Thad Bosley

He of the six foot, eight inch Tayron Guerrero’s!

Rich King doing a good job describing LaRussa back in the early days, how he rubbed some of the old time managers back then the wrong way. He definitely came off as someone who thought he was smarter than everyone else. It would piss off Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall, too, who saw it everyday. They would criticize him mercilessly from the booth, which LaRussa complained to Reinsdorf about. Reinsdorf sided with LaRussa, which was then the beginning of the end for Harry & Jimmy in the Sox booth.

Rich King

I am equally excited about Yoelqui. I believe Paddy said back in January he’s close to MLB-ready. The only thing that caught my eye recently was where he landed on Fangraphs Top 34 prospects list for the Sox. He came in at #25, so I’m trying to understand just what kind of talent he actually is. I thought as #1 on the international prospects list we were getting another blue chip, elite talent and that he’d easily be somewhere in the top ten, but apparently Fangraphs doesn’t think so.

1-5 is quite a buzzsaw. This is what we get to watch every day for a very long time. Could not be more excited!

What we don’t need during the team’s “window” in these upcoming years is John Danks redux. He signed his extension as a young pitcher, but then got injured almost immediately, and they ended up running the poor guy out there way more often than they should have, but only due to how much $$$ they were into on him. It’s obviously tougher in the pitching space to give these extensions. It’s so much more of a crapshoot than with position players. You get stuck having to run these guys out to the mound in the pre-free agent years far more often than you would otherwise. We saw that with Danks. I don’t know. I love Lucas and am extremely excited about what his potential is in leading us through this upcoming exciting chapter with the team. He’s the leader on the staff as TA is the leader with the position players. I’m not against an extension based on the money. Happy to have the current owner to pay for premium talent (a rarity). But I don’t want to see the team possibly crippled by a pitcher coming back from injury who’s not effective any longer but who they run out there because he’s tethered to a huge contract.

The Cubs are televising 28 games while the Sox only six. Seems like a missed opportunity to create a buzz for our new and exciting team while the Cubs get so much more exposure.

I wonder if Abreu experiences the lack of energy that Moncada went through if that won’t force a 1B/DH flip flop with him and Vaughn.

The lease at 35th & Shields is up at the end of the decade, but unlike the late ‘80s when the South Loop was an option, is there even any location in the “downtown area” these days where a new ballpark could even be built? I have no idea. But it’s certainly exciting to think of the possibilities. I can’t think a new and improved ballpark, one with more seating than just the 40,000 capacity of the current one, won’t be something the new owner, whoever that turns out to be, won’t be thinking about seriously.

We’ve been led on by an incomplete sentence all along, this “The money will be spent” business. Spent on what? Premium available talent on the open market? Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, George Springer, and Trevor Bauer say “HELL NO! Not the White Sox! Not Jerry Reinsdorf!”. Only the Indians, Pirates, Athletics, and Royals have the highest contracts those teams have ever given out less than the Sox’ “franchise record” $73 million given to Grandal last year. It would be one thing if Reinsdorf’s frugal methods over his four decades as owner resulted in, you know, all kinds of winning. Championship after championship after championship. Yet we all know it’s been anything but that. Not one playoff series win in 39 of his 40 years at the helm. So it’s clear that at this time of a championship window of opportunity that winning isn’t the top priority the occasional Reinsdorf fluff piece would have us believe. We just have to hope now that the young, cheap talent can overcome the lesser talent that has been brought into augment them. In other words, hope the team can prevail in spite of the owner’s cheap ways.

The key, and what is so exciting about this team, are the ceilings for all of these guys. We are talking about elite, blue chip players here. Sky’s the limit fir each of them. Should be a lot of fun watching how well they make it to those ceilings over the next several years.

The infusion of not one, not two, but three elite, blue chip talents into the team this year with Vaughn, Kopech, and Crochet set to join the team is nothing short of truly exciting. The Sox really do have an extraordinary amount of terrific, young talent. The next several years is going to be some kind of ride!

In the spirit of good-natured ribbing with Cubs fans both friends and family, it was a lot of fun to watch the success of Jon Garland and see how annoyed Cubs fans were with that trade. Cease and Jimenez have the potential to take all of that to a completely different level. They will likely recalibrate the crosstown rivalry for years to come!

Jerry Reinsdorf bought this team when he was 44 years old. He’s been the owner for over 40 years now. Now at age 85 this year, he may for the first time in over four decades see his team make it to the postseason in consecutive years. A scant 6 postseason appearances in 40 years. Noodle over that for awhile, why don’t you. (And last year was a gimme, because third place teams don’t typically make the playoffs!)

I think it’s going to be very interesting to see what this team will do or pursue at the end of the decade when the lease at 35th Street is up, and if the new owner (hopefully by then) is able or motivated to move the team to a more viable location.

Jerry Reinsdorf was a disaster as owner when he began his reign of terror as owner in 1981, and not much has changed over the past four decades up to and including the current debacle with the ill-advised hiring of LaRussa. However, it is what it is, as the saying goes, and we’ll just have to plug our noses and live through this late life bromance between the octogenarian owner and his prodigal septuagenarian. Luckily it’s a short term arrangement because, at 85, how much more does Reinsdorf have left in the tank, and LaRussa, well, it only feels like a year or two with him at the helm before he’s restored to mothballs. What’s exciting for Sox fans is that the team should be more exciting and successful over the coming years in ways unprecedented for this franchise. We are likely to see winning like we’ve never seen in our lifetimes, and once and for all, that will cure the years-long attendance problems. Guaranteed Rate will be packed to the rafters with fans who won’t be able to get enough of all of the winning. In the long term, we can cast our eyes towards the end of the decade when we’ll likely have a new owner by then, AND an organization facing the end of a lease of a stadium that hasn’t lived up to expectations. Could a new owner be motivated to pursue another ballpark in a more desirable location, and one built in a fan-friendly manner? Who knows? Fun to think about the possibilities, that’s for sure!

Reinsdorf is a billionaire.

And what, pray tell, leads you to this conclusion?

I’ve been quite pleased that we’ve gotten this far into the offseason without trading any of these three guys yet addressing the team’s needs. I just think the ceilings are so high on all three that I don’t want to give up and/or sell low on them, not for just the likes of someone like Musgrove. Lord knows the fan base endured a lot of pain watching the dreadful baseball it took during the rebuild to eventually acquire these guys, so now I want to see them each flourish in a White Sox uni for years to come!

I’m excited to read about his solid defense and cannon for an arm. Our defense will be as solid as it gets from left centerfield all the way to the wall down the right field line. I don’t think I’ve read any reports about Colas’ defense, but if he’s a plus defender as well, and indeed if we do sign him and slot him for left field (sliding Eloy to DH), our pitching staff will enjoy seeing many runs scored being avoided for a long period of time.

I wonder if any of our fine Cuban ambassadors in Jose, Yoan, Luis, and/or Yasmani had anything to do with encouraging Yoelqui to sign with the Sox. At the very least it would seem this is the organization of choice for Cuban ball players. I think the Sox are proving to be a great landing spot for these players. Hopefully that reputation will rub off on other potential Latin players from other countries where the team hasn’t been quite as successful.

I mean, this is just magical. Well done, Maestro!

Did he stop at four?

We are one of the few teams uniquely insulated from the effects of the pandemic as it relates to lost revenue this year and likely next. That’s because this team had three years prior to 2020 of much larger than normal profits due to the razor thin payrolls operated from 2017 thru 2019. So unless there’s an MLB law that disallows rolling over profits and interest on those profits to future payrolls, it seems to me the Sox should be in as good a position to be taking on more payroll than most in the short term. This is why I was initially optimistic about the chances to sign one or both of Bauer and Springer, given what should be a slightly economic advantage right now. But no, the same ‘ol, same ‘ol with Reinsdorf - bargain bin shopping. The wait for the next owner rolls on!

I guess Stoney didn’t see the Passan tweet, because he said “maybe Springer” when going over Sox options for right field.