The fragility of some fans on this board recently...

[Greg Hibbard]

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. 

[greg775]

Losing all four to KC was quite bad. I think a lot of us would have felt better, at least me, if after game four Ricky got fired or Hahn or Jerry announced a plan to sell the team. Just my take. I personally think we're going to continue to play this bad the rest of the way.

The first half success is hard to explain. I think maybe Gio's success carried over a bit to our overall play. Right now, pretty much the whole team blows and Gio is average of late.

I do concede it might be all TA's absence. Maybe like Stone said he's that important.

Edited July 29, 2019 by greg775

[caulfield12]

When the Sox trailed the Twins 9-0 on Sunday a pair of voices from young fans stood out in the crowd. They were cheering their hearts out with “Let’s go White Sox” chants. Renteria had NBC Sports Chicago’s Chuck Garfien find one in the crowd and gave him a signed ball.

“We were 9-0 and that little kid was out there yelling,” Renteria said. “I can hear it. I thought he was way up in the stands or something. I told Chuck, ‘find that voice.’

“When you have kids who are looking upon Major League Baseball players with so much joy and enthusiasm. For me as an adult, we can become very cynical, sarcastic and very negative in any sport professionally because it’s all about performance and coming out on top and blah, blah, blah. Just hearing the voice of this kid just cheering you on, cheering you on and cheering on the team and talking about ‘Let’s go White Sox.’ For me, that lifted me up. And I wanted to find out who it was because, believe it or not, even us old guys and players in the field, need to hear that support sometimes. When it comes from the smallest little guy that you can see out there at that particular point for me. For me, it was a blessing. I’m glad I heard him. We gave him a little baseball. That’s what it’s all about and at the end of the day I think if we have child-like joy and desire and excitement and willingness to go out and just leave it out there, we’ll be OK.”

Renteria signed the ball, gave it to the kid and it said “Thank you. Keep it going and keep believing.”

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/white-sox/young-fans-child-joy-put-things-perspective-white-sox-despite-big-deficit

Scott Merkin has a similar story up at the team website

[Thad Bosley]

30 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

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. 

A big part of the problem is that it’s almost August of this 2019 season, the 7th year in a row of absolutely putrid baseball, and its hard for many fans to imagine at this point that our fan base will be lifted out of this constant losing rut in 2020, the way things are going.  And it’s just not enough to say things will be super duper come 2021.  That’s still a long ways away.  

[Greg Hibbard]

1 minute ago, Fan O'Faust said:

A big part of the problem is that it’s almost August of this 2019 season, the 7th year in a row of absolutely putrid baseball, and its hard for many fans to imagine at this point that our fan base will be lifted out of this constant losing rut in 2020, the way things are going.  And it’s just not enough to say things will be super duper come 2021.  That’s still a long ways away.  

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. 

[Flythesock]

How any of you could b**** and moan while Colome is in the midst of a 10+ WAR season is beyond me. We are witnesses to history, folks!

[chitownsportsfan]

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

When the Sox trailed the Twins 9-0 on Sunday a pair of voices from young fans stood out in the crowd. They were cheering their hearts out with “Let’s go White Sox” chants. Renteria had NBC Sports Chicago’s Chuck Garfien find one in the crowd and gave him a signed ball.

“We were 9-0 and that little kid was out there yelling,” Renteria said. “I can hear it. I thought he was way up in the stands or something. I told Chuck, ‘find that voice.’

“When you have kids who are looking upon Major League Baseball players with so much joy and enthusiasm. For me as an adult, we can become very cynical, sarcastic and very negative in any sport professionally because it’s all about performance and coming out on top and blah, blah, blah. Just hearing the voice of this kid just cheering you on, cheering you on and cheering on the team and talking about ‘Let’s go White Sox.’ For me, that lifted me up. And I wanted to find out who it was because, believe it or not, even us old guys and players in the field, need to hear that support sometimes. When it comes from the smallest little guy that you can see out there at that particular point for me. For me, it was a blessing. I’m glad I heard him. We gave him a little baseball. That’s what it’s all about and at the end of the day I think if we have child-like joy and desire and excitement and willingness to go out and just leave it out there, we’ll be OK.”

Renteria signed the ball, gave it to the kid and it said “Thank you. Keep it going and keep believing.”

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/white-sox/young-fans-child-joy-put-things-perspective-white-sox-despite-big-deficit

Scott Merkin has a similar story up at the team website

lol.  shine that turd white sox.  I'm glad the Sox are paying Rickie to bunt and think about the kids.

whatever, enjoy the rest of summer would be my advice.  check in on the box scores and futuresox or here if a trade goes down.  it's almost CFB season anyways.

@Look at Ray Ray Run the album is lit, listened to it a couple times all the way through backpacking this weekend.   I like how he took a bunch of different styles for the production and for the most part made it work.  There' a couple stinkers but tracks like hot shower, slide around and let's go on the run are new bangers for this summer.  Was glad to have them out on the trail.

Edited July 29, 2019 by chitownsportsfan

[Dan of Steel]

Hear hear.

This stretch sucks majorly. That being said, you put it perfectly when you said, this team is three bats short in a lineup that's already three bats short, and 2 arms short with 2 arms short already.

The Sox are a paper thin roster as is, and then you remove possibly their 5 best players for big stretches, that's gonna be a rough ride. 

[Dick Allen]

6 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

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. 

The Sox still are a bad baseball team. The bad stretch has now stretch many years. There seems to always be an excuse. This team has butchered 4 or 5 pop ups the last 2 weeks. You don’t see that at the Pony League level.

[Moan4Yoan]

They are bad and injuries are always a part of the game so you can’t just say “if they were fully healthy.”  They need a lot of reinforcements added in the offseason to be good next year.  Will it happen?  We shall see.

[35thstreetswarm]

6 hours ago, Dan of Steel said:

Hear hear.

This stretch sucks majorly. That being said, you put it perfectly when you said, this team is three bats short in a lineup that's already three bats short, and 2 arms short with 2 arms short already.

The Sox are a paper thin roster as is, and then you remove possibly their 5 best players for big stretches, that's gonna be a rough ride. 

Precisely this.  Nothing about the rebuild has changed.  This has been a brutal stretch to watch, but the improvement to our draft position is probably the best thing for us at this point.

[Baron]

I don't condemn the front office for what's been going on just lately. But their entire tenure here. Lets get that straight. It's not a "what have you done for me lately problem". More losing is only going to amplify it. I'll repeat again but I'm going to be on them until this team if it ever turns the corner. 

[NWINFan]

I realize even good teams have bad stretches. The 2005 team lost seven straight in August and came thisclose to blowing a 15-game lead. Good thing the Indians finally ran out of gas during the last week, or we might still be waiting for a World Series.

I just tire of the excuses. Injuries. Rebuild. This team hasn't gone to the post-season in 11 going on 12 years. It has never won a wild card spot since the wild card was created a quarter-of-a-century ago. And the club just looked lifeless in Kansas City.

Things may improve greatly, but nobody can predict when that will happen. That's not a good feeling.

[WBWSF]

9 hours ago, greg775 said:

Losing all four to KC was quite bad. I think a lot of us would have felt better, at least me, if after game four Ricky got fired or Hahn or Jerry announced a plan to sell the team. Just my take. I personally think we're going to continue to play this bad the rest of the way.

The first half success is hard to explain. I think maybe Gio's success carried over a bit to our overall play. Right now, pretty much the whole team blows and Gio is average of late.

I do concede it might be all TA's absence. Maybe like Stone said he's that important.

I read a interesting article that was about the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates have been bad since the All Star  break . Pirates GM Neal Huntington said that he should be held accountable for the Pirates  lack of success. I don't know if he will lose his job but its certainly possible. I don't see anybody in the White Sox front office/ownership being held accountable for this present mess. This so called rebuild appears to me as if the team wins or if the team loses so be it. As long as this franchise is making money hand over fist, that's all that matters to this ownership.

[Dick Allen]

White Sox fans "fragility" should be understood. They haven't had a bad week or two. They have had a bad decade, and they still have the same people calling the shots. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Dick Allen

[Greg Hibbard]

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. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Greg Hibbard

[caulfield12]

36 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

I read a interesting article that was about the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates have been bad since the All Star  break . Pirates GM Neal Huntington said that he should be held accountable for the Pirates  lack of success. I don't know if he will lose his job but its certainly possible. I don't see anybody in the White Sox front office/ownership being held accountable for this present mess. This so called rebuild appears to me as if the team wins or if the team loses so be it. As long as this franchise is making money hand over fist, that's all that matters to this ownership.

Imagine the GM being the fall guy when he was basically forced by ownership to dump Cole, McCutcheon and Harrison...

[caulfield12]

7 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

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. 

The biggest problem of all is that we’re so thin...a major injury to any of the Core 6 position players (three in the majors already) and it feels like rebuild could be set back yet another year, like it seemingly was when Kopech went down.

For all the plaudits and praise received in 2016-18, we haven’t been able to produce enough 1.5-2.5 fWAR players to surround the core.

It’s a combination of the sloppy play, dumb managing (bunting against MN in the first when they’re setting daily power-hitting records?) and McCann/Giolito/Abreu slumping.  Then Cease struggling, and Jimenez scuffling too...it’s almost putting too much pressure on Luis and Nick to be the saviors as rookies.  Madrigal can definitely handle it, just not sure how Robert will react.

[Moan4Yoan]

24 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

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. 

But the biggest decision makers have been in charge for this entire amount of time — Jerry (since 1981), Kenny (since 2000), and Hahn (since 2012).

[Dick Allen]

31 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

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 don't think all of the board would have thought 18 games ago the team was ahead of schedule, especially if you looked back at the schedules 2 or 3 years ago. They had a very soft first half schedule. The second half is a bit tougher. Their run differential which Steve Stone, now Mr. Optimist likes to use to say some other teams could be playing above their heads, was and is one of the worst in baseball. Beating Kc and Baltimore, and Detroit, while nice, and needing to be done, doesn't put a team ahead in a rebuild. You are, if the goal is to win championships, expected to be able to hang wjth good teams on a nightly basis. They don't seem very close to that right now. 

And JR, RH, and KW, whose bad decisions led a bad team to rebuild, are still calling the shots. That is pretty unprecedented.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Dick Allen

[Bob Sacamano]

36 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

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. 

They were bound to regress. They were almost a .500 team with basically one starting pitcher and a couple relievers . Not exactly a recipe for success.

[Baron]

How can you say the approach is different too after the Manny debacle and listening to them about how they viewed their contract offers? They really thought having 2 less guaranteed years was a better offer than 10 years. That sounds like the same management to me. 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

This team is on pace for a 10 win improvement from last year’s team with essentially zero contributions from free agency. Stay the course. Increased participation in free agency in 4 months, specifically signing second tier guys which they didn’t do last winter, combined with continued improvement from the young MLB guys and promotion of top minor league prospects should lead to another 10-15 game improvement next season. That puts them into the wild card conversation at a minimum.

[Dick Allen]

White Sox fans have every right to be pissed off. That's the bottom line. If the fan police don't like it, who cares?

You started a rebuild 3 years ago, got 10 prospects for 3 players. Had a #10 pick, a pick, then new golden boy scouting director said he would have picked 1-1. 

Excuses shouldn't be made daily for missed pop ups at this point.

[caulfield12]

5 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

This team is on pace for a 10 win improvement from last year’s team with essentially zero contributions from free agency. Stay the course. Increased participation in free agency in 4 months, specifically signing second tier guys which they didn’t do last winter, combined with continued improvement from the young MLB guys and promotion of top minor league prospects should lead to another 10-15 game improvement next season. That puts them into the wild card conversation at a minimum.

Didn’t we already try this by making a poor trade for Samardzija and signing Robertson/Cabrera/LaRoche...as soon as we start to place our contention hopes on the backs of the Todd Frazier’s of the world, we’ll be stuck in baseball purgatory forever.