caulfield12

Once upon a time, the White Sox had their minor league affiliate there. John Danks might stop by for a visit, lol. Can't remember if it was AA (Southern League) or AAA, the team's changed affiliations now a number of times...when I was growing up and then got a job working for the Augusta GreenJackets (Sally League), they were firmly-entrenched with the REDS. Seems they were a Sox affiliate in the mid to late 80's, if I'm remembering correctly. Then we were with Birmingham.

I was worried about what your reaction would be to all this. You'll probably calm down after a week or two. I mean, if Michael Kopech didn't get hurt and Yoan Moncada/Giolito both were studs/All-Stars last year, we wouldn't even likely have been dipping our toes into free agency until the 2019-20 cycle. Just by the process of the Indians eventually being dismantled, it means SOMEONE will have to represent the AL Central in the playoffs in 2021-22-23. The White Sox (still) are as good a bet as ANY team to get there in the division, even if you're looking at things from a Keith Law/Everything White Sox-Related Is NOT AWESOME and we're 13th in minor league talent instead of Top 3-5 perspective. If you look at all those examples like Cespedes and Gordon and Tanaka, all three of them wouldn't have worked out successfully for the White Sox...although you can certainly argue Tanaka would have helped I guess. Playoff team, though? No way. This White Sox team making the playoffs and even winning a series or two is still largely dependent on the talent existing on our 40 man roster. If Manny and Harper had signed way back in November, and there hadn't been such a LONG LONG time for everyone to have their hopes raised, we all wouldn't be having the reactions we're having...even if it's justified, they came up JUST SHORT for like the millionth time as Sox fans, we're so conditioned to finishing 2nd or not having nice and shiny things that the first real shot since Albert Belle of regaining legitimacy and we're all still a bit shell-shocked (especially the Padres of ALL teams.)

I think you just came up with a new marketing phrase for the next Brooks Boyer...that's GOOD. Our Milk Bone dog biscuits get gobbled up by the rabid dog (think To Kill a Mockingbird) down the street before our puppy can even reach them.

And the magic of Herm Schneider, keeping players healthier. Now we're just stuck with Benetti's attempts to be funnier than he really is and chummier with a former professional athlete in Stone than he has earned the right to be.

Or let's conjure up an image of poor Brooks Boyer for just a moment, lol....poor guy, it must be like that movie 28 DAYS LATER after the news broke today. Can't imagine trying to drum up support for White Sox ticket sales on a day like today. I'd just be saying, "Well sir, it's completely understandable and I don't blame you one bit for wanting to wait things out before jumping back on board and buying a partial season ticket plan."

Apathy/indifference is DEATH to sports franchises. Having hate/love for your favorite franchise, that's MUCH preferable to NO feeling at all, right?

We've definitely passed the Cleveland Browns in ineptitude. We're #5, moved up 1 from #6. Only four more spots to go to advance to #1. That's a major accomplishment with four professional sports leagues. Even more amazing is that KW and Hahn have survived it all, just like GarPAX. See an emerging trend there?

I wish my Chinese students would get so upset about something (besides the latest computer games) that they could develop an array of adjectives beyond "fine/okay/so-so" in describing their feelings about something, lol.

To top it off, Iowa BB of course had to return to earth after two miracle victories...you know as a fan of either Iowa sports or the Chicago White Sox, you're doomed to not expect too much, like national championships or playoff appearances. I wish it was so easy to transfer allegiances...one of my best friends from HS (went to NW, Iowa Dental School), his two kids went from Portland all the way to the Univ. of Alabama (his wife's from ATL), every year he gets to cheer for a national championship team (didn't quite turn out that way this year). Whereas with either Iowa or the White Sox, you know you're pretty much doomed to mediocrity from the very beginning...not to expect too much. One Sweet 16 would be AMAZING. The last was 1998!! Iowa football was mercifully denied a spot in the Final 4 that went to MSU. For the White Sox, of course we had 2005, and most fans probably felt in their heart of hearts that that would never even happen. My two uncles on my mother's side were Cubs and White Sox fans...one drank Coors/smoked and was a die-hard union (worked for Dubuque Packing) guy, the other drank Budweiser, so of course you can imagine which one became my favorite team.

Late 80's and late 90's (after Belle/Ventura left) were also bad....but not six consecutive years of really bad or outright boring, I guess we had the first five weeks of the 2016 season, before the ill-fated Tatis/Shields trade that currently symbolizes the low point for this franchise in terms of futility. Of course, the late 80's, we had a string of draft picks that hit, McDowell, Ventura, Frank Thomas, Alex Fernandez, etc. You knew that team was on the way to becoming a monster, but then we got hit by the baseball strike in 1994 (largely due to JR, so always self-inflicted wounds).

It's easier to root for NL teams, at least they're not directly competing with the Sox...at least not very often. The Cardinals were always my NL team, but I'm going to have to decide between the Brewers (well, basically anyone who can get the best of the Cubs) and the Padres now for the NL. It's going to be surreal if the Padres' rebuild works like a charm...and the White Sox continue to fall flat, after watching what we have witnessed this past decade with the Cubs and Astros, even the Royals. The Padres STILL have a long ways to go to surpass the Dodgers, obviously...but at least there's an underdog to cheer for, I suppose (especially with Puig gone, haha).

Sure, Ron Harper. Or Derek Harper. KW always gets his guy...sometimes decades later.

You're WAY WAY WAY under on that one...remember, it was just a year ago we had the franchise set up to completely dominate for the upcoming decade. How things have changed in one year.

It would be interesting to track season ticket movement (assuming they don't sign Harper, lol) from this day forward...how many season ticket renewals we lose after this upcoming season if the Sox continue to flounder and can't come close to competing with the depleted but resilient Indians. We'll be back at that magic 1.3 million in attendance mark where it actually starts hurting ownership (but not nearly as much as before the advent of MLB ADV MEDIA).

He stumbled in the 2014-15 cycle, won back the confidence of management and regrouped. Bottom line, he was able to convince a debt-laden ownership group to go after a legit, comes around as an opportunity once every 5-10 years superstar (where the stars perfectly aligned for the White Sox to strike), something our own GM failed to do, yet again. He has the consensus best farm system in ALL OF BASEBALL. Whereas Keith Law now has the White Sox as, what, 13th? And that's still including Michael Kopech on the lists, in a technicality. What success stories does Rick Hahn? I guess the best example is a catcher we thought so much of we traded four years of control away for a forgettable and overpaid (and superfluous without Machado) reliever who will probably return us yet another forgettable bevy of minor league prospects that will never even see the light of day.

Not, but he was Assistant GM and in charge of Latin America/Scouting. The Chicago White Sox had an eight-year offer worth a guaranteed $240 million and enough incentives to get Machado up to $300 million. "We only feel short by $60 million," a White Sox official quipped.

It's called investing all your resources in scouting and development, just like he did with the Rangers. It was NO coincidence. Compare the Rangers' record of success in this area over the last 15-20 years to what we've seen from the White Sox. It's just embarrassing, and we can't keep blaming something unfortunate (but classic White Sox comedy of errors) that happened nearly a decade ago for the current levels of incompetence/ineptitude. How can the Padres have so many Latin American prospects that they signed and developed (and not traded for) when they should have no clear advantage over a large or at least medium-market club like the White Sox? When's the last time we got a pitcher or position player out of Japan or Korea?

Where are our 5 (more) Luis Roberts? Because if you're going to go the development route, you can't put all your eggs in just a few baskets (the Quintana trade, Luis Robert and counting on high draft picks, but not ever drafting #1/2)... You have to build up so much depth that some of them simply HAVE to make it, like the Padres seemingly have done blowing through all their budgets in a couple of free agent cycles there. Do we have a surefire 3+ fWAR outfielder out of those six, once you get past Eloy Jimenez (who's more ideally suited for DH)? I would imagine every White Sox fan (about right now) would take ONE guaranteed success in Machado (well, nothing's 100% guaranteed) than believe in this front office's ability to identify and develop young players from the ages of 16-18 into their early 20's.

It's kind of amazing when you look at how the Padres and Hoyer set up the Cubs' current run, beginning with Rizzo. Now we're essentially doing the opposite, gifting them Tatis, Jr., losing Machado out of sheer stubbornness, someone was writing about (barely) missing out on Urias as well. It's crazy to imagine with a couple of breaks going the other direction, we'd now be set up like the Padres (certainly, if we hadn't gifted them Tatis for Shields in the first place) and the Cubs WOULDN'T have won the World Series in 2016 and would be in danger of being overrun in the suddenly competitive NL Central.

Signed, Brooks Boyer (he would be better off getting a fresh start somewhere else, it's not really his fault, just the victim of circumstances more than anything) Marco Paddy Buddy Bell (ooops, already gone...) Rick Hahn Kenny Williams Jerry Reinsdorf

Welcome back! (Wish it was under better circumstances, though.)

Sure, but what "difference-making" position players are out there that we can realistically be in on...as it stands, Trout and Arenado look more likely than not to stay with their teams. We're really going to beat out everyone for Rendon or Bogaerts now? C'mon. The Cubs' imploding on their own petard or a series of bad "Sword of Damocles" signings doesn't have anything to do with us...that's the same exact thing that Epstein did to the Red Sox at the end of his tenure, but at least he was responsible for MULTIPLE championships, not just a shot in the dark once in a lifetime thing like 2005 with the White Sox where every planet was aligned and then it was (of course, because it's the fate of the White Sox) impossible to repeat or even put together TWO consecutive playoff seasons.

It's okay, Getzie can develop 'em all. Marco Paddy also has to be about the most overrated "front office" signing in the history of the game...all we end up with are Nestor Molina's while giving away for free the Fernando Tatises of the world. The ONE Latin American free agent that we correctly identified, and even then we got out-scouted and out-worked by the Padres, because Preller knows 10X as much about Latin America as our own front office and understaffed scouts do. PATHETIC, yet ENTIRELY, PREDICTABLY PATHETIC.

See all their terrible acquisitions in the 2014-15 cycle (of course, including Big Game James Shields)... They still are PAYING $24.5 million to other teams THIS year for those players NOT to play on the Padres. They still are paying another 5% on field/stadium improvements, monies the White Sox don't have to allocate because JR signed such a sweetheart deal with the Illinois Sports Stadium Authority or whatever that entity's called.

We were #6 on the latest ESPN Sports Misery Index that encompasses all 4 leagues. Missing on Harper, that should be good to move us up to 3-5 territory.The Mariners are the only baseball team (now that the Padres have passed us psychologically) that could even be considered in the running for futility with the White Sox, but they're still a generally more successful franchise in recent years and ACTUALLY tried to go for it with Cano and Cruz, it was just too late because of Felix Hernandez wearing down and the young pitchers couldn't stay healthy.