The Kids Can Play

Sadly you might be right. I guess until Jerry dies and some successful billionaire buys this team, which probably with our luck, will take way too many years, our Sox will continue to field underachieving and mediocre teams. What a pathetic and dismal future for die-hard Sox fans!

I agree and of course we already know the fans are ripping the TLR hiring, but wait until the Sox miss the playoffs if that indeed does happen. I would hope its gets as brutally loud and ugly of criticism as Jerry ever has seen in his ownership life of both teams.

That would take way too many sox singles to score that many runs! ?

Totally agree!

Well if you are referring to the fans hating him, then as we know here in White Sox land, that doesn't amount to anything. However if the John Henry decided to fire him, then by all means I would love Bloom as an option. I would still try to recruit a TB or LAD guy.

It absolutely can happen like the Bulls. The problem is Reinsdorf has to drop his arrogant and stubborn owner responsibilities about the need to be fully in charge. He was willing to back away and let his son Michael run the Bulls and he has done a great job. Jerry needs to do the same with the Sox, but it probably won't happen because of his demented arrogance.

I would love to have Chaim Bloom being he is from the TB tree. However he is already the top baseball executive at Boston. Why would he make a lateral move to go to our Sox that would spend less money than his current team? Plus Boston has a much more developed farm system #11 vs Sox #26. We need to find a GM in a successful organization and give him an incentive to move to Chicago to be the top dog president from their current GM spot. My only comparison to TB and LA was not to have the Sox be exactly like them, but to hire a successful executive from those two clubs. The point is the people from the Andrew Friedman tree are very successful. I realize Friedman would not come to the Sox. Yet is there anyone who doesn't think that if he was in charge of the White Sox he couldn't make the Sox a major championship caliber team? He did with two completely different club structures. Whether he had the money or not to spend, Friedman built winners at both clubs and both clubs also had top notch farm systems. Finding someone under his executive tree makes good sense. There are obviously other clubs that we could recruit from including Atlanta as you suggest. However the bottom line is we need to go to the outside and get someone from a consistent winning organization.

And those are the 2022 White Sox! Same shit...different toilet!

Dodgers #2 farm system, #1 highest payroll and # 1 best record 86-37. The Dodgers go recruit Andrew Friedman from Tampa Bay, the former GM of the Rays. He built a winning yearly playoff team for years at TB, with topically one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Now as president of Dodgers and the fact he has all the money in the world to spend, he still somehow didn't forget on to draft talent and develop it. As was stated in another post by someone here, let's go steal a TB executive, since TB has been winning consistently and making the playoffs without Friedman. Or secondly, perhaps we steal one the executives from Andrew Friedman's front office.

Not to be negative because a win is always good, but the Sox are still 5 games behind the Guardians in the loss column. Guardians are 66-56 .541 and Sox 63-61 .508. Guardians have 40 games left and Sox 38 games. If Guardians play at similar pace and go 21-19 which .525 or 22-18 which is .550, the Sox have an major uphill battle to beat them out. The Guardians could go either 21-19 to finish 87-75 (.537) or go 22-18 to finish 88-74 (.543). Thus Sox would then need to finish either 88-74 or 89-73. This means the Sox need to finish the remaining 38 games at 25-13 .657 or 26-12 .684. I realize we could go with many mathematical scenarios, but he fact is if the Guardians play about the same then the Sox have to go crazy, unless the Guardians go on some major losing streak. Yet I wouldn't put my hopes on the Guardians needing to implode badly down the stretch to give the Sox a chance to pull this out. Btw, its very similar numbers if you go down the wild card race scenario.

What is sad is the fact Cleveland is 27th and Baltimore 30th in team payrolls as opposed to the Sox 7th. Both Clev and Bal have winning records and good chances at the playoffs. 2022 Team Payrolls Sox - 7th - $196,720,283 Guardians - 27th - $66,165,861 Orioles - 30th - $43,462,824 Great job Hahn and FO on drafting and developing your players!

You are right that Vaughn is probably not going to become a great outfielder. He was drafted as a first baseman. Just as Abreu was brought here as a first baseman. The are right about good teams draft players to have multiple flexibility in handling different positions when it comes to outfielders and infielders minus first base, catcher and pitcher. However you are totally wrong about first baseman. Typically over the years first basemen have been drafted as first basemen and only play their career at first base. The following first basemen in 2022 for home runs: Paul Goldschmidt - STL - 31 Christian Walker - ARI - 30 Pete Alonso - NYM - 30 Anthony Rizzo - NYY - 29 Matt Olson - ATL -27 Rowdy Tellez - MIL - 26 Vladimir Guerrero - TOR - 26 Rhys Hoskins - PHI - 26 There are a ton more I could list, but this is a good starting list. Every single one of these players were drafted as a first baseman. Every single one of them still play exclusively first base for their teams. Only two of them Rizzo and Tellez are left handed for fielding which is usually a place to play such players at first. The rest are all right hand throwing arm players like Vaughn. Again, yes your point on playing multiple positions is correct for all positions except pitcher, first baseman and catcher. The part of my post which you failed to acknowledge, was the fact I was only discussing first basemen. Typically as I just documented, first basemen are drafted and developed to be first basemen. As a result the concept is the problem, which Hahn made a major mistake on. Vaughn should not have to play outfield. If he is forced to play the outfield, which obviously he has been forced to do as a team player, then people like you should stop criticizing him for his lack of athletic abilities because he can't play the outfield. Blame Hahn and the front office for not fully examining the need to draft a lifetime first baseman if the intensions were to play Abreu at first exclusively. As I said and was accurate on, other winning clubs draft first basemen to play first base. Let's go see if the above mentioned first basemen could play outfield after playing their entire amateur career at first base. I'll love to see Guerrero try playing outfield.

You are absolutely right about Vaughn, but the Org/FO made a huge mistake in drafting Vaughn in the first place then. He was one of the best hitters in college baseball, who never played the outfield in his baseball career and only first base. Maybe the FO should have used the #3 overall pick for someone else! Why should Vaughn have to be a team player and learn a new position? I don't think the other successful teams do that. Since Hahn obviously decided to go with Abreu at first, maybe a different player could have been drafted to address the other Sox needs and weaknesses back in 2019. I don't care if he gets in better condition to play the outfield, to keep playing him there is just dumb. If Hahn is waiting until Abreu retires or his numbers significantly fall off to play Vaughn at first, then he is wasting the best years of Vaughn. It's either that or trade Vaughn.

Ok my bad! Sorry about that!

I will only address two names on your list. Yes let Abreu go and keep Vaughn. Abreu has had an amazing career for the Sox. Yes he has been productive, but his power numbers have gone down the last few years and maybe that's a trend to pay attention to. The fact is, Abreu will be 36 and Vaughn 25 next season. We need to quit playing Vaughn in the OF and let him be our regular first baseman.

Jerry turns 87 in Feb of 2023. Who knows how long he will last. However until he dies, why can't he drop his stubborn arrogance and let someone else run this club, like he did with his son Michael and the Bulls. In the best case scenario, Jerry brings in some excellent and accomplished baseball executive from another winning organization. In turn that person comes in and makes this team great for once. Then as a result, when Jerry does actually pass away....his family will own the Sox which by then, will be a much higher valued team to sell! Obviously that would be great selfless gesture to give to his family. It's nice to fantasize, but sadly I realize that will probably never happen.

Well done analysis and everything is accurate. I feel your fan pain as well!

Be careful what you wish for. There are so many horrible baseball announcing combos out there.

You are exactly right on! Additionally go look at another successful yearly winning team Tampa Bay. They do it with even less payroll than the Sox, Astros or the other great teams. They don't have the luxury of spending huge money on free agents and actually have to develop their players from the minors or make great trades.

Wondering what season you have been watching? I guess according to your analysis everything is just hunky dory. All the key components to a winning playoff club are solid and all checked off: Great Manager Great coaching staff Players staying healthy and not getting injured Players performing to their abilities and expectations Front office making great signing and trades Developing plenty of yearly talent with a winning farm system Consistent clutch hitting with RISP Consistent home run production Great defensive team Strong and consistent starting rotation Bullpen that always comes through and doesn't blow leads Hey pal, I feel your pain as a lifelong diehard Sox fan myself. This has been an extremely frustrating year. However to sugarcoat this flawed organization and be blinded to the fact that Reinsdorf, Hahn, TLR and the players have done a horrible job and everything will be fine...is purely delusional. It's ok to be a huge fan, but that doesn't mean we can't criticize the club on the sad facts of the matter.

The problem with Harrison is, he is past his prime. He is 35 years old. That has been Hahn's flawed theme since last year. He added all these older players past their better years since last year: Harrison 35 Diekman 35 Kelly 34 Pollack 34 The only good addition to the roster older was Cueto at 36. The fact is, we are in year 6 of the rebuild. We are going backwards instead of forwards. If Hahn and his front office would have drafted and developed the minor leagues better, maybe we could have been adding younger players from the minors each year to add to the roster.

I believe this is referred to as the proverbial "A Blessing In Disguise!"

That makes way too much sense. The Sox FO won't be smart enough to figure that out!

News flash to the Sox hitters for today's game: We realize you struggle to score runs, evidenced by the fact you are 21st in runs scored (4.21) and 24th in runners LOB at 6.99. Hopefully you will take advantage today of Civale's 5.63 ERA and not make him look like Cy Young, as you guys have done often this year playing horrible pitchers.

Yes! When you have one of the lowest payrolls yearly, it forces everyone in the organization to their job extremely well. They can't afford to go after expensive free agents. They actually have to scout, draft, develop and coach their players to be winners. Hence why the Dodgers several years ago stole the TB GM Andrew Friedman and promoted him to their president of baseball ops with a massive salary increase. Sadly Jerry is not intelligent enough to understand this blueprint to reach greater success.