Being bad doesn't = Rebuilding

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

I keep reading that the Sox are rebuilding so their record doesn't matter. The White Sox are not rebuilding, they're simply bad. 

Baseball has changed dramatically, and while people keep pointing to the Astros as a case of a team who was very bad and got good, they share nothing in common with the current White Sox.

During the Astros "rebuild" years, they were able to draft at the top of the draft every one - unlike today. During the Astros rebuild, they had a top 10 farm system in baseball from 2012 to 2019! Seven straight years, with 4 being in the top 5. The White Sox, who have the 2nd worst record in baseball, don't even have a top 15 system today. 

Plenty of teams are just bad, and the majority of teams who are really bad don't become very good with those group of players. 

The White Sox are one of the laughing stocks of baseball, yet some fans believe their used car salesman GM that he's turning the organization around.

Lastly, people claiming the Sox stopped spending on players so they could reallocate resources crack me up. The cost of the things the Sox have invested in are likely less than 5 million dollars total. Not even the cost of one player. 

The White Sox organization and fan base is dying, but some here love the direction the team is heading. It's is absolutely fascinating. To all the rebuild claimers, what are the White Sox rebuilding around? What is their edge in the market? What advantage do they have? The answer to anyone who is being honest is nothing.

 

[caulfield12]

Two solid and very young catchers...Teel could be the best player on the team.

Colson Montgomery...maybe he's a 4 fWAR player and sticks at SS?  Maybe a bust in his sophomore campaign.

Walter McKinven

Team seems to have much better chemistry and Venable is half tolerable

 

Speaking of another bad team.

The Nationals at least have Abrams, James Wood, Dylan Crews, M.Gore and Eli Willits...which is a much stronger young core than the White Sox currently possess.

 

[Timmy U]

Is Dylan Crews any good? I think the jury is very much out on him. He has been pretty bad so far. Next year will be huge for him. Also, who knows about Willits? He may be the next Bobby Witt Jr. He may be the next first round bust. Gotta give that time. 

To the main point of the thread: Yeah, probably. The Sox are trying to be a low payroll team without extra draft picks that somehow puts together a winning team. The sport is loaded with perennial losers who do that like the Pirates and Marlins. The Sox are in danger of falling into that bucket. Kinda early to tell since the complete implosion of their entire roster is so recent. Branch Rickey would be losing 110 games a year with what was left after that.

Personally, I don’t put too much stock in farm system rankings since outcomes are uncertain. Cleveland’s farm system didn’t get much credit for Jose Ramirez, but he turned into a borderline Hall of Famer. The Cardinals were given a lot of publicity for Jordan Walker, and that has not worked out. The Sox have like 9 guys who are pretty highly touted. If half of them work out, they will be competitive. If someone exceeds their perceived ceiling, maybe they’ll be good. The whole thing is a crapshoot.

[Kyyle23]

2 minutes ago, Timmy U said:

Is Dylan Crews any good? I think the jury is very much out on him. He has been pretty bad so far. Next year will be huge for him. Also, who knows about Willits? He may be the next Bobby Witt Jr. He may be the next first round bust. Gotta give that time. 

To the main point of the thread: Yeah, probably. The Sox are trying to be a low payroll team without extra draft picks that somehow puts together a winning team. The sport is loaded with perennial losers who do that like the Pirates and Marlins. The Sox are in danger of falling into that bucket. Kinda early to tell since the complete implosion of their entire roster is so recent. Branch Rickey would be losing 110 games a year with what was left after that.

Personally, I don’t put too much stock in farm system rankings since outcomes are uncertain. Cleveland’s farm system didn’t get much credit for Jose Ramirez, but he turned into a borderline Hall of Famer. The Cardinals were given a lot of publicity for Jordan Walker, and that has not worked out. The Sox have like 9 guys who are pretty highly touted. If half of them work out, they will be competitive. If someone exceeds their perceived ceiling, maybe they’ll be good. The whole thing is a crapshoot.

I think for my part of the other discussion, the farm system success was relevant because it was translating to major league success.  Luhnow was winning minor league titles and those players were moving up to an extremely good Cardinals team.

and the Cardinals replacement for Luhnow went to jail for hacking his computer because he knew Luhnow had a great system!

[WBWSF]

1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I keep reading that the Sox are rebuilding so their record doesn't matter. The White Sox are not rebuilding, they're simply bad. 

Baseball has changed dramatically, and while people keep pointing to the Astros as a case of a team who was very bad and got good, they share nothing in common with the current White Sox.

During the Astros "rebuild" years, they were able to draft at the top of the draft every one - unlike today. During the Astros rebuild, they had a top 10 farm system in baseball from 2012 to 2019! Seven straight years, with 4 being in the top 5. The White Sox, who have the 2nd worst record in baseball, don't even have a top 15 system today. 

Plenty of teams are just bad, and the majority of teams who are really bad don't become very good with those group of players. 

The White Sox are one of the laughing stocks of baseball, yet some fans believe their used car salesman GM that he's turning the organization around.

Lastly, people claiming the Sox stopped spending on players so they could reallocate resources crack me up. The cost of the things the Sox have invested in are likely less than 5 million dollars total. Not even the cost of one player. 

The White Sox organization and fan base is dying, but some here love the direction the team is heading. It's is absolutely fascinating. To all the rebuild claimers, what are the White Sox rebuilding around? What is their edge in the market? What advantage do they have? The answer to anyone who is being honest is nothing.

 

I can understand your feelings. I'm hoping for better results in 2026. With Smith, Schulutz and Bradon Montgomery added to the team and hopefully some more off season additions,  the team should be alot better.

[bmags]

I do wish the players union would admit that anti-tanking efforts were a failure and baseball could admit that just absolutely creating a cyclone of rules that uniquely screws 2-3 fanbases (not franchises!) is stupid but fortunately for them those fanbases have been so whittled down nobody gives a s%*# about them and baseball can talk about moving them to smaller locations where they can hand them cost-controlled goodies.

[Kyyle23]

16 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

I can understand your feelings. I'm hoping for better results in 2026. With Smith, Schulutz and Bradon Montgomery added to the team and hopefully some more off season additions,  the team should be alot better.

Buddy, Smith and Schultz are no lock to make this team after last season.  

[southsider2k5]

It's been the theme of the past two years.  If you disqualify all of the "bad" things, and ask a bunch of leading questions seemingly highlighting some of the things that haven't been obvious failures, making them seem like they could be successes, you get to Baghdad Bob everything that puts a bad tint on things. 

 -Resume? Resumes don't matter, look what else these great guys did, what else could Getz have done?!>?!

-Losing? Losing doesn't matter, but what if you look what these losing teams did!  Then ignore the fact that we literally can't pick like Houston and Baltimore did with the changes in the CBA.

-Hey the cupboard was bare, except where these guys succeeded, but what if it was the changes that did it, even if the changes didn't work for most everyone else!

-Ownership is still the same.  I don't know why we are pretending that Jerry isn't still meddling, when he obviously is, and still operating with the same 1984 team building styles.  Think about it, what does Rick Hahn's arc look like if he got to bring in Machado and/or Harper?  What does Kenny Williams look like if he got to bring in Arod?  Does anyone honestly think Jerry is going to allow Getz to spend at the top of the market even if all of this succeeds?

Nah, operating with doubt is absolutely fair with the 45 year history we have here.

[FloydBannister1983]

13 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

It's been the theme of the past two years.  If you disqualify all of the "bad" things, and ask a bunch of leading questions seemingly highlighting some of the things that haven't been obvious failures, making them seem like they could be successes, you get to Baghdad Bob everything that puts a bad tint on things. 

 -Resume? Resumes don't matter, look what else these great guys did, what else could Getz have done?!>?!

-Losing? Losing doesn't matter, but what if you look what these losing teams did!  Then ignore the fact that we literally can't pick like Houston and Baltimore did with the changes in the CBA.

-Hey the cupboard was bare, except where these guys succeeded, but what if it was the changes that did it, even if the changes didn't work for most everyone else!

-Ownership is still the same.  I don't know why we are pretending that Jerry isn't still meddling, when he obviously is, and still operating with the same 1984 team building styles.  Think about it, what does Rick Hahn's arc look like if he got to bring in Machado and/or Harper?  What does Kenny Williams look like if he got to bring in Arod?  Does anyone honestly think Jerry is going to allow Getz to spend at the top of the market even if all of this succeeds?

Nah, operating with doubt is absolutely fair with the 45 year history we have here.

The last point … I knew the last rebuild would never work because no one was fired but it (and frankly the franchise) was doomed to failure the minute they screwed around with Harper with no intention of signing him.  A guy who would have been an historic franchise player, affordable by today’s standards.  Once they played their games this entire franchise was exposed.

(Of course you could go back further still, Navarro instead of Clemens for example.)

Signing Harper could have given Hahn some massive success.  Once the other hand this franchise is where stars come to die so Harper probably would have been a replacement level player had he signed with the Sox.

[Tony]

9 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

It's been the theme of the past two years.  If you disqualify all of the "bad" things, and ask a bunch of leading questions seemingly highlighting some of the things that haven't been obvious failures, making them seem like they could be successes, you get to Baghdad Bob everything that puts a bad tint on things. 

 -Resume? Resumes don't matter, look what else these great guys did, what else could Getz have done?!>?!

-Losing? Losing doesn't matter, but what if you look what these losing teams did!  Then ignore the fact that we literally can't pick like Houston and Baltimore did with the changes in the CBA.

-Hey the cupboard was bare, except where these guys succeeded, but what if it was the changes that did it, even if the changes didn't work for most everyone else!

-Ownership is still the same.  I don't know why we are pretending that Jerry isn't still meddling, when he obviously is, and still operating with the same 1984 team building styles.  Think about it, what does Rick Hahn's arc look like if he got to bring in Machado and/or Harper?  What does Kenny Williams look like if he got to bring in Arod?  Does anyone honestly think Jerry is going to allow Getz to spend at the top of the market even if all of this succeeds?

Nah, operating with doubt is absolutely fair with the 45 year history we have here.

There is also a portion of posters here that live inside the Sox vacuum and don't compare the Sox to other franchises, they just weigh things against other Sox seasons. 

It's been beaten to death at this point, but it's why there are "optimistic" posters here talking about how much "progress" was made over the last year. And yes, the Sox won 17-18 more games than they did last season. A 17 game improvement off the season before, in a vacuum, is a great thing. But zooming out even slightly shows you that going from 41 wins to 58 wins really shouldn't be celebrated, and the team that made a 17 game improvement from last season is without question the worst team in the American League in 2025. Good chance the Sox don't win 60 games this year. The Twins need to win one more game to reach 70 wins, which would mean no other AL team will finish the year in the 60-69 win category, everyone at least won 70 games...while the Sox won't even reach 60. That's how far away they still are from the rest of the pack. 

I haven't even mentioned Jerry yet, and the restrictions he will place on payroll additions, along with the 2027 labor impasse. 

Again, anyone can fan the way they want to fan. You want to be "optimistic" about the future of the White Sox, knock yourself out. But if you're going to argue with me (or anyone) that people are being too negative, too pessimistic...that's where I have an issue. This is objectively the worst franchise in the American League, has been for quite some time, and there is no where near enough evidence to tell anyone that it's going to change anytime soon. 

 

[southsider2k5]

4 minutes ago, Tony said:

There is also a portion of posters here that live inside the Sox vacuum and don't compare the Sox to other franchises, they just weigh things against other Sox seasons. 

It's been beaten to death at this point, but it's why there are "optimistic" posters here talking about how much "progress" was made over the last year. And yes, the Sox won 17-18 more games than they did last season. A 17 game improvement off the season before, in a vacuum, is a great thing. But zooming out even slightly shows you that going from 41 wins to 58 wins really shouldn't be celebrated, and the team that made a 17 game improvement from last season is without question the worst team in the American League in 2025. Good chance the Sox don't win 60 games this year. The Twins need to win one more game to reach 70 wins, which would mean no other AL team will finish the year in the 60-69 win category, everyone at least won 70 games...while the Sox won't even reach 60. That's how far away they still are from the rest of the pack. 

I haven't even mentioned Jerry yet, and the restrictions he will place on payroll additions, along with the 2027 labor impasse. 

Again, anyone can fan the way they want to fan. You want to be "optimistic" about the future of the White Sox, knock yourself out. But if you're going to argue with me (or anyone) that people are being too negative, too pessimistic...that's where I have an issue. This is objectively the worst franchise in the American League, has been for quite some time, and there is no where near enough evidence to tell anyone that it's going to change anytime soon. 

 

I could even get behind it a bit more if we had some critical mass of top prospects about to hit, but our farm system is behind almost every team we are trailing in the division, so I am not even sure where we are making games up from, outside of the Twins self-emolation.

[tray]

As we know, Ishbia started buying WSox shares in 2021 and then entered into some kind of 5 year option in 2025 to purchase and supposedly invest in the team starting this year...

After year one of the option....no public comment by Ishbia on anything and no moves by him that appear to help the team or clarify things for the fans.

In the meantime, why should JR or Ishbia spend any money on this organization given the nebulous option agreement and uncertainty for any return on investment?

Salting the roster via trade or free agency could really propel the team toward respectability. 

However, that does not seem likely, at least for the next several years  with the odd ownership dynamic as it is. 

 

[Bob Sacamano]

10 minutes ago, tray said:

As we know, Ishbia started buying WSox shares in 2021 and then entered into some kind of 5 year option in 2025 to purchase and supposedly invest in the team starting this year...

After year one of the option....no public comment by Ishbia on anything and no moves by him that appear to help the team or clarify things for the fans.

In the meantime, why should JR or Ishbia spend any money on this organization given the nebulous option agreement and uncertainty for any return on investment?

Salting the roster via trade or free agency could really propel the team toward respectability. 

However, that does not seem likely, at least for the next several years  with the odd ownership dynamic as it is. 

 

Cute that you think he currently has any say with the building of the team

[bmags]

I think I'd say the reason I'd be especially skeptical that Getz will work is for the White Sox to work he'll need to be uniquely good at getting B/C level free agents to be successful and even the Dodgers struggle on that on a year to year basis.

But the sox don't have a choice unless this is the greatest drafting and developing team in the league. And I'm skeptical.

[tray]

12 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Cute that you think he currently has any say with the building of the team

Common sense is an asset that escapes a lot of people. 

[southsider2k5]

28 minutes ago, tray said:

As we know, Ishbia started buying WSox shares in 2021 and then entered into some kind of 5 year option in 2025 to purchase and supposedly invest in the team starting this year...

After year one of the option....no public comment by Ishbia on anything and no moves by him that appear to help the team or clarify things for the fans.

In the meantime, why should JR or Ishbia spend any money on this organization given the nebulous option agreement and uncertainty for any return on investment?

Salting the roster via trade or free agency could really propel the team toward respectability. 

However, that does not seem likely, at least for the next several years  with the odd ownership dynamic as it is. 

 

This would be a spectacular failure by Jerry if he negotiated a deal with someone who he didn't get reassurances from about how he would operate during the status of their deal.  Personally, I don't believe Jerry is this stupid, and further more, we KNOW that Ishbia is paying off the operations debt that Jerry's group accumulated  in the last half decade, so I personally believe the idea that this franchise isn't going to "spend money" is already demonstrably false.  They might not be willing to "spend money" on the daily roster of a team in one of the worst stretches in MLB history, but if you look at similar historic situations, you will notice most of those franchises didn't spend until they were into a level of recovery that made significantly adding to the team something that could propel it to at least mediocrity, if not competition.

There is also a really good chance that the "spend money" part is probably going to a new stadium for this franchise, which is why a guy with truly deep pockets was brought in to take over for a guy who is real estate rich and probably couldn't write a check for a billion dollar stadium himself.

[southsider2k5]

12 minutes ago, tray said:

Common sense is an asset that escapes a lot of people. 

23 hours ago, tray said:

LOL. You should go back to school and learn a few things, including how to engage in a respectful dialogue with others.

 Are you a fool.  Just stop with your anger and reflexive posts filled with unwarranted personal attacks and anger. 

 

 

[WhiteSox2023]

47 minutes ago, tray said:

As we know, Ishbia started buying WSox shares in 2021 and then entered into some kind of 5 year option in 2025 to purchase and supposedly invest in the team starting this year...

After year one of the option....no public comment by Ishbia on anything and no moves by him that appear to help the team or clarify things for the fans.

In the meantime, why should JR or Ishbia spend any money on this organization given the nebulous option agreement and uncertainty for any return on investment?

Salting the roster via trade or free agency could really propel the team toward respectability. 

However, that does not seem likely, at least for the next several years  with the odd ownership dynamic as it is. 

 

Jerry should spend money because he is the owner of the team but he won’t because he is a deadbeat owner that just wants to collect profits.  Ishbia is not the owner of the team and has zero incentive to spend money and save Jerry from spending any.

[wegner]

3 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I keep reading that the Sox are rebuilding so their record doesn't matter. The White Sox are not rebuilding, they're simply bad. 

Baseball has changed dramatically, and while people keep pointing to the Astros as a case of a team who was very bad and got good, they share nothing in common with the current White Sox.

During the Astros "rebuild" years, they were able to draft at the top of the draft every one - unlike today. During the Astros rebuild, they had a top 10 farm system in baseball from 2012 to 2019! Seven straight years, with 4 being in the top 5. The White Sox, who have the 2nd worst record in baseball, don't even have a top 15 system today. 

Plenty of teams are just bad, and the majority of teams who are really bad don't become very good with those group of players. 

The White Sox are one of the laughing stocks of baseball, yet some fans believe their used car salesman GM that he's turning the organization around.

Lastly, people claiming the Sox stopped spending on players so they could reallocate resources crack me up. The cost of the things the Sox have invested in are likely less than 5 million dollars total. Not even the cost of one player. 

The White Sox organization and fan base is dying, but some here love the direction the team is heading. It's is absolutely fascinating. To all the rebuild claimers, what are the White Sox rebuilding around? What is their edge in the market? What advantage do they have? The answer to anyone who is being honest is nothing.

 

I have to agree with you, Pal.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

29 minutes ago, wegner said:

I have to agree with you, Pal.

It sucks to say it, and it's a shitty thing to experience as a fan. 

The Sox used to live in a pretty nice house. It wasn't the best house, but it had it's moments and memories. It had some serious flaws with it's foundation, and some plumbing challenges which needed repair, but they spent to money on upgrading the kitchen and entertainment room for cosmetic reasons. The core issues needed repair. Chris Getz came in, blew the entire house up, replaced it with a 300 sq foot one story house made of plywood. All his supporters are yelling about how he fixed the foundation and it's not leaking anymore... It's madness.

[kitekrazy]

2 hours ago, FloydBannister1983 said:

The last point … I knew the last rebuild would never work because no one was fired but it (and frankly the franchise) was doomed to failure the minute they screwed around with Harper with no intention of signing him.  A guy who would have been an historic franchise player, affordable by today’s standards.  Once they played their games this entire franchise was exposed.

(Of course you could go back further still, Navarro instead of Clemens for example.)

Signing Harper could have given Hahn some massive success.  Once the other hand this franchise is where stars come to die so Harper probably would have been a replacement level player had he signed with the Sox.

Sox have bad luck with career NL players.   Plus if you have a superstar they need to be complimented with quality players.  

[wegner]

16 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

It sucks to say it, and it's a shitty thing to experience as a fan. 

The Sox used to live in a pretty nice house. It wasn't the best house, but it had it's moments and memories. It had some serious flaws with it's foundation, and some plumbing challenges which needed repair, but they spent to money on upgrading the kitchen and entertainment room for cosmetic reasons. The core issues needed repair. Chris Getz came in, blew the entire house up, replaced it with a 300 sq foot one story house made of plywood. All his supporters are yelling about how he fixed the foundation and it's not leaking anymore... It's madness.

After the Allstar break, they were enjoyable to follow for a bit but that really did not last long. It is just sad for a major league baseball team to be this bad. Most days, they just have no chance to win a baseball game and that should be unacceptable for any fan base. Of course they are better than last year for crying out loud, but that is the lowest bar ever. 

[kitekrazy]

2 hours ago, Kyyle23 said:

Buddy, Smith and Schultz are no lock to make this team after last season.  

They wont.  These guys are use to pitching 4 innings max.   Then around July the discussion is about mothballing pitchers.  

[kitekrazy]

2 hours ago, tray said:

As we know, Ishbia started buying WSox shares in 2021 and then entered into some kind of 5 year option in 2025 to purchase and supposedly invest in the team starting this year...

After year one of the option....no public comment by Ishbia on anything and no moves by him that appear to help the team or clarify things for the fans.

In the meantime, why should JR or Ishbia spend any money on this organization given the nebulous option agreement and uncertainty for any return on investment?

Salting the roster via trade or free agency could really propel the team toward respectability. 

However, that does not seem likely, at least for the next several years  with the odd ownership dynamic as it is. 

 

That isn't working so far Like we want.    It hasn't worked that way for quite some time.  The more I think about it that trading a stud pitcher for some guys that play more than every 5th day is not so bad.   There's the risk these days with pitchers that all teams face with the TJ virus.  The timing can be bad when that virus happens.  

 The only solution is to have great coaching, scouting, development which some large markets do.  The Sox are also bad in scouting at the big league level when they have spent money.   Culture has a lot to do with it.  We think tossing enough money would bring a Naylor or Tucker but some athletes like winning and the chance to play in October over a large payday.   

 So I would say Ishbia's bigger challenge is to remove the identity of being a s%*# organization brought to you buy Reinsdorf.  That may be the biggest challenge.  There's 40 years of fans can't have nice things.    

[kitekrazy]

3 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

It's been the theme of the past two years.  If you disqualify all of the "bad" things, and ask a bunch of leading questions seemingly highlighting some of the things that haven't been obvious failures, making them seem like they could be successes, you get to Baghdad Bob everything that puts a bad tint on things. 

 -Resume? Resumes don't matter, look what else these great guys did, what else could Getz have done?!>?!

-Losing? Losing doesn't matter, but what if you look what these losing teams did!  Then ignore the fact that we literally can't pick like Houston and Baltimore did with the changes in the CBA.

-Hey the cupboard was bare, except where these guys succeeded, but what if it was the changes that did it, even if the changes didn't work for most everyone else!

-Ownership is still the same.  I don't know why we are pretending that Jerry isn't still meddling, when he obviously is, and still operating with the same 1984 team building styles.  Think about it, what does Rick Hahn's arc look like if he got to bring in Machado and/or Harper?  What does Kenny Williams look like if he got to bring in Arod?  Does anyone honestly think Jerry is going to allow Getz to spend at the top of the market even if all of this succeeds?

Nah, operating with doubt is absolutely fair with the 45 year history we have here.

Losing is a habit.  We will never see the Pirates or A's ever be good either.  Sure some teams can have a year or two of success but to sustain that is not always the small market.  

 With 2027 being a ? I don't see owners spending big.