Lip Man 1

About the only thing I object to with Rick's bullpen usage is having three or sometimes four guys used to get through an inning.

NWIN said: In the meantime, you can't keep trading away the few major league caliber players you have. It's all about who Rodon's agent is and the history the Sox have had with him as well as his philosophy of taking guys to free agency by and large. if he's healthy I'm sure the Sox don't want to trade him but with the odds of him resigning low, what should they do? Let him walk for nothing?

Nice comeback.

And so it begins...keep your fingers crossed.

I don't think anybody relishes the idea of trading Rodon, especially if he realizes his great potential and turns into a star pitcher. But the reality of his situation is this...as long as Scott Boras is his agent, the odds are tremendous he will take him to free agency. That's his M.O...his job is to get as much money as he can for his clients. Now take into account the Sox are one of three teams (I think) that have never given out a nine figure contract, if Rodon starts to blossom he very well could command that on the open market. The Sox can't put themselves in a position where he walks and they get nothing for him. Now the joker in all this is that who knows who will own the Sox around he time he becomes a free agent. It could still be JR, it could be someone else. If it is someone else all bets are off, the situation could be radically different. The other factor is the overall state of the rebuild. I was hoping the Sox would make a big improvement in 2019, contend for a wild card in 2020 and get really good in 2021. That could still happen if the Sox are aggressive this off season but with all the injuries to key minor league prospects (and who knows what will eventually happen with Dunning and Hansen) their development has been stunted, time has been lost that you can't get back. I'm thinking now 2020 for when they make a big leap in the win column, 2021 when they contend for a wild card and 2022 when they should be good. Just my opinion. I honestly hope though the time table gets speeded up, when you are about to have your 6th straight losing season (last time 1944-1950) and ninth losing season in 12 years (last time that bad of a stretch 1968-1980) with everything else impacting the franchise (poor TV ratings and a new contract coming up, attendance, lack of media coverage, Cubs success in the same town and fans wondering about the ability of the front office to successfully execute the rebuild) you can't go forever and expect the fan base to still be there.

This from the White Sox web site: https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/news/ken-williams-supports-rick-renteria-coaches/c-290752190 Both Kenny and Rick have unequivocally said he's doing a good job. I don't expect he'll be going anywhere, for better or worse, as long as this front office remains in place.

Don't forget Dunning and Hansen (if they are healthy)

That was some catch by that kid. Hope the Sox give him a look next year.

Bullpen tried to give it away at the end (nothing new about that) but did just enough to hang on. Nice job by Rodon.

Had that huge win for the team in Boston in September 2005. Always wondered what could have been had he remained in the organization.

A rare win against a putrid Tigers team.

Fair point but the odds are overwhelming that they unload the club.

Sox are about to go 1-9 against a Tiger team that is something like 20 games under .500 YIKES!

According to the stories I saw today Rick said he's staying in the rotation at least for now anyway so who knows for sure.

Outside of that five game stretch earlier this year Covey has been really really bad for two years now.

Well given that JR has told the family to sell the Sox and keep the Bulls that is almost a absolute given. They will sell the club ASAP.

Correct. Taxes would eat the profit from a sale alive. He said he is keeping the team until he dies then the tax situation is not as bad for his kids / other investors.

In 2008 I had the chance to interview Brooks Boyer on a number of things including uniforms and "Throwback Day's / Night's". Really enjoyed the time with him. Since this thread deals with uniforms I thought some may be interested in Brooks' response: ML: “Throwback’ games and weekends are very popular around Major League baseball. Last year the Sox had the chance to honor the 1967, 1972 and 1977 clubs on their 40th, 35th and 30th anniversaries respectively, yet you chose to go in a different direction. This isn’t a criticism but I’m wondering why you didn’t? BB: “That’s a very fair question. With no disrespect to those teams, some of the best loved in Sox history, they didn’t get to the World Series. To some fans, 1977 for example, just isn’t relevant. We honored the 1959 team with a weekend because they got to the World Series. A few years ago we honored the 20th anniversary of the 1983 team because they were special to a large number of our fans. We’re going to do something again this season on the 25th anniversary but it won’t be as involved. We’ll have a game where we wear the 1983 style uniforms. We’ll also have our “Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day,” where we wear the green uniforms and we’ve got the camouflage jerseys on July 4th. We don’t want this to become gimmicky; we want to do things that are relevant to our current fans. (Author’s Note: It was at this point that I tried to sell Brooks on the idea of the red pinstriped era, aka Dick Allen and how special that was to my generation!)

Thanks. We'll see if anything's changed.

I believe Polo has been back in action the past few days (thought I saw where he hit a home run last night) to answer the question a poster asked earlier in this thread. I have a question though, Hansen hasn't pitched since July 29, hasn't pitched at all since being sent back down. Is he working things out on the sidelines or is he hurt again?

Winning solves a lot of problems..but you have to win.

I'm beginning to wonder if he is having some vision issues. He looks totally and completely lost, doesn't seem to have any idea of what he wants to do or any type of plan. This is actually getting embarrassing for the kid and the organization.

I found this story in the Sun-Times today interesting. Both Konerko and Renteria comment on the state of baseball today and Rick also goes into more of his philosophy of what the team should be doing as long as he is the manager: https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/situational-hitting-will-always-be-in-with-white-sox-manager-rick-renteria/

Given that both Kenny and Hahn have publicly endorsed him (meaning they have stuck their necks out for him) Ricky isn't going anywhere at least until his deal is up. And frankly if the Sox kept Ventura for all those years I have a hard time thinking they'd replace him with a high profile guy at a high salary. JR has never done that because he has said he doesn't think managers and head coaches really are that important.

The Sox may very well be this bad again in 2019. It just depends on what happens this off season.