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I'm beginning to wonder if this young man is capable of learning. It has been brought to his attention, by coaches and teammates that he needs to be more aggressive, in two strike counts. Yet, he continues to take called third strikes. I'm sorry, but being a good baseball player requires a certain degree of baseball smarts, or acumen. He better wake up and begin to figure that out, or this League is going to eat him up. If we, as fans, can see this, you have to wonder why he can't. He also continues to try to pull everything. Anderson has discovered that there are a lot of base hits, to be derived from taking outside pitches to the opposite field. Moncada can't seem to grasp that. I've said it before, but despite taking a lot of pitches, far too many of his at bats are not good at bats. Is anyone else getting tired of his stubborn insistence on doing the same things, over and over again, in spite of less than acceptable results? Do you think that the Boston front office might have thought that he was a "head case"? What a waste of talent? I don't know what Madrigal will amount to, but his baseball acumen will be a refreshing change, after watching Moncada. I. apologize for the rant, but it's getting hard to take, especially after the let down over Kopech.

You don't give up on a player with Moncada's potential after one poor season. He's one of those guys you just have to ride out the storm on and if he busts, so be it. You can't take the chance of selling him for a horrible return and he puts it all together in his next stop. GMs lose jobs over that stuff.

I make arguments against Moncada’s potential more than most, but it actually centers on a few pertinent points related to how he plays and where I think he needs to improve. Same with Lillian, who is understandably concerned about his approach. You just compare him unfavorably to David Bote, a guy who nobody will remember in four years. I think there’s a difference.

I don't agree with this. There was the one called third strike today. Other than that, over the past month or so, it has barely happened relative to May/June

My goal for the White Sox this year is to lose fewer than 100 games. Why? - psychologically, the record looks less horrific when the losses are not in triple digits. Teams with 100+ losses are treated with as much disdain as the teams that WIN 100+ are glorified. - fewer than 100 losses puts a better spin on the progress of the rebuild. - dropping from 3rd to 5th or 6th in the draft is insignificant. You'll still get a quality player (assuming the Sox know what they're doing). This year's draft had players picked late in the first round that many "experts" felt had top 10 talent. The chances of losing less than 100 games looked very promising after the Bosox series. With 24 games to go, we needed to go a mere 7-17 the rest of the way. But the current 6-game losing streak is making it interesting. Especially since 9 of the remaining games are against Cleveland and the Chubs.

In the wake of the Kopech injury, as the season has turned more and more meaningless, I've been thinking a lot about Moncada and Anderson's numbers and whether they are "good" or not. What's strange about this is that 20 years ago, I would have thought for two young players 18ish homers and 40+ xbh, as fairly good, batting average aside. Add in Moncada's walk rate and Anderson's stolen bases, and some of their respective defensive plays and upside, and I think years ago many would have thought "these players are just fine, they just need time" However, that's NOT what's going on. The board is at least somewhat divided on whether both are going to be as good as they can be to significantly contribute to this team. Then I thought about Joe Crede. Joe Crede was one of the most frustrating players to root for from 2003-2004. After his rookie season of 2002 (he had a handful of PAs in 2000-2001), he had a very difficult time keeping his batting average, on base percentage, and OPS high enough to be acceptable for the next two seasons. He also had a difficult time keeping his WAR up, even with his defensive prowess. In his first 279 MLB PAs, he did very well - an over .800 OPS, great defense, tons of promise, WAR of 0.8 (with only 40% of a season). However, over the next 1123 MLB PAs, from 2003-2004, he did NOT do as well: a .251/.304/.424/.728, with a combined WAR of 3.2, averaging 1.6 per season. It obviously wasn't horrible or anything, but it wasn't something that I think White Sox fans felt they could necessarily live with as a long term option. My recollection was that fans were pretty unsure about him, in general. His two saving graces were his ability to hit homers and his defense. In 2003-2004 Joe Crede was 25 and 26 years old, and at the end of that time he had 1402 MLB PAs to his credit. As of the end of 2004, his stats were: .256/.304/.434/.738 career. Not bad, but just a seemingly just little above replacement. His career WAR was roughly 3.8 at this point. HOWEVER.... The next three complete seasons (and the injury shortened 2007) that Crede played were his best, and indubitably he was utterly essential to our championship run. I don't think anyone would argue that if we didn't have Joe Crede we would have won the 2005 championship. His combined 2005-2008 stats were: .258/.308/.453/.761 and his WAR over that span was 7.6 - twice the value of the previous four years over about the same number of PAs. All of this is to say that Moncada's WAR is currently 2.4 for his career at just 23 with about 800 PAs, and Anderson's is 4.5 at 25 through a little over 1400 PAs (ironically exactly the point Crede broke out himself) I think because Moncada was acquired in the Sale trade and we all expect instant gratification for players there is very little patience for MLB development. However, I think Crede (even as a lower rated prospect initially) is a great example of a player who gave us well over 1000 PAs at the MLB level before he was able to truly break out. Thoughts?

? I wish you maturity in the coming years of your baseball fan career.

Did he really? I said the exact same thing to a guy at work, and added for pitchers I would wait for 500 IP. I feel like a GOD DAMN GENIUS.

In some ways, this isn't such a terrible thing. What I mean is, that it is best that this happened now rather than later. There is no bigger red flag for TJ than high velocity. Kopech has always had that risk. It is best that this happens now rather than this time next year or something. There should be a pretty good chance he comes back as about the same pitcher. The flip of this for me is that I hope the Sox focus a little more on pitching in next year's draft. The have basically neglected SPs high in the draft the last 2 years. And while they have a lot of high end talent on the mound, this is a stark reminder that you can never have enough.

If Eloy Jimenez doesn't come up and hit 800-850 the first three months next year, there will be a ton of fans jumping ship. This rebuild was largely predicated on Kopech, Moncada and Robert being superstars, and none of them are even close right now...so everything is basically riding on Eloy's knees and Cease's elbow at this point. It's pretty easy to imagine reactions on here to the typical Class B/C free agents we're going to roll out there. Watching these games with Detroit, Minnesota and KC are becoming almost unbearable with the "race of the bottom" mentality that we're currently witnessing. Otoh, having a #3 pick (instead of 4-6) will give us ANOTHER reason to get excited about next year. Jimenez is pretty much it, for now.

I can barely stand to watch this organization right now, but holy hell Ricky, go stick up for Yoan on a bad call like that

It seems like this team lost all of its air when Kopech’s injury was announced.

The Covey death march reminds me of Gordon Beckham’s last stand when will it end

You could look at it that way. Or you could say that Pace has really acquired some good players and the new coach showed some good innovations so maybe I'll give them a chance. This was the best the Bears have looked in awhile.

I'm still interested in the Sox. Problem is if the team is still interested in winning for the fans or in just simply going through the motions for the rest of the season?

Unbelievable in my opinion

That 2025 season is exactly why Eloy isn’t in a Chicago. And I love it.

No. The higher draft pick is worth more to us than the Cubs status. The only way I want to see the Sox streak is it it means hot streaks from Yoan, Anderson and guys in this ilk.

No. The Cubs status is a waste of time for White Sox fans.

I don't think anyone is saying sports comes first before life. I almost died in an accident last year so I get it. But sports are a great way for men to bond and pass on to their children. Sports takes us away from the harsh realities of life. Sports brings people together in other parts of the country. I was in Florida watching a Sox game at a Sox bar and it was cool to meet other fans and share stories. Again, sports aren't a substitute for life, but they do a great job enhancing it.

When I saw Lombardi criticize Trubisky I suddenly felt very, very good about things. I love the athletic, but hiring Jim Bowden and Lombardi were two terrible hires.

Really? I thought Lombardi was there after his Cleveland stint. I could have sworn he was there during this decade.

his credibility is extremely questionable. last year he recommended the bears hire josh fucking mcdaniels, fire everyone from Pace down, and let McDaniels build the front office and team. Thats fucking insanity

the point just went sailing over your head

We know, man. In your eyes he sucks because of 12 games playing for John Fox and 1 game on primetime where the team lost by one. We get it. Go on your hiatus.

If you look at it by that time frame, the Astors took 7 years to get to first place, 5 years before they had a winning record. That new front office was given a lot of time to make it work. The Sox are in year 2.

Like it or not, we have to give this front office until at least the end of 2020 to evaluate things. Once we made that choice in 2016 not to fire them, tar them, feather them, and parade them through the streets of the south side as captured villains (which we should have done), it became basically impossible to evaluate how they did on the rebuilding decisions. Even if they did everything right and put together talent that would win 3 straight world series, the team was going to spend a couple years looking bad.

It's a 162 game season. There are ups, there are down, good teams look bad, bad teams look good, etc. Last year's team was on a 4-22 run in late July/August. Then the future WS champions came to town and the Sox swept them. This year's team just happened to have one of their best stretch when the Yankees and Red Sox were around, it happens. It's more randomness than the Kopech injury.

Jim Crane became the new owner of the Astros in 2011. And before he embarked at the time he took over on what he deemed a much-needed “rebuild”, he first got rid of the retreads (Tal Smith and Ed Wade) who were responsible for the need for the rebuild in the first place. He wasn’t dumb enough to let them continue their record of futility on his watch, unlike another owner we know. No, as any competent owner would do, he threw those two to the curb and then got onto the business of performing proper due diligence to identify appropriate replacements for those guys who had proved they couldn’t get the job done, which resulted in the hiring of Jeff Luhnow. And now just seven years later, Crane & Luhnow are presiding over a very impressive and “sustainable winning” ballclub, and one that is on pace to be a perennial powerhouse for several years to come. When have you ever heard that kind of description made of the organization of which we are fans, the one run, no less, by baseball’s current longest tenured owner from over the past FOUR decades?

I think he said that to squash any idea that he could avoid surgery. Small tears rehab can be attempted like Dunning. Significant tear means no doubt surgery. The second opinion is just to decide who will do the surgery.

By that point he will not have pitched in a game in 20 months and is pitching with a newly constructed UCL. Slightly different circumstances. And for the record, I was never really in support in Kopech getting called up this year, Once it was done, I certainly looked forward to and enjoyed watching him pitch, and also understood that things are bit different for pitchers than position players. But I would have left him in AAA with Eloy. Obviously I would never in a million years wish ill upon the kid, but what has transpired is pretty much the worst case scenario in that now ~20% of his service time with Sox is down the drain assuming the Sox don't option him out of ST 2020. And when rosters expanded 10 days ago, he'd been raking for a few weeks in AAA and was by far the best CF option in the organization. Yet they told him to go home because 10 more days on the 25 man meant they get him one less season.

Why? Just option him after spring training 2020 and let him rehab while not accruing more service time. It makes way too much sense. If he kicks ass and the Sox need a starter, you call him up before the 55 days.

During these final few games, I'd love to see Moncada work on any, or all of the following: 1) Swing at anything close, in 2 strike counts 2) Take pitches, on the outside edge of the plate, to the opposite field, especially when the shift is on. 3) Bunt for a base hit, again especially when there is a dramatic shift on. 4) Choke up on the bat, when in 2 strike counts 5) Move around, in the batter's box. If he can squeeze out a few more hits, and steal a few more bases, it might provide some confidence, going forward. At least it would represent a "plan". He needs a better "approach". If his eye is as good as claimed, he should be able to recognize that a pitch is close enough to swing at, even if it isn't necessarily a strike. He has to stop leaving the outcome of so many at bats, in the hands of the plate umpire. He has too much talent, to look so hapless. He's headed for over 200 strike outs. That simply won't cut it, certainly not as a leadoff hitter. That might be acceptable for a middle of the order hitter, slugging 35 homers, but not at the top of the order. Look, all I'd like to see is some effort to fix, what is clearly "broken".

Lmao. Of all players to mention. It's like you don't even care.

Or Alen Hanson and Edwin Jackson, apparently.

You are gonna get flamed for this post man. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Moncada. Everything is going according to plan with him. Just be patient. He will be putting up numbers that put Javy Baez to shame in two years.

I gotta disagree with this plan man. This screams half assing it to me and will most likely only result in the Sox winning 75 games or so the next few years. This team either needs to break the bank with some impact FA signings spread out over the next few offseasons or they need to trade guys like Rodon, Avi, and Jose and embrace the tank for another 2-3 years until Kopech is back at full strength and all the other prospects are ready to rock.

Yoan Moncada= 1.1 WAR Edwin Jackson= 0.8 WAR Is this real life?

He is not going to relearn how to pitch or significantly change his current method. He’ll rehab at several different levels before he ultimately comes back to pitch for the White Sox.

He'll most likely need to be sent down to the minors for a couple of months (at least) to "learn how to pitch" again since his current method blew out his arm at age 22. He still has 3 options left so the Sox hold all the power right now.

Go look at the Yankees and the Athletics, the 2 teams that are going to take the AL Wild Card this year, and ask yourself if your roster comes anywhere close to measuring up to them. Severino, Judge, Torres, Stanton, Chapman, and $50 million+ to play with this offseason, and they're a wild card team. Really, you think you're going to sneak into a wild card spot in this league with Moustakas and Cargo? Not with these teams. If you're going to sign someone, fine. Clearly we have to sign 2 starting pitchers minimum, we simply don't have the horses right now to even field a roster. But don't even think about the Wild Card while doing it, think about the holes you have and flipping guys only. If some magic happens and Moncada outplays Trout next year, then great, but you can't make business decisions where a key part of it is "and then a miracle occurs".