southsider2k5

Katz surprises me with all of the praise he had been getting up until now.

He's looked like he'd run 27 different version of Gordon Beckham out there over 5 years.

This is a team that has lost 223 games in the last two years. What exactly have we gotten out of "veteran presence"? Would we have lost 230 games without legends like Rafael Ortega, Martin Maldonado, Matt Thaiss, and Josh Rojas demonstrating how hard to work at absolutely sucking at major league baseball over the last two years? Or if we are bringing in veterans to show the kids how to play, might it actually be better to bring in veterans who can actually demonstrate how to play WELL, and then actually being able to get pieces of value back for them at the trade deadline like a real MLB franchise? This is also such a weird piece of circular logic. We have spent the last two years throwing around all of the buzzwords around WORK ETHIC, and drafting guys with CHARACTER, while needing to surround them with terrible players because they have VETERAN PRESENCE, and I can't help but wonder, we do have coaches right? We do have game day staff? If we draft and develop kids effectively, why are they NOT learning this stuff as they come through the system? Why do they need ANOTHER set of coaches on the field in the form of VETERAN PRESENCE to show them how to play, when those ethics and habits SHOULD have been installed in the years these guys spend as White Sox minor leaguers. Why are we paying these guys millions of dollars to do what our coaches and staff should have already been achieving? Are we not capable of taking raw, but talented guys, who have historically gotten by on talent alone because of their overwhelming abilities at the younger levels, and then adding a major league work ethic to those players with our current MiLB staff? How is having Travis Jankowski roaming around your roster for a while supposed to do that, meanwhile the guys who actually have COACH or MANAGER in the program as their title seemingly unable to do it over the course of the YEARS they have them before they are ever exposed to the MLB roster? I contrast that question with the fact that almost all of the MiLB management and coaches stuck around after the GM change to ask if these were problems from the previous regime, why did we only change the people in charge, and not the people putting in the ACTUAL work with these kids on a daily game day basis?

You say this about Sosa, but can you actually name the last time a White Sox 2B played more than half a season at 2B and had a 101+ OPS or greater?

Is there something wrong with Baldelli? Because the situation in Minnesota is just gross.

And seeing as how Jerry is still the owner, even if it was an F, it wouldn't matter, as Jerry isn't looking for skill, he is looking for someone to mindlessly agree with him as he screws things up Waylon Smithers style.

See I am the opposite. If I remove all context, this is a 102 loss team, a team that has lost the 2nd most games in MLB history over the last 2 and last 3 seasons, and the 2nd worst team in baseball. With no context, this is about the easiest F you will ever give.

When literally all they need to do is quote his own damned posts to show he is wrong/lying.

I am going to go with D- between that and an F. Yes there was "progress" in that we weren't the on going answer to any trivia questions for the history of Major League Baseball this season, but a couple of things stand out about that "progress". If you took this season in isolation, it is an easy F. They lost the third most games in franchise history, and were the 2nd worst team in Major League Baseball. I can give a few points for starting from the literal worst ever, and at least improving on it. Some of us spent last season, and the first half of this season talking about how we needed to get some of these in between guys some playing time to find out what we had in them, and quit wasting time on absolute trash washed up utility players. It FINALLY seemed to happen a couple of months into this season, and lo and behold, some of those guys actually had some talent. Lenyn Sosa, who was buried multiple times, for just flaming dumpster fire's of players over the last year and half, finally forced his way into the line up, and became the Sox most consistent hitter over the course of the season. Much like his MiLB career, he needed PAs to adjust, and he did. Again, outside pitching took us a large leap forward, while the internal candidates mostly floundered or preformed as well as could be expected. The Schultz/HSmith/GTaylor crowd was all very disappointing from a group you are looking for all star starters from. Position players from trades and from the previous regime also seemed to take nice steps forward. Seeing guys like Brooks and Chase push themselves on to the roster is a good thing. The Catching crew is a real bright spot going forward. Miguel Vargas, despite THE SWING CHANGE (don't know if you guys heard about that) ended up having a pretty pedestrian season, even including his blazing hot streak. Dude put up a 100 OPS+ after all of that fire. We seem to have some hitting doing some things at the lowest levels of the minors, such as Caleb Boennmer, and even into the mid minors in the case of the BMontgomery. Colson had the weirdest season I can recall, but seeing him have a huge period of success is a plus and shows he has a real ceiling in the majors. You just have got to keep him healthy and away from whatever seems to drag him down at various points of the season. The inability to really get much of anything at the deadline, again, was also a disappointment, especially since they seemed to be determined to repeat those mistakes in some cases, again.

[slow clap]

Honestly with as much of their defense as they are missing, 2-2 isn't half bad. They seem to be figuring things out on the fly. Despite Crosby just torching the Bears line all day, and Kmet point shaving, the offense still figured out how to put up 1 more than the other team.

Of which he probably took home less than half of that.

No one is outside the reach of Soxtalk admins. No one.

As if you were important enough to tail... we'd just have you killed.

I wish we had half as much power as some people think we do.

Look, you are mad about Jerry and the Sox I get it, but treating Jerry as if he is the dumbest person on the planet somehow getting taken advantage of by the intellectually superior Ishbia is a ridiculous trope. Jerry has been doing this for a long time. He was private equity before this dude was born. Jerry knows full well what he is doing when he sits down in a board room and negotiates a deal for the future of this franchise. He didn't leave out the part where someone is responsible for day to day operations of his two billion dollar investment, and what financial obligations each side has to this structure during the various phases of the deal. He didn't forget to negotiate an end price in a deal for selling the White Sox, in the deal where he is agreeing to sell the White Sox. I don't know why you keep making this absurd allegations which paint Jerry to be some sort of a buffoonish country bumpkin being taking advantage of by a cartoon villain twirling his mustache as he takes advantage of poor ignorant Jerry. It's probably just some weird coping mechanism to push blame away from the current state of this franchise, but none of it is true. If you believe even a small fraction of these posts you make, it is you who needs an education. Again, as you scream at everyone else, take your own advice and quit namecalling and trolling everyone who doesn't agree with you.

You do realize a part of a sales agreement is a price, right?

Hell some of those guys are already hurt and/or weren't that good to begin with.

Especially not you...

If this had been 10 years ago the Sox would have already had the 4th pick in the 24 draft, the #1 pick in the 25 draft, and be on their way to the #2 pick in 2026. Instead we got 5th, 10th and TBA.

Nah, there is no sinkhole! This is exactly how a real house looks!

Not to mention that entire group was putting up good to great numbers, and then for some reason it all fell apart for some odd reason right about the time someone decided Ricky wasn't the guy to get them from point B to C, and instead went into the toilet.

This is why having a producting drafting AND development system in place is so important. We have seen low payroll teams have varying levels of success, but the ones that are the most successful do the best jobs at selling high and developing their own cheap talent. We can't exist through trading our stars for talent being the only source of developed talent in our majors.

If you are looking for a playoff team, you need front-line star players. You don't have them in the rest of the guys, and you need them from that Taylor/Schultz/Smith group, because we sure as hell aren't going to go out and spend $300 million on a starting star pitcher.