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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 12:49 PM) I'm totally the opposite. I put it on in the background and wind up doing something else when I don't care. I want someone to root for. I'm about to move and I'm going to one last Pirates game before I leave...and yes I'm going when the Cubs are in town because I want someone to root for in that game. (in case it's not clear, I will be rooting strongly for the Pirates that day). Yes, but is no fun in watching the game unless the team you are rooting for wins? Again, it's obviously more fun when the team wins but no fun in a game even if they lose? That's sounds more like a fan of winning not a team or the game.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 12:45 PM) I enjoy baseball when I have no emotional interest. you don't enjoy baseball in general?

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 12:44 PM) Maybe a lobotomy would help. or a bottle in front of me. Sometimes it's the only thing that helps watching these games.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 12:38 PM) Done and done. I'll let the on field and front office actions speak for themselves. I'm serious about this. You get your wish. Mark Wow, it was a joke. People are far too serious. I fully support everyone to express their own opinions, even if they are wrong.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 12:40 PM) I might be hitting my limit at about the 10 year point, and just flat out watching less baseball as a consequence. Then again, if I could stop having to move across the country I'd probably be right back where I was last year, watching every game. I guess this is the difference. I still love the game of baseball. Win or lose I still enjoy watching and going to games. The games are more enjoyable when they win but really just love to watch baseball.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 12:39 PM) I wish you wouldn't let the Pollyannas determine what you say. Ouch....Argghhh....OOFFF

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 12:23 PM) The last 10 years have fully convinced me that saying "I'll trade 1 WS for 10 years of garbage teams" remains completely the right move. This is where I'm still stuck.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 11:52 AM) Be more than happy to, in fact I'd LOVE TO. Let me know when the Sox provide me a real reason to do so OK? Mark I will if you stop posting every single negative thought you can come up with about the team.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 11:29 AM) "I told the Marlins he's going to be in the best shape you've ever seen him in," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said, according to the Times. "Whoever gets this guy is going to have a heck of a ballplayer with a different mentality. He's a big man and he has to take care of himself. ... He has the power and talent to be one of the best players ever." espn.com Maybe Ozzie is a better judge of players than we thought.... And De La Cruz was the only player there of the other 4 who was close to top rated, because of his 100+ MPH. Dallas Trahen was 8th in their system at the time of the deal, but that's like calling Courtney Hawkins a top prospect if we acquired Mike Trout and he was the 4th highest ranked prospect in the deal, with two others behind him. De La Cruz, maybe, being the equivalent of Frankie Montas. So if we traded Fulmer, Anderson (and they're both ranked behind where Miller/Maybin were by quite a bit), Montas/Spencer Adams, Hawkins and let's say Jacob May OR Trey M. and Tyler Danish OR Guerrero, I don't think anyone would be too upset about that trade at all, if Reinsdorf was actually willing to raise the payroll up into the $150 million range to accommodate Trout's contract escalating. http://www.detroittigersweblog.com/2006/11...pects-for-2007/ Willing or able? What's makes you think the team has that kind of money when only 4 or 5 teams in the entire league are spending that?

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 09:53 AM) I actually meant to say Lester. Ok. the point remains the same.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 09:47 AM) The Cubs would still be very good without the $45M going to Heyward and Lackey. how about Lester? Take away him as well and I don't think they are where they are without those two. Don't get me wrong they have built a really good team and look like they are going to have a good run. But don't fool yourself that it is built solely on drafting good players and "doing it the right way" by not buying players.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 09:39 AM) I don't know the guy, but what you take to get into that shape can destroy your heart. One part of the equation is genetics. You have to "train" your heart and cardiovascular correctly for each individual person. Not everyone can train the same or even have the same goals. edit: wasn't familiar with his bio. I just read it. The steroids may have been a more significant factor than genetics. Probably even more of a factor was the marijuana use especially the Kimbo Slice variety with the high THC count. This will pretty much guarantee a heart attack.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 09:33 AM) Don't sell the Cubbies too short. They had an excellent season last year, one that saw them go deep into the playoffs. They are well on their way to accomplishing something our organization has never achieved in over 100+ years, which is making it to the postseason in consecutive seasons. Playoff appearances in consecutive seasons equates to sustainable success, at least in my book. And the way they've built their team by stockpiling the kind of young, elite talent that they have, they've positioned themselves as well as they possibly could to be successful well beyond this season as well. The games still have to be played, of course, and nothing is ever a given in baseball, but your edits to dilute my original post do not paint an accurate picture of what's transpiring on the north side. A counter point is that while they did draft and acquire the players you mentioned, most teams don't have the money to buy the pitching and other players they needed. Their 25 man roster has the 4th highest payroll in the MLB. So don't kid yourself into thinking they did it on the cheap with young players. The young players on the team just allowed them to really spend more than anyone else could on the others. Theo can just outpsend almost everyone else just like he did in Boston. This is the key to their sustainable success.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 08:48 PM) Yeah, you definitely change your perspective as life goes on...from a 23 or 24 year old who had only been to Canada and Mexico, to having since lived and worked in Colombia, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia and China (basically the last decade), I would have done that in a heartbeat!!! I wasn't super confident in my Spanish (three years in high school, two semesters in univ) but it would have been an amazing experience, and had a lot higher likelihood of leading to major league work of some kind than laboring in the minors and doing sales/marketing/PR. At any rate, your perspective also changes dramatically when you have a child, too. Things that sound like great adventures for a single person aren't such great ideas for fathers responsible for their families. This is what lead me to leave the pro sports life. It's fun single but not good for family life, especially baseball.

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 08:18 PM) Really enjoyed this....thanks for posting. Very good. An interesting was the stats professor discussing why WAR is so flawed especially for pitchers. He had an interesting take on it. One I hadn't thought of.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 06:48 PM) SF has 3. Heck, the Marlins won two in 1997 and 2003, but not sure we want to emulate them. At least through 2012, we could have said we had a Top Five winning percentage in all of baseball from let's say 1990 or 1993 through 2010/12 except for the Yankees, Braves and Cardinals. That was the argument used to justify not teardown...that the White Sox at least have been competitive over most of those seasons...but that argument doesn't hold water with fans anymore, certainly not over the last 3 years and after the disappointment of 2011, 2012 and 2015 all fizzling despite high fan hopes. Sorry, I'm in the medical field, can't count. I agree it hasn't been effective lately which is why if the stated discussion is the "last few years..." however, there are far too many people saying KW hasn't produced.... and this discussion was in response to a post comparing KW to the 2 previous GMs. I was just comparing KW's record to the last 2. For all the KW bashing, he is by far the best GM for the sox in the modern era. I find myself really contradicting myself. In the 70's, 80's and 90's, I kept saying "I just want to see 1 world series champ for the White sox: because we never though it would happen with those teams. Now that it happened and they have struggled the last few year I want to change that line of thought.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 05:25 PM) he has a ring; I never said he never was (although I think others were better). I said he isn't now. And it's not because of lack of skills. His methods will work if you have a strong foundation (Dombrowski does what he does; so does Brian Sabean, although Sabean has toned it down a lot under their GM). But those teams have much stronger org. foundations that I believe KW has put insufficient attention into rebuilding. I thought they were making progress in 2013, and they stopped. your implication that he has not been as effective as his predecessors sure made it sound like his methods are wrong and he wasn't an effective GM.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 04:35 PM) I said this earlier...saying we haven't traded anyone of value is just another way of saying we haven't drafted anyone of value from a positional perspective in this century (cause we certainly haven't developed any who produced for the White Sox either). Only major rookie positoinal contributions made were international free agent signings involving more experienced players (Iguchi, Alexei and Abreu). Chris Young is probably the best position player traded away (along with Trayce) and from a WAR perspective, I presume Chris Young has the highest WAR of any positional player the Sox drafted this century (back in 2001) with a career WAR of 17. I honestly don't know how you go 16 years of drafting and not have any positional successes. Literally flabbergasts me (Trayce and Chris Young would be the two potential exceptions and Chris Young largely had his professional impact over 2 seasons) and other than those two years was really nothing more than a serviceable role player and who knows what Trayce will end up being. There in lies the crux of the situation....if we could actually develop worth a darn, we'd have better position players and a better overall team. We were able to get away with it early on, since we benefited from the successes of Rowand, Crede, Carlos Lee, Maggs of the late 90's (who made there professional impacts in the late 90's and early 2000's). These are the two major points. Drafting and developing. I think it's the developing. Early in the KW tenure they drafted high floor low ceiling guys. It didn't work. They made some changes and started drafting Low floor high ceiling guys. It still hasn't worked. They need to somehow come up with the formula to get these to work together. If someone made this argument to fire the front office I wouldn't disagree.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 04:26 PM) Or how the stocked farm was managed - and whatever it was, it wasn't restocked well. He inherited a winning MLB team as well. Look, prove me wrong. Load up with proven veterans and actually win. They just keep doing the same things that haven't worked. And they don't do the things that seem to work at the winning organizations. So yes, when they keep doing the same thing and getting the same inadequate results, I'm looking for a change in course. Since 2000, the KW reign only 2 teams have more World Series wins than the White Sox. Boston has 3 and SF 2. There are 7 others that have won 1 like the White sox. So in this timeframe they are better than 20 teams and equal to 7. Now you can say that it is time to move on and change things, which I wouldn't disagree with. However, you can't say that under KW they have done nothing and he wasn't an effective GM.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 04:19 PM) None, but 2 playoffs in 16 seasons after inheriting a stocked farm and MLB team with at least a league average salary structure are lackluster results. You were the one who compared Williams to the previous ones and implied they did it the right way and he is wrong. The results don't show it.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 03:56 PM) That's what the team under Kenny Williams does. That's not what happened under his 2 predecessors. Yes, they could flip Shields for more than they paid if he pitches better than he has. But, to paraphrase, that's not what they do. Just because you brought it up. How many World Series wins and playoff appearances did the White Sox have under his predecessors?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 02:45 PM) RF Eaton 2B Tim Anderson 1B Jose Abreu DH Melky Cabrera (Hayes/Coats) LF Ian Desmond/Fowler/Trumbo or Michael Saunders (trade) CF Trayce Thompson SS Marcus Semien C BLACK HOLE 3B Juan Uribe (Davidson/Trey M./Delmonico) UTIL Saladino Now that team has much more balance, although it's a bit light in homers in the clean-up spot with Frazier removed...seemingly, you've got 5-7 to more than make up for that, and Uribe has occasional pop too, even at his age. And it would have four home grown players as well as one of my personal all-time favorites in Juan Game Winning Uribe. I'd MUCH MUCH rather watch that team from a fan standpoint than what we have right now (much younger, more dynamic/exciting/athletic). The bottom 3 would still be relatively weak, but it would have offensive pop and not be 600-650 OPS weak. Plus, you'd still have Montas in reserve to throw into the bullpen or save having to trade for James Shields. And you'd have a lot more financial flexibility and future years of control, to where you wouldn't have to tear things apart after 2017. Not sure why you dreamed this up but there is no scenario where Anderson is at 2b and Semien is at SS.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 03:15 PM) I am certain there are some honest mistakes. But those can't be excused. No one takes a supplement by accident. If you are subject to drug screening and testing, you better be 100% certain of everything you put in your body. No other policy works. Yes. Only take ones the league approved. Otherwise they are rolling the dice.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 3, 2016 -> 01:45 PM) There's no hard and fast line of "this is a performance enhancing drug and this is not". Caffeine is a performance enhancing drug and this post is possible in part because of it. The actual decision is something of a hodgepodge - vitamins and caffeine are ok, speed isn't. Things that metabolize into hormones such as testosterone in the body have been well agreed to be PEDs, things that enable the body to carry more oxygen are considered PEDs, painkillers sometimes are. Basically the setup winds up being some version of "what does it do in the body" and "does the government consider it legal". This of course always leaves open the gap for someone to figure out a new supplement or chemical that leads to enhanced performance that the law and tests haven't caught up with yet. I think the modern tests are probably extremely reliable in catching recent use of just about any version of anabolic steroids, depending on what the definition of "recent" is. Figuring out what other things do is much more challenging. Caffiene is only considered a PED in certain doses. Most professional sports follow the WDA guidelines on PEDS. In the past they have just not used all testing measures available ie. blood testing. Many of the international organization, now use a baseline level test. This is where they test the blood levels and test for changes in that level. In this case they don't need to test for specific substances only changes. The weakness in the current system is that, designer companies like Balco create things that the trsting companies don't know to look for.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 6, 2016 -> 02:25 PM) But Hahn at least had numerous connections built up due to his educational background. The "average" twenty-something out there begging for a job in a front office (with a Master's in Sports Admin/Management) or even an internship in broadcasting (that area's 10X more competitive than front office work even) just doesn't stand a chance. Right place, right time. I'll give a personal example. For example, I turned down an internship with the Red Sox for "only" $300 per month back in late 1993 because I knew if I could do sales fairly effectively I could earn, let's say $1000-1250 per month (and free rent) working for a minor league team. Knowing what I know now, I would have asked to borrow money from my dad and figured out how to survive in Boston financially because it's just not that easy to transition from working for a minor league team to a major league front office (unless its owned by a major league team). I screwed up my Cardinals' interview by making a joke about selling complimentary tickets that front office members (even interns) receive...they are super serious about that, and I should have known better. Of course, who wants to work in ticketing? (Yes, I know, I know...there are major league GM's who have started off in even lower positions than THAT). The other path which could have had a positive result would have been developing Spanish skills more and going to work in the Winter Baseball Leagues in places like the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico or Venezuela. I always helped our Spanish speaking players (Jose Guillen in particular, because he always was getting into trouble at age 19)...but you couldn't work as a "translator" full time in the minor leagues, that position simply didn't exist at that time, or even working in one of the baseball academies in the DR or VZ (which was alluring from an adventure side but scary from a personal safety standpoint.) And yeah, back then I remember sending out resumes to every MLB GM and all 130 something minor league teams. About half the MLB GM's responded, or at least their secretaries/admin assistants. Wish I had kept all of them. You're right it is quite an experience working in that league. It was worth the experience and really wasn't all that "unsafe." I did it in the early 90's and had a blast and it got me full season work. I would highly recommend it for someone looking to break into professional sports. Although, in the medical field I don't recommend baseball, way, way too many hours for the pay.