caulfield12

No, that would be the White Sox hiring Steve Alford to inculcate The Indiana/Knight Way into Sox operations.

Well, a 49 year old economics and AP American Lit teacher living in the heart of China should be completely in the loop...I’ll have to consult with the hackers/troll farm next door who bombard every anti-Chinese article in the western press with positive comments supporting Xi Jinping to see what they can do.

For five years, based on his performance level before 2018 (essentially throwing out last year)?

The Cubs would ask for a boatload back, and they might be trading damaged goods.

So if we blame JR or KW for handcuffing him financially for 15 years...and he has “free reign” now...when can we start judging his track record? Because if we don’t bring in any whales, he’s pretty much operating in the same way he always did, with the lone exception of having the money to go out and sign Luis Robert. Unless you think everyone will not care about Alonso’s production (or Castillo’s, and Colome’s) if we fail to sign Machado?

If they went for a non-retread manager (who wasn’t good enough for the Cubs) and brought in a really innovative GM and revamped scouting department, they would have bought themselves at least another couple of years. If everything was on track, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. It would be about why Machado wouldn’t want to be part of such a promising future...not unlike Harrelson hyped for a certain unnamed division rival in 2011-12-13. He could see all the pieces coming together before almost anyone jumped on the bandwagon.

If that was the case, why create all this excitement and false hope in the fan base if you didn’t realistically feel you had a shot? I just wonder if the Alonso thing was the White Sox getting all outside the box or they were given that advice by Lozano as a way to make them “realistic competitors” for his services? The other thing that makes no sense is why eliminate the Phillies if they were connected to the “stupid money”...why not just declare the White Sox out of it?

Well, it would be nice to have a somewhat likable franchise cornerstone. Albert Belle as the best example in franchise history isn’t much of a bar to clear (in terms of character), but when you’re investing $300-400 million...shouldn’t we have some minimal expectation that the player will do more than just collect a paycheck?

http://texasrangerstrades.blogspot.com/2006/12/mccarthy-acquired-and-danks-traded_30.html Well, we just hit the 12 year anniversary of the Danks/McCarthy trade...do you really expect anything to happen on December 31st, where it would get buried in the news? MLB needs to be more strategic than that.

At least you had the 1977 White Sox. Disco Demolition and Veeck’s antics. The crazy jerseys. The historic park in its final days, collapsing by the year. Andy the Clown. The ability to actually afford taking your entire family to a game every other weekend, and buy them something from the concession stand. A completely non-corporate feel.

Kang was always sticking with the Pirates for giving him so many chances, and I’m not sure how someone with his off field and visa issues is the best move...Lucroy seems to be done. The other three, up you could be right...but none of those names will turn into 3-4 WAR prospects in all likelihood. Of course, the same can be said of Alonso, Castillo, Colome, Nova and McCann. Actually, you add it all up...a lot of that money should have been invested in scouting, evaluation, coaching, analytics, international free agents like Kikuchi. Just TRY something different. That list from the second paragraph could be a reprint of 2014-16, actually.

You could get those two for $100 million total, 3 years for each...or 2 Moustakas, 4 Pollock. Arenado, Rendon, Bogaerts, Goldschmidt, JD Martinez (will be 32 at end of next season, opt out a good bet if he repeats), Sale, Cole, Bumgarner, Verlander, Wheeler, Porcello...feels like a lot more options that we would be targeting long-term if they were available right now, yes?

What exactly should be the attitude of fans of an organization that has advanced to the playoffs in about 125 years the same amount of times as the LA Dodgers this decade? Eternal gratefulness for 2005? That expires after a complete generation of fans have changed over. Or, ask Marlins’ fans today if they care about 1997 and 2003...?

I don’t think baseball could take Trout to the Yankees, another realistic option given where he grew up. If the Phillies can’t keep moving forward, they’re going to be screwed. What member of their offense can be identified by casual fans, other than Hoskins? If Trout can’t get to the playoffs with the Angels, his immediate concern will be signing with an almost automatic playoff contender. For the White Sox, it means we probably sign Jason Kipnis, lol. We already missed Cliff Floyd and Granderson.

https://sports.yahoo.com/phillies-rumors-best-available-backup-163541158.html This pretty much is the same situation the White Sox fans are facing...except the Phillies are really stuck in the middle about competing or tearing down if they can’t add a whale or trade for Realmuto. That leaves Pollock, Markakis (yuck), Moustakas and Marwin Gonzalez as the four best remaining options...unless you start looking at bargain/buy low guys like Dozier or Lowrie that don’t fit the window. Most Phillies fans want to try for Trout after 2020...but 15-20 teams have that same idea, with 8 teams having the resources to actually pull it off.

Cue “Bird Box” GIFs...

Because they went 29 years between playoff appearances (included in there were lots of years where 810 AM would organize Evil Empire protests against the Yankees), the payoff/appreciation was greater because they were really really good in the 70’s and 80’s, and then it just all went south for decades. While it’s not completely fair to compare KC and CHW markets, I will just say that they had two pretty distinct groups of really exciting position players that were basically homegrown to come through (Beltran, Damon, Dye, DeJesus, Sweeney, Berroa, Febles) and then obviously the group that Hawk talked about for years before they reached the WS in 2014-15. It has been over 20 years since we did the same with Ordonez, Lee, Durham and Cameron/Konerko. So the need for just 2-3 homegrown All-Star position players on the Sox...is off the charts. It’s why this whole chase for Machado/Harper is driving everyone crazy, after watching other teams like Houston or the Cubs manage to do something that’s so elusive (hit on prospect after prospect, with just a few notable exceptions). When this is all over, I think the ease of rebuilding will turn out to have been significantly underestimated. https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/20349712 Apparently, we have fans in Australia, though.

We’re going to end up spending X amount of money on Colome, Castillo and Alonso (even if we dump all three at some point)...that could have been earmarked for Arenado. Of course, if the rebuild still isn’t progressing in 2019 or Kopech has a setback of some sort, then trading precious resources in-season for Arenado against playoff contenders who desperately are vying for his services (say, Milwaukee) will make even less sense. And they’re not going to deal him in the offseason, that would be a Pirates “spitting in the face of your fans” type of move. Unless they want to publicly announce the numbers he turned down for an extension and harm their own negotiating position (see Harper/Nationals), basically acknowledging they have to trade him and creating an uncomfortable situation for everyone.

The amazing thing is I even forgot Chris Sale. Which makes sense, in a way. Great pitcher, just not the huge box office draw like a Greinke in KC or Halladay in Toronto. Definitely the only HoF caliber talent connected with the Sox this decade, unless you count Omar Vizquel in 2010.

Hopefully NU, Michigan, Harvard and Stanford teach critical thinking skills which would empower Hahn and KW not to be so easily bamboozled. He’s supposed to be the king of contracts and finance, right?

Because they already had that trend of being pretty boring/mediocre every other season. 2007-09-11-13 The Adam Dunn fiasco was yet another huge setback...followed up by LaRoche and Melky. Bad decisions and poor talent evaluation compounding, mixed in with Beckham/Viciedo sliding backwards and Quentin’s health going. Tried to hold the veteran core together too long, there are so many things we could point to.

Even the Cubs’ dynastic run is starting to show cracks in the foundation. We’re not going to emulate the Astros, so it has to be the Brewers. They need the two nasty guys in the pen, to pull off a great trade for an MVP-caliber player (Yelich), the perfect FA signing in Cain, identify a blocked prospect in Aguilar (Thames in Japan, etc.) and supplemented with mid season veteran acquisitions like Moustakas. That’s the more likely Sox path, but executing it is another matter entirely. It’s going to take franchises willing to dump talent in dubious circumstances (Raiders/Mack and Marlins’ fire-sale) to pull that off. Even then, Dee Gordon and Ozuna didn’t end up having close to the impact of Yelich. But last offseason, you could have legitimately argued that Ozuna looked like the better player. Of course, the White Sox have never been in the business of assuming contracts like the one for Stanton, either.

We need an owner who thinks of the Sox more like Ilitch with the Tigers. He always put winning over balanced budgets. Of course, we can argue even that wasn’t enough to get a World Series title and they’re being forced to rebuild with Miggy’s contract still on the books, but they had a really nice sustained run beginning with 2006 all the way up until the Royals and Indians passed them. That said, with most franchises currently in the $1-3 billion range, it’s increasingly a sport for billionaire investment groups more concerned with ROI.

Better off with Donn Pope Pall.