Thad Bosley

None whatsoever. The hate speech that had no business entering this thread or this site was shut down swiftly by several posters.

It's because these so-called "views" were abject homophobic in nature, and thus the resulting "attacks" were the same as if racist, anti-semitic, anti-Muslim, or any other hate-filled views were posted. I, for one, applaud the zero tolerance responses that were made. No room for that kind of garbage on this board or anywhere else, for that matter.

The irony is that if you truly believed (or understood) "gospel values", then you'd be 100% in favor of what the Sox are trying to accomplish through a gay pride night.

I'm sure there's a "cro-magnon.com" message board somewhere where you can post this kind of uninformed and non-evolved point of view.

That can't be true at all, not with Giancarlo Stanton's contract already out there.

Jo Adell, who is the #14 prospect on the MLB Pipeline top prospects list, was selected #10 overall by the Angels right before the Sox took Burger at #11. Just one spot away, just like missing out on Benintendi at #7 in 2015 and then selecting Fulmer at #8. I guess the old saying "Timing is everything" is particularly true when it comes to the crapshoot known as the draft.

Would it kill the son of a b*tch to show some loyalty to the FANS, for once!

How did you like the 100 instances of “baseball” last summer where the Sox’ opponent scored more runs than they did?

If our beleaguered fan base is slow to supporting “winners”, it’s because there have been so few of them throughout the team’s history. Just 9 trips to the postseason in the 118 years of the team’s existence. So don’t go down this “it’s a two way street” baloney when it comes to the fans’ responsibility in all of this. We are the consumers of a product that has been very bad for a very long time now. It’s a one way street at the moment with the sole responsibility to turn this mess around squarely on the owner and management team’s shoulders. And you saw in the past ten days or so how seriously they took that responsibility, despite having all of the means and resources to do so. They have earned the low attendance figures, the rock bottom TV/radio ratings, and now the ire of a long-abused fan base over this latest in a long running list of failures and franchise-crippling decisions perpetrated by the billionaire Reinsdorf and his goon management team.

Who's just fine with Jerry, Kenny, and Rick "overextending themselves" and going to an "uncomfortable level" ? Raise your hand!

The Padres and Phillies have great TV deals, merch royalties, MLB Advanced Media payouts, etc., etc., etc., as well. The only difference is they have Machado and Harper, respectively, and we don't. We have Jon Jay and Yonder Alonzo. That's the difference between what other fan bases get to enjoy and what we've been stuck with for way too long now.

Ah yes, the 90s portion of Jerry Reinsdorf's amazing legacy here with the White Sox the past four decades. The 90s with the strike Reinsdorf made happen in '94 that robbed that great White Sox team of its first chance at a World Series title in 70+ years, along with the infamous White Flag trade, both fanbase crippling disasters Reinsdorf caused. That's not to be confused with the 80s which initially saw Reinsdorf choosing Sportsvision over WGN for us, holding the state hostage to build him a stadium for which all of the revenue would go to him and none back to the state, and of course the sweetheart lease deal he's enjoyed the past 30 years with all of it's guaranteed profits, a lease deal I remind you he said he must have in order to remain "competitive" with the high costs of operating a sustainable winning ballclub. Meanwhile, there hasn't been a sustainable winning ballclub that has made it to the postseason in consecutive years since the lease deal was signed, and there's only been one premium free agent signed since the new stadium opened (Belle). The 00s actually were pretty good, with three playoff appearances and one magnificent World Series championship (and what would our fanbase do without that one good year we've had!). And then of course the current decade, which has been a massive disaster with all of the losses accumulated, the sell-off of stars in their prime, and now with this abject failure in this offseason. That's the Jerry Reinsdorf White Sox legacy in a nutshell, folks. It sums up as Jerry Reinsdorf getting very rich over the past 38 years as owner, while the fan experience, with just five postseason appearances during that time, being one of a dismal nature, in general. "Profits before fan friendly" appears his modus operandi. Sadly, all we as fans can do at this point is just wait and ride this thing out to the end of his tenure as owner, which hopefully is much sooner than later.

This is not a new phenomenon. That stench of the culture of losing this owner has enveloped this franchise in has been going on for a long, long time. This embarrassing offseason is just the latest in a long list of epic failures and disasters that’s happened on Jerry Reinsdorf’s watch since he arrived on the South Side over 38 years ago. Today the fan base feels the cumulative effect of the nearly 40 years of failure with Reinsdorf as owner. The Sox already have the worst TV and radio ratings in baseball, and are bottom five in attendance. Unfortunately, that’s only going to get a lot worse for a while now, perhaps until that day when the fan base is finally relieved of this owner and the yes-men stooges who work for him.

I guess part of the problem is the average fan is easily flim flammed by these flimsy explanations they continue to throw out there.

I think Hahn & Co. should just stop talking about this, because they just continue to say things that get you more infuriated than the last time they talked about it. We don't need to hear you, Mr. Hahn, trying to take credit for being "aggressive" in the process, and then implying that their level of aggressiveness was sufficient. No, it wasn't. San Diego's, on the other hand, was. They came in late in the game and exerted the level of aggressiveness necessary to seal the deal. The Sox clearly did not, because they did not land the player. And one could argue that with an offer that guaranteed 20% less money than the bid that won, they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to take credit for any level of aggressiveness at all. What's also very annoying is this constant mention of the so-called "comfort level" that they are willing to go to. Hahn references this a few times in this article. The only comfort level they seem to have in these negotiations is one where they only get the guy if the market price somehow moves down and they can get the player at a discount. For a team with the kind of payroll flexibility the Sox currently have to be defining their comfort level at below market prices for premium talent, then this whole thing just becomes one big farce. Not every premium talent can be had at a team friendly price like what they had with Sale, Eaton, and Quintana. Sometimes the comfort level has to elevate to the level of those who are successful competing for premium talent and be prepared to pay market value for that talent. Lastly, Mr. Hahn, get your signals straight with your boss, Mr. Williams when it comes to these flimsy interviews. Don't say in an article like this one that "there's no hard line of 'No, we can never do X'". Well yes there is, you just demonstrated that just last week with Machado. Williams literally said your team - again, despite the payroll flexibility to do so - he said the team simply could not have gone to the $300M level. So there is, in fact, a "hard line", and according to Williams, the Sox can never do $300M. So the message needs to be refined not to say "we can NEVER do X" to the more truthful statement of "we WON'T do X", because that's clearly what's going on here with this team under this owner and management team.

This is especially true when dealing with Boras. No cutesy negotiating games like what went on with Machado will work with Boras, the same way they didn't work with Lozano. Say what you will about Boras, but the guy delivers every time for his big name clients. Harper will walk away with an enormous contract when all is said and done, and the only way the Sox will get him is if they pay the top dollar that Boras is commanding on behalf of his client.

During this upcoming decade, it would be very nice to hear Jason Benetti routinely announcing the White Sox’ outfield as “Jimenez in left, Robert in center, Harper in right”.

Just not as good or well thought out as that of the Padres. The small market San Diego Padres.

A team that receives massive state subsidies every year, is the beneficiary of stadium naming rights revenues, AND plays in the city of Chicago, the third largest market in the country, should NOT - I repeat, SHOULD NOT - be operating like a "small to mid market team". Expand the damn payroll to reflect the market you're playing in, and this "20-25%" allocation concern goes away.

Reds are tied with us - 1, 5. They won the WS in 1990.

He doesn’t want to spend on draft picks, he doesn’t want to spend on premium free agents. Is there anything he does want to spend his considerable wealth on to make the White Sox a winning organization?

Yes, there will be other FA's, but the only ones we'll be in play for are of the dumpster dive variety. Premium free agents expect and command and will eventually get at least a market value for their services, and maybe more. The White Sox made a very loud statement this week that they simply won't pay that market value, let alone any overpay above that. Because if you are not going to pay it for either of the two 26 year old generational talents who were in play this offseason, you won't pay it for anyone. So expect the current ownership and management to revert back to their usual tactics of not competing for premium talent on the open market, as has been the case for most of their years running the White Sox. Unless, of course, a mean streak hits them again, and they choose to take the fan base through another offseason charade like the ones they took us through these past three months.

Oh, no one is doubting that the owner and partners’ experience over the past 38 years has been an amazing one. They’ve profited out the wazoo after blackmailing the state (as was reported in the press at the time) to finance and build a stadium for them from which they would get ALL the revenue and pay little to no expense. No rent payments between 1991 and 2008, just for example, while pocketing both ALL stadium revenues AND state-provided subsidies. So yes, the owner and his partners have done extraordinarily well for themselves during the past 28 years in the current stadium. Meanwhile, what about us, the faithful fans? Well, we certainly haven’t seen those massive profits converted into premium free agent talent, now, have we? Just one such signing since 1991, Albert Belle. And what about the playoffs, you say? Unless you somehow consider only one trip to the World Series and just three other brief trips to the playoffs during the last 28 years an embarrassment of riches for the fans, it appears there has been a bit of an imbalance in the experiences we’ve had vs. that of the owner and his partners. Undeniably.

“We” cheer because we’ve been die-hard Sox fans our entire lives, some even before Reinsdorf swooped in 1981 and began his 38 year reign of incompetence. That tenure will be coming to an end at some point in the future, probably sooner rather than later. At that point, “they”, who have let us down “over and over and over and over”, will once and for all kicked to the curb and replaced with the freshness of new ownership and management. And not a moment too soon. No organization or fan base is in more dire need of this kind of sweeping change than ours.

YES, YES, YES, YES, YES! This! A thousand times, this. Look at how the Cubs fortunes changed once they scraped the Tribune Company from the bottoms of their shoes and brought in the Ricketts. In less than a decade they went from the lovable losers to a powerhouse in baseball, taking full advantage of being in the Chicago market. Our sad sack of an owner has failed to do so, but not because there is a problem with Chicago or the market. The market is there, as this poster pointed out. We just need a new, competent owner to come in and tap into what is there for the taking.