Greg Hibbard

Just before the all star break we were like 6th or 7th out of 15 AL teams.

This is my point. When you challenged "why haven't they won more wild cards during that era?" I provided a reasonable explanation as to WHY (because they didn't exist or they would have in some cases). That is a reasonable RESPONSE to YOUR question? I'm not the one who thinks winning the wild card even MATTERS. The answer to YOUR questions is that for the first FIVE seasons of those 23 years they COULDN'T. For the rest of that era there was no second wildcard so they COULDN'T win that either. If it existed, they WOULD have. Jeez. As for 1951-1967, what I specifically meant to say was that they largely sucked for 60 years between 19 and 83. I stand by that statement. Go ahead and grab the preceding 6 seasons before 1951 (1945-50) or the six seasons after (1968-1973) and tell me which era you want as your 23 years to go up against the one I've been championing. In the first six years of that '51-'67 era, they finished 4th and then 3rd five times in a row. Out of 8 teams. When you get to beat up on the 50s Washington Senators a million times a season, of course you're going to have a huge W-L differential. '60-'62? 3rd, 4th, 5th - in expansion years where there were absolute doormats getting rolled over. The last two years of that era? 4th twice. Context matters.

Dude, you questioned why the White Sox hadn’t won any wild cards in the time frame I’ve been citing for the last few pages, and now you’re making fun of me for responding to why they were good enough to have won wild cards if they were applicable. Great look.

I can’t believe I’m arguing with any White Sox fan about whether 1990-2012 was a successful enough 23 years. They sported a winning percentage which translated to winning 86 out of 162 every single year. They had premiere, homegrown players, including the best right handed hitter I’ve ever seen and several bona fide stars. Three of those players from that era have their numbers retired in the stadium. Compare it any other 23 year stretch in this franchise’s history outside of the initial 20 years and get back to me with a timeframe we did better. Outside of a fluke pennant in ‘59, we were a competitive joke for the 60 years between the 19 series and the 80s.

So I want to be clear about this. You asked me why they never won a WC in that timeframe and when I point to where they would have won one had it existed, your position is...it was too long ago in the timeframe you asked about? they would have also won the second wildcard had it existed in 2006.

I see. I wonder how you would have done as a Yankees fan from 1982 to 1993.

I’m not ok with mediocrity, either. You seem to discount 2008 as a successful season. Was it not? Because that division title set the tone for the next three seasons, two of which were near misses. Robin’s first season was a near miss. Exactly what should they have done differently from 2006-2012?

We have had a lot of near misses in close divisional races that we lost down the stretch (2003, 2011, 2012) and some of those other seasons had injury circumstances (2004) and 1994...we all know what happened there. I also wonder how many of those precious playoff appearances the Tigers, Twins, Indians, Rays and Orioles would trade for a World Championship sometime in those years .

They would have had one in 1990 if it existed at the time. Should we blame the organization on that too?

It's not at all odd to me. The AL east has been the WC representative more often than not because the Yankees and Red Sox almost always ate up two playoff spots. The second WC wasn't even around until 2012.

Their combined record over those 23 seasons is 1925-1733. That's nearly 200 games over .500. Per season average (a bit hinky because of the strike) is 84 wins. (the average season is 84-75 - again hinky because of the strike). How many other teams won an average of more than 84 games per season during that 23 year stretch? Edit - double checked my math and I added something wrong so I fixed it.

I guess in this whole thing I would counter that the White Sox organizationally were a very competitive team from 1990-2012. More often than not, they were above .500, and they won the division 4 times and won a world series. And yes, no need to start linking data about how historically bad this franchise is overall, I know. I have read it. However, I guess I would say that that the 23 seasons in which they routinely won 80 games and won 90 a handful of times, and the world series...that all means just a little bit more in terms of equity than the 6 bad seasons we have endured recently, which have required a great deal more patience. Oddly, this 6 season timeframe is somewhat very similar to the 6 bad years before 1990, after the magical '83 season.

Do you really think RH had full control over what was going on during the 2016 campaign and leading up to it? Were the players all his guys/acquisitions?

Well he's made most of his acquisitions through trade, though, so that's not all he had to do. The FA signed in many cases were intentional stopgaps. Evaluating him on moves like Yonder make no sense in some regards.. When he goes out and has to get a big ticket RF then I think you can hang his legacy on that, but we are a year out from knowing.

fathom, he was an all-star and he has a 2.5 WAR right now. McCann was an A++++ move considering his stats coming into this year.

I wonder if the same people who say Hahn and co. can't evaluate talent at the ML level or bring in quality FA can give him even some credit for McCann, who could be really really important to this whole thing.

This isn’t about 10 years. 8-10 years ago the approach, manager, personnel was entirely different. So was everything up to when we decided to actually rebuild. 18 GAMES ago, nearly all of the board would have said we were ahead of schedule with the rebuild at 41-42 and in the hunt for a wild card. And 18 games later, many of the same people are jumping off of a bridge.

I’m a little confused as to your comment “the way things are going”. I think TA and Eloy’s injury cost us some winnable games, and DFAing an absolutely listless Yonder was necessary so we could try a couple of new options in seasonal garbage time. However, I don’t buy in to the theory that injuries have become organizational and I certainly don’t think it’s some sort of referendum on the franchise direction. We are three major league bats short on a team that is already three major league bats short. We are also two major league starting arms short on a team that is already two arms short. Cease needs to develop at the ML level so there will be some hiccups. Losing games in exactly that way was always going to be part of it.

Yes, we've gone 4-13 in the last 17 and it hasn't been pretty. Yes, it is hard to watch teams like Minnesota and Oakland absolutely trounce us. Yes, it's worrisome to watch guys like Giolito and Cease struggle, sometimes mightily. However, I think we need to get a collective grip on what real swings of a baseball season are, even for competitive teams, because I think the board has taken a sharp dive towards unbearable lately with some of the sky-is-falling/rebuild has failed talk, especially in game threads. The very best teams struggle to win 60% of their games in no small part because even great playoff teams have 20 game stretches where they play like absolute garbage. I urge you to consider the following before condemning the entire front office, managerial staff, and organization for what's been going on recently: That currently, even with the terrifying bad stretch of baseball we've been playing, this team is still on pace to win about 73 games. How many wins did you have them down for at the beginning of the season? I had them down for about 74 and I considered that optimistic. That the following good teams have had the following awful stretches of baseball this year: Yankees: 4-8 games 2 through 13 of the season, and then 3-8 in early June. Red Sox: 6-13 through first 19 games of the season (are 12 over now) Minnesota: 12-16 stretch recently. Houston: lost 7 in a row and 9 of 11. Oakland: started the season 14-19 and are 12 over now. Those are currently the five best teams in the American League, and they've all had 2-3 week stretches where they have played WAY below their ability. Not because they suck, but because that's variance, that's baseball, and those are stretches. Yes, 4-13 is a different beast, but 4-13 for a team that is expected to win maybe 77 games at best is similar to 8-12 for a team that expects to win 90. I think what's also been lost in a lot of talk recently too is that I see little mention of people putting into context that we DFA'd our DH without an ML replacement, have been playing without TA for a while, and Eloy went down, and much more mention about how this is failing. We are in a bad stretch. At some point this season, this team will snap out of it and suddenly with 4 in a row or 7 of 8 and that won't make any sense either. Because that's baseball. I still think we are on track.

And yet the same haters will say if he gets hot that he only hits when it’s meaningless. He literally can’t win with some of our fans. It’s sickening that after all of his production he can’t even buy an ounce of equity with certain people.

Ron creating that thread means Jose can go yard here?

Wow. lost in the doom and gloom of the last two weeks is the legitimately major league looking bat of Adam Engel 4.0

I’m still a Gio fan. Bad starts are part of a great pitcher’s resume.

100% this.

Ricky looks like he couldn’t care less