Jake

I'm still waiting on any decent evidence or reporting on this. It shouldn't be that complicated to 1. identify the girl (non-publicly of course) and 2. figure out how old she is. It seems like the existence of a (past) relationship between the two is not in doubt. I wonder whether info is circulating in Dominican media and not reaching mainstream English sources yet.

Really striking how badly the newly acquired pitchers have pitched, you'd think they were being paid to throw the games or something. Probably unfair to lump Nastrini in with them though, his numbers look good under the hood.

On one hand, you could see him being willing to accept a reworked contract with deferred pay — basically, the buyout but he stays a White Sox. On the other hand, I don't think the union would allow it. And I don't think the Sox would really be willing to give him anything extra to make it acceptable to the union.

Sox fans (and probably fans of most/all other teams) have always gravitated towards the stoic and/or gritty white guys with non-exceptional athleticism and appearance like Vaughn. This is another area where Vaughn has something in common with Paul Konerko (let's hope the production catches up). Vaughn looks like a guy who wouldn't be instantly recognizable as a pro athlete if you bumped into him on the street. A lot of folks see those guys as basically just like them except good at baseball. The less they speak and act demonstrative, the easier it is to project all the qualities you like onto them

I'm probably just loopy from a bad few years of White Sox fandom but I can live with the Sox trying to defend what little honor remains.

Sox probably see this as something expensive that, for now, will just make fans more pissed off during a time of year at which the anger is at more of a simmer.

To me, the main thing that makes Jerry different from other owners (and each owner is going to have their unique qualities) is how infrequently he has changed front office leadership. He hired Krause shortly after buying the Bulls and left him in that position for 18 years. In fairness, his initial patience with Krause paid off massively and he didn't give Krause a ridiculously long leash post-MJ. Then the GarPax era begins which most of us feel lasted at least a little and perhaps a lot too long. It did end at a point where it seemed impossible that it could keep going, though. So he's really just on his third front office for the Bulls after almost 40 years of ownership. Again, hard to complain about keeping Krause for a long time given the team's success. His patience with GarPax didn't really pay off although there was a period in which the Bulls had good, likable, and fun teams that came after a long rebuild period. I suspect this colored Reinsdorf's view of what you need to do in order to get a successful team built. He buys the Sox in 1981 with Roland Hemond as the longtime GM. He leaves Hemond who finishes building the highly success 1983 squad. The next two years are basically an unmitigated disaster so Jerry decides to hire his own man. So far so good. Well, his own man is Hawk Harrelson. Oops. At least that mistake wasn't allowed to go on for too long (I've never found it too clear whether Hawk really left on his own accord as he said publicly or was just allowed to say that to save face). Then Larry Himes takes over for 4-5 years and does a quite good job but Jerry doesn't keep him due to unclear reasons, some mixture of Himes being too involved in day-to-day running of the clubhouse and Jerry being too involved in the duties of the GM. Himes has a not-very-successful run as Cubs GM afterwards. Then, Ron Schueler takes over and builds some decent teams around core players largely acquired by Himes, culminating in the 2000 playoff season. Schueler steps down due to his age as best as I can tell, thus starting the 22+ year KW/Hahn era. Jerry surely feels validated that he gets a World Series in KW's 5th year on the job, validating a bit of patience as well as hiring from within when you're happy with the outgoing GM. There was some turnover early with the Sox, but I think Jerry must have seen that as tumultuous and something to be avoided in the future. I think he would have happily retained Schueler if Schueler wanted to keep the job — and why not, considering Schueler had just assembled a young team that won its division. As a member of the group of owners, JR has earned his rep for being tight. But as an owner, I don't really see him as a huge tightass anymore. The Sox spend in a way that seems consistent with where they stack up to other teams as far as market and potential revenue. Sox have avoided big contracts in the Kenny+Hahn era, but I can't help but wonder how much of that is driven by Jerry vs. Hahn in recent years. The payrolls have certainly been high enough to carry the contracts of some of the high-profile players we struck out on so it's not as if JR is unwilling to get near $200M in payroll. Sox used to not spend much in international free agency or the draft, but AFAIK since those categories of spending got standardized we have been spending basically every cent we are allowed to. In his older years it has seemed to me that JR has embraced the idea of the owner's role being someone that hires a GM and hands over a budget; great, but now there's even more scrutiny on who that GM is. I strongly suspect Hahn is headed out the door, and I'd be surprised if Kenny doesn't do whatever Hahn does. Will it be a firing? Probably won't be described as such but I don't know. Highly unlikely that JR lives long enough for us to know whether he would give the next GM too long of a leash.

Giving him free license to steal might help build skill/instinct for it that will serve the team down the line.

Rogers reported additional info on the radio that was not sourced to Middleton (by name, at least)

So maybe Jesse Rogers is full of s%*# too? I don't really know him just beyond a name

What does it even mean to be in the corner of the locker room? Do they normally keep vacant lockers there? Is that normally the place where players pay their respects to the signed Eloy jersey?

lol I had memory-holed that entire fiasco

Yeah I didn't love letting him go but I also suspect that Abreu may not have the firmest grasp on the value of a mid-30s 1B. Then again, he seemed happy with what the Astros were offering and the Astros have a better track record on these matters than the White Sox.

I still think Abreu was offended by whatever paltry contract we offered him

Yeah it crossed my mind that this story could be a one-sided thing coming from TA or someone close to him (that said, I'm more pro-TA than most around here) that omits context about why Grandal wanted to get out of town. And if it's true that he didn't ask out of the lineup, it makes the ask to leave early not as bad even if it's unseemly.

Yeah my best guess is this was meant as a dig at Middleton but it's easy to read as a dig at all those guys. And IDK, I have a hard time believing Reynaldo, Giolito, or Burger were problems in the clubhouse. Lance and Joe Kelly, sure I could believe it even if I don't necessarily think they are a problem. If you take Middleton's comments at face value, the problems are probably more about inaction than action. Maybe most players need some leadership and they're just not getting it.

Right and also on the flip side, he might see a Jimmy Lambert type as a rookie even though he exhausted his rookie eligibility some time ago

Hire Dallas Keuchel as manager

Not sure if this affects the potential suspects, but don't count on Middleton to know whether everyone is technically a rookie or just "basically a rookie"

Oh and as far as worst owner in sports, while I think it is obvious that JR is not it without even diving into the details, please do not let Dick Monfort run my favorite team.

I have always had the impression that this comment was referring to rank in the league not the division, in which case he would be perfectly right that it would be fine to be nearly the best but not quite the best every year. Remember JR grew up in the era of pennant races, not the playoff era.

As we tally up his suspensions let's remember one of them was for a completely BS reason (maybe one or more others were too but I don't remember what they were for)

Well that's a Sox winner. Are we happy?

That's what I respect, he doesn't care about looking pathetic

TBH, I respect Pedro's willingness to boldly lie to protect his players in public. Going back to the LouBob running hard to first base fiasco earlier this season.