Lip Man 1

I'd love to know what JR's thinking is after being rebuffed by the state legislature and now the different leadership in Washington. He's no fool, he's got to understand that unless he kicks in a significant amount of his own money he has very little chance of anything happening.

He did with Ordonez and Thomas to be sure.

To be fair when Scott Boras refused to share Magglio's medical records with the Sox I could completely understand why Kenny went off. And when Mags ripped the organization that probably didn't help matters. February 7, 2005 - After one of the more acrimonious disputes in team history, four-time All-Star Magglio Ordonez signed a free agent deal with Detroit. Ordonez engaged Sox management in a war of words over how he was treated, the contract offered to him and his health status. Magglio’s agent, Scott Boras, refused to turn over medical information, which infuriated G.M. Kenny Williams and basically sealed Ordonez’s fate. Then manager Ozzie Guillen publicly called out Ordonez in no uncertain terms as well over the contract situation. Considering the severity of his knee injury, which required a secret trip to Austria for experimental surgery, it was hard to blame the Sox for their stance. Ordonez, who was almost traded to the Red Sox at the winter meetings in 2003 for Nomar Garciaparra, played with the team for six full seasons and parts of two others with 187 home runs and 702 RBI’s. In his full seasons he never hit less than .282 and in five of those years he was over .300.

Tony: FYI, these are comments I got from individuals connected to the Sox for a story I did in November 2022. They don't speak well of Moncada in general. I spoke to six people for the story. “The problem is some of these guys just don’t care, they want to win sure but they already have gotten their money with these contracts before they proved anything. Moncada would strike out and just walk back to the dugout like no big deal, he fouls a ball off and now he can’t play for three days? His contract makes him untradable but he needs to go.” "Another one was the Triple Play Game against the Twins. (Author’s Note: The Sox ran themselves into an 8-5 triple play on July 4. They wound up losing the game 6-3 in extra innings) Adam Engel faced the music afterwards, he made a mistake and owned up to it. Moncada who also made a mistake was nowhere, he was already gone. Then the next day he was saying that he didn’t know people wanted to talk with him.” “It could happen, maybe there’s a 5% chance this front office could get it right. But first the front office has to admit they made mistakes. The catcher (Yamani Grandal), third baseman (Moncada) and shortstop (Tim Anderson) need to go. They need to get guys with a higher baseball acumen, the lack of urgency, the way they beat themselves this season was embarrassing."

https://soxmachine.com/2025/02/wrangling-2025-white-sox-prospects-when-injuries-interfered/

Interesting headline that I saw today, couldn't read the story in the Athletic. Maybe someone who has a subscription can give a summery of what Manfred said. Free-spending Dodgers aren’t bad for baseball, MLB commissioner says

Not no but hell no. Good riddance. Regarding his signing with the Angels, I'm of two minds on this: *He'll play his usual 50 games or so, foul a ball off his foot and have to sit out two weeks, pull a hamstring running to first, or check his swing and fracturing a rib... something along those lines. *Or because he's away from the dysfunction and ineptness of the Sox, he'll actually stay healthy and have a decent to good season which would be so very White Sox-like.

Correct. History shows again and again that the owners keep talking about this but when push comes to shove they fold like a cheap suit. They need to give up the ghost because it is never going to happen.

We shouldn't expect anything different should we..... given the state of the organization all departments, top to bottom.

With an owner who claims a new stadium will enable them to compete.

Absolutely.

I miss WINNING baseball.

JR take note: “We will not pursue the deal at any cost,” Mayor Ken Welch said. “The greatness and future of St. Pete does not depend solely on this deal, and I am confident that we have given this endeavor our very best effort." https://frontofficesports.com/rays-receive-blunt-message-from-st-pete-mayor-were-ready-to-move-on/

Not only Jerry but Brooks Boyer too.

He's a Cub-fan boy who openly rooted for them when he was working in Chicago, what do you expect?

Did very well for them as soon as he got out of the dysfunctional, inept White Sox organization/situation.

I'm right there with you. Spring training starts on the 12th and there is literally no hope. Zero.

Zero chance to make the playoffs...sounds about right. But JR's OK with it because he's going to turn another very nice profit.

https://soxmachine.com/2025/02/the-white-sox-have-prospects-in-2025-but-do-they-have-a-system/

I find his comments interesting given that one could make the case his off the field exploits, his on-field fights, confrontations with umpires and suspensions were part of the problem and an embarrassment to the organization.

What I'm saying is the Sox are irrelevant, period. Doesn't matter regardless of it is late March, June or September because of their incompetence, dysfunction and ineptness. Why anybody would think they should be getting any attention (which I think was the original posters contention) is beyond me.

They have done nothing to change that narrative why should we expect anything different?

To be fair Cali 2020 was a bastardized 60 game season. They did make the playoffs but if they'd be able to do so if a usual schedule was played is an honest question.

I don't know who has told you attendance doesn't matter, I have posted numerous times it does matter but not as much, nowhere near as much, as in the 1950's, 1960's or 1970's. TV money still drives the train ESPECIALLY NATIONAL TV broadcast money which dwarfs any regional TV contracts. That plus the numerous domestic and international revenue streams, from merchandise to ballpark concessions to parking fees et al amounts to record revenues for the sport. And free enterprise being what it is, as long as the public are willing to pay the ticket prices teams are insisting on they will continue to be "high" and that is a relative term as most teams offer discount days and so forth.

JR has no intention, zero of spending significant money to improve the team. I tend to agree with those who feel he is cutting it to the bone so his family can sell it quickly still making a tremendous amount of money. I'll repeat what I was told by a long time member of the front office, "All JR wants to do now is leave as much money as possible to his family and grand kids..." Sucks to be a Sox fan doesn't it???????