What are the Sox trying to do here, really?

[Dick Allen]

It seems to me that are trying to secretly rebuild. Once that surely fails, a real rebuild will occur. You can't drop payroll $50 million if you aren't anywhere near luxury tax , and call it a retool. 

[Dick Allen]

3 minutes ago, FloydBannister1983 said:

Spending a lot piecemeal on shorter term contracts is a lot different than committing, wisely, Bryce Harper type money. It’s cheap because you get out from under it quicker.

He has spent, but not consistently to sustain winning. The first sign of a dark cloud, he bails.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Dick Allen

[Saufley]

3 hours ago, Kyyle23 said:

We have watched him do the same s%*# for 40 years.  Time for us to stop expecting a different result 

And he and his buddy tried to shame Bill Veeck and make us believe he was the answer. Reinsdorf is the real loser and we the fans suffer. I'd give anything for the Bill Veeck years again!

[spiderman]

12 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Yea, I don't think they care about being competitive either. They care about the illusion of it, but not actually putting together a team that can win 82 or so games in order to satisfy some measure of "competitive". If they were trying to be competitive they would be adding 30 million in payroll and wouldn't be trying to trade Cease.

They are trying to cut payroll and do some half assed "rebuild" that has like a .1% chance of working while paying lip service to "competitive".

I think they believe that being around .500 will mean they are competitive and in the AL Central, that may be true most years. So, I think they can/will claim they want to compete, but that must be taken into context that they probably don't need to win 90 games to be competitive, and, if things bring right, can "compete" in the AL Central.

Agreed with your points though. This off-season, they are cutting payroll. They are trying to re-tool vs. rebuild, but these are not the moves a team that wants to win will make. Trading an ace with 2 years left only makes sense if you don't want to pay him. If you don't want to pay him, why would anyone think they are going to spend to actually compete? This will likely continue to be some patch-work roster. 

[The Mighty Mite]

21 hours ago, Chick Mercedes said:

Cut payroll, dump players, to what end? After the draft, even the benefit of tanking is out.

The fanbase is up in arms over years (now decades) of poor managment, and bad publicity. The response is to make the team even worse? They want to sign a bunch of seat fillers instead of longer term solutions. If there was any time to try and mend fences with fans, and spend a little assets for the on-field product, this is it. Jerry Reinsdorf thinks it is time to go to Nashville. I don't understand what is happening at the height of fan discontent. Typically teams cut payroll before they are sold. Not while languishing in desperate need for lifelines. It's just bad business.

They’re putting the fan base in fits of depression where it gets so bad that the base won’t give 2 ***** if the Sox move to Nashville or wherever, in fact we will probably welcome it and there is always the possibility that the Sox leave town before the lease on Sox Park expires,  leases can be broken. 
So far this off season has been a complete bust with not one iota to get even half way excited about. IMHO this is being done with an objective in mind.

 

[The Mighty Mite]

26 minutes ago, Saufley said:

And he and his buddy tried to shame Bill Veeck and make us believe he was the answer. Reinsdorf is the real loser and we the fans suffer. I'd give anything for the Bill Veeck years again!

I was never a big fan of Veeck going back to his first stint as Sox owner but he had more class in his baby finger than Reinsdorf and Einhorn would ever hope to have. 

[FloydBannister1983]

45 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

He has spent, but not consistently to sustain winning. The first sign of a dark cloud, he bails.

That’s what I said.

Spending a lot on short term players is not spending as most would understand it.  Yes the payroll goes up for a couple years but it’s quite easy to bring it back down.

Spending the same on long term, impact players is quite different.

So he spent for two or three years.  Still hasn’t even crossed that $80 million mark for a single player.

He overspent on bullpen.

[Eminor3rd]

17 hours ago, Texsox said:

A change in ownership isn't going to guarantee success. The next owner will have a ton of debt from the purchase to deal with. Historically this is a really normal period. Make the playoffs once a decade. Win a WS once every century. That's what we signed up for as baseball fans in Chicago. It doesn't really matter which team. 

 

There’s no other ownership group that is both (1) willing to dip into the top 5-10 total payroll range relatively frequently and (2) not willing to spend even half of what the going rate is for a single star free agent. It makes so little sense it’s practically impossible that the next group would handicap itself in the same way.  

[Kyyle23]

18 minutes ago, The Mighty Mite said:

They’re putting the fan base in fits of depression where it gets so bad that the base won’t give 2 ***** if the Sox move to Nashville or wherever, in fact we will probably welcome it and there is always the possibility that the Sox leave town before the lease on Sox Park expires,  leases can be broken. 
So far this off season has been a complete bust with not one iota to get even half way excited about. IMHO this is being done with an objective in mind.

 

Nah I think that if he does try and move the team, this fanbase will definitely get off the deck and be heard.  

[chitownsportsfan]

31 minutes ago, FloydBannister1983 said:

That’s what I said.

Spending a lot on short term players is not spending as most would understand it.  Yes the payroll goes up for a couple years but it’s quite easy to bring it back down.

Spending the same on long term, impact players is quite different.

So he spent for two or three years.  Still hasn’t even crossed that $80 million mark for a single player.

He overspent on bullpen.

This is a classic OOTP strategy and works pretty well, at least in the game. Overpay on AAV for a bunch of short term contract and if it doesn't work you just blow it up as nobody is on the hook for that long.

The Sox of course would never entertain an AAV on Ohtani (for example) of 80 million in order to entice him on a short term deal. Guys do occasionally except a "prove it" deal but I don't think Chicago has ever done one.

[Texsox]

49 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

There’s no other ownership group that is both (1) willing to dip into the top 5-10 total payroll range relatively frequently and (2) not willing to spend even half of what the going rate is for a single star free agent. It makes so little sense it’s practically impossible that the next group would handicap itself in the same way.  

Handicap with top 5 to 10 payroll? I think we both want to see that. I agree cheaper bench and better free agent starters is a better way to catch lightening. 

[Dam8610]

2 hours ago, Saufley said:

And he and his buddy tried to shame Bill Veeck and make us believe he was the answer. Reinsdorf is the real loser and we the fans suffer. I'd give anything for the Bill Veeck years again!

The worst thing MLB ever did to the White Sox was not allowing Eddie DeBartolo to buy the team.

[Lightly Folded]

1 hour ago, Dam8610 said:

The worst thing MLB ever did to the White Sox was not allowing Eddie DeBartolo to buy the team.

Wasn’t DeBartolo fixated on moving the Sox to Denver? Plus he supposedly had ties to the mafia.

[pmb0928]

1 hour ago, Dam8610 said:

The worst thing MLB ever did to the White Sox was not allowing Eddie DeBartolo to buy the team.

As I became a Sox fan in the early years of Lance Johnson and crew I didnt know any of this so did some research. Speaking at my little league banquet had been Jeff Torberg who became manager and I became a fan and loved the new uniforms. Here is a good article for others who didnt know the history.

https://www.southsidesox.com/2012/11/23/3680062/white-sox-history-when-ed-debartolo-almost-bought-the-white-sox

[Lip Man 1]

1 hour ago, Lightly Folded said:

Wasn’t DeBartolo fixated on moving the Sox to Denver? Plus he supposedly had ties to the mafia.

December 11, 1980 - Edward DeBartolo was voted down by other American League owners in his attempt to buy the White Sox from Bill Veeck.

DeBartolo, the man who invented the modern shopping mall in Boardman, Ohio may have had connections with organized crime. He also owned horse racing tracks, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL and wasn’t from the Chicago area.

All were ‘red flags’ for the other owners.

In an effort to appease then Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, DeBartolo agreed to move to Chicago at least 20 per cent of the time to have a direct idea of what was going on with the franchise. His compromises fell on deaf ears as he only received three affirmative votes. Originally back in October at the first vote on his attempt to buy the club, he fell two votes short of approval.

The way was then opened for the group headed by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn to get the franchise.

[South Side Fireworks Man]

6 hours ago, SpringfieldFan said:

Back in 1984 in the USFL the entire Chicago team swapped locations with the Arizona team leaving only the team identities behind. Yeah, they need to just do an Arizona-Chicago MLB swap like now.

I had season tickets to the Blitz in 1983, got pissed off and cancelled when they pulled the swap before the '84 season.

I would be ecstatic if the Sox and Diamonbacks pulled a similar swap today, exchanging entire organizations but keeping the team names in their current cities.  Too bad there's not a chance of that happening.

[South Side Fireworks Man]

18 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

December 11, 1980 - Edward DeBartolo was voted down by other American League owners in his attempt to buy the White Sox from Bill Veeck.

DeBartolo, the man who invented the modern shopping mall in Boardman, Ohio may have had connections with organized crime. He also owned horse racing tracks, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL and wasn’t from the Chicago area.

All were ‘red flags’ for the other owners.

In an effort to appease then Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, DeBartolo agreed to move to Chicago at least 20 per cent of the time to have a direct idea of what was going on with the franchise. His compromises fell on deaf ears as he only received three affirmative votes. Originally back in October at the first vote on his attempt to buy the club, he fell two votes short of approval.

The way was then opened for the group headed by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn to get the franchise.

The worst day in the history of the franchise.

 

Edit:  Well, maybe the second worst.  The worst day was when Einhorn and Reinsdorf bought the franchise.

Edited December 8, 2023 by South Side Fireworks Man

[Dam8610]

2 hours ago, Lightly Folded said:

Wasn’t DeBartolo fixated on moving the Sox to Denver? Plus he supposedly had ties to the mafia.

He was also the owner of the San Francisco 49ers during the 1980s and 1990s when they won 5 championships in 14 seasons. I don't care if he was affiliated with the mafia, he knew how to build a winning franchise.

[Eminor3rd]

4 hours ago, Texsox said:

Handicap with top 5 to 10 payroll? I think we both want to see that. I agree cheaper bench and better free agent starters is a better way to catch lightening. 

No I’m saying there are owners that won’t spend much money and try to be smart about it, and there are owners that will spend lots of money and try to be smart about it, but we have the only one that will spend money but be patently stupid about it, even when every other team demonstrates how to do it better. 

[Texsox]

1 minute ago, Eminor3rd said:

No I’m saying there are owners that won’t spend much money and try to be smart about it, and there are owners that will spend lots of money and try to be smart about it, but we have the only one that will spend money but be patently stupid about it, even when every other team demonstrates how to do it better. 

Very true. That makes a ton of sense.

[Texsox]

2 hours ago, Lightly Folded said:

Wasn’t DeBartolo fixated on moving the Sox to Denver? Plus he supposedly had ties to the mafia.

That's what I remembered. He seemed eager to explore other markets. But that could have been folks trying to sabotage his bid. 

[ptatc]

2 hours ago, Lightly Folded said:

Wasn’t DeBartolo fixated on moving the Sox to Denver? Plus he supposedly had ties to the mafia.

DeBartolo and Steinbrenner owned the racetracks, except Arlington in the 89s and 90s until Fast Eddie got caught. 

They were a fun group to work for but to say they had ties is putting it lightly. 

[Eminor3rd]

17 minutes ago, Texsox said:

Very true. That makes a ton of sense.

Like it makes me wonder if the issue is really just JR insisting on surrounding himself exclusively with spineless yes-men, that won’t push back on anything, because it’s not like JR LIKES to waste money. Has no one really showed him a $/WAR curve?

[Lip Man 1]

38 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

He was also the owner of the San Francisco 49ers during the 1980s and 1990s when they won 5 championships in 14 seasons. I don't care if he was affiliated with the mafia, he knew how to build a winning franchise.

His son actually ran the franchise after his dad bought it after the Sox sale was voided.  

[Balta1701]

18 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

Like it makes me wonder if the issue is really just JR insisting on surrounding himself exclusively with spineless yes-men, that won’t push back on anything, because it’s not like JR LIKES to waste money. Has no one really showed him a $/WAR curve?

Also the blue shirt guy might have also been Jason Benetti.