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I agree Vaughn is better and more important and needs ABs -- and I think he'll get them. I'm just saying that as of this game today, it's hard to argue that this is a case of "benching the starter in favor of a bench guy" given that Vaughn has yet to establish himself as the starter.

Well, to be fair, given the injuries, Lamb is really the only certified "bench piece." You have to figure Williams is in a straight platoon with Vaughn at this point, and as bad as Williams is, it isn't like Vaughn has been forcing the issue.

I understand that rotating bench pieces in is incredibly important for both the rest of the starters and the sharpness of the subs, and that sometimes that is going to mean sitting your best and/or hottest players. But, intuitively, I don't feel like games against your division rival's ace are the ones in which to do this. Especially with Yermin, who is only DH-ing. Even if you had to give him some rest, wouldn't both yesterday AND tomorrow be better choices?

Personally, way worse. I say this only because been following the NPB (which has ties after 12 innings) very closely for the last few years, enough that I’ve developed a solid rooting interest — and the feeling I get every time I watch a game that ends in a tie is pure disappointment and frustration. It’s just a real bummer of an outcome. in normal years, it happens a handful of times for each team. But in 2021, in an alleged attempt to close down early because of COVID, the npb is awarding ties after NINE innings, so no extra innings at all. I just watched my favorite team (currently in first place and with a definite contender this year) play a huge weekend series against the defending champs and come out of it 0-1-2. I can’t remember the last time I felt worse about meaningful baseball. I saw an article that the league is currently on pace for well over a hundred total ties this year under the new rule. And it’s a twelve team league. Anyway, for me, a tie in baseball is just an extremely un-fun thing to happen.

I agree with you, but how is that any different than before? That’s an advantage the home team has always had in extra innings. Every time the home team hits, they know what they need to do to win, regardless of whether or not the away team scored in the previous inning.

I disagree wholeheartedly. It is the only change MLB has made in the past decade that actually makes sense. It simultaneously (a) helps make sure the games don't end too late, which there was a whole thread about hating here last week, (b) reduces dangerous overwork on pitchers that occurs in extra inning games, making it an actually helpful step toward reducing arm injuries (position players that aren't used to pitching can get them too), and (c) is completely fair to both sides. Crochet got the L because the Sox failed to convert when given the exact same advantage. The only fathomable argument that can be made against it is "it isn't like it used to be," which the the number one worst reason to be against anything. Unlike other changes/suggestions such as lowering the mound, changing the length of the basepaths, limiting pickoff attempts, banning the shift, adding a pitch clock, etc., it doesn't change HOW the game is played at all. Teams are simply put in a situation (having a runner in scoring position) that they're in ALL THE TIME and they react to it precisely how they would normally. This change, unlike all the others, doesn't affect the mechanics OR strategy of the game at all. It doesn't make any players more or less valuable. It actually IS still the same game, much moreso than anything else being discussed. And before anyone says "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," realize that it IS broke: we're all painfully aware the both injuries and game length have been spiraling out of control for years, and EVERYONE complains about both of those things all the time. While this rule change obviously can't completely fix those issues by itself, it at least addresses and impacts both in direct and measurable ways -- unlike nearly every other asinine half-measure the league has taken or considered recently.

Mid-May.

That was fun

If me pointing out the obvious and potentially intentional failings of the White Sox executive team prevents your from enjoying baseball, then you're the one that's crazy -- because those things aren't even remotely connected, and a "normal" person could see that. I am still going to watch the team and hope they win, and will enjoy it if they do. That fact that I root for the team doesn't change the fact that the FO assfucked the fanbase. In life (not just baseball), it's important to be able to hold two related but non-contradictory thoughts in one's head without one wiping the other from existence.

This is the saddest line I've ever read from a White Sox fan. You've been stockholm syndrome'd. Is a Wild Card contender a World Series contender? Yeah, technically. Is that all you can realistically and reasonably ask of ownership? The White Sox payroll right now is about $121,000,000, which is 15th in the MLB and almost exactly league average. Exactly ten years ago, it was $127,000,000. Is that what the fans earned for dealing with four years of bottom five payrolls? To get back up to league average? While literally DOZENS of useful veterans signed one-year deals at positions where the White Sox needed depth? Is this what Hahn meant when he said "the money will be spent?" No, what you're witnessing here is utter BULLSHIT. Before the Sox embarked on this rebuild, we complained that the FO kept telling us it had a contender every year, when we could all see that it was only a contender if absolutely EVERYTHING went right. Now, on the other end of the rebuild, we are in EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION. After years of collecting money with ~$50m payrolls, the Sox have chosen to watch AFFORDABLE players they need sign elsewhere rather than finish a paper thin roster that comes in at 15th in payroll. There is no way to spin this as okay. This is an absolutely textbook bait and switch and it's EXACTLY what people are talking about when they complain about rich owners not giving a shit about their fans.

Leury Garcia is (or should be) your LF. The ONLY place this organization has any semblance of depth is in utility infielders. It makes the most sense to just hand Mendick the IF innings Leury would have gotten, and Remillard or Sanchez is the the next man up. Vaughn is penciled in for regular ABs as DH already; you aren't adding his bat to the lineup by sticking him in LF. Putting Vaughn in LF just gives Collins more ABs as DH, and while Collins is surely a better hitter than Leury, Vaughn is just as surely a way worse defender in the OF simply by virtue of his terrible footspeed. When you factor the increased chance of injury to Vaughn and the potential negative effect on his bat from the of stress/distraction of learning a position he isn't physically suited to play, I think Leury as a starter is the clearly correct choice. Don't worry, I'm not happy about it either.

No.

Again, real contenders have depth. Cheapskate pretenders stay cheap, and try to convince fans that everything can go right at once.

Here's the problem: who starts if ANYONE gets hurt? This is why the offseason was a joke.

Right -- I can totally believe that guys like Cobb were way more TALENTED than Engel, meaning all things being equal Engel would be a scrub. But all things are VERY much not equal.

But all of those disadvantages you listed apply equally to every player in that era, while NONE of the training and physical advantages that Engel has would apply to anyone EXCEPT him. Also, his best tool is his footspeed -- extra OF space would be to his advantage compared to an average player on BOTH sides of the ball. He'd have well above average defensive range like he does even today, and if you're arguing he'd hit fewer homeruns, well then he'd hit more doubles and triples because there'd would be more balls that fall in the OF. We can agree to disagree, but if I'm underestimated the physical differences in the park and the balls, I think you are underestimating the unbelievable difference in training methods (both in terms of athletic training and baseball skills training). Those guys may have been strong for their era, but even a regimen of manual labor is not going to hold a candle to state-of-the-art modern strength and conditioning training and diet. I also think you're underestimating the crucible of being able to hit a 95+ mph pitch, and specifically what it says about the talent of even a fringe 2021 Major Leaguer like Engel.

Yeah, I believe he won multiple gold gloves, actually. He really was a treasure. Super fun to watch.

Oh come on man, Engel would easily be a star. He would be in better physical shape than anyone on the field by a LONGSHOT. The average fastball was probably in the 70s. These guys worked in factories in the offseason. There was basically no such thing as "training" in any meaningful context related to athleticism. The extent to which all of these guys abused alcohol DURING the season may, if anything, be understated. Not only was the league not even racially integrated, but nothing even remotely close to the network of youth baseball training existed in any form whatsoever. The talent pool form which these guys were selected was maybe 10% of what it is now. The level of biomechanical knowledge that the average random High School coach possesses today would be practically science fiction then. Was nutrition and diet planning even a thing? The LIFE EXPECTANCY of people was probably at least 10-20 years shorter on average. They were selling cocaine a corner stores. It wasn't totally clear that the moon wasn't actually made of cheese. None of this is to take anything away from those old-timey players -- everyone should be judged in the context in which they exist, it's only fair. But you put anyone from the early part of the century in today's game, it would astonishing if they could even crack a 40-man roster. There's a reason why athletic records continue to be broken. Progress is made, and the gains pile up quite a bit over several generations. Now, you take a Ty Cobb and make him born in the year 2000 and give him access to elite baseball training from age 12, maybe he's still a Hall of Famer. You take Adam Engel and make him born in 1890 and work on a farm in upstate New York until he's 24 and then have him take a train to the city to join a baseball club and figure out how to make a living while barely literate, and maybe he's still a scrub.

Guaranteed Rate getting a great deal so far on those naming rights.

That's actually a good point that I often forget -- the Shields deal was, at its core, a salary dump for SD. Therefore, he was presumably available for JUST the full contract. If the Sox actually believed he was good, they could have simply paid him and gave up a random 27 year old in AAA or whatever -- meaning they either (A) didn't ever believe he was the "ace" that they pretended to believe he was, and STILL gave up talent to get him, or (B) JR's purse strings were so tight that he wouldn't go higher than $8m (or whatever it was that they ended up paying) for a midseason trade acquisition to help put them over the top. Choice A suggests a poor understanding of how to build a contender, and B is more evidence that JR doesn't care about winning enough to own a team. Regardless, not only did they give up Tatis for a bad pitcher, they could have gotten the bad pitcher and KEPT Tatis by simply being willing to pay a bit more of his contract. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm done piling on this narrative because it just depresses people, including myself. But that was a good point that I wanted to expand on.

I didn't like the Lynn trade, but Lynn/Shields is not a good comparison. Shields was bad for more than full season leading up to the trade, and was two years older. Lynn hasn't been bad since he... got good.

You'd be correct if the trade made sense, at all, at the time. Unfortunately James Shields was a bad idea even then. He was one year into his joke of a free agent deal, already 35 years old and coming off a year where he pitched over 200 innings and somehow only produced 0.8 fWAR. At the time of the deal, he had an ERA over 4 in the best pitcher's park of the last two decades. I HATED that trade the moment it was made, and I had no idea who Tatis was. It was the type of trade that, for a team trying to contend, wasn't even worth the roster spot they gave him LET ALONE any kind of lottery ticket going the other way.

Nah, I don't think so. The Cubs knew what they were giving up, they got a WAY better player back, and while Eloy is already good, he hasn't reached Tatis level yet. Our deal was a prospect who, if we knew how good he was, would never have been in any trade at all, for a player in Shields that every team (and publication, tbh) knew was garbage except the White Sox, and the prospect has now blossomed into someone who has already put up 6.5 fWAR in 143 games. I appreciate the attempt at positivity, though.

I'm excited about Yermin's bat too, but the point is that if Grandal goes down to injury, there's no way in hell the Sox are going to entrust the staff to a Collins/Yermin tandem. Even if Lucroy never gets another hit at the MLB level, he'll be tapped to lead the pitching staff and call games, because pitchers need stuff like that and love it when they have a guy they can feel confident with. And, if that does happen, hopefully Collins takes some notes.