JR Quote...

[Lip Man 1]

Picked up a book for my Sox library titled "Sox" by the late Bob Vanderberg who was one of the associate sports editors at the Tribune. He also wrote some great books on the 1959 team and the Sox battles with the Yankees in the 1950's and 1960's. He was a huge Sox fan.

For this book which originally came out in 1982 he scored an interview with JR and I was struck by his comments. My how times have changed: 

"What you have to do is develop a team that contends every year. I want to contend every year. I don't want to have ups and downs."

"We're going to be significant increasing our investments in the farm system. In the long run my feeling is that to be a contender every year you have to develop you own players. You can't do it in the free agent market and you can't do it through trades. You can try to fill a gap that way. But a winning team takes 25 guys and most of them you have to develop. So were gonna be spending our money on the farm system." 

Edited September 27 by Lip Man 1

[Chimpton]

3 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Picked up a book for my Sox library titled "Sox" by the late Bob Vanderberg who was one of the associate sports editors at the Tribune. He also wrote some great books on the 1959 team and the Sox battles with the Yankees in the 1950's and 1960's. He was a huge Sox fan.

For this book which originally came out in 1982 he scored an interview with JR and I was struck by his comments. Mu how times have changed: 

"What you have to do is develop a team that contends every year. I want to contend every year. I don't want to have ups and downs."

"We're going to be significant increasing our investments in the farm system. In the long run my feeling is that to be a contender every year you have to develop you own players. You can't do it in the free agent market and you can't do it through trades. You can try to fill a gap that way. But a winning team takes 25 guys and most of them you have to develop. So were gonna be spending our money on the farm system." 

Just like with politicians these quotes are meaningless hot air, all he is interested in is the dollar bottom line.

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Picked up a book for my Sox library titled "Sox" by the late Bob Vanderberg who was one of the associate sports editors at the Tribune. He also wrote some great books on the 1959 team and the Sox battles with the Yankees in the 1950's and 1960's. He was a huge Sox fan.

For this book which originally came out in 1982 he scored an interview with JR and I was struck by his comments. Mu how times have changed: 

"What you have to do is develop a team that contends every year. I want to contend every year. I don't want to have ups and downs."

"We're going to be significant increasing our investments in the farm system. In the long run my feeling is that to be a contender every year you have to develop you own players. You can't do it in the free agent market and you can't do it through trades. You can try to fill a gap that way. But a winning team takes 25 guys and most of them you have to develop. So were gonna be spending our money on the farm system." 

John Henry in Boston after all the WS titles....excuse not to spend, need a combo of farm system and trades/intl/FA.

[WhiteSox2023]

Back when he was a brand new owner and probably truly wanted to win as much as make money.  But that definitely changed and he started mainly caring about the profits.

[Kyyle23]

Pretty funny that he had forced Hahn and Kenny to have to build teams through low money free agency and trades from what little minor league depth they had because he refused to invest in the minors 

[southsider2k5]

Thus began JR lying to fans by telling them what they want to hear instead of what he was going to do.

[2Deep]

He's full of s%*#.  I don't believe a word that clown says

[Dick Allen]

2 hours ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

Back when he was a brand new owner and probably truly wanted to win as much as make money.  But that definitely changed and he started mainly caring about the profits.

I agree with this and he also has some chip on his shoulder that he can’t let rest. He sees some 18 year old kid get 7 figures and bust, and it enrages him on the inside.

The cost of high draft picks has rise. significantly since JR was an owner. But even back near the beginning, JR wasn’t a minor league guy. In fact, perhaps the biggest reason Hawk became GM was because the Sox lack of depth in 1985.  He relented a bit when Himes took over and kept him out of most of the scouting, evaluating and developing business. And JR hated that. 

[WhiteSox2023]

1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

I agree with this and he also has some chip on his shoulder that he can’t let rest. He sees some 18 year old kid get 7 figures and bust, and it enrages him on the inside.

The cost of high draft picks has rise. significantly since JR was an owner. But even back near the beginning, JR wasn’t a minor league guy. In fact, perhaps the biggest reason Hawk became GM was because the Sox lack of depth in 1985.  He relented a bit when Himes took over and kept him out of most of the scouting, evaluating and developing business. And JR hated that. 

Yep, he still has some archaic notion that the owners are responsible for the popularity of baseball, not the star players.  So he doesn’t think the players should get paid like their are these days.  Which is mostly just because he doesn’t want to pay a player as much money as the are making now.

[caulfield12]

6 minutes ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

Yep, he still has some archaic notion that the owners are responsible for the popularity of baseball, not the star players.  So he doesn’t think the players should get paid like their are these days.  Which is mostly just because he doesn’t want to pay a player as much money as the are making now.

Probably behind the recall of Moncada and having him sit on the bench instead of playing down the stretch for $29 million, more than he lost on John Danks’ entire contract alone if you figure in insurance reimbursement and performance on the front half of the deal.

[WhiteSox2023]

2 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Probably behind the recall of Moncada and having him sit on the bench instead of playing down the stretch for $29 million, more than he lost on John Danks’ entire contract alone if you figure in insurance reimbursement and performance on the front half of the deal.

Every team has those examples.  It happens in every sport.  Owners should have a short memory on that stuff.  You can’t just stop signing any top players to big contracts because you’ve had a few albatrosses.