5 hours ago, greg775 said:

I'd like an alt team as well. My plan is to follow the Sox and Cubs both because of the word 'Chicago.' I can never be a Cub fan but I could possibly learn to follow them and see what I think. I'm that down on Jerry and this club. This was a good optimistic post but I personally see miserable pitching and a very inept lineup. Wonder where everybody thinks we'll be awesome on defense. 60-65 wins would be a good season with this talent. I've been a diehard Sox fan all my life. If I feel this way I can only imagine what a more casual Sox fan is thinking. For those people with a functioning brain (ones who only go to games in person if they have a great seat) I just can't believe they'll pay MLB prices for GOOD tix, parking and food/beer/soda to watch this team. 

There's an old saying, if you're only a fan of a team when their winning, you're not a real fan of the team.

1 hour ago, WBWSF said:

There's an old saying, if you're only a fan of a team when their winning, you're not a real fan of the team.

There are many old sayings.  Doing the same thing over and over is insanity, fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me, never trust a snake oil salesman.

plenty fit 

1 hour ago, WBWSF said:

There's an old saying, if you're only a fan of a team when their winning, you're not a real fan of the team.

When have they been winning since 2008?

1 1/2 out of 15 years and more than likely out of 19 or 20.

I'm excited about this season for a couple reasons.  First, I love baseball.  I can, and will, watch any game, and we're not far from having a baseball game on every night.  Second, even though I know this team will not be good, it has a bunch of fresh faces, including some young ones that are hopeful to be part of the future.  The last 1/3 of last season was so bad with the team looking like they had no interest in playing that I'm glad the roster was turned over.  This team will be easier to cheer for.

Granted, I will probably be sick of the losing soon enough, but dammit, I'm ready for baseball.  And I'm a Sox fan no matter what.

6 hours ago, soulfly said:

This team is better than last years.  s%*# on them all you want for not having talent, but I bet they play better as a team than what we trotted out the last couple seasons.  Strong defense and fundamental baseball can overcome a lot.  I believe. 

 

P.S. I am not Chris Getz and I am not high.

I’ll be honest that I haven’t hated the job Getz has done so far, especially considering the restraints placed on him by ownership. But this team is definitely worse than last year’s team.

6 minutes ago, Milkman delivers said:

I’ll be honest that I haven’t hated the job Getz has done so far, especially considering the restraints placed on him by ownership. But this team is definitely worse than last year’s team.

Yeah the individual moves haven't been bad, IMO.

And on paper, the team is worse... but part of me is thinking that they can't be. 

33 minutes ago, Milkman delivers said:

I’ll be honest that I haven’t hated the job Getz has done so far, especially considering the restraints placed on him by ownership. But this team is definitely worse than last year’s team.

Last year's team had a lot of expensive deadwood with name recognition among the general public, but they likely were the worse team considering the entire season. People are overlooking the absolute, but par for the course under Hahn, putrid level of depth on and beyond the 40 man roster.

Simply managing injuries better and having playable substitutes should add 4-5 wins.  All that said, the primary focus of Getz and Pedro should be:

1. Send support to the minor leagues to assess and develop players.
2. Maximize playing time for all young players on the active roster.
   • No more "Tony/Ozzie Ball" ride the bench rookie, you got to earn any time here.
   • Shitcan Pedro immediately, if not sooner, if he doesn't play ball and favors win now over the future.
   • Be up front and incentivize Pedro and staff. They will be assessed in 2024 primarily on player development, not Ws & Ls.
3. Stop the bleeding of bad baseball to stabilize attendance while marketing a more likable team.
4. Flip any valuable guys over 27, add A-AA-AAA potential 2026 MLB starting player prospects.

 

13.2 2023 Actual fWAR

• 3.1 Position Players
• 10.1 Pitchers

Versus

23.5 2024 Projected fWAR

• 7.5 Outfield + DH
• 6.5 Infield
• 7.8 Starters
• 1.7 Relievers

Edited February 20, 20242 yr by South Side Hit Men

23 minutes ago, JoeC said:

Yeah the individual moves haven't been bad, IMO.

And on paper, the team is worse... but part of me is thinking that they can't be. 

Worse?  We don't have Grandal, Anderson, Kelly, Bummer or Lynn.  That's five areas of improvement before we add anyone.

5 minutes ago, poppysox said:

Worse?  We don't have Grandal, Anderson, Kelly, Bummer or Lynn.  That's five areas of improvement before we add anyone.

We also don’t have Lopez, Clevinger, Giolito, etc.

1 hour ago, hogan873 said:

I'm excited about this season for a couple reasons.  First, I love baseball.  I can, and will, watch any game, and we're not far from having a baseball game on every night.  Second, even though I know this team will not be good, it has a bunch of fresh faces, including some young ones that are hopeful to be part of the future.  The last 1/3 of last season was so bad with the team looking like they had no interest in playing that I'm glad the roster was turned over.  This team will be easier to cheer for.

Granted, I will probably be sick of the losing soon enough, but dammit, I'm ready for baseball.  And I'm a Sox fan no matter what.

I agree with this guy 100%. This is my post in shorter words. 

21 minutes ago, fathom said:

We also don’t have Lopez, Clevinger, Giolito, etc.

Yep...lots of hot and cold performances from those three but hardly irreplaceable.

This team won't be as bad as some think, and it will be good to see baseball again. But it is hard to get truly excited about a team that has no chance of going to the postseason. Getz deserves to have his chance, but he is just starting. One can only get so optimistic.

When people say worse than last year, I think there is no doubt we have less talent than the start of 2023, but I do think this team is better and significantly deeper than the end of 2023.  The last two months were some of the worst baseball I have ever seen.  There is a difference between being bad, which I think this team is, and being in a complete free fall, like we saw to end 2023.

White Sox Baseball 2024 - To have hope that a positive occurrence will happen, while simultaneously readying for the negative outcome . like the old saying, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

5 hours ago, WBWSF said:

There's an old saying, if you're only a fan of a team when their winning, you're not a real fan of the team.

I don't think it's an all or nothing proposition. In the past two years I've reached a point that I don't schedule my vacations around home stands, I don't make every attempt to watch every game. I've flipped from the Sox game to watch the Rangers or Astros. 

They are still my favorite team but they have lost my loyalty. If that means I shouldn't call myself a fan, I'm fine with that. If the standard is face paint and tattoos for every game, I'm certainly not. If applauding every mistake and poor decision is the barometer, then I'm out as well. 

My current number 1 team is a high school team. 

 

Depth is a luxury that this franchise will never have. We have had at least three positions each year with well below MLB average players as starters. I don't believe they are capable of fixing that. Now toss in viable players as bench and MiLB? I'm done with that dream. 

 

I wasn’t excited a week ago but now I’m waiting for 2:05 on Friday. Something like a 13-13 start would do wonders for me. Might as well not be miserable about it all.

 

New faces like Barfield and Bannister inspire me. Looking into the past, it really is stunning that Hahn and Kenny failed to bring in outside voices, opinions, etc. This entire thing likely comes down to spending correctly down the road, as it did last time. But the foundation building aspect of this is interesting to me.

5 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

When have they been winning since 2008?

1 1/2 out of 15 years and more than likely out of 19 or 20.

Since the start of the 2007 season the Sox have had five winning seasons, 11 losing seasons and one season at .500.

Three playoff appearances. 3-8 playoff record. 

7 hours ago, WBWSF said:

There's an old saying, if you're only a fan of a team when their winning, you're not a real fan of the team.

True. That's why my anger/disinterest is interesting (to me). I've been a Sox fan forever, for decades. I feel like if I have lost total interest, there 'have' to be many others like me. I have to be considered a real fan. I know the Sox inside and out history wise. From Peters and Horlen to Nahorodny to Karkovice to Garr to Alan Bannister to Wood, Big Hurt, Oz, Robin, Chet L. I know 'em all. This is the first year in my life I've turned on the team. Depressing.

This team is an experiment to me. I'm interested to see how the "all defense no offense" approach goes. I'm interested to see how Benintendi does now that his wrist injury is behind him. He showed a little power at the end of the year, and if that is real then maybe he's something like the guy we hoped we'd get. I'm interested to see how Moncada and Eloy do in a make or break year for both of them. I'm interested to see if Vaughn can ever be more than a second division starter. I'm interested to see if guys like Fedde and Soroka can be decent 3rd or 4th starters.

This is likely a 70-ish win team. I can squint and see more if a bunch of the above questions go their way.

I'm excited for the bets I plan to win betting against them LOL.

I want to like this roster, but I just don't. If they win more than 65 games I would consider it a successful season with the product that's being put on the field. 

3 hours ago, fathom said:

We also don’t have Lopez, Clevinger, Giolito, etc.

Santos...

15 hours ago, South Side Hit Men said:

Their system projects the Sox finishing 67-95.

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

Not sure how dynamic their system is to account for likely trade deadline dumps and roster playing time in Aug-Sept for fill ins. I don’t see as many guys being traded this July, primarily because they had more high caliber players to trade last year vs. this year.

You've done a good job outlining the fWAR sources in other posts. The short of it is that around 4 of the projected fWAR is probably from guys that won't be here if they are healthy and producing mildly by the middle of July: Cease, Eloy and possibly if anybody will take him Moncada, and then that would be about -3 fWAR (rest of schedule) gone.

Also about half the projected fWAR at SS is from Colson, and while ZIPS seems to think he can come up and be basically an average regular, I wouldn't mind just leaving him down in the minors all year, maybe get him a cup of coffee in September. If he's obviously too good for the minors sure bring him up, but otherwise just leave him down.

9 hours ago, WBWSF said:

There's an old saying, if you're only a fan of a team when their winning, you're not a real fan of the team.

Here's another saying: Fan gatekeeping is fucking stupid.

I'm intrigued by the possibilities of our starting pitching.
Kopech has a TOR arm, was pretty good 2 years ago, and is on the same timeline as Cease.

Soroka was a TOR guy, supposedly healthy.  1 year left on deal.

Crochet has a rocket arm; hope he gets a real opportunity.

Fredde is not at that level, but it will be interesting to see if his improvement sticks.

If all goes well, we will have a strong staff.  If only some goes well, we'll at least have strong trade capital in July.