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Reading these replies makes it seem like the 2011-2016 white sox were like this golden child of baseball competitiveness and entertainment by their consistently signing 2nd contract vets to be competitive. I think it’s very likely that baseball could make no changes and have a much more competitive 2020s than (esp back half) 2010s. In the 2000s, the lower spend teams like the As and Rays modernized, but the higher revenue teams could just outspend them to out talent them. But then Theo to the Red Sox, and Friedman to the dodgers and etc etc soon the big market teams began deploying these same talent strategies and my take is that by 2016 SO many other teams in the league realized they were way behind and would not be able to compete with their strategies anymore and could also not compete with mere money advantages (they didn’t have any). So I don’t think it was just fetishizing tanking to win, it was a ton of teams throwing their seasons as they overhauled their orgs. Player development technology, further integrating track an, etc, there may have been a lot more start up costs into the org that weren’t going into players hands. But that’s over now. There is what, one? “Old school” organization (the rox), and I guess the Royals maybe. When Dick friggen Williams hired Driveline, you could tell there was no actual debate anymore on what was needed to compete (and I’m sure Boddy was expensive). But anyway, that’s over now, changes will occur but I’m not sure anything like what just happened the last 5 years will happen for quite a while. So with teams operating much more similarly, the margins of improvement will probably shift back to free agency for the edge. Long story short, I don’t think dramatic changes are necessary for parity or anti-tanking measures. It was just a kinda shitty competitive era. Wouldn’t be the first time in baseball, but it’s not everlasting.

Saw a Mariners fan site advocating a Jake Burger for Dylan Moore trade… and some White Sox amateur writer signing off on it. Yuck.

That's the point. Organizational tanking isn't players not trying, or worse, throwing games. It's organizations purposefully not trying to put together a competitive team this year to help with two or three years down the road. The Diamondbacks weren't looking to sign any free agents to help win games last year. They benefited from creating and maintaining a bad team. This proposal causes teams to try and win games every year. The Diamondbacks will have to jump into the free agent market and compete if they want a top pick. Under the current system they need to avoid signing anyone and keep any breakout MiLB players off the MLB roster to get that high pick.

2022 already starting off with a bang..

Sadly, the only one who deserves credit for the Kimbrel trade is Jed Hoyer.

I see the New Years drinking has started early

More posters should be giving JR credit for spending the money and player capital to attempt to strengthen our chances for a WS run. Didn't work out but he did push the money into the pot.

The owners may win as you say, but if the season is delayed until June, it won't be much of a win. The fan backlash for any kind of a strike or lockout will be severe. And if any stoppage derails the White Sox as they are supposed to put the final retouches on the rebuild, local fan alienation will be worse than it was after 1994. I don't know the complications of the current labor issues, but I can't see how either side can believe a prolonged delay to the 2022 season will benefit them. Baseball has enough problems as it is without this going on and on. They should get a good mediator, act like adults, and get this thing settled.

I don’t know is this is the right place for this post - but this is also a good reminder for all of us parents, especially those with young kids - life insurance and trusts are annoying but important to get done. Doesn’t have to be a ton - but less than 100 per month would have generated approx 1M in coverage per spouse (given their young ages). You hope that 100 per month is a total waste but for these types of situations at least you know beyond the emotional hardship at least financially they will be in a position and with a trust you can outline how the proceeds are used until they reach various stages in life etc.

I did spend some time going through the stats on his huge 2021 dropoff. McNeil has an excellent K-rate, but a generally low exit velocity. He doesn't hit the ball hard, but he makes contact. Compared to 2020 his walk rate did drop off somewhat, but his K-rate didn't spike and there was basically no real drop in his exit velocity compared to 2019, and his exit velocity was higher in 2021 than in 2020. What I do see is that there's a big change in the way he's hitting in 2021. There's a big dropoff in him pulling the ball and a big increase in him going the other way. There's a drop in hard contact and an increase in medium and soft contact. There was a career high in ground ball rate. His BABIP went from being .340 in his first 3 seasons to .280 in 2021 - was that bad luck, or was that the poor quality of his contact? It's a little hard to believe his BABIP stayed above .330 all 3 of his first 3 years and 1000 PAs by luck. Perhaps a little bit unlucky in 2021, but the dropoff in BABIP fits with the dropoff in his contact quality. He also went from a 15% HR/FB rate in 2019 to a 6.5% rate in 2021 - but its hard to see a high HR rate as sustainable with his generally fairly weak contact. One thing that does stand out, going along with the drop in pulling the ball, increase in groundball rate, and drop in HR rate, is that his launch angle has noticeably dropped. Now here's one final problem - since Statcast started recording, the White Sox have had as low of a launch angle as any team in the league, bottom 5 in the league 6 times and bottom 10 in the other season. So, you've got a guy struggling badly in 2021 when he's going the other way, hitting the ball on the ground, and not elevating like he did beforehand. For whatever reason, the White Sox are really bad at launch angle, so if a low launch angle and not pulling the ball are big parts of why he was terrible in 2021, do we think the White Sox can fix that? Or is this a guy who is a particularly bad fit for the White Sox since his success was associated with a higher launch angle and that's a weak spot for the White Sox?

While I am not a fan of this poster's constant charade against the Sox FO, this paragraph is definitely accurate: When they moronically failed to get the year of control back on Kopech, they shortened the window. When they stupidly failed to start stretching out Crochet, they shortened the window. And when they fucking added an old, expensive closer in decline to the BP w/the 3rd most FWAR, while giving up 2 league minimum pieces, they shortened the window. Each one of those moves was in fact stupid and short sighted. They were moves made by a team that was trying to win now - I get it. But they were all minor trade offs that could have seen this whole thing have more longevity. You can add Vaughn not starting in the minors last year to the list. All moves that in a vacuum are not the end of the world, but when you total them up - its obvious that the Sox are less concerned about the back end of this window than some of us fans. Its a tight rope and I get it. I want to win now too. But if they took the longer term approach on any one (or frankly even all) of those moves, competing in 2021 wouldn't have been impacted all that greatly. I too hate short term thinking, and in 2021 we saw a lot of it.

? fair man, fair. For context in case any insane person doesn't take the hint: This got asked a lot during the Colas stuff last year when MLB shifted signing dates around. Going to current signees and saying "nah we take it back so we can sign another dude" would basically kill future negotiations because it's a douchey thing to do.