Balta1701

The Sox have to figure out how to develop young talent otherwise they will fail forever. Having some could be a good start.

But it's also the reason why they couldn't compete in 2015 or 2016, they could not get past 75 wins because their system was so weak it couldn't support more wins than that no matter what they did. So, as long as people are ok with 75 win teams, then you're right, this rebuild was a terrible idea.

So is today a good day to dredge up the "Trade for Marcell Ozuna!" thread from last offseason and point out that he has a .714 OPS this season?

I'll go with terrible. They developed a couple of players in Quintana and Sale, but it was enough to outfit a team that was 4th place when they did everything they could to compete. People bashing their scouting and development don't need to make absolute statements about how they developed "absolutely no one", they just need to note that they finished in 4th place repeatedly when they did their very best. The record of the big league squad says everything I need.

Wait I'm lost, is the development team showing positives or can this franchise not develop young position players?

I'm ok with going to "The White Sox have been terrible at scouting and development for a decade, it is the #1 reason why they were a 5th place team in 2013 and 2014, it's the #1 reason why they were a 4th place team in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and if they don't solve that problem then regardless of whatever path they take, continuing to rebuild or going all-in with veterans again, they will remain a 4th-5th place team until that problem is fixed".

And jumped from A-ball to the big leagues by May 7.

It should be noted that the last examples of teams actually doing these kinds of deals with a negotiating window come from what, a decade ago now?

This type of complaint is exactly how one party has been able to drag itself all the way to the point of being run by Donald Trump; even when one person is clearly lying or clearly wrong, centrists always have to declare that there is a problem on both sides. You speak of Senators being so tied to money that they care very little for re-election, but you also bash Democrats even though the situation was made worse by the 5-4 Citizens United decision authored by Republicans, and even though the Democrats tried proposing things like the Disclose Act requiring disclosure of who was paying outside campaign groups and were blocked unanimously by a Republican filibuster. So, unless Democrats totally stop fighting for money and give the Republicans a huge advantage in elections, they get labeled as scumbags for playing on the field the Republicans constructed. This is how they use centrists to drag everyone into the hole with them, and the end result is that no matter what the next thing the Republicans do is, whether it's accepting criminal aid from a foreign country or stealing a Supreme Court seat, the Democrats have to be labeled as scumbags also. They could be honorable people and lose elections they can't compete in financially, or play on the other team's field and get labeled as scumbags and lose elections.

They'll need like 2-3 big leaguers to go down for the entire rest of the season (within the next week or two) to wind up average, or about 5 guys to go down for an entire month. This seems unlikely.

The Republicans come up with a rule to make sure Obama can't appoint a judge, the Republicans rescind that rule once Trump is in office, they get the Supreme Court seat and will use that to overturn one of the biggest decisions of the last 50 years, but we still need to include Democrats in the list of scumbags because that wouldn't be fair to blame only Republicans for things that Republicans did. After all, balance.

Hell, it's bigger than that. Sodomy laws making gay sex illegal are still on the books in 12 states and they are only unenforceable because of a 2003 Supreme Court decision declaring those laws unconstitutional where the dissenters were Thomas, Scalia, and Rehnquist. The dissent by Thomas wrote that there was no "write to privacy" in the constitution - that's the same standard that is used to argue against abortion rights, Roe v. Wade is explicitly a right to privacy decision. When that case falls, the logic behind the government being unable to declare being gay a crime falls also.

$20 million is still pretty darn far from a Max deal, especially for a 10 year veteran, and is that $20 million in 2019-2020 or $20 million in 2020-2021? No link is provided so I can't follow to look for details.

If you have 4 guys who are legitimate top 10 prospects and none of them become stars then you have done something seriously, systematically wrong. Hell, if you count Rodon, this franchise could have 5 of them. If Gio busts, fine, but if you have Giolito, Rodon, Jiminez, Moncada, and Kopech, all of whom have gotten into the top 10 of prospect lists, and you don't wind up with like 8-10 all star appearances and a few top 10 MVP finishes amongst the group before guys are hitting free agency, then there is something seriously wrong with your development or your scouting because you managed to somehow specifically select the guys who were going to flop. That doesn't happen by accident.

Muggles, that's who the bad people are, Muggles.

You are correct that in 2017 the White Sox were in the upper 1/2 of the league in time missed on the disabled list (right around 12th) - guys like Rodon and Putnam and Jones made a big difference there. However, in 2016 they were just right around League Average and in the years prior to that, they were the healthiest team in the league. From 2010-2017 they are either 29th or 30th for most days spent on the disabled list. When your team is used to unbelievable health, "nearly average health" seems like an anomaly. We have seen nothing at all like the Dodgers or the Rangers, and those teams are far better than us.

So, the gays, other races, and trans people are the bad people.

Just remember, at the big league level, we're still in the bottom 1/3 of the league for time spent on the disabled list. When you're planning your roster for the future, you should expect as much as 2x this amount of time on the disabled list for your competitive team.

If no one else steps up and Abreu keeps deteriorating, Goldschmidt and Smoak are FA after 2019. Since we'll be paying Abreu in 2019 more than likely anyway, that's a position where we can bide our time a little bit, and a bump from the $15 million Abreu will make to >$20 million a year to sign one of those guys won't be a huge dent in the yearly payroll.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/att-wants-to-overhaul-hbo-says-it-isnt-profitable-enough/

If he's hitting like this at the end of the year I don't want to offer him $300 million.

he could also try to sign a lower dollar amount contract, but insist on an opt-out after 1-2 years so that he's got a shot again if he can have a better year. And with where the White Sox currently are, I think it's very clear they should not give opt-outs for anything less than 3 years.