RagahRagah

What am I deflecting? What do the Yankees have to do with us? They have been a better team then us... pretty much forever. There's literally no relevance with your question. And again, literally none of my points are being tackled. If there is any deflection it is on your part. And again... laughing smilies without responses for some people. Damn, Uber pwnage, eh?

Not sure what any of those teams have to do with the White Sox or our regression candidates. Who are the Yankees regression candidates? They have always been a more well-rounded team than us. You're only shooting yourself in the foot by trying to compare us. And you aside, I can see I'm already at the point where certain people won't even actually counter the points I'm making, stop responding and just click their stupid little laugh emoticons. If you can't even bother to acknowledge the points someone is making, then just don't post. It gets tiresome. Your little laugh reaction is just quiet concession because you can't actually argue the points someone is making and instead just argue completely around them. Which means you have no merit. For all the intelligence discussion here, there is also a lot of flat out laziness and lack of actually countering the actual things people are fucking saying. When you have to do that, it's a sign you might be wrong. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of this team this year. Get over it.

You're reaching and being selective, which is all the "justification" I need. Not all years in the last decade and a half were "tank years." It gets tiring when people constantly tell you you are simply being "pessimistic" yet seem to ignore virtually all your points and reasons why you feel that way. Know what is worse than pessimism? Blind optimism.

That's the thing... a lot of this heavy optimism is based on "ifs." Not a fan. Usually doesn't work out well. We can be down because we are still seeing things we've always seen. Big talk, broken promises, dumpster diving, lack of optomizing. Again, sometimes I really wonder how many people here have ACTUALLY been watching this team for the last decade +.

Justify? Why would anyone need to justify pessimism? Have you not watched this team the last 15 years or so? Reality is this team has been bad for several years now and even last year, in a shortened season, they choked down the stretch. Just like we are used to. I don't need to "justify" a fucking fact. There are plenty of reasons to be worried.

Sorry, I actually forgot about Eaton, lol. But I stand by what I said. A lot of people are not high on Eaton and for good reason. Dallas indeed is good. But people forget what happened to him the previous 2 years before he got here. And he is near Lynn's age. Lynn and Dallas are definitely regression candidates whether you like it or not. I am hopeful but people are getting way too ahead of themselves.

Like I said, we only added 2 guys and one is playing a position that had no problems last year. It is quite possible we may have a worse team than last year. I don't believe that will be the case, but all of this declaring 95+ wins and deep playoff runs is hilariously overconfident right now. And even IF Lynn deals and Dallas stays good, we may still have 2 black holes in the rotation. This team has a lot to prove.

Pessimism and realism are two different things. And sadly, reality has been very harsh to us as Sox fans for many years now. Being mocked for basically being correct is not something that is going to affect those of us who realize this team has a LOT to prove thus year and that are legitimately reasons to fear the outcome should we actually be done adding.

And yet they still have to play the games. On paper this means nothing. They have yet to prove what you are saying and actually perform to expectations. And again, none of this changes the fact we need another starter. We essentially have only made 2 additions this year. And one of those is admittedly an excellent one but will be taking over a spot that was already excellent last year (closer). Lynn alone does not make this automatically a 95 win team, lol. And as has been said, he and another of our starters are likely to regress.

Like I said, we've thought this way and have been wrong many times. Never underestimate the bad luck and ineptitude of this franchise.

These are blanket statement bullet points. I agree with where you are going with some of them, but they don't contain substance. For example, there are good reasons to believe Dallas and Lance will regress. Our rotation definitely needs more to be all star caliber. All JR has to really do is just bite the bullet and sign Bauer. Yet likely all the Sox will do is sign a cheap stopgap with little expectations and cast doubt. It sucks.

Over the years we have found ourselves saying things like this at various times only to not even make the playoffs.

Yeah, the Sox didn't even make the B or C type move we are all used to.

I think with our luck, Cruz would come here and actually mash for a little while like we expect but then would get caught juicing and suspended. Seems about right.

They have a good track record with developing talent.

I consider myself a stathead but I also understand that stats can't explain everything. I choose to analyze every situation individually. I prefer to look at all sabermetrics to get a general gist of the player that I'm trying to educate myself on but again, stats don't say everything. I kind of just look at WAR as a general measuring stick. But I don't completely ignore other stats compared to WAR as I believe a lot of other people do. A lot of people don't seem to want to take into account batting average or rbis or even ERA anymore, and my perception is that WAR has a lot to do with that. I just personally find a lot of these sabermetrics to be measuring sticks of certain aspects of a player's abilities. Wrc+ is a stat I personally happen to love. I get that WAR seems to be the most "overall value" stat but it doesn't take everything into account. It's just like anything else. People can always find statistics to support their position but will often ignore others. For instance, Adam Engel isn't exactly a wizard with the bat but I paid attention to the fact that he seemed to come up with big hits in clutch situations last year. On the surface, I don't think there are any commonly used stats that are going to show you his usefulness or back up an opinion that he was ctually worthy of being our starting right fielder last year but that I was in that camp based on what I saw. Stats are important but if that's all you use then you are no better than a machine and you can't possibly quantify everything.

I understand that, and that is fine.

Somehow Lynn came into the conversation. I'm not a fan of Richards either and I agree, and that is part of my argument; Lynn needs more difference makers working with him this year. Seems likely he won't get any. I was hoping for Kluber as well. If only JR would just pull the trigger on Bauer. I, like others, am just tired of having my intelligence insulted when I can easily see I'm being lied to.

You keep pivoting from the point here. 29 games is not 2 years and it's ridiculous to project such a timetable on him. You need to acknowledge this.

You have a point. But when things happen in a way that constantly make us look foolish, there has to be blame. Again, at least trade for someone with some control. OR make a trade like this AFTER solidifying the adding of a new long term complimentary asset. If so many of us can figure some of this stuff out, why can't they?

One of those things you shouldn't have to explain yet you apparently do have to explain it to quite a few people on this forum.

I don't see that I reframed anything. Perhaps is wasn't the best way to word it. But the move is definitely indicative of going for it this year. But if they can't (won't) make any additional significant upgrades then obviously they aren't. In that case we should have just got someone with more control than 1 year.

Stunningly bad? First 29 games of his fucking career. You really have some ridiculous sized blinders on.

If the Sox use him for someone with at least a 1 more of control, no one would complain. Pretending Dunning wasn't anything is unfair. And as I was saying pertaining to keeping your farm system plentiful, that is also pertinent. People don't want to think long term. 1 year of Lynn and no additional SP upgrades is not winning us a World Series.

He was a prospect. He came up and looked good and was getting plenty of love here. And was supported after the mismanagement vs. Oakland. But suddenly he isn't quality. Lol. And yeah. Maybe he "becomes one in a few years," in which... I covered how that obviously helps us. What it comes down to is JR needs to allow us to get big names.