caulfield12

The one big difference is that they already had Altuve and I'm pretty sure Keuchel as well. We don't have anything close...Moncada's the closest approximation, but he's closer to being out of baseball than being the AL MVP, unless we can turn back the clock to last April 23rd and pretend he's a 920ish OPS guy.

Except then we'd end up with Jeremy Haber (Hahn trained to his core) as GM and nothing would change. I'm starting to think that we have a better chance of fighting for new tax laws to punish capital gains prohibitively....or that propose 70% tax in wealth over $10 million, that might scare JR and his family enough to sell the White Sox before it becomes a reality in 2021 or 2022 (now I'm not saying it's a good idea, it just needs to be a credible threat to all the rich people and corporations in America that it just MIGHT happen...) Because we'd be better off spending time and energy advocating for that (which would lead to an ownership sale) than rearranging the deck chairs in the front office. All of that's just window dressing, in reality. As long as KW and JR are still around, nothing's ever going to change, period. The Luis Robert signing was some alternative reality/alternate reality false flag that got everyone's hopes up they were actually going to change the way they do (and approach) business for the modern, analytics-driven era of baseball management.

Driveline miracles, baby!!! He's rediscovered the missing magic after everyone tinkered with him, and pushed him to the big leagues well before he was ready. Do you honestly believe Nova or even Rodon are part of the long-term solution in Chicago? Of course not. Same with Banuelos and Medeiros. All of the focus should be on Lopez, Giolito, Kopech, Cease, Dunning and getting whatever they can out of Covey and Fulmer.

Gordon Beckham was also a "solid kid," the rock on which they were going to build the franchise, the Derek Jeter of his time...I guess now that's passed onto Nick Madrigal.

Why would you choose the White Sox over the Phillies, though? Just compare the players they've brought in this offseason, versus our load of veteran crap. In fact, Harper would have even less incentive to play with Manny's buddies, in all likelihood. He'd think it was a total joke that a big league club tried to recruit a guy's friends in order to get him to sign a contract for less money. That reeks of desperation to a star athlete like Harper. He's already familiar with the National League East....unless he was going to the Cubs or the Dodgers (closer to his Vegas home), there's just no compelling reason why Harper would choose Chicago. At the very least, he'd be on non-competitive teams for two seasons (now we ALL have to assume there's just no way we get an impact FA next off-season), versus being right in the thick of it from the very beginning in an exciting and competitive AL East. If you had to choose between half your season in NY, Miami, Atlanta and his old stomping grounds in our nation's capital...who in God's green earth would choose cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City (a great city for suburban working parents, and the Plaza's cool, but C'MON!!!) and Minnesota (another NICE city, but it's NOT Vegas, most assuredly). Line up those four cities next to each other...it just doesn't compute. At all. PS But we had the best PowerPoint/Video Display Board approach...YAY!

Just imagine if we ended up with Kolek or Aiken that year...well, Aiken turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise for the Astros. With our luck, he'll probably become a Cy Young award winner for the Indians. It's so easy to say...well, we almost had Benintendi or Nola or Buehler or Tatis (well, we DID have him) or Machado, but then you look up at your roster and it's still going to be impossible to get past the 72-74 win mark and you start thinking they're going to be "mired in mediocrity" forever, it's just that they took the most creative/inventive path to get there. Especially with Alonso/Jay/Castillo on the roster...personifying that failure on an everyday basis for everyone who comes into the locker room.

Maybe it was his son? If it wasn't for that coin-flip in 2008...and had we lost for the umpteenth time since 2001 to the Twins, I can't even imagine the Voldemort/Grindelwald Dark Cloud that would be descending over SoxTalk. Heck, instead of the old WSI "dark cloud" insult if you were a bit pessimistic about this organization, we'll have a unique phenomenon where the 5-10% left who are still positive stand out like VENOM in the comic books. Stockholm Syndrome, of a sort. At any rate, I give those few remaining posters who are trying to see the silver lining here credit, but most of us just don't have the capacity to apologize for the embarrassment that is this ownership group and front office any longer. This was the final straw...sure, we might tune into some games, but it's not going to be the passion and excitement that was there a couple of years ago when the Sale and Eaton trades went down and it looked like we were well on our way to building a mini-dynasty in the AL Central.

Negative infinity is not an available answer. Actually, it's JR that should be getting the grade here, as there's no way to separate things out fairly between him, Kenny Williams and Hahn. But, as everyone has been writing today...it's almost impossible to come up with POSITIVE traits or characteristics that this front office is in the "top tier" of MLB at performing. We might have said "drafting and developing relief pitchers," but that's even in doubt after the last couple of seasons and how they went out and poured a lot of wasted money into two veteran relievers who will have nothing to do with our rebuild and will probably accumulate 1.2 fWAR between the pair.

Or pitchers like Covey and Fulmer who are going to be blocked by the likes of the forgettable Ivan "Thankfully I'm Not James Shields But Will Inevitably Be Compared to Him" Shields or Banuelos.

You can read every single post I've ever made here...I don't think I have once viewed or perceived him as anything resembling a hero, because he's FAR FAR FAR from it. But it's nice the rose-colored glasses are all off and the Kool Aid drinking honeymoon period is over. Now, there's just the cold hard reality of how difficult rebuilding really is...and this is with the worst division in baseball and the head start of trading off 3 Top 50 talents, not to mention the general ineptitude of the last decade...which provided us Carlos Rodon, who was supposed to be a sure-fire TOR starter. The seeming ease with which the Royals, Mets, Cubs, Indians, Braves and Astros rose to the top of the pack on the backs of young players has created an illusion that this was an easy thing to pull off. And it's REALLY not, at least...at least not for this front office.

Well, yeah...rushing Luis Robert, Cease and Madrigal up to the big leagues to "compete now" with their new veteran core in place would be so...2016. The only question is what low-level prospect we trade blows up and becomes the next future MLB cornerstone. A while ago, it was Bryce Bush as part of a rumored Joc Pederson deal.

Brokeback Mountain quote?

This has been the most correct statement uttered in the last 24-36 hours.

We won’t forget, because Alonso’s deal had the same idiotic 550 plate appearance escalator. I think I’ll get more joy out of the Sox getting stuck paying even MORE money not to have Machado on the Sox roster...but I’m sure Hahn will do anything possible to dump him unceremoniously off the roster in June and July. Heck, we might as well just buy out his entire contract and give him back to the Indians so Palka can be assured of regular at-bats.

Anyone willing to believe JR will shell out $350-375 million (because it has to be 10-15% over the Phillies’ best offer) and NO OPT OUTS?

Somebody better check in with Hector Gomez and Dan Clark to make sure they’re still breathing...wherever they are.

That’s the last thing these front office types would do...they actually think the fans are on THEIR side, and understand the cold rationality borne out of their time at Stanford, Northwestern, Michigan, Harvard, etc. All that education is worthless if the ownership group is in some type of reverse V for Vendetta campaign to put a ceiling on salaries. Of course, there’s no cap on dumb FA signings from Tier B/C/D and the most useless collection of overpaid veterans that when added up collectively represented the $50 million we weren’t willing to guarantee. So let’s freaking spend that money on our current collection of free agents that won’t sell a single ticket to a White Sox game this year. Brilliant marketing strategy. Not only that, let’s create a scenario where we even resent those players who are on the roster because of what they are most decidedly NOT, which is one superstar player to build around. Gross incompetence. KW is the worst right now to me because of his over the top reaction of shock that Machado actually had the temerity to go elsewhere.

I don’t think anyone desired this feeling that pretty much we’re never going to get to the World Series again due to deliberate self-sabotage...

Colome for Narvaez is the exact opposite of another Rule 5, Quintana for Jimenez/Cease...it won’t end well. Eaton trade looks okay, but Giolito was expected to be better than the worst pitcher in baseball by most reasonable Sox fans.

Sorry, got the schedule wrong because it automatically gave me the China time... This Sunday, 2 p.m. Padres vs. White Sox

10-15% is about our going ratio for legit Top Ten prospects the last two decades...

Not enough money left behind, and travel/logistical nightmares. I’m more likely to buy Roberto Clemente’s old house than for this to actually happen...

Scratch Puerto Rico after the hurricane...

Only $225-250 million with the Sox and Nats both out...

Attendance would be higher than 30-40% of the years at Comiskey...especially 1970s and most of the 80’s.