Tony

My prediction, which is nothing other than a gut feeling, they trade down and end up taking Skoronski from Northwestern around 8 or 9.

Gonna be an awful deal in come 2028-2029, but if the Padres can get a WS or two…you make that deal every day. Props to the Padres for actually pushing the chips to the center of the table. All you can ask for from ownership.

None of what Hahn said is "wrong" and these quotes are to be expected...but when you understand what took place with La Russa, and seeing their lack of activity this offseason, it becomes clear Pedro is expected to work wonders, and clearly Hahn believes La Russa actually cost them more than a handful of wins. The better approach would be to, you know, hire a new manager AND make impact additions to a team that finished .500 in their "World Series Window" but f*** me, right?

Don't worry, Rick was as disappointed as we all were, he told us.

It's clear with in all of his "Hahn Speak" that Rick thinks Tony was a huge problem and Pedro is going to be their "Big Addition." Like always, he's convinced himself he's smarter than everyone else.

I’ll throw a conspiracy theory out there just because nothing made sense in 2022. The Sox dealt with a lot of injuries but even so, it was the first time since 1990 the Sox didn’t have a player hit 20 HR’s. We saw multiple stories throughout the year about how Menechino was really putting an emphasis on hitting to all fields, going up the middle more, etc. He had a track record of that in Miami as well, but there was a major power outage from the Sox in 2022 and there were was discussion after discussion here about how things literally just didn’t make sense, how can a team built basically around power all have a collective “outage” and veterans like Abreu, Grandal, and even guys like Eloy-Moncada-Robert-Anderson all change their approach so much? How did it all happen to everyone? Did the Sox get tipped off to something before the season? Did they know the balls might have the juice taken out of them and try and “be smarter” than everyone else and get ahead of it? Obviously it failed in spectacular fashion and I think this is a fairly wild take…but I bring it up because we still never really had an understanding of where the power went in 2022

This should be a fairly large deal and some sort of deeper look needs to be had. I’m all for the game being entertaining but you can’t play with different baseballs for different teams because if “marquee” games.

Nah, the Sox control their levels of suck all themselves. Quite good at it.

That’s the only way it makes sense, to me. I don’t believe the Cubs are going to be very good in 2023. We’ll see what else they do…but I’ll believe it when I see it from Ricketts. If Bellinger sucks, it’s a one year deal, fine, but it’s an expensive gamble and may keep them from signing someone that’s more long term. If Bellinger is good, his new deal is going to be really expensive and he has a long track record of not being great. I don’t know if that’s a long term investment id want to make, knowing how many down years he had in LA. I just don’t see a lot of upside to the deal.

I don't want to find out with my baseball team, let someone else run that experiment.

I'm never one to stand in the way of a good Hahn nut-kicking, because he absolutely deserves it, but it's not "all" his fault. If Rick was operating with a different owner, say Steve Cohen...Harper is probably here. They seemingly can always get that seat at the table, but when a contract needs to be signed, I'm not putting that all on Rick. But, the bigger point is they all need to go. They've failed as a collective. Jerry, Rick, Kenny, and down the list. It's a bad organization.

Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Michael Brantley, Joey Gallo, Kevin Kiermaier, Andrew Benintendi, Brandon Nimmo and a slew of others are all available. The Sox could have plenty of OF's if they wanted them. Trading their closer to fill that hole is only necessary if you aren't willing to spend money. Stop justifying things that shouldn't be justified.

Trading Liam, and losing Abreu in the same offseason, when the Sox are still in “win-now” mode sends an awful message. The only reason they would move Liam is money. I can’t seem them getting an offer that would just be a no-brainer where someone is offering a vast overpayment in players for Liam…so you’re moving him because of payroll restrictions, which only exist because of the owner.

Small sample size, but in talking to both friends and people "in the sports world" there is a big time apathy with a lot of hardcore fans. I'm included in that group. Soxtalk has been a part of my life literally for like 15 years so I'll always still see what's going on...but I can't remember the last time I was this dis-interested in the organization. A lot of that has to do with being an adult with kids and such, but I'd still be much more interested if there was any sort of hope or plan.

The issue is you continue to miss the point people are making. There are very few people, if any, that are saying the 2023 White Sox should have topped the Astros offer for Jose. No one disagrees that it simply doesn't make sense given the roster makeup. What people are upset about, and rightly so, is that the White Sox let their best overall player walk away, to the team that has been the class of the AL, and the Astors clearly made it known they had to have him. Meanwhile, the White Sox, who told us division titles don't matter and it's "about rings" are coming off a .500 season and only have the resources for B/C level free agents. None of this should have gone down this way.

No it's not. And you know that.

Yes! More singles will solve the Sox issues!

Gary?

I still find it odd to have a bench coach you’ve only had a handful of brief conversations with, as Grifol mentioned in his press conference. Splitting hairs at this point, guess we’ll see what happens.

The new manager didn’t pick his bench coach, pitching coach, and first base coach….and those are just the ones we are sure about.

Which happened because the people that built the roster aren't good at their paid profession. Any way you slice it, the Sox are supposed to be smack dab in the middle of their "World Series Window" and their most consistent hitter over the last 9 years walked away to a team that has been the best team in the American League the last 5-6 years.

I agree with this. If he's healthy he needs to play, every game this season is important for his growth as a QB for when this team is hopefully ready to compete, which can be as early as next season.

So he's either playing Sunday or dead?

Poles has also shown very little allegiance to anyone from the previous era, so I feel like Monty moving on is pretty likely.

Kind of seemed like the last drive play calling was coming from the front office ?