4-7 GT: CWS @ SEA (3:10 PM CT)

[Dominikk85]

6 hours ago, JoeyCoralFanClub said:

I'm new to this forum but I was a big anti-rebuild guy. All I heard from Sox Nation during the tanking years was to be patient and that a juggernaut Sox team was coming. This season obviously isn't over but this team doesn't look much different from the tank years so far.

Regarding the rebuild:

I can understand some people hated it but while the pre rebuild team had some very high end talent but it was mostly a mid to high 70s win team, it was not like the sox were dismantling a big winner team. 

Also two of the guys they traded away (Q and Eaton) did decline or get injured rather soon after the trade. Sale was great the first 3 years before he got injured but overall the Sox did not lose that much by the rebuild. 

Yeah They turned a mid 70s win team into a 60s win team for a while but they already earned one playoff appearance and right now they are 1 game under. 500 but are still projected for a playoff spot. Compared to 2012 to 2016 the results already have been so much better and will continue to get better. 

Some people say WS or bust to justify the rebuild and I hope that too but honestly they already have outperformed the 12-16 period (pre rebuild) with last year's playoff appearance and if they make 2 or 3 more playoffs they have vastly outperformed the pre rebuild period. 

[RagahRagah]

8 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Now you’re comparing the 83 win Cardinals to the 2005 White Sox? Lol. Ok, think we’re done here.

They were both anomalies. There is a clear parallel. You know damn well I'm right. 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

44 minutes ago, RagahRagah said:

They were both anomalies. There is a clear parallel. You know damn well I'm right. 

Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 was an anomaly. How many teams trailing 3-1 in the World Series have won it? They had no business winning it at that point but baseball is full of anomalies.

The 2005 White Sox were about the surest thing you can find start to finish in baseball. First place all season long and never faced a win or go home game in the playoffs (not even close to one). That’s called dominance over 162 + 12 games.

[caulfield12]

10 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 was an anomaly. How many teams trailing 3-1 in the World Series have won it? They had no business winning it at that point but baseball is full of anomalies.

The 2005 White Sox were about the surest thing you can find start to finish in baseball. First place all season long and never faced a win or go home game in the playoffs (not even close to one). That’s called dominance over 162 + 12 games.

That second ALCS game until the Crede hit late looked like the series might be getting away...Boston and Houston, definitely not.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

3 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

That second ALCS game until the Crede hit late looked like the series might be getting away...Boston and Houston, definitely not.

By “getting away” you mean possibly down 0-2 in the series. Certainly not a great position to be in but many more teams have come back from 0-2 deficits than say 1-3 deficits. That shows just how dominant they were in the playoffs in 2005 that you have to point to the middle of game 2 of a 7 game series as their most vulnerable position.

[RagahRagah]

32 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 was an anomaly. How many teams trailing 3-1 in the World Series have won it? They had no business winning it at that point but baseball is full of anomalies.

The 2005 White Sox were about the surest thing you can find start to finish in baseball. First place all season long and never faced a win or go home game in the playoffs (not even close to one). That’s called dominance over 162 + 12 games.

How so? The Cubs were on paper and on the field an excellent team that look poised to make a push from the beginning. 

I think my point is being missed here. What I am saying is most teams that win it all look potentially able to do so upon construction. There are rarely big surprises. The 2016 Cubs were not a surprise. The 2005 Sox were. The 2006 Cardinals were. 

[South Side Hit Men]

6 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

Yeah They turned a mid 70s win team into a 60s win team for a while but they already earned one playoff appearance and right now they are 1 game under. 500 but are still projected for a playoff spot. Compared to 2012 to 2016 the results already have been so much better and will continue to get better.

Some people say WS or bust to justify the rebuild and I hope that too but honestly they already have outperformed the 12-16 period (pre rebuild) with last year's playoff appearance and if they make 2 or 3 more playoffs they have vastly outperformed the pre rebuild period. 

This cannot be the standard fans hold team ownership and the front office to. The White Sox organization stated the goal is “multiple champions”. 

“Making” the playoffs a couple of times is not the objective, and should be considered an unequivocal failure.

Rick Hahn 12/7/20 Dunning Lynn Trade

Quote

We are now in that stage, certainly the most exciting stage of contending for championships.”

Rick Hahn 12/10/20 Adam Eaton Signing

Quote

“We feel our window to win championships is open,” Sox general manager Rick Hahn said Tuesday.

Rick Hahn 1/19/21 - Liam Hendriks Signing

Quote

We haven't, by any stretch, accomplished what we intended to accomplish when we started this (rebuilding) process, but one of the stops along the way was getting to the point where it made sense for us to be aggressive and add to a championship-caliber core in an effort to get over that last important threshold of winning a championship.

Rick Hahn 2/17/21 - Avoidance of La Russa discussion day:

Quote

“As we sit here today, the goal is to win a World Series championship,” general manager Rick Hahn said Wednesday. “So if we fall short of that, it would be a disappointment.”

 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

10 minutes ago, RagahRagah said:

How so? The Cubs were on paper and on the field an excellent team that look poised to make a push from the beginning. 

I think my point is being missed here. What I am saying is most teams that win it all look potentially able to do so upon construction. There are rarely big surprises. The 2016 Cubs were not a surprise. The 2005 Sox were. The 2006 Cardinals were. 

So we’re giving champs more credit for looking good on paper before the season starts? Might as well crown the Dodgers now then. Why even bother playing the games?

And define “rare”. Were the 2019 Nationals, 2015 Royals, and 2010/2012/2014 Giants also “rare”? Because, on paper, no one expected them to win the World Series in those seasons. This isn’t the NBA. Unexpected teams win the World Series often.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

28 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

This cannot be the standard fans hold team ownership and the front office to. The White Sox organization stated the goal is “multiple champions”. 

“Making” the playoffs a couple of times is not the objective, and should be considered an unequivocal failure.

Rick Hahn 12/7/20 Dunning Lynn Trade

Rick Hahn 12/10/20 Adam Eaton Signing

Rick Hahn 1/19/21 - Liam Hendriks Signing

Rick Hahn 2/17/21 - Avoidance of La Russa discussion day:

 

Anything short of a World Series title is a failure. But that also means 29 other teams fail every season. Thankfully, we’re only 4.3% of the way finished with this regular season so there’s still a LONG way to go before we find out if this season is a success or if it is a failure for the 2021 Chicago White Sox.

[South Side Hit Men]

13 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Anything short of a World Series title is a failure. But that also means 29 other teams fail every season. Thankfully, we’re only 4.3% of the way finished with this regular season so there’s still a LONG way to go before we find out if this season is a success or if it is a failure for the 2021 Chicago White Sox.

Agreed, and it's for the whole window, not just 2021 in terms of what Hahn declared as a "multi-championship window". If the Sox win 1 + WS over the next 4-5 + years, that should and will be considered success.

I'm just addressing the comment "if they make 2 or 3 playoffs, they are outperforming the rebuild". That is not what the stated goal is, or what Sox fans should put up, and Hahn's record "trying" 2013-2016 wasn't any better than when he was "tanking" 2017-2020.

White Sox Baseball, "It's getting better all the time"

I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved.

Man I was mean, but I'm changing my scene, and I'm doing the best that I can

I admit it's getting better, a little better all the time (it can't get much worse)

 

 

[Dominikk85]

1 hour ago, South Side Hit Men said:

This cannot be the standard fans hold team ownership and the front office to. The White Sox organization stated the goal is “multiple champions”. 

“Making” the playoffs a couple of times is not the objective, and should be considered an unequivocal failure.

Rick Hahn 12/7/20 Dunning Lynn Trade

Rick Hahn 12/10/20 Adam Eaton Signing

Rick Hahn 1/19/21 - Liam Hendriks Signing

Rick Hahn 2/17/21 - Avoidance of La Russa discussion day:

 

Yeah it would suck if the Sox didn't win a WS in the next 5 year, I was just saying when they went into that rebuild they did have some high end talent but it wasn't a high performing team. So the rebuild wasn't really creating that much worse of a team and they are already better than they were before the rebuild. Of course they should be but it would have been something else to dismantle a championship team like the marlins did after their last WS, they basically took down a mediocre team with some high end talent but a severe lack of depth and now they have a team which could win 90+ after winning at a 90 plus pace in a shortened season last year. 

So to some degree the rebuild already paid off. 

[RagahRagah]

1 hour ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

So we’re giving champs more credit for looking good on paper before the season starts? Might as well crown the Dodgers now then. Why even bother playing the games?

And define “rare”. Were the 2019 Nationals, 2015 Royals, and 2010/2012/2014 Giants also “rare”? Because, on paper, no one expected them to win the World Series in those seasons. This isn’t the NBA. Unexpected teams win the World Series often.

Not at all. I'm just illustrating the difference between 2 different types of teams.

We have a lot more talent than the 2005 team. I don't believe there is any question about that.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

10 minutes ago, RagahRagah said:

Not at all. I'm just illustrating the difference between 2 different types of teams.

We have a lot more talent than the 2005 team. I don't believe there is any question about that.

Just because a team has more talent on paper doesn’t mean it translates to wins on the field. Happens all the time. I just listed 5/10 of the World Series champs in the 2010s. None of those 5 teams were even top 5 in betting odds to win the World Series before the season started. In fact, most of those five teams had very similar preseason odds as the 2005 White Sox. You’re framing the 2005 White Sox as some type of anomaly but they weren’t. Those types of teams win the World Series on a regular basis in the modern era.

[Rowand44]

2 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

By “getting away” you mean possibly down 0-2 in the series. Certainly not a great position to be in but many more teams have come back from 0-2 deficits than say 1-3 deficits. That shows just how dominant they were in the playoffs in 2005 that you have to point to the middle of game 2 of a 7 game series as their most vulnerable position.

That game was also still tied.  I feel like when people talk about the AJ play in particular people talk about it like the Sox were losing and were going to automatically lose that game if that specific thing didn't happen.

[RagahRagah]

2 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Just because a team has more talent on paper doesn’t mean it translates to wins on the field. Happens all the time. I just listed 5/10 of the World Series champs in the 2010s. None of those 5 teams were even top 5 in betting odds to win the World Series before the season started. In fact, most of those five teams had very similar preseason odds as the 2005 White Sox. You’re framing the 2005 White Sox as some type of anomaly but they weren’t. Those types of teams win the World Series on a regular basis in the modern era.

The flaw in my argument was making them seem like they didn't play well enough. They did. But from day 1? No one had them as even a shot to be in the playoffs IIRC.

Point is, there are higher expectations here. We didn't go into the 2005 season thinking WS. That came later after establishing how good they were. I also don't believe they ever played this bad, certainly not out of the gate. And this bad stretch began at the end of LAST season.

Plus, sure it's only a week and obviously I'm a proponent of giving it time. But the way this team has been playing and the way the ownership has been handling them? That's not a week. That's a decade plus and arguable the majority of time they've been in existence. Being optimistic is hard if you're being thoughtful.

Edited April 8, 2021 by RagahRagah