7/2 Gamethread - TBD vs. Blackburn

[Balta1701]

Apropos of nothing, how weird does it seem for a team to have an Offday on July 3? Like; this is holiday week money.

[DoUEvenShift]

Don't think it's worthy of it's own thread but Frazier down to Charlotte

[caulfield12]

50 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Apropos of nothing, how weird does it seem for a team to have an Offday on July 3? Like; this is holiday week money.

Scheduling.

Looks like nine other teams out of action.  Doesn't really make sense with the opportunity to have an excellent Monday crowd for once.

[Lip Man 1]

39 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Scheduling.

Looks like nine other teams out of action.  Doesn't really make sense with the opportunity to have an excellent Monday crowd for once.

The White Sox have generally been upset with the schedules they have been given for years now.

I was told by a front office person that at one point JR told them to compare the Sox schedule to others around baseball and to note the differences which were then brought up to the league. Examples I was given were seemingly always playing the Pirates but not the Brewers only 90 miles north, always getting the Yankees during the week instead of on a weekend during the summer and short road trips to the West Coast or playing on the coast, coming home for a short home stand (3 or 4 games) and then having to go back out to the coast.

[South Side Hit Men]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Apropos of nothing, how weird does it seem for a team to have an Offday on July 3? Like; this is holiday week money.

 

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Scheduling.

Looks like nine other teams out of action.  Doesn't really make sense with the opportunity to have an excellent Monday crowd for once.

Travel to/ from the West Coast the likely reason. Teams / players advocate for off days after these kind of flights.

 

[South Side Hit Men]

1 hour ago, Lip Man 1 said:

The White Sox have generally been upset with the schedules they have been given for years now.

I was told by a front office person that at one point JR told them to compare the Sox schedule to others around baseball and to note the differences which were then brought up to the league. Examples I was given were seemingly always playing the Pirates but not the Brewers only 90 miles north, always getting the Yankees during the week instead of on a weekend during the summer and short road trips to the West Coast or playing on the coast, coming home for a short home stand (3 or 4 games) and then having to go back out to the coast.

This is just typical jerry Reinsdorf / insular White Sox bullshit whining.

Milwaukee moved to the National League in 1997, the Sox have played a whopping five more games against Pittsburgh (36 to 31) over the twenty five years before going to the play every interleague team 3-4 games this season.

Getting the Yankees on an off-summer weekday series benefits them because they can draw 10K + more per game than they would have with people showing up anyway because of Summer weather or a promotion,

In terms of West Cost Travel and Home stands, here are the past several years of reality:

• 2023:  Perfect scheduling. Two full week trips, week long homestand in between.
• 2022: Perfect scheduling. Two full week trips, week long homestands in between the first, short trip to Cleveland/Detroit before returning home. San Diego (after Minnesota) the anomaly due to facing additional West games based on NL West interleague (Colorado and San Diego).
• 2021: Perfect scheduling. Full week after Spring Training (low travel) followed by full week homestand, Oakland the lone other West Coast Trip, week long homestand before and after.
• 2020: Perfect scheduling. Owners cancelled most of the season, zero West Coast trips.
• 2019: The schedule had three separate trips out west, so guess they could have had two back to back series for two of the three (post ASB mid July Oak/KC/TB; mid August LAA/Min, mid September Sea/Min), but had week plus homestands before/after each trip, and none were "back out to the coast" as they fell over three different months.
•  2018: Perfect scheduling. Two trips / 3 series total. One series in between two week homestands in April, one week for the other two series in July sandwiched between two week long homestands.
• 2017: Perfect scheduling. NL West Interleague, one three series trip sandwiched between two weeklong homestands in May, two other pairings (Oakland / Colorado & LAD/Texas) also sandwiched between week plus long home stands in July and August.
• 2016: Perfect scheduling. Opened the season from Spring Training to Oakland, one other West Coast trip (Angels and Seattle) sandwiched between week long homestands.

[Lip Man 1]

15 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

This is just typical jerry Reinsdorf / insular White Sox bullshit whining.

Milwaukee moved to the National League in 1997, the Sox have played a whopping five more games against Pittsburgh (36 to 31) over the twenty five years before going to the play every interleague team 3-4 games this season.

Getting the Yankees on an off-summer weekday series benefits them because they can draw 10K + more per game than they would have with people showing up anyway because of Summer weather or a promotion,

In terms of West Cost Travel and Home stands, here are the past several years of reality:

• 2023:  Perfect scheduling. Two full week trips, week long homestand in between.
• 2022: Perfect scheduling. Two full week trips, week long homestands in between the first, short trip to Cleveland/Detroit before returning home. San Diego (after Minnesota) the anomaly due to facing additional West games based on NL West interleague (Colorado and San Diego).
• 2021: Perfect scheduling. Full week after Spring Training (low travel) followed by full week homestand, Oakland the lone other West Coast Trip, week long homestand before and after.
• 2020: Perfect scheduling. Owners cancelled most of the season, zero West Coast trips.
• 2019: The schedule had three separate trips out west, so guess they could have had two back to back series for two of the three (post ASB mid July Oak/KC/TB; mid August LAA/Min, mid September Sea/Min), but had week plus homestands before/after each trip, and none were "back out to the coast" as they fell over three different months.
•  2018: Perfect scheduling. Two trips / 3 series total. One series in between two week homestands in April, one week for the other two series in July sandwiched between two week long homestands.
• 2017: Perfect scheduling. NL West Interleague, one three series trip sandwiched between two weeklong homestands in May, two other pairings (Oakland / Colorado & LAD/Texas) also sandwiched between week plus long home stands in July and August.
• 2016: Perfect scheduling. Opened the season from Spring Training to Oakland, one other West Coast trip (Angels and Seattle) sandwiched between week long homestands.

The conversation I was referring to took place in 2008. Here are my notes from it just FYI (perhaps to provide better context):

“There’s been a few. We can’t seem to ever get the Yankees here at home during the summer on a weekend anymore. We’ve been getting them during the week in April or in September. The Indians meanwhile have gotten them twice in Cleveland on a weekend during the summer months just in one season. I know that baseball likes to try to help teams that may be hurting at the gate but the Indians led the league in attendance in the 90’s, they aren’t struggling.” 

“Another issue that we have is these short West Coast road trips. Twice this season we’ve had to go to the coast just for three games. We played the Dodgers three times then came back to Chicago and in the middle of August we have to go to Oakland just for three games. And last year baseball was so late in bringing out the schedule that we lost valuable sales time in September trying to get season tickets sold. Folks like to know who the Sox will be playing and we try to give them an idea in September. Last year baseball kept revising the schedule so much that we couldn’t do it because we didn’t have the information. We were told for example that the Mets were going to come to Chicago on a weekend which would have meant a big crowd, and then when the final schedule came out, the league sent the Mets to Detroit.” 

“And the interleague schedule now just has no sense to it. We’ve played the Pirates three consecutive seasons but we haven’t played the Brewers, a team only 90 miles away, since 2000.”  

“I know a lot of people thought the issue with the schedule was due to the husband and wife team that was putting them together so baseball changed to different folks. Then the thinking was that the issue was because many of the people working on the schedule spent the majority of their time in the National League, that maybe they didn’t understand the A.L. or the rivalries but apparently that’s not the issue either. I honestly think though that baseball does favor certain teams regarding the schedule.” 

[South Side Hit Men]

21 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

The conversation I was referring to took place in 2008. Here are my notes from it just FYI (perhaps to provide better context):

“There’s been a few. We can’t seem to ever get the Yankees here at home during the summer on a weekend anymore. We’ve been getting them during the week in April or in September. The Indians meanwhile have gotten them twice in Cleveland on a weekend during the summer months just in one season. I know that baseball likes to try to help teams that may be hurting at the gate but the Indians led the league in attendance in the 90’s, they aren’t struggling.” 

“Another issue that we have is these short West Coast road trips. Twice this season we’ve had to go to the coast just for three games. We played the Dodgers three times then came back to Chicago and in the middle of August we have to go to Oakland just for three games. And last year baseball was so late in bringing out the schedule that we lost valuable sales time in September trying to get season tickets sold. Folks like to know who the Sox will be playing and we try to give them an idea in September. Last year baseball kept revising the schedule so much that we couldn’t do it because we didn’t have the information. We were told for example that the Mets were going to come to Chicago on a weekend which would have meant a big crowd, and then when the final schedule came out, the league sent the Mets to Detroit.” 

“And the interleague schedule now just has no sense to it. We’ve played the Pirates three consecutive seasons but we haven’t played the Brewers, a team only 90 miles away, since 2000.”  

“I know a lot of people thought the issue with the schedule was due to the husband and wife team that was putting them together so baseball changed to different folks. Then the thinking was that the issue was because many of the people working on the schedule spent the majority of their time in the National League, that maybe they didn’t understand the A.L. or the rivalries but apparently that’s not the issue either. I honestly think though that baseball does favor certain teams regarding the schedule.” 

If they only spent as much research and effort in scouting ballplayers, only spent as much time and effort with legitimate player analytics (i.e. not Dave Duncan's son to placate Tony) versus conducting ticket analytics, perhaps the Sox would have advanced in the playoffs more than one season since 1917. Perhaps they would not be sitting 12 games under .500 this year, or under .500 since May 2021 after the Tony / Yermin and Tony / Liam baserunner debacles. 

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2022/2/15/22934905/white-sox-ticket-scam-broker-bruce-lee

Quote

The Sox’s data analytics team flagged Lee as a StubHub seller who had “sold more White Sox tickets than anyone else by a substantial margin,”