Balta1701

so we are an organization that went from one of the Worst GMs in baseball and one of the worst in team history to a guy who clearly wasn’t qualified for the job and was hired without a competitive interview because he couldn’t possibly look like he deserves the job if he had to interview… And average would be a problem? Do you realize what a monstrous upgrade average front office performance would be?

Please give us 6 more games of that.

Here's the annual October fall color "Isn't our empty ballpark nice" post. Yes, they did this in 2022 also.

Which is weird because the underlying stats say he was actually a slightly worse ballplayer while on the Marlins, just a little luckier.

So this guy would have been Giolito's pitching coach when he completed his collapse in Anaheim?

I’d say that was fair…except the person who allowed that arrangement was (checks notes) Owner Jerry Reinsdorf.

So are you Chris Russoing us or did the White Sox do something of importance?

The dude was talking about coming out of retirement all the way back in 2020, he was noncommittal but he was asked about it and publicly commented on it. Same thing in 2022. Had it come down to "Both Texas and Chicago are interested in me" he might well have gone to Texas, and frankly they probably would offer a better contract, but it never got to that point because the White Sox weren't interested either time. https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/mlb/san-francisco-giants/bochy-hasnt-talked-to-white-sox-wont-rule-out-managing-again/1124242/ https://www.nbcsportsbayarea.com/mlb/san-francisco-giants/report-bochy-was-white-soxs-no-2-choice-if-la-russa-said-no/1125605/

My version of "Rick Hahn grasping at straws" was always 2016. Dumping Danks early, dumping Latos, dumping Rollins, bringing up Anderson before he should have been called up, and of course trading for James Shields - those were "Desperation must compete to save my job" kinda moves.

As little as I respect Rick Hahn, he can't possibly have believed this team would be better after clearing out the guys they moved, and the only way he would possibly try to convince Reinsdorf of that is if he believed Reinsdorf was no longer physically or mentally able to do his job. Rick Hahn traded the guys who needed to be traded because of their contract status. The only optional one was Burger, but moving him still made sense - you can question the return, but moving a guy with his injury history who also plays the same position as Moncada was something I suggested made sense repeatedly. The only guy who he should have traded who didn't move was a guy who was unmovable for reasons unrelated to baseball. In the process, he actually strengthened the White Sox's system and organization, and took advantage of a hot market for pitching of any quality. You can quibble with the returns, but Rick Hahn made moves consistent with him believing he would be here for several years to see through this fix-it process.

I don't know if others remember this, but there was a time about 10 years ago where it seemed like the White Sox's marketing and PR staff were the hardest working, highest quality folks in the business. Every year we'd get another story about them going over the top to earn fans - some kid would send out 30 letters to teams trying to figure out who to cheer for, and they'd get 29 no responses and one full box of White Sox merchandise or stuff like that. They'd wind up with the fan there, and also a really nice PR article out of it. It feels like they have the exact opposite perspective right now. They no longer act like they have to work hard to earn fans, they expect everyone to be a fan of theirs because they deserve it, not because they work for it any more.

I think the only one that makes sense is that JR fully believes he is running this team correctly and that all the fans are out of their minds, calling for things like Tony to be fired and for him to sell the team. He doesn't think the fans are worth listening to, and he knows the fans would complain if there was any sort of Q&A at Soxfest. His people are too important to take questions, so they're not holding Soxfest.

I don't buy this either - evaluating 'trading for prospects' based on how they looked in their first 3 weeks in the organization seems like the worst idea ever. You'd have to be a complete fool to make huge business decisions based on that. The only way the trade deadline itself could have played into this is either: Reinsdorf really is that much of a fool to evaluate people based on 3 weeks of performance, or Reinsdorf rejected Hahn and Williams's philosophy at the trade deadline and decided to go in a different way. This one might be possible, that Reinsdorf believes the White Sox are still competitive and one or two players away, and thus that rather than trading away players they should have dealt a top prospect for Salvador Perez, and Hahn and Williams did not believe that they were in a spot to be adding players when they were 20 games below .500. So, Reinsdorf decided to remove Hahn and Williams and replace them with someone who will act on his "Win now but without spending too much money" desire.

This is fundamentally false, or at best misleading in the case of the NBA since you're comparing it to the worst ratings in league history at that time. Going by the same metric you are using, TV ratings, the NBA is down dramatically from its peak. They haven't hit a rating of "10" since the 2019 NBA finals, the last 2 had ratings of 5-6 and a peak of 14 million viewers. In the 1988 NBA finals, the lowest rating was 13.9, and the highest was 21.2. In 1998, buoyed by the presence of Michael Jordan, the final game had a rating of 22.3 and at least 35 million people watching (including me). The ratings for the 2022 NBA finals were just about as low as those of the 1981 NBA finals - on tape delay. All TV ratings have declined as the media landscape has become more fractured. The 2022 Super Bowl was the lowest rated Super Bowl since 1969, with a rating of 36.9. Since 1970, there have been 3 super bowls with ratings below 40, 2 of them in the past 3 years.

The only guy who should truly care about ratings for the MLB playoffs is Phil in accounting, because it's his job to. Literally no one else should care about MLB playoff ratings. Go ahead and care about NBA playoff ratings, they matter for the sport a lot. The playoffs are 2 months, that's 25% of the length of the entire season, and TV revenue from that makes up a big percentage of league revenues. Baseball's playoffs are one month long, so they're 1/6 of the regular season. They are a far lower percentage of total league revenues, they have much less to do with the health of the league overall. They're nice, but they don't determine the health of the league. What we see instead - take a look at the Phillies attendance. In 2018, their attendance was down at 2.15 million. It jumped to 2.7 million in 2019 when they signed Harper, but it was down to 2.27 million in 2022. In 2023, their attendance was 3.05 million, an increase of 800,000 tickets in 1 year. That's for making the World Series, not winning it. Our experience with the 2005 White Sox shows that these attendance boosts from winning last for years, you could be talking about 4 or 5 million extra ticket sales for a team from making one world series altogether, that's what the White Sox saw and they fell apart after winning their title. The Phillies will probably draw 3 million+ again next year, and the following year, and even if they have to rebuild, they'll still draw 2.8 million, then 2.7 million, and it will only decline slowly. On top of just the ticket sales themselves, ratings for the local broadcasts will go up which puts money directly into the pockets of many of these franchises, parking revenues go up, concession sales go up, and ad sales in the park go up. This is where the real money is for baseball, it's in their long regular season. Bringing in smaller markets and putting them in the World Series is VERY GOOD for baseball even if the ratings are low. In 2022, Arizona sold 1.6 million tickets, Texas sold 2 million. In 2023 just by being competitive, Arizona sold 1.96 million, Texas sold 2.5 million. I will give you a strong bet that those will go up again for both franchises next year. This is big money for the local markets. Their ad sales rates will go up, their ticket prices will go up, Texas might sell 3 million tickets next year. Furthermore, there are long term benefits. Arizona will be filled with Corbin Carroll jerseys for years. Kids who are 6 years old are going to become fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks and want to get Carroll's autograph. Dallas will start being filled with Garcia jerseys. These benefits will last for years. Ballparks also hold 2 to 2.5 times the number of fans that NBA games hold. Baseball makes its money on the long regular season. It's why they developed their own streaming platform, which was one of the first sports streaming platforms and which earned them like $3 billion when it was sold. They're even able to do things like the TBS, Fox, and now Apple TV contracts for extra money during the regular season because they have so many games. It is a good thing for baseball to have a Boston New York ALCS every now and then, because it's great TV, it gets those markets involved, and it has some crossover effect. But it is also a great thing for baseball to have a lowly rated World Series because the Diamondbacks and the Rangers are in it, or the Phillies and Astros, or the Marlins and Royals. Having these small market teams make the World Series reduces the ratings at the time, but it massively boosts the revenue of the local franchises and it does so in a way that lasts for years and helps create lifelong fans of those teams.

I mean, we got this answer quite publicly. The answer is yes, no one in baseball was willing to deal with him.

They let Jeff Bagwell and the owner play GM last year despite the owner not being a baseball expert and Bagwell totally not deserving the GM job except for having once played for the team so the owner their he could do it, and wound up with a weaker roster and a couple contracts that look bad. This is totally not relevant for any other franchise. But anyway; they have an actual and deserving GM this year with a roster that already looks loaded. There is always work to do, but you have to think they’re in a good spot. They have 7 starters possibly! I’m not sure the white Sox have 2.

What series did Arozarena go nuts in?

The Astros lose a couple of replaceable bullpen guys this offseason, and some guys like Abreu get older. But, they should be back next year…they have Verlander the whole year, they should get McCullers back although he’s probably a part season guy at best, France and Brown now have near full season experience, and if you add in a manager who is more willing to take advantage of what the front office gives him, this team could definitely win 100 next year.

Garcia now has 14 RBI in this 7 game series. That is the most in any single playoff series since RBI became a stat. He is 2 away from tying the record for most RBI in a postseason.

Eduardo Perez on the radio was yelling to walk him. He was similarly yelling that Diaz needed to hit for Maldonado last inning when they got two men on, but you can’t bench the veteran you know. Dusty might not have lost this game but he hasn’t helped one bit.

Maybe the old school "Throw at the guy for celebrating" strategery has some downsides?

If the Astros can tie this game up Maton might be the MVP of the day.

Rangers have a shot to make this one seem drama free...

Even if there was a comeback story...the best possible scenario is that it's a comeback story that lasts 1 year. He's not likely to be retained by this franchise, if he has a strong 2023 he'll be signing the best free agent contract he can, and the White Sox have a young SS coming up so they have a very good reason not to be the highest bidder. Imagining a comeback story that gets the White Sox a few more ticket sales and gets them all the way up to 74 wins before the guy walks as a free agent for the low price of $14 million is exactly what I mean when I say that would be classic White Sox behavior, that's exactly what Hahn would have done. Imagine everything rosy, turning out well, and go for that while spending money or talent in the process. More than anything else, that's why I would want them to do something different. Keeping him isn't the biggest waste of money in human history, there's some small chance he could be worth more than a pittance in a trade, but overall the upside is limited and unlikely. Stubbornly insisting it could work well and spending $14 million in the process is classic White Sox, and it turns out that those dollars add up.