear money to be able to put big leaguers into those 3 positions on a budget. Eventually, that format - more holes open, less money to spend - is how you get a roster where Jimmy Rollins, Austin Jackson, Brett Laurie, and Mat Latos are major pieces to start the year, because you have too many positions to fill, no talent coming up from the minors to fill holes cheaply, and not enough to spend. So yes, the draft picks still matter and there international signings still matter. It gets even harder next year, and then after 2023 Giolito and Lynn are both free agents.

So who in college football is going to be hiring a coach next January?

Doesn’t that become a forfeit?

And we lost to a team that got Altuve, Urquidy, Garcia, Valdez, and Javier out of the international market.

There’s some stuff in this article from March saying he was back in the 92-94 range in spring training, has been working at Driveline, and added a curveball. I’ve got nothing talking about how he was this year other than his stats struggling at AAA, and some 2019-2020 articles about how he was back to throwing in the 90s but it wasn’t translating to results on the field. https://www.redlegnation.com/2021/03/01/cincinnati-reds-pitcher-brandon-finnegan-shows-good-velo-new-pitch-monday/

So they signed one international player and that means they never have to work at it again, cigars and money are the way now?