Greg Hibbard

this game isn’t a Hahn or Tony loss, to me, it’s just a team that is too short to execute for many reasons but mostly still injury. I think we all knew this was going to be a low scoring duel that the Jays were gonna wait Cease out on and beat us late. I think the scary thing is that Cease is developing a reputation as a guy who can’t make it to the 7th inning because of pitch count and no matter how many strikeouts you amass, that is not a good thing.

Even when we were up 2-0, this always felt like a loss. And that’s coming from a board optimist.

I think Leury is just fine and will hit his eventual .268 number he always does, but I would cut bait because Burger, Mendick, and a healthy Moncada make him obselete in the infield, and Vaughn, Eloy, Pollock, Engel, Robert make him obsolete in the outfield.

I think it’s all so frustrating because they aren’t good enough while this banged up and short benched to make a big move, but they also aren’t bad enough to fall completely out of it. Truth be told, when I step back, I’m kind of amazed they didn’t fall into a complete black hole / death March / 10 losses in a row debacle with TA out. Thank god for Mendick and Vaughn.

I hope this series clarified that we need to move on from guys like Harrison and Haseley if we are going to win in the playoffs. If TA and Eloy come back for the entire rest of the way I think this team is going to win a lot more.

Here’s something that seems truly bizarre for us to chew on: since the 8 game losing streak - despite all the injuries and bad play - the Sox are 25-22 (.532 winning percentage). If they were to play at a .532 winning percentage for the rest of the season, they would still win exactly 84 games… so they only have to play a few games better over the next 99 games than they have in the last 41 games to win 90 games. As bad as they’ve seemed to be, it’s been pretty decent, winning baseball over the last 41 games.

Gordon Beckham was the eighth overall pick in a draft, and he generated 0.78 WAR per 162 games played in the majors. Leury Garcia has generated 0.8 WAR per 162 games played in the majors.

Gordon Beckham played 11 seasons in the majors. I think most people consider him a bust considering where he was drafted and what was expected.

The most fun I’ve had watching a game in what feels like a loooooong time ?

I think playing capable outfield, sticking at the majors, and having this quick improvement without virtually any minors is surprising.

I don’t think anyone has been more consistently surprising (in a good way) than Andrew Vaughn the last couple of seasons, first with his ability to stick in the majors playing the wrong position at age 23, then with his seemingly major step forward this year, especially the last three weeks. His K rate is below 20% this season. Do we think this is real? Is it a hot streak? What do you think Andrew Vaughn’s ceiling is at the ML level? He seems to be maybe another Konerko in the making, given how young he is and how quickly he seems to be progressing.

This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be without TA, but it isn’t good. When they get him back they will start winning a lot more. I will hold out hopes until they get 7 games under .500 which I think will be too much to come back from.

How did the broken foot not heal from October 1 to April 1 the following year? Do broken feet take that long to heal?

I don’t generally agree with many of your takes this year, but I appreciate the passion you have. I’m really frustrated too right now. I guess my advice let’s all be gentle with each other as fans and let’s commiserate. Let’s call this what it is - a bad manager who is too old, a cheap owner who is out of touch, a front office that is at best neutered and at worst incompetent. We still have talent. Let’s root for it. It doesn’t cost us anything. This has been a gut wrenching season. It reminds me of 2001, when we started 8-19, learned 2000 was a flash in the pan, and had to get behind a clown car of a staff led by a not really great David Wells. Then we lose Thomas to a triceps injury, and then we are forced to endure Royce Clayton’s historic .105 start. It was like a 1-2 sucker punch. There are some silver linings to this season: Andrew Vaughn’s numbers, Kopech and Cease continuing to solidify, Luis Robert looking good, Abreu looking like he may hold form. It isn’t what we wanted, but we have to embrace the bright spots. There’s nothing we can do about this owner, this manager, this front office except call it what it is and hope fo the best for our guys in black.

Can you clarify what you mean by “broken”? The article you are linking claims he had been dealing with a sore foot all (2002) season to that point (while hitting .310). In looking at the game logs he played August 26 and then August 30th. He played 151 games in 2002- how could he have done that on a broken foot?

27 years old....4+ full years in the bigs....Established hitter.....all-star..... and I remember a LOT of folks were calling for Paulie's head by June of 2003. There was a lot of talk that pitchers had "figured him out", and he was even benched as a starter for a couple weeks in June 2003 just to try to give him a reset. Between the 2nd half of 2002 and all of 2003, Konerko's stats: 201G 766 PA 688 AB .247/.306/.400/.706 wRC+ of 85 His fWAR between the entire 2002 and 2003 seasons was a whopping 0.8 total. And this was all in the juiceball era.... Obviously, Paulie turned it around, was a huge reason we won the World Series, and now his number hangs in retirement at the ballpark. My point is that saying any of our hitters are washed up because of the sample size over the last three seasons (a total of 276 games - of which most players have played 200 of them) is absolutely ridiculous when you look at this comparison - because in baseball even one of the very best hitters we have ever had for our team can have a 200 game slump that made him look practically worthless over a long period of time.

I think the jury is out on this. These are still pretty young, pretty insanely talented players dealing with injuries. Also, in this thread and others, why do White Sox fans want so badly to blame someone for these injuries, whether its the player, the training staff, the GM, Tony, etc?

Eh, I know we are all frustrated, but wasting all this energy piling on the $5m a year signing of a player like Leury Garcia seems baffling. Garcia generated 2.08 fWAR / 2.25 rWAR per 162 during his last four years from 2018-2021. The signing was…maybe a $1 million per year overpay at the time? Does it look terrible in hindsight? Sure, if he doesn’t turn this historically bad start around, but season in and season out over the last four years he’s proven to be pretty consistent over each campaign. Yes, his production has been historically abysmal this season, but he is the last player I would blame, when there are so many more cornerstone assets of this organization not producing even close to what we need from them.

On topic, what a different team this looked like after the McGuire-Harrison fiasco.

This Stone monologue is everything.

And that exactly epitomizes 2022 Chicago White Sox baseball. McGuire and Harrison, professional AAAA strikeout artists for hire!

You’re speaking about these moves as if Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t own this team. On the one hand, he’s nickel and diming Giolito over 50k, penny pinching in all the wrong places, and if we go back further, playing weird optics games with the unintentional intentional non-sign of Machado. On the other hand, he massively overpaid for Abreu on a questionable contract which it turns out he was largely accidentally right about. On the one hand, he spent the better part of 4 seasons in a bottom of the barrel rebuild to hoard talent with shrewd GM trades that proved Hahn seemed to know what he was doing, on the other, he hires La Russa to manage the team. This is all to say that Reinsdorf is all about caprice and personal relationships, and “hunches” and “feelings” about things, seemingly. One thing that is clear: he loves Abreu. So Abreu ain’t going anywhere until he bottoms out. He’s already on his way back to perfectly fine DH numbers, especially in this current clown car of AAAA busters (Sheets, Harrison, etc). I personally believe Moncada will be fine but needs a month off. Grandal does seem like a lost cause. Given it’s Jerry and Tony, I try to acquire a catcher immediately, live with Leury at 2nd and Vaughn partially in right, partially in left, leave Abreu at first, and hope like hell this talented team can get hot. I still think they can.

If Anderson is even out 4 weeks, the hole will be far too big to dig out of when he gets back. The season is over.

Yeah to clarify my position: I guess I’m looking at the 2 complete seasons in which Moncada went a combined .291 / .371 / .479 / .850 over 1175 plate appearances as a sign of massive improvement, while a lot of other people seem to look at the 225 PA during the 2020 season in which he had COVID and the 58 PA coming off the oblique strain as surefire evidence Moncada is not up to snuff. I suppose I’m the one who’s crazy, though.

You're correct. I misread that.