Balta1701

The Tampa metro area is 66% larger than the Nashville metro area. It’s hard to see that ownership defaulting to leaving without a sweetheart stadium deal. Central Florida should have a baseball team, I think everyone just hates their ballpark.

What?

A smart org would have respected his comeback from injury in 2021 and started stretching him out in the minor leagues, with the intent of working him back in as a successful starter.

That was the worst looking swing…

Rick Hahn probably chose Vince Velasquez over Martin Perez.

Shoulders in pitchers are so complicated that I wouldn’t ever bet either way when there’s pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back in 15 days and they say he’s fine, I wouldn’t be surprised if the articles 6 weeks from now say he’s still having pain and they don’t know why. But;, the fact that soreness in muscles that weren’t used at full power for a year is likely is why no other team in baseball would ramp a guy up to bring a full time big league pitcher only 13 months after the surgery. It’s bonkers.

I cannot claim insight about how valid of a point this is, but here's a response from the Score saying that they can't be angry about local media when they don't communicate with local media.

He’s 13th in MLB (among all players) in fWAR and the top CF in the AL right now, so barring anything drastic he should be their lone representative.

If we could just get back to having an average GM, that would be progress. An average GM in the Chicago area, with moderate resources and the AL central as opponents, should be able to give you several competitive years in a stretch before a few lean and rebuilding years. We got that from Kenny Williams of all people, that’s not a ridiculous standard to hope for.

I’d just go with 4th place. It would be his 6th time there, including the arrogant years of 2015-2016.

What place did the Braves finish at in the NL in 2022? What place are they in right now in 2023?

I disagree with this. We’ve reached a point in the playoffs where teams that get hot for a couple rounds just get worn down, and a really good team always seems to knock them out in the end. When is the last time a team described by what you just wrote won a title? Maybe the Giants when they blew out Bumgarner to do it in 2014, and for them that was their third title in 5 years? After that, basically every team that has won has been really strong, winning 90 games and making the playoffs several times in a short stretch. If you have to go all the way back to the 06 Cardinals for an example, that shows how rare it is, and that team of course was extenuating circumstances- having won 100 games and making the NLCS the year before, and having two all stars who were injured but returned for the playoffs.

“The buck stops over there with the guy who doesn’t do interviews.”

Let’s just stress how painfully inadequate this would be also. If he’s going to lead a losing team, he is going to get tough questions about losing. If he’s going to make lineup choices that are hard to follow, he’s going to get asked tough questions about them. If “go complain to Reinsdorf about my lineups” is the best answer he’s got, he should just resign, because that’s pretty far from accountability or from owning his decisions.

That was impressively fast.

You made a suggestion that Rick Hahn agreed with. This isn’t a compliment.

Because Rick Hahn is terrible at all jobs other than convincing Jerry Reinsdorf that he’s fine. It’s literally that simple, when you have the worst GM in baseball this is how things look.

There is unfortunately no solution to this that will make you happy. The White Sox will not be a good team for several years even if they do everything right. They are a bloody mess. They are a bad, expensive, old team at the big league level and their minor leagues are barren. Making a good speech or yelling motivating quotes will not change this. Fire Hahn, bring in someone better, let them pick their own coaches (I don’t care about Grifol), and fully start from scratch. Rip out all Hahn’s bad contracts, eat the money you have to, bring in as much talent as you can, improve the drafting and scouting and development and maybe by 2027 or 2028 the White Sox have a legitimate team if everything goes well. It’s that bad. And note, you say things have been bad since Ozzie was gone, with the exception of 2012 the other big change is that 2013 was Hahn’s first year. Not a coincidence/

Apparently Sosa is currently on the IL.

That is definitely something else. Must literally go back to Rodon.

I would happily pay 3x that tax rate.