caulfield12

But what kind of message does that send to all of our younger players...who are supposed to be the core of this team’s next championship roster? It’s not like they are going to be able to block it out.

He (Preller) made numerous transactions over the 2014-2015 offseason in what came to be known as "Prellerpalooza." He traded Yasmani Grandal to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Matt Kemp and Tim Federowicz. He partook in a three team trade for Wil Myers and Ryan Hanigan. He traded prospects to the Braves for Justin Upton. He signed James Shields to a 4-year contract. He made several smaller moves as well, as he launched the Padres into playoff talks before the season began. He concluded the offseason by trading for Braves closer Craig Kimbrel just hours before the season opened on April 5. Despite his off-season trades, the Padres in June 2015 were still under performing. This has partially led to the firing of manager, Bud Black, on June 15, 2015. On September 15, 2016, Preller was suspended for 30 days by MLB without pay for failing to disclose medical information, regarding the trade that sent Drew Pomeranz to the Red Sox.[9] wikipedia.com To acquire Justin Upton, Craig Kimbrel, Derek Norris, Wil Myers and Matt Kemp for the 2015 season, the Padres coughed up prospects Trea Turner, Yasmani Grandal, Joe Ross, Mallex Smith, Max Fried, Jesse Hahn, Matt Wisler and Jake Bauers. Each of those players has already played in the majors, and Turner looks like a star in the making. The Padres also gave up a competitive balance pick to the Braves that turned into top-50 prospect Austin Riley. Nevertheless, Kimbrel had a 1.5 fWAR, Upton a 3.4 fWAR, Derek Norris a 2.4 fWAR, Wil Myers (5.4/3 seasons for average of 1.8), James Shields (-0.1 for Padres and Sox in 2015/16) and Matt Kemp (1.9 over 2015/16). Of course, as we well know, Shields sucked, and so did Kemp...but at least he proved that he wasn’t totally incompetent in adding veterans to a team, unlike Rick Hahn. Preller would of course go on to convince Hahn to part with Fernando Tatis, Jr., in the ill-fated James Shields trade that in retrospect marked the beginning of the rebuild for the White Sox...even though we didn’t know it at the time. The biggest points to take away from this ongoing debacle: 1) Preller proved he could recover from a near death blow to management’s confidence in him by rebounding from trying to jump the gun on competing and getting the go-ahead to spend more money on Latin American free agents than any team in history, which had been his original plan (much like Hahn being forced to “compete on the fly” all along.) The same experiment quickly failed in SD and was scrapped after less than two seasons, whereas the White Sox experiment with the wing and a prayer approach of B and C Tier free agents and trades for guys like Samardzija and Frazier went on basically from 2010 through 2016, a full year years without a course correction. https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/padres-got-what-they-paid-for-in-suspended-a-j-preller-091516 https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/09/padres-front-office-split-on-a-j-preller.html 2) Despite all of his scandals and detractors , Preller persevered and maintained the confidence of his management group...and quickly established his bonafides by adding Tatis, Jr., to a group that would quickly become the top-ranked farm system of nearly every evaluation service out there. Hahn took three Top 50 talents in the game, including a future Hall of Fame pitcher...and turned them into anywhere from the 4th to 13th ranked farm system in the game, and that includes the cloud of uncertainty that is hanging over Michael Kopech, an arm injury waiting to happen that PTAC called out months in advance (we won’t go into Moncada and Giolito.) 3) Preller won over Machado, Lozano and his ownership group by taking the most logical path...securing a superstar player in his prime for his age 26-30 seasons, but leaving the door open for that player to outperform his contract and go on to greener pastures, when an impressive farm system would be well-prepared to replace him (and opening up payroll for extending their young core players.) Hahn, on the other hand, apparently scared Reinsdorf with his history of free agent ineptitude into believing that Machado was more likely to end up like Heyward or Yu Darvish...it was this willingness of Preller to bet on Machado, instead of wading year after year through bargain-basement free agents, that eventually separated the men from the boys. Hahn is Mr. Risk Aversion, so he pretty much fits in perfectly with JR...it’s all about capital preservation, versus being a visionary. Btw, KW and Paddy are actually the ones who were responsible for the likes of Jose Abreu and Luis Robert. Hahn was also decidedly wrong in his assessments of Alex Gordon, Masahiro Tanaka, Yoenis Cespedes...it’s understandable why JR wasn’t able to trust Hahn completely with such an abysmal FA track record. 4) “I agree completely with the opt out. If they indeed put forth an offer of 8 for $250m, then 10 for $300 was actually an 8 year discount. If he opts out after 5, you save money during the 5 years, you make your fanbase happy, you increase attendance for 5 years, you jumpstart the rebuild, you get a gold glove all star at a position where you don't have a lot of minor league prospects for 5 years, you don't even come close to having to pay him for years 9 and 10, and you don't even come close to the "$300 million level." Hard to see how that is "exclusively beneficial to the player.” HeHatesShe, February 20th, 2019 Hahn has to be able to see this from beyond the point of view or perspective of ownership versus player. It’s three dimensional chess, not two-dimensional checkers. Unsurprisingly, he never took the fans into consideration, at least they weren't foremost in his thinking process. He also should have had enough confidence in his own staff/scouts/development guys that they already had their potential 3B in the system to effectively (and certainly more cheaply) replace Machado...because that’s the entire point of a farm system, right? The fact is the Padres would love for Machado to play so well for a half decade that he opts out. If they haven't won a championship by 2023, then the whole thing was doomed to fail anyway, right? 5) If it’s not Machado or Harper at age 26, when on God’s green earth is the right time to strike ever going to occur with a premier free agent? When is the risk/reward or opportunity cost going to be 100% to the advantage of the club versus the player and his agent? Paralysis by analysis. We don’t need lawyers or businessmen, we need leaders who will articulate a vision for the future and stick to it. We’ve done the exact opposite in all of our garbage moves for veterans this offseason. None of them are likely to help the Chicago White Sox in their stated goal of building a championship-caliber roster. 6) They then compounded their error by saying that they were out on Bryce Harper...gifting him to the Phillies at a rate that's going to be $20-60 million below what they were expecting to pay when this entire process of free agency for these two guys kicked off in October. WHY WHY WHY would you want to help a competitor like that, even if they're in another league...they might be a future World Series opponent. Was it not bad enough to help out the Indians from their financial vise by taking a 740 OPS-ing DH coming off a terrible 2nd half? Apparently not.

Other than Madrigal, Rodon and Anderson...this entire team's pretty much externally created. I guess you can count Luis Robert and Jose Abreu if you want to be particularly charitable, and that's pretty much about it (and Jose and Carlos are unlikely to even be around for the next playoff team, unless they sign Abreu to a 4-5 year extension). Fulmer, Hansen, Burdi, Collins, Burger...each looking more and more like "suspects" than true prospects.

You should give it to KW and Marco Paddy, they're the ones who did all the heavy lifting/scouting...

It's actually a really cool logo and color scheme for the White Sox... https://www.mlb.com/cut4/renaming-all-30-mlb-teams/c-303254978 The White Sox don't even wear white socks, so the name barely makes sense. With the legendary one-of-a-kind broadcaster Hawk Harrelson now retired, there's only one option: Name the team for him and his nose. Harkening back to when the White Sox wore the sky blues, and Harrelson's love of a light blue suit, the team also has a new sky blue look. Am on board for the new Padres' logo as well (and no, there's not a Machado reference) https://www.mlb.com/gameday/white-sox-vs-padres/2019/02/24/566261#game_state=preview,lock_state=preview,game_tab=,game=566261 2 p.m. Sunday (Chicago White Sox vs. San Diego Tatichados) KWFN, FM 97.3 (no t.v. coverage listed, unless MLB.com or they do those local/free broadcasts)

Likewise, I think we all have a favorite uncle or grandparent or cousin who was probably a huge White Sox or at least baseball fan. For me, it was my grandfather, and one of my dad's brothers...and my mom's sister's husband, Uncle Frank...who was of course from Dubuque, Iowa (you couldn't write this better in a Hollywood script) who worked for the Dubuque Packing Company, smoked too many cigarettes, drank too much Coors or Miller Lite and was a total character in the "good sense" of that word was it was applied back in the 1970's and 1980's. My least favorite uncle, my mother's brother...just happened to be a Cubs' fan, and a fanatic at that. He tried to convert me, but it was already too late. I already had my 1979 Topps Claudell Washington card and the rest was history, even though my very first big league game was in that very same year, Gary Templeton's St. Louis Cardinals in Wrigley Field against the powder blue Cubbies. Didn't take. I was already a lifelong White Sox fan at the age of 10...all because Claudell Washington sent my self-addressed stamped envelope back with an autographed card back to me in the mail.

That would have been a devastating blow to the NCAA tournament. Bet the shoe reps are really getting grilled about right now...granted, he's such a force of nature, it's not completely surprising he literally exploded through his sneakers. Don't think I've ever seen anything like that, not making a cut or feint. That dude's built like Karl Malone or Robert Tractor Traylor.

There's no point to boo Alonso and Jay when JR and Hahn should be the ones getting introduced and booed by the crowd...there's nothing that they did wrong to deserve that. In fact, it's more likely to have an even further negative effect on getting free agents to want to ever come to play for the White Sox...I'm assuming the fans are smart enough to distinguish between the responsible and innocent parties. And it's not like either of them ever promised to deliver Machado, because it was never in their hands in the first place.

All the more reason why professional athletes have to take the guaranteed money (and as much of it as possible)...because of fluke things like this. Imagine he'll still get drafted in the top 3 overall, yes?

With the economic climate shifting to such priority areas as the environment, health care, infrastructure and education...I'd have a hard time imagining that public financing is realistically going to be part of any municipal plans in the future. Look what happened to Amazon HQ2. Imagine trying to get through public funding for a sports facility in today's climate, let alone a decade from now. Is anyone familiar enough with Portland, Nashville, Charlotte, Montreal, Las Vegas or the San Antonio/Austin area to provide a gauge of how such a projected would be greeted by local voters/legislators in terms of possible MLB expansion?

I will sell the rights to my avatar for my $99.99, if you act within the next hour...and I'll even throw in two My Pillows and a complimentary Grand Slam Breakfast at Denny's to seal the deal.

I'm guessing you're referring to the Atlanta Braves here....

How in God's green earth are you racking up so many likes for seemingly benign comments, lol?

You know things are bad when SoxFest goes all dark web/Venom....

Kyle Tucker also comes to mind....who did the White Sox get out of that draft?

Moncada/Baez I'll give you, but Giolito and Keuchel are completely different as pitchers...and in terms of expectations, Giolito was projected to be the best RH pitcher in baseball, Keuchel was a lightly-regarded 7th round draft pick out of Danny Wright's University of Arkansas.

It's called DEVELOPMENT. Something the White Sox haven't excelled in since 2008 with Alexei/Carlos Quentin/Danks/Floyd.

We can look at Jose Altuve and Mike Trout their first year/s in the big leagues as well, yes? THE POINT IS TALENT IDENTIFICATION, and EVEN RESULTS/IMPROVEMENT. Not falling off the map like Gordon Beckham or Dayan Viciedo after promising starts.

That would be true if you went 1999-2010 or you could even extend to 2012. The track record since Floyd/Danks in 2007-08 hasn't been that great, at all. Hudson...who we dumped after 3 starts for Jackson. Phil Humber? You're acting like it's 2005/06 and Jose Contreras is back to being the best pitcher in all of baseball. Don Cooper is still his same irascible, moody self...it's just that he's gotten TOO comfortable the last decade, and is living based on the approach/es of a different era of baseball that doesn't exist anymore.

After his junior year at Arkansas, the Houston Astros selected Keuchel in the seventh round of the 2009 Major League Baseball (MLB) draft.[3] He signed with the Astros and began his professional career with the Tri-City ValleyCats of the Class A-Short Season New York–Penn League, where he had a 2.70 ERA. He began the 2010 season with the Lancaster JetHawks of the Class A-Advanced California League. After posting a 3.36 ERA, the Astros promoted him to the Corpus Christi Hooks of the Class AA Texas League in July, where he had a 4.70 ERA for the remainder of the season. He began the 2011 season with Corpus Christi, and after pitching to a 3.17 ERA, received a promotion to the Oklahoma City RedHawks of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League, where he struggled with a 7.50 ERA.[2] WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU GETTING THAT HE WAS ALMOST OUT OF BASEBALL? Simply based on a small sample size from OKC?

Of course, he's also the only All-Star/MVP caliber player that we developed in a generation...and we couldn't even build a core around him, so in the end, it was all pointless. I'm sure if he gets into the HoF he won't go in with a White Sox hat on, that much is guaranteed.

Maybe not...the one that brought in the amazing Jeff Keppinger as the headliner after we were leading the AL Central for 80% of the season wasn't that great. Of course, nobody was emotionally involved in that particular acquisition, except his parents and Joe Maddon (the proud papa of one of about 10 super-utility guys the Rays developed over the last 15 years).

Not unless you count Daniel Hudson...or Jose Quintana, who obviously came over from the Mets/Yankees and spent almost no time in our minor league system. Seems like a theme...because Alexei Ramirez and Jose Abreu also skipped over our minor leagues. Maybe we just need to develop players by completely bypassing our minor league system altogether.

We only need to trade for the next Christian Yelich (highway robbery, there), sign the next LoCain at a fair price, add in Moustakas (oops, that ship sailed)...maybe Marwin Gonzalez instead...and possess a starting rotation that runs 7-8 deep with one of the best, if not THE best, bullpen in MLB. Since we're going with Astros model, might as well throw Keuchel in there as well, or Gio, at least. (It would also help to have a blocked 1B from another organization fall directly into their laps.) Easy, peezy.

Keith Law's going to to rank us 20th next year...because Kopech and Cease will have graduated and our first round draft pick this summer will already be up at the big league level in August and September.