Eminor3rd

I don’t think anyone is looking at this like “let’s change baseball because we feel like it needs tinkering.” But this change makes sense for the same reason college football overtime makes sense: the likelihood of scoring in each possession is low in both sports, so an indefinite tiebreaker can last way too long. For baseball, this was fine when a two hour game could stretch to a three hour game, but the reality of MLB today is that the average game length is already long enough that the typical fan can barely fit it into their day. Die hards like all of us don’t care, but we have to realize that it’s bad for the game if it bleeds fans, and it’s really hard to maintain or grow internet in a product where your average consumption involves giving up on the game before it ends. I see this change as taking a handful more games per year accessible to the average fan to watch, and allowing thousands of fans to stick it out to the end of a game instead of bailing early, which is huge because that game will probably be the only one that most of those fans attend in the whole year.

This doesn’t make sense. It increases each team’s chance to score equally, and then the normal forces of the game situation take place. Differences in the home/away dynamic are already present on instances where the away team scores… it just now is more likely to happen sooner. But it’s also easier for the home team to defend, with or without more pressure. And if you think getting the first bite at it in the top of the tenth confers an advantage, you also have to acknowledge the even greater advantage of being the home team in the bottom half of the inning in instances where the away team fails to score in the top. Separately, what are the “many downsides”?

I am not opposed to ties, conceptually, but as someone who watches a lot of NPB games/has become an invested fan in a team, I can tell you that ties FEEL absolutely terrible every time, to me. I hate them. It makes it feel like the whole game was a waste of time.

I agree that’s the closest thing to a problem. But I guess I feel like it’s natural for varying base running skills and batting order luck to factor into the game situation. Admittedly that’s just a personal feeling, but it just seems to line up with how the game already sort of works — like you’re in an extra inning situation, you have an advantage of the good part of your batting order is up, etc.

I’m in the minority, but I love this rule. I don’t see how it detracts from the game in any way, and it helps to make witnessing the end of games more accessible. I haven’t seen any downsides whatsoever; the only reason to dislike it is to dislike change in general.

Or that great organization may have helped develop into a legit SS when he was younger. The White Sox player development strategy is essentially “draft guys that are so physically gifted that they become major leaguers despite their flaws,” and TA is one of the success stories, but that doesn’t mean that he was actually able to reach his ceiling.

Yeah this article and all the quotes in it could have been written by chapgpt or whatever, it essentially says nothing, BUT I think I’m ready to transition, mentally, from feeling like s%*# about how poorly the front office has handled the offseason to just rooting for the players on the field. So that feels alright.

Dogshit organization

Unfortunately, they already did.

That's in the back of my mind, too, and that thought is what's keeping from making a strong statement about it. I can ABSOLUTELY see this clown show conclude that the "official league recommendation" of standing pat until it blows over is going to be fine for the general public.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't a way around at least putting him on paid admin leave. You could make an argument that his presence is bad for the other players. But, what do I know?

I’ll be completely shocked if Clevinger ever pitches for the White Sox. The only question is whether or not the Sox get some sort of resolution that allows them to save the money they owe him relatively quickly (which seems unlikely), because that’s the only way they’re going to fill the hole in the rotation with anything other than a minor league signing.

The state of the White Sox in 2023: What's worse for their chances to win? 1. Going into the season with only four major league-caliber starting pitchers in the entire organization or 2. Going into the season with five starting pitchers, but having the entire team deal EVERY DAY with booing, criticism, and reporters asking to them to go on record about whether or not they support a current teammate who they're pretty sure is a child abuser.

Cole Irvin was a monster for us when I worked at Lehigh Valley in like… 2017? We had “twin aces” that year — Cole Irvin and Enyel de los Santos lol

Man, every time I come back and see this thread title, it makes me angrier. Both for the filthy, shithead nature of the player’s actions, and for the sorry state of the team. This Clevinger incident is probably not their fault, but when you run such a joke ass franchise you realize that this type of gut punch exposes the lack of preparation and professionalism evident in every aspect of the org. You can’t trust that they did their due diligence in the first place. You see the lack of depth and roster prep exposed before training camp even begins. You can’t trust they’ll do what it takes to fill the roster hole. Even if they do fill the hole, you can’t trust they’ll target you he right type of player. You realize how needlessly risky the process of rushing out and “beating the other teams to the market” is on these interesting but flawed project-types, and how much it sucks that the only reason to take those risks is to try to avoid paying market value on middling players. Hell, you can’t even trust they’ll do the right thing with regards to dealing with Clevinger. About the only thing you CAN trust is that whatever lessons they learn from this ordeal will probably be the wrong ones. Well, and I guess you can also trust that the media message we get will be akin to shrugging and feeling sorry for themselves for “circumstances beyond their control” yet again, never stopping to wonder if there might be a reason that those circumstances seem to happen so much more often to the White Sox than everyone else. This feels like a low point that I’m going to remember for a long time.

Jfc

Imagine how different this roster looks if the Sox signed Duvall. Because here’s the thing, Colas readiness aside — we're one random benintendi oblique/hamate/bruise injury from watching Eloy in LF and Leury in RF every day for an extended period of time.

Precisely.

I mean, they needed pitching really badly?

I do not understand why the marlins made this trade.

Right, they're almost forced into a rebuild after this year, regardless of results, because they changed absolutely NOTHING about how they operate from the previous failed "window" -- they developed almost no talent at all (practically the entire core is made up of prospects they traded for), invested in nothing whatsoever into depth or the production thereof, and spent their payroll budget like they have no idea how baseball works. I mean, it's crazy to think about but, even if they get to the World Series this year, they essentially STILL have to rebuild. Are they going to expand the payroll enough to re-sign their departing pitchers? Not if they actually have good platform seasons. The talk about building a system for "sustainable competitiveness" was either never serious or this is an utterly historic failure. Absolutely unbelievable that leadership hasn't been fired. I mean really insane.

Good front offices never stop finding ways to improve, add depth, and insulate against unexpected poor health and underperformance. Shrugging your shoulders and saying “Well they just didn’t play like they should have,” or, “well if they just would have stayed healthy” is indicative of a loser’s mentality. You’re either doing everything you can to win, or you’re just not.

I mean it worked once

I don’t think I agree with this logic. You’re right that we can’t survive most of the important players getting hurt, but we can survive one or two if there’s a backup plan in place, so it makes sense to have plans for as many vulnerable areas as possible. What’s attractive about Duvall is that he covers many contingencies at once. Not only for both Robert and Benintendi, but also as a weak-sided platoon for Colas who could conceivably take over entirely if Colas isn’t ready, but who could also be relegated to the bench entirely if Colas breaks out.

Watching Pham and Duvall get $6m and $7m from other teams is painful