caulfield12

"But putting up a statue of Buehrle is a reminder of how thin the White Sox pantheon is. Frank Thomas is our Ruth, Mantle, and Mays. Mark is our Seaver, Koufax, and (yes) Maddux. The tenth highest career bOWAR in Yankees history is Aaron Judge, at 52.2 and counting. OK, we’re obviously not the Yankees. For Cleveland, it’s Joe Jackson at 35.0. Kenny Lofton is in ninth at 38.8. For the White Sox, only five players have a career bOWAR of over 35 (four are higher than Lofton’s) and Frank Thomas is the only one most of us ever saw play. And tenth on our career bOWAR list is the immortal Ray Durham at 28.2. Maybe the next 124 years will be better." soxmachine.com fan comments

The only time it was close was 2005...and JR's relationship was more with Konerko Buehrle, maybe even Ozzie, compared to the fans themselves.

https://soxmachine.com/2025/01/2025-soxfest-review-party-was-great-wish-the-team-was-better/

Starting to feel like China...you only have one choice of official news, which is always the most positive, rosy view of the White Sox. This is exactly the reason Ricketts isn't under any real pressure to win on the Northside. How many times have fans been fooled? Well there's White Flag, preceded by the 1994 strike year where ownership interests were put in front of fans...the 2005 team not being followed up successfully. 2013-2019 years in the wilderness. Covid year, nobody could actually enjoy in person. Worst season in pro baseball history. Yet another these kids can play. It's almost as bad as the Guardians going back to the early 90s...except they're actually successful at starting over again and again. Twins, threatened with constraction by the commissioner, more successful. Tigers as well. Royals with two consecutive WS appearances and then a 10 fWAR superstar. A new stadium seemingly an impossibility...but just suck it up and deal with it.

https://www.mlb.com/news/munetaka-murakami-guide

https://global.espn.com/football/story/_/id/43569827/man-united-old-trafford-regeneration-project-government-support Yes the White Sox are pretty much the antithesis of Man United...even the version nearer to relegation than the top of the EPL standings.

Sure, but you spend legit money on someone like Chapman and you can end up with Cole Ragans...who has been even more impactful than even Crochet on AL Central fortunes.

Such is the state of the Sox today...feels as if quite a few of the kids of SoxTalk members aren't even invested in the team anymore.

https://soxmachine.com/2025/01/white-sox-announce-mark-buehrle-statue-to-energize-soxfest-2025-schedule/ From Fri night but still an excellent Fegan read... "The sponsors in the SoxFest picture seem pretty telling. Guaranteed Rate: The Sox are guaranteed to hit new lows. Beggars Pizza: Reflects how the team cries poor and acts like beggars during free agency. Blue Moon: Symbolizing how rare success is on the South Side. Wintrust: Something they’ll never achieve as long as Jerry’s in charge." Pretty funny line in the comments...

delete double post

But we should give him credit when Nutting in Pitt didn't? At least they (Pirates) currently have an exciting young team and especially dominant cost controlled rotation when they add Bubba Chandler to Skenes and Jones. At least two years ahead of the Sox rebuild...if not three.

https://sports.yahoo.com/5-predictions-for-the-2025-mlb-season-the-yankees-will-be-better-than-the-mets-the-as-will-make-the-playoffs-and-more-210318360.html A's predicted to make playoffs...

"We asked seven MLB.com writers to each pick out a club they see as a strong candidate to improve its 2024 record by at least 10 wins. (The lower the ‘24 win total, the greater the opportunity for improvement, so we set aside the record-setting 121-loss White Sox for the purposes of this exercise.)" https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-teams-set-to-make-biggest-improvement-in-2025

Changing his mind???

Looks like the players were happy to be together at least...have to be bonded together to weather a storm like the final two months last season. Nice to see all the smiles. Plus, no Gavin Sheets (finally).

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/01/25/photos-soxfest-live-ramova-theatre/ Tauchman tossing t-shirts lol? Looks like Thorpe was still able to participate. Schultz is gargantuan. Teel with the bushy moustache and Meidroth Prince Variation look. Who actually buys a Sox jersey with the theatre name on the back lol? JR must have disappeared quickly from the balcony...guess there's no embarrassing video out on social media, damage contained.

Gus Varland autographs going like hotcakes? Was wrong about JR staying away completely...but seems he was not greeted as he might have hoped. Maybe he was expecting cheers for a Top 3 farm system, but that came at the expense of Garrett Crochet. Wonder if the 62 Mets had a fan fest that off season, and how it went with Casey Stengel...

"Marinaccio has some MLB experience and even a couple of saves for the Yankees. He is about 30 years old and has a better than strike out per inning history in MLB and even much better in the minors. He will likely fit into the middle of the Padres pen picture. He is promising, but probably walks a few too many at this point. He could possibly be an Estrada like pick up for this season, if things work out well. This is probably the closest thing we have seen to actually adding MLB talent to our roster this offseason." SD fans already drinking the Marinara Sauce...first move of their entire off season. https://www.gaslampball.com/2025/1/25/24351545/good-morning-san-diego-padres-acquire-reliever-for-bullpen-depth

https://www.mlb.com/news/athletics-excited-for-two-way-prospect-shotaro-morii-s-potential

Thought this was a joke about The Bear.

At the very least they should have made small posters or minor league cards or at least 8x10's or whatever available at reasonable prices...no baseball signings is so odd. Bats and gloves and other things, sure whatever. In this day and age of instant printing, seems not entirely un reasonable to have out something together for kids at least. They are your future fans after all.

Predictable...at least he knows the division. Not sure about his stuff anymore. Or if he's a flip candidate or simply blocking the path of all those young pitchers who need to establish themselves in 2025.

So basically you're saying that Sox Top 30 and MLB Pipeline use a totally different standard from Baseball America for prospect eligibility? Why? What was the required number of starts to lose eligibility? Not by innings pitched? https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/225479/ 8-9 starts has never been the criteria. He's at 44 1/3 IP...so he's still technically a rookie pitcher at the beginning of 2025. "45 total days on an active Major League roster during the Championship Season (excluding time on the Injured List)." Somehow he got... Service Time 0.111 (2024) So he should be ineligible at both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America...but for some reason that's not the case here.

"Prospect eligibility" shouldn't be dramatically different between the two lists...usually 50 ip 130 at bats (rookie status) or days on the active roster, although top prospects ts almost never lose eligibility NY sitting on the roster and not playing at all. I just re read the article at Pipeline but failed to see/find their official definition. https://www.mlb.com/news/top-100-prospects-list-mlb-pipeline-preseason-2025?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage

Honestly...anyone still having 100% faith/belief/confidence in the White Sox legitimately fixing things and being back to the same consistently competitive team they were from 2000-2012 without an ownership change might be the ones needing therapy. We might have more in common with "abuse" survivors, but more of the psychological variety...having mostly inherited Sox fandom for family reasons, it's almost something tantamount to Stockholm Syndrome. Not all of us can be like Ptac and Texsox and just enjoy the essence of the game in some kind of esoteric James Earl Jones Field of Dreams sense...but if y/our team is already eliminated on Opening Day, it takes a lot of the enjoyment of the sport away. Especially with the amount of time energy and effort following closely over 162 games, ST and then another month of playoffs requires. You can follow other teams, prospects/draft, MiLB, NCAA...fantasy or rotisserie teams, but it's just not quite the same.