77 Hitmen

This is the way Jerry has run the Sox for at least the last 20 years now - a lot of smoke and mirrors and never seriously investing in scouting/player development and/or landing marquee free agents.

It was also in all likelihood a "middle finger to the rest of the owners" free agent signing because JR was unhappy with what they settled for to end the strike. Also note that the Sox included a perfect opt-out clause that would allow Belle to declare free agency after only 2 seasons here. In the end, the Sox only paid Belle $20M total, not the $55M he was signed for.

The Blue Jays would become the first expansion team to win 3 WS titles if they can win one more game at the Rogers Centre. Expansion teams w/ 2 titles: Astros, Mets, Royals, Blue Jays, and Marlins. There are two original franchises that have only won 2 WS titles in 120 seasons: The Phillies and Guardians.

Whose decision was it to push Jeff Torborg out the door after the 1991 season? Was that Reinsdorf or Schueler? Another bone-headed move by this front office. Was Gene Lamont any better? Or how about Terry Bevington (lol)?

I know we're off topic here, but at least it's an off day for the World Series. With Seattle's success this year and the Padres making the playoffs 4 times this decade, there really aren't many teams that can claim the same level of futility over the last 20 years as the White Sox. The Pirates, Marlins, Rockies, A's, Angels.....anyone else? Unfortunately, I doubt JR feels any embarrassment about that. Better stadium and owning the entire region are a huge plus for the M's over the Sox. We already have a stadium thread and I'm not going to get into that here. I suppose if we really had to put MLB teams into large, mid, or small market teams, I would say Seattle is middle market. Perhaps San Diego and Colorado, too. I used to think of the Cardinals as being a middle market team thanks to their huge fan base and their old $1B RSN deal. But with the collapse of the RSN model, they've slipped into small market status now.

Definitely. It's Jerry Reinsdorf who turned the White Sox from a large market team into essentially a "small market team within a large market" through his decades of short sidedness and unwillingness to invest properly in the team. My point in response to @caulfield12was that Toronto winning the World Series isn't going to be something Jerry is going to be mad about because it somehow debunks the competitive balance argument. ....unless the point was that Jerry will be mad because Toronto's success makes him look bad. While true such a win should be a reality check for JR, I really think he lacks the self-awareness to be mad or embarrassed by Toronto's success compared to his failure.

Why would Jerry Reinsdorf be unhappy if a large market team beats a super large market team to win the World Series? First of all, he's on his way out as an owner anyway and is not even close to being the ringleader he was 30 years ago. Second, I seriously doubt a Toronto World Series win is going to cause the competitive balance issue to collapse.

Six times in 17 seasons compared to Jerry's seven times in FORTY-FIVE seasons. Plus, JR has had 31 seasons under the 3-division plus wild card(s) format.

White Sox W-L records in the early 60s: 1960: 87-67 (equivalent to 91 wins in a 162-game schedule) 1961: 86-76 1962: 85-77 1963: 94-68 1964: 98-64 1965: 95-67 That doesn't look horribly run to me. If there were divisions back then, some of those teams almost certainly would have made the post-season. If we see a half-decade stretch like that any time soon, Sox fans will think we've died and gone to heaven.

The one thing that probably makes the Pirates future in Pittsburgh secure is their jewel of a ballpark. A number of critics rank it the best stadium in the league...and it's certainly in the top 3 for many people. During that short period about 10 years ago when the Pirates were good and made the playoffs, they averaged 30k per game. So, fan support is potentially there. It would be a major embarrassment to MLB if they let the Pirates leave and the league abandoned such a great ballpark. Stadium-wise, it's pretty much the exact opposite of the situation with the A's and Expos when they moved. And I hate to say it Sox fans, but if the Sox somehow ended up moving out of town (which I am NOT predicting is going to happen), nobody outside our fanbase is going to shed a tear over losing Rate Field and nobody is going to wonder why the team couldn't succeed there. Too bad the league can't just force a sale of teams like the Pirates, A's and the White Sox where the owner refuses to invest properly in the franchise.

One thing that I really feel bad about for Pirates fans is that Bob Nutting (the team owner you are referring to) is only 63 years old. He could be the team owner for the next 20 years. At least we have an end to JR's ownership in sight with the plan to sell to the Ishbias between 2029 to 2034. Still not soon enough, but at least it's in the foreseeable future.

Perhaps Jerry should send John Fisher a box of cigars as thanks for keeping him from being the worst owner in sports?

The argument is whether Moreno is worse that Jerry Reinsdorf, not whether he's a bad owner. I don't see anyone suggesting Arte Moreno is a good owner for the Angels. I have a hard time concluding that he's actually worse than Jerry Reinsdorf.

It would no doubt be very damaging to the sport. It won't be like 1994 for Sox fans since JR's leadership in tanking what could have been a World Series season for his team totally sunk support for the Sox, but it would be bad for the sport as a whole. I'm not rooting for a lockout, but I also don't want the status quo to be maintained either. We currently have about half the league doing well and have the league in perpetual rebuild-at-best mode.

I've said this before - since I'm stuck in baseball hell as a White Sox fan, I'm not going to lose sleep if the 2027 season is wiped out. As far as I'm concerned, the last 3 seasons have been a total loss to me with an unwatchable team anyway. I don't expect many Sox fans to be the ones lying in front of the proverbial bulldozers to stop the 2027 season wrecking crew begging MLB to keep the status quo at all costs.

It looks to me that there's really about a dozen major market teams that can spend like crazy and land elite free agents to astronomical contracts. Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Phillies, Red Sox, Braves, Astros, Rangers, Cubs, Angels, Padres, Giants, Blue Jays. I actually counted 13. These are all major market teams that have enormous revenue streams....and yes, that includes Atlanta and Boston due to their massive fan bases and the size of their overall market. San Diego is probably the one team that doesn't neatly fit into the major market status in this list. Sort of a unique situation there where their market not being super huge as it's blocked in by LA, the ocean, Mexico, and desert. How many times has a team not on this list won the World Series in the last 20 seasons? Four. Major markets have won 16 out of the last 20 titles. The only small market team to win in the last 2 decades was the Royals. I'd argue that the Nats are a medium market team and that the Cards were a medium market team back when they won 2 titles, though with the collapse of RSN money, St. Louis is sliding into small market status. No, being able to spend a huge amount on payroll doesn't guarantee championships (hello Angels and Mets) and teams do have to invest in player development, but it's clear to me that being a major market team DOES matter and it is the biggest factor in success.

Nothing really new in this article, but it provides a good summary of where the various Chicago sports teams stand in terms of quests for new stadiums or, in the case of the Blackhawks and Sky, new practice facilities. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/22/chicago-sports-stadiums-who-is-moving/ This comment from Danny Wirtz is noteworthy: “We’re sitting on a lot of parking lots, right?” Wirtz said. “And we see parking has continued to decrease with other modes (of transportation) to get here. We’re absolutely thinking about what the future could look like.”

....and even with that down year, they're still averaging 88 wins per season over the last 5 years in a very tough division.

Jerry has been running a 2nd-rate operation with the Sox for years. They were perfectly situated to sign either Machado or Harper, but that was never going to happen with JR as owner. Only one of two franchise that has never signed a player to a $100M contract with the other franchise being literally homeless now. Passing up on Hinch in favor of brining TLR surely earns him lots of points towards the "worst owner in sports" award.

Nitpick here: he's actually 89. And yeah, he's long had a adversarial relationship with both the media and fans who are critical of the team. He's not swayed by what we think. He's got plenty of yes men around him to tell him that he's right.

JR's biggest success as Sox owner, of course, was the 2005 World Series championship. But, if I'm not mistaken all but a handful of MLB teams have won at least 1 WS title since he's been owner. Five expansion teams, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh are the only franchises who haven't unless I'm missing someone. Two of those expansion teams didn't even exist until 1993 and 1998. What's so maddening is that he failed to build on that 2005 title to make the Sox more of a "big market" team. Instead, we've had 20 years of keeping or promoting loyalists who weren't very good at their jobs and failing to invest properly in this franchise to let it start developing enough talent to compete.

I don't blame you. I haven't relinquished my fandom, but I have mostly tuned out their performance on the field these last 3 seasons. Life's too short to let my anger at how JR ran this franchise into the ground affect my enjoyment of summers. What you say points to a concern I have about this franchise. How many other life-long Sox fans have simply given up on this team. It's going to take a lot of hard work to win these fans back. Just being good enough to make the wild card or win a weak division and then get quickly bounced in the first round isn't going to be good enough. And like I said, I'm not criticizing your decision or your loyalty in any way.

The Rays? You mean the team that has won 2 pennants in the last 17 years with a small fanbase, a terrible stadium, and chronically low attendance? I know of another team that has won only 2 pennants over the last century. Their fans shouldn't be casting too much shade on the success of the Rays.

The Dodgers' TV deal alone is worth something like $8B. There's no way in hell the Brewers would ever get a $8B TV deal in the State of Wisconsin. And that doesn't even get into other revenue streams like corporate sponsorships that just aren't comparable in Wisconsin than in Southern California. This ain't the Packers going up against the Rams in the NFL. You can shout that the Brewers should be handing $600M in contracts all you want, but it doesn't make it any more realistic. The Brewers along with the Guardians and the Rays are the best-run, most successful small market teams. What you see from them is the best you're going to get in MLB. They're not a failure, their franchise is a success story. MLB's competitive balance is what is a failure.

Bingo.