caulfield12

"No one factor turned the White Sox from juggernaut to punch line. The fall-off was brought on by a combination of institutional rigidity, a barren farm system that failed to restock the big-league roster and a wave of underperformance, natural aging and injuries that chipped away at multiple core pieces. This was not a case of — as so often happens with closing windows — paying or extending the wrong players. The only key contributors on the '21 White Sox who are still above-average every-day big leaguers are Dylan Cease, Carlos Rodón and Luis Robert Jr. Everybody else either: Experienced a dramatic, age-based decline in performance (Lance Lynn, Yasmani Grandal, José Abreu) Didn’t maintain their level of play (Tim Anderson, Lucas Giolito) Endured career-altering injuries that limited their ability or availability (Yoán Moncada, Eloy Jiménez, Robert, even though he still bangs)" yahoo.com/sports Left unmentioned is the Liam Hendriks cancer diagnosis and follow-up injury likely caused by rushing him for one feel good season the year.

Sosa should never hit 3rd. Like ever.

WNBA top-selling player jerseys in first half of 2024 Table with 2 columns and 5 rows. RANK PLAYER 1 Fever G Caitlin Clark 2 Sky F Angel Reese 3 Liberty G Sabrina Ionescu 4 Aces G Kate Martin 5 Aces F A'ja Wilson

Danks' extension is the reason JR won't give out another 4/5 year deal.

Witt Jr. will be.

Except the only one who would have helped us now is Crochet....which would be and still remains too risky for JR to countenance.

Especially if Thorpe goes under the knife...but then some will speculate an accompanying 2-3 mph velocity uptick as well.

"Chicago has a strong argument for having the two best left-handed pitching prospects in the minor leagues in Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith, two 21-year-olds with hellacious stuff from unusual arm slots who have dominated batters in recent years: Schultz in the minors since being Chicago’s first-round draft pick in 2022 out of an Illinois high school and Smith in the SEC at the University of Arkansas before he was selected fifth by the White Sox in this year’s draft. Should Chicago keep Crochet, it’s difficult to imagine a nastier trio of southpaws in the same rotation, but even if Crochet is dealt before these two debut, Smith and Schultz look like ideal arms to build around. Beyond them, there’s a quartet of talented arms acquired in recent trades — Ky Bush, Jake Eder, Jairo Iriarte and Nick Nastrini — who should contribute to the 2025 pitching staff, while Seth Keener and Grant Taylor are recent draft picks off to strong starts to their pro careers but a little bit further away." from the Jake Mintz article i just posted...which also discussed Cannon and Thorpe "On a positive note, the most intriguing ultra-young bat to know is George Wolkow, a gigantic, 18-year-old outfielder with seismic raw power, though he has serious strikeout issues that will need to be corrected for his production to hold up at higher levels. All of which is to say: While there are a ton of exciting arms making meaningful strides toward contributing in Chicago in the near future, at the end of the day, you need to score more runs than the other team. As things stand, it’s not readily apparent how soon the White Sox can field a formidable lineup capable of supporting what projects to be a sneaky solid pitching staff in the not-too-distant future. Among the many tall tasks that await Getz and his new mystery manager, building a competent offense will be one of the toughest."

https://sports.yahoo.com/as-100-losses-and-counting-approach-in-august-heres-how-the-chicago-white-sox-fell-this-far-and-where-they-go-from-here-220842248.html Perhaps the most comprehensive how did Sox get here and where are they going from here article yet...

Extra year of control over an at best 4th/5th outfielder. Brilliant.

Too literal a translation....but illogico en espanol.

2003 fifth starters were key difference... Twins picked up Kenny Rogers and Loiaza faded down the stretch.

You mean Kopech and Edman too. Sox will probably sign Heyward, hey he's a familiar name.

McCarthy 304/840

They pushed him way too fast because of his AA numbers. He was never going to be ready.

Way too many missed scoring opportunities.

6 hitters .622 ops or lower.

Now if he could only hit…

Can’t get thrown out there. Just can’t. Have to be sure.

Riley Greene has become a really solid player. Meanwhile, Vaughn outhitting Torkelson in battle of the evil of two lessers.

Beaten by Dillon Dingler. Not even a good porn name like Dirk Diggler or whatever Wahlberg was called in Boogie Nights.

None of those guys are really projected to move the meter, though. At best, Elko has a Palka-like impact. Vaughn Sheets and Robert are your three best hitters…Benintendi the hottest, and 4/4 of those guys most don’t even want on the roster. Eventually Quero has to be thrown into the mix.

Sale leading NL in wins and ERA. Moncada at least has Desastre Personal. Looks like Sale would probably need around 200 wins for HoF. First three are pretty much shoo ins. Sale at 134 career total, Cole 150. 1 J. Verlander 260 144 .644 519 519 3.26 3,390 26 9 0 3380.1 2,846 1,223 1,325 350 942 113 0 27 13,783 97 9.03 2.51 3.60 0.93 24.6 6.8 1.12 .278 3.53 77 3.40 80 7.58 311.2 2 M. Scherzer 215 112 .657 465 456 3.16 3,405 12 5 0 2874.0 2,341 1,008 1,081 334 754 112 2 20 11,610 78 10.66 2.36 4.52 1.05 29.3 6.5 1.08 .287 3.39 76 3.17 76 7.33 311.8 3 C. Kershaw 212 94 .693 430 427 2.48 2,963 25 15 0 2736.2 2,079 754 827 226 675 43 1 27 10,784 102 9.74 2.22 4.39 0.74 27.5 6.3 1.01 .269 2.72 63 2.81 70 6.84 367.2 4 G. Cole 150 77 .661 311 311 3.18 2,214 8 5 0 1917.0 1,605 678 726 215 492 58 0 6 7,718 58 10.39 2.31 4.50 1.01 28.7 6.4 1.09 .293 3.41 79 3.16 77 7.54 206.4 5 J. Cueto 144 112 .563 369 364 3.51 1,852 18 8 0 2251.1 2,088 877 949 250 636 120 1 22 9,351 36 7.40 2.54 2.91 1.00 19.8 6.8 1.21 .283 3.79 86 3.92 96 8.35 33.8 6 L. Lynn 141 99 .588 362 338 3.75 2,003 4 2 1 1995.1 1,847 832 914 230 701 89 4 21 8,476 61 9.03 3.16 2.86 1.04 23.6 8.3 1.28 .297 4.12 92 3.82 93 8.33 66.8 7 C. Morton 137 120 .533 376 375 4.02 2,007 3 2 0 2086.1 1,952 931 1,028 199 768 184 0 25 8,931 68 8.66 3.31 2.61 0.86 22.5 8.6 1.30 .304 4.43 100 3.82 95 8.42 51.5 8 C. Sale 134 83 .618 366 286 3.07 2,376 16 3 12 1921.1 1,557 655 706 201 448 117 25 15 7,733 45 11.13 2.10 5.30 0.94 30.7 5.8 1.04 .295 3.31 72 2.90 69 7.29 276.2 9 K. Gibson 110 105 .512 324 318 4.52 1,485 3 1 0 1832.1 1,880 920 976 221 641 67 0 14 7,850 71 7.29 3.15 2.32 1.09 18.9 8.2 1.38 .305 4.79 107 4.26 101 9.23 -10.3 10 C. Carrasco 110 103 .516

And what current hitters on the major and minor league rosters do you believe in, exactly?

Solid reliever doesn't move the needle either. It would be shocking at this point for Eder to end up with anything close to 5 career fWAR with the Sox. If you're the Sox you need the 5+ fWAR four bagger hits...Robert and Crochet the only two in that stratosphere. Without stars, it would require almost almost every single position player to be around a 2.5-3ish fWAR contributor. Maybe Quero. Maybe Montgomery. But even those two aren't sure bets at this point.