White Sox agree to 1 year deal with INF Josh Rojas

[Chicago White Sox]

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Yes I think it was a part.

Eloy Jimenez literally had to write an article called “I’m ready” about service time manipulation for the players tribune. Both Eloy and Robert got threatened to be held down if they didn’t sign extensions. Do we really believe they didn’t notice how Vaughn and Madrigal got very different treatment?

Eloy and Robert got massive fucking extensions.  And for Eloy, he came out well ahead of what he would made otherwise.  And neither player has been known to be involved in any sort of clubhouse altercations.

But yes, both purposely got injured on a regular basis because they thought getting paid millions before reaching the majors was unfair relative to Vaughn who got nothing and is now set to cash in free agency without that service time manipulation burdening him.  I’m sure back in spring training 2021, Eloy was thinking “f*** that evil front office for forcing millions on me…I’m going to shred my pectoral on this fly ball to show them what’s what!”.

[Balta1701]

7 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Sure, but 1B and limited tools 2B probably don't historically warrant early extensions...and they certainly didn't earn it with their performances (when they were actually available).

Granted, Vaughn got totally screwed up and over with the ridiculous outfield conversion and Covid/skipping over basically AA/AAA, but Madrigal from the get-go seemed a poor fit with that clubhouse.

Maybe it was Nick's arrogance coming from the OSU program, his Christianity/proselytizing, his sense of entitlement, it always was just a poor fit...no matter how much Benetti tried to make Nicky Two Strikes a thing.

 

The real irony is Kwan had none of the attention that guys like Madrigal and Rutschman and even Larnach received...and he has become one of the five most important players in the entire AL Central over the last three seasons.

Scouting.

I’m not sure what this post has to do with anything but it does check a lot of boxes.

[Chicago White Sox]

11 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Naw, everyone in the team was fine with their callup schedule.

So your theory is what exactly?  Eloy secretly brainwashed Grandal, Tim, Lynn, Graveman, & Kelly to be clubhouse cancers to enact revenge on the team?

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Eloy and Robert got massive fucking extensions.  And for Eloy, he came out well ahead of what he would made otherwise.  And neither player has been known to be involved in any sort of clubhouse altercations.

But yes, both purposely got injured on a regular basis because they thought getting paid millions before reaching the majors was unfair relative to Vaughn who got nothing and is now set to cash in free agency without that service time manipulation burdening him.  I’m sure back in spring training 2021, Eloy was thinking “f*** that evil front office for forcing millions on me…I’m going to shred my pectoral on this fly ball to show them what’s what!”.

Was I the only one who read the articles about the rival groups and cliques for years in the locker room that hated each other?

[caulfield12]

11 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I’m sorry, are you seriously trying to blame inconsistent service time manipulation as a key reason for prospects busting and clubhouse infighting?

Like please provide a single example of where this somehow contributed to any  of these issues.

I think the single biggest problem was the clubhouse split....the Latin American/Cuban players, Anderson was kind of in his own little world, the mostly white players, then you had this weird dynamic with Graveman and Lance Lynn vs. Liam Hendriks.  Seems like Jose Abreu just kind of threw in the towel and shrugged his shoulders with all the dysfunction surrounding him.

And of course Lynn and Graveman were aligned with TLR/Cardinals' Way.

 

Then you MIGHT have had some jealousy from the "next wave" players about getting early extensions and seeing how lazy/entitled that Jimenez/Moncada/Robert became?

And then you had that whole weird dynamic with Giolito as the union rep and getting his balls busted by JR...he certainly was never going to receive an extension from the Sox.

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

So your theory is what exactly?  Eloy secretly brainwashed Grandal, Tim, Lynn, Graveman, & Kelly to be clubhouse cancers to enact revenge on the team?

That they all hated each other. 

[Chicago White Sox]

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Was I the only one who read the articles about the rival groups and cliques for years in the locker room that hated each other?

Oh s%*#, how crazy is it that LatAm guys who speak Spanish all hang out with each other.  And I don’t recall anyone “hating” each other outside the handful of players I mentioned along with Hendriks for his loud political views.

[Chicago White Sox]

5 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

That they all hated each other. 

And that was due to inconsistent service time manipulation?  Grandal, Lynn, Kelly, & Graveman were clubhouse cancers because the young players were treated differently and that unfairness really riled them up and caused them to be assholes?

[caulfield12]

5 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

That they all hated each other. 

I think you can look back at White Sox baseball over the last 20-25 years and say that we've almost never had a situation like the Royals or Cubs or Astros where you had waves of young talent coming into the organization together and then learning how to win in the minor leagues, and learning how to trust each other at each step along the way...and earning promotions when they were merited.

The White Sox almost always have been built on "imported" players from other organizations with a mixture of the Cuban Connection...and it worked in 2005 and for half of 2006.

Other than that, there just has been a distinctive style or identity around this organization at all....other than poor execution, poor defense, not hustling at all times and taking extra bases (due to injury concerns, but also managerial imperatives), poor fundamentals, never holding runners well as a pitching staff or throwing out runners from a catching perspective, almost every aspect of the team has just been piss-poor since 2012 other than parts of 2019/2020 and then the first half of 2021.

Prospects got promoted to fill immediate big league needs (or were drafted with holes in mind)...but we never actually DEVELOPED the players along the way, it's like passing kids from year to year in a school and then hoping that university or the major leagues would somehow teach them what they needed to know when they had zero fundamentals or foundation to rely upon when they inevitably struggled at the big league level.

[Chicago White Sox]

And to be fair, Eloy may have felt he was taken advantage of, but there is zero evidence to suggest that his beef with the front office caused any riffs in the clubhouse.  That’s absolutely fan fic and I’m blown away anyone would even try to make such a ridiculous claim.

[Lip Man 1]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Oh s%*#, how crazy is it that LatAm guys who speak Spanish all hang out with each other.  And I don’t recall anyone “hating” each other outside the handful of players I mentioned along with Hendriks for his loud political views.

For what it's worth from my story in November 2022. I spoke with a half dozen people connected to the organization or covered them, sometimes for decades:

“The problem with this team is there was no real leadership, nobody to hold guys accountable. No red-asses like the Sox had in the past… Carlton Fisk, Jack McDowell, A.J. Pierzynski. Paul Konerko was a quiet guy but when we weren’t doing well he’d get really pissed. Elvis Andrus tried to supply some leadership when he came and Lucas Giolito tried.”

“I’d come into the locker room after a game and you couldn’t tell if they won or lost, just nothing.”

“You’d go in the locker room and all the Latino guys would be in one place, the whites in another and the African-Americans someplace else.”

“I had heard that groups were apart and not close but part of that could be human nature, language divisions for example. I know the Latin guys were always around Jose’s locker, Moncada was always there. The Sox locker room is a big square so guys aren’t close to start with, the Cubs locker room is circular. I don’t know if that was by design or what but that lends itself to guys getting together.”

“The problem is some of these guys just don’t care, they want to win sure but they already have gotten their money with these contracts before they proved anything. Moncada would strike out and just walk back to the dugout like no big deal, he fouls a ball off and now he can’t play for three days? His contract makes him untradable but he needs to go.”

“There was a lack of urgency the entire season. People would say the right things but they never translated.”

“To me it was the May 9 game with Cleveland, (Author’s Note: The Sox blew an 8-2, 9^th inning lead and lost in extra innings which snapped a six-game win streak.) That showed Cleveland that they could play with the Sox but what I noticed was the only person that game seemed to bother was Tony LaRussa. Another one was the Triple Play Game  against the Twins. (Author’s Note: The Sox ran themselves into an 8-5 triple play on July 4. They wound up losing the game 6-3 in extra innings) Adam Engel faced the music afterwards, he made a mistake and owned up to it. Moncada who also made a mistake was nowhere, he was already gone. Then the next day he was saying that he didn’t know people wanted to talk with him.”

“They were the most disappointing team in baseball. They were consistently redundant, by that I mean day after day they’d make errors, have dumb base running mistakes, take bad approaches at the plate and lack effort. They were the dumbest, laziest team in baseball, I don’t know if they were the most disappointing team ever in Chicago but I’ve used the phrase that the 2022 White Sox were “Trying Barely”… they reminded me of the 2004 Cubs.”

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Lip Man 1

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

3 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

It’s amazing how you can literally make up talking points that aren’t based on reality.  Like who has said any of these things?  And I have no idea how you read Balta’s post and jumped to this strand of thought.

I know it’s 21 pages but I guess you haven’t read this entire thread…

[Chicago White Sox]

10 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

I know it’s 21 pages but I guess you haven’t read this entire thread…

People were talking about not signing free agents who could block Schultz & Smtih?