35thstreetswarm

Really only 2 if you believe Vaughn will help this season, as I do.

Same. We're in the enviable position of having a complete enough roster to be able to act with "win-now" urgency AND protect our assets -- that's because we a) don't have that many holes to fill; and b) have money to spend on free agents. (And those free agents don't even have to be Bauer and Springer.) Let's not force tough decisions on ourselves when we don't need to.

Agreed. Plenty of teams that turn out to be contenders are not obvious, consensus contenders before their first contending season--last year's Rays being the most recent example. I wouldn't bet my house on 2021 being the best year of the Sox window, but it wouldn't shock me if that turned out to be the case. Since we keep talking about the Cubs, it would have seemed ridiculous to suggest in November of 2014 that the Cubs would have a better shot at a title in 2015 than they would in, say, 2018. But they did.

See, I take a slightly different lesson from the Cubs. Whether they had their core “locked up” at the time or not, they basically kept it together and still declined faster than most predicted. Hell, they’re talking about non-tendering their MVP centerpiece five years after fighting for an extra season of control. Just because we’ll have our core together in, say, 2024 doesn’t mean we’ll be good then.

Precisely. The time for punting whole seasons is long gone. You can’t predict in advance which part of your window will give you the best shot. Every season is precious now. That being said, I’m dead against depleting our hard-won assets to fill holes that could just as easily be filled through free agency, especially when we have plenty to spend. I think that’s where we are this offseason.

I’d be very excited about a Springer and/or Bauer signing. But the bottom line is that I think that with just a modest upgrade in RF and the rotation we are poised to be really good next year. For that reason I refuse to allow myself to get too despondent over any particular offseason move or miss. Lots of paths to happiness with this roster.

I heard the Jays told him they like him “more than a friend”

I don’t get it. The argument is this particular rhb doesn’t get killed by pitchers that are typically death on rhb.

I usually don’t put much stock in this kind of thing, but boy would it be a PR nightmare to let their golden boy walk to the cross-town rival for almost nothing. After Theo leaving? Tough to explain to the casual fan.

Yes, the main problem with pro sports is athletes’ family members wanting what’s best for them and taking an overly optimistic view of their talent. Don’t even get me started on mothers and children—just terrible evaluators of fmv. Then when you give some of these people Facebook accounts? My god, it’s like dumping rocket fuel onto forest fire. The Commissioner should form a subcommittee to study the corrosive effects of familial love on sports before it’s too late.

I think they can and they will.

That definitely describes my outlook. But it does seem like the general consensus of the board shifted dramatically in a pro-Hinch direction over the last few months. Oh well, Sox have made their bed with the bizarre TLR decision and we're all lying in it.

...aaaaand we're quickly devolving into the Cubs groudnhog day thread. To save time let's just get it all out: (A) "I don't care about the Cubs, they're not in our division, stop caring more about the Cubs than the Sox it's pathetic." (B) "Of course you should care about the Cubs, they're our natural intra-city rival and we compete for the same fans. Hating the Cubs is part of the rivalry, get over yourself." (C) "The Cubs are a cautionary tale because they traded away all their young talent and shortened their window"; (D) "The Cubs were appropriately aggressive and traded talent away for guys like Chapman who won them a World Series so it was all worth it." Anyway, I'd be excited about taking a flyer on Bryant but I think Springer is the safer bet.

Is there even a question? Good reminder that just because you have your "core" signed up for X years, it doesn't necessarily mean you have an X-year window of contention. Sh*t happens, and more with each passing year. The Cubs are Exhibit A.

If we're getting pitching in return then me, too. We're ready to win now. Darvish is the absolute best case scenario for what Cease might become during our window.

I really thought there would be a few years where the teams' windows overlapped, which would've been fun. Looks like that's not to be.

Man, to think they were one rain delay speech away from getting no championships at all -- what a story that would have been.

See now I'm getting all excited.

Yep, this checks out. All signs pointed to the Sox knowing this was going away.

I hope they're terrible but I'm not sure they're there yet. I think they may have one more "treading water" season in them with their current core.

That would be a dumb approach. They'd be better off socializing the idea now.

“As Tony La Russa’s attorney said in his statement, Tony deserves all the assumptions and protections granted to everyone in a court of law, especially while this is a pending matter. Once his case reaches resolution in the courts, we will have more to say. The White Sox understand the seriousness of these charges.” -White Sox statement I am puzzled by this statement. Why are the Sox putting so much weight on the final disposition of his case? I'm wondering if they have some reason to believe he will get off. Thinking through the scenarios, it seems that if they were planning to hire him regardless of the outcome they would try to make that clear now to head this off, rather than making a statement like this that drags it out and heightens the drama of the ultimate legal disposition. Having made this statement, if he's convicted and kept on it would beg the question why they waited to announce their intention in the first place. On the other hand, if they're seriously thinking of firing him if he's convicted, and believe there's a decent chance of that happening (which the *public* information suggests), they'd never have hired him in the first place, or might just cut ties with him now. To me this statement telegraphs confidence in a positive legal outcome. Then again, maybe there is no master plan and they're just punting on this to get through the news cycle in front of them. Would be really short-sighted, but it's possible.

...and it looks like even before that we'll get the drip drip drip of releases from the police report and other sources. Maybe we'll get some nice quotes from people inside the org that will be contradicted by later evidence, sparking nice little side controversies. We've got all the makings of a worst-case PR nightmare.

The crazy thing is it's not like this is the end of the controversy - it's the beginning. This is not just fading away, it will rear its head again at the end of the proceeding. "Wait it out" is all well and good if Tony beats the charge, but what if he doesn't? Remember - this isn't a case where there's merely a breathalyzer refusal. The police obtained a subpoena to draw his blood. After obtaining (and presumably testing) his blood they decided to bring charges. It doesn't look particularly good for TLR. If they're going to hire him no matter what (which seems likely) they should just announce it now rather than letting this linger for months.

...and f*ck Stone, too. It’s absolutely laughable to see him pompously attempt to claim some sort of moral high ground here. Go argue with a 12-year-old on Twitter you thin-skinned front office shill.