White Sox Off-Season Catch All Thread

[bigruss]

Do you seriously believe JR is risking losing a ton of money say $20-30 million? Not a chance in hell. For the record, I like JR, but he's cried poor for years, and until now has always said, and has had his underlings say, every dime that comes in is spent on the team. Now he says over the years, they make a little here, make a little there. Attendance has dropped 4 consecutive years. If you recall KW was saying the were out of money before they picked up Peavy. Then they somehow not only found the money for Peavy but Rios as well. Attendance did not spike. Then they added payroll last season and with attendance down again, were somehow able to find $4 million for 1 month of Manny. They had the money all along. Now JR brings back AJ and Konerko and Dunn. Gives Crain 3 years. Gives Ramirez an extension, and is saying if the fans don't show up, he'll lose a lot of money. Apparently, when the fans were showing up before or not showing up, he was making a lot of money. Why should anyone feel bad about not spending money they may have a bigger need to spend elsewhere so JR and his partners don't have to eat into some of their previous profits? There's nothing wrong with JR making a profit, but there's nothing wrong with a family of 5 living on $70k in salary a year, waiting to see how the weather is or how entertaining the team is before committing $200-300 on a White Sox outing.

I never said they would lose that much money, and honestly no one on this site will know how much they will lose if attendance stays stagnant (atleast none that I know of). I do believe they are stretching their resources and margin of error thin this year, they probably will lose some money if attendance doesn't pick up.

 

That said, I do believe they made money almost every year recently, how much is in debate. But that is a cushion that they have decided to get rid of this year in hopes of spiking attendance with a winner instead of cutting payroll in favor of rebuilding.

 

And for the team to say that they can't afford certain players is just basic PR/business tactics. Of course they aren't going to come out to fans and say all their plans, those types of statements are a distraction from topics of talent evaluation, negotiations, etc, while also telling fans that if they show up the team can spend more (which is obvious but I guarantee some fans don't understand that).

 

And the game costs so much to go to because of economics, there are enough people still willing to pay that much to see a game. The less serious fans will be coming out to more games if they win more.

[Dick Allen]

I never said they would lose that much money, and honestly no one on this site will know how much they will lose if attendance stays stagnant (atleast none that I know of). I do believe they are stretching their resources and margin of error thin this year, they probably will lose some money if attendance doesn't pick up.

 

That said, I do believe they made money almost every year recently, how much is in debate. But that is a cushion that they have decided to get rid of this year in hopes of spiking attendance with a winner instead of cutting payroll in favor of rebuilding.

 

And for the team to say that they can't afford certain players is just basic PR/business tactics. Of course they aren't going to come out to fans and say all their plans, those types of statements are a distraction from topics of talent evaluation, negotiations, etc, while also telling fans that if they show up the team can spend more (which is obvious but I guarantee some fans don't understand that).

 

And the game costs so much to go to because of economics, there are enough people still willing to pay that much to see a game. The less serious fans will be coming out to more games if they win more.

I'm not saying you or anyone has come up with a figure as to what is a lot of money to lose for JR. I would suspect losing $50 is a lot of money for JR to lose, and making $10 million is probably making a little as he is not accustomed to losing cash.

I guess my thing is they have been talking about how they have basically spent every last dime they have taken in for so long and cried poor for so long, how come now its different.? He spent in 1997 for Belle and Navarro, the team was mediocre and fans didn't show up. JR has always operated fairly conservatively and many years ago was quoted as saying he will not lose money to win games. I just don't see how JR suddenly is going to stick his neck out on the line in a poor economy and expect fans to come out win or lose. Its very strange to me. I will buy he and many of his partners are getting older and realize time may not be on their side and this may be their shot. But no one will be holding any tag days for these people if the Sox tank and attendance if off again.

Edited February 6, 2011 by Dick Allen

[SoxFan562004]

I'm not saying you or anyone has come up with a figure as to what is a lot of money to lose for JR. I would suspect losing $50 is a lot of money for JR to lose, and making $10 million is probably making a little as he is not accustomed to losing cash.

I guess my thing is they have been talking about how they have basically spent every last dime they have taken in for so long and cried poor for so long, how come now its different.? He spent in 1997 for Belle and Navarro, the team was mediocre and fans didn't show up. JR has always operated fairly conservatively and many years ago was quoted as saying he will not lose money to win games. I just don't see how JR suddenly is going to stick his neck out on the line in a poor economy and expect fans to come out win or lose. Its very strange to me. I will buy he and many of his partners are getting older and realize time may not be on their side and this may be their shot. But no one will be holding any tag days for these people if the Sox tank and attendance if off again.

it depends on what you mean by "lose" money. For what they paid for it and what it's worth now they are in one of the better positions of baseball. So maybe they lose it in the value of the team because they take some debt out against the value, but I don't think JR and team are writing checks out of their personal bank accounts. Again, I don't want to act like losing something like 10-20m in a year for anybody is easy or something they're looking forward to, but for different owners it means different things. the Deadspin documents show great examples of "hidden" revenue, especially for bigger market teams and they do a great analysis of owning teams, the key being how the holy grail is having a lot of equity in a team, which the White Sox do.

[Milkman delivers]

Do you seriously believe JR is risking losing a ton of money say $20-30 million? Not a chance in hell. For the record, I like JR, but he's cried poor for years, and until now has always said, and has had his underlings say, every dime that comes in is spent on the team. Now he says over the years, they make a little here, make a little there. Attendance has dropped 4 consecutive years. If you recall KW was saying the were out of money before they picked up Peavy. Then they somehow not only found the money for Peavy but Rios as well. Attendance did not spike. Then they added payroll last season and with attendance down again, were somehow able to find $4 million for 1 month of Manny. They had the money all along. Now JR brings back AJ and Konerko and Dunn. Gives Crain 3 years. Gives Ramirez an extension, and is saying if the fans don't show up, he'll lose a lot of money. Apparently, when the fans were showing up before or not showing up, he was making a lot of money. Why should anyone feel bad about not spending money they may have a bigger need to spend elsewhere so JR and his partners don't have to eat into some of their previous profits? There's nothing wrong with JR making a profit, but there's nothing wrong with a family of 5 living on $70k in salary a year, waiting to see how the weather is or how entertaining the team is before committing $200-300 on a White Sox outing.

 

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Balta1701]

BTW, here's the rest of that ESPN article that wasn't linked on the previous page.

"We've really taken a chance," Reinsdorf said on ESPN 1000's "Talking Baseball." "The term all-in I think really makes some sense here. If we draw what we drew last year, we will lose a lot of money. We decided to make a bet that if we put this team together the way we have, that it'll contend and that people will come out and support it. Otherwise, we are definitely going to lose money. Fortunately over the years we've made a little here, we've made a little there and we can cover it if we lose. We won't be able to lose money two years in a row."

 

....

"Obviously I'm very optimistic," Reinsdorf said. "You don't know what spring training is going to bring. You don't know what injuries you're going to have and what injuries the other guys will have. But at least at this point in time, sitting here today, I have to believe we have as good a chance as anybody to win the American League Central. And if you can do that, who knows what will flow from that."

 

Reinsdorf said that he originally believed that after the White Sox finished six games back in the division it was time to break the team up. Upon further examination, the front office had a change of heart.

 

"I had a great deal of reservations," Reinsdorf said. "The thought process is essentially this. I ended the season thinking that this is a year when we should take a step backward, when we should move some payroll off and try to reload with younger players. When we took a look at the assets that we had to move, we didn't think that we could get real value for these assets. ... We looked at it and we said, well financially we could come out OK, but we're not going to be positioning ourselves for the future.

 

"So then we flipped it over the other way. We said OK, what do we have to do to try to win this year? Obviously it started with bringing A.J. and Konerko back, but that wouldn't be good enough. That would give us the same team we had last year and it wasn't good enough to beat the Twins. So we said what do we have to do to add on? And the key to everything was Adam Dunn. Then once we got Adam Dunn then we said we just got to go all out. We gotta go all out and try to win this year."

 

Both fans and ownership hold Konerko in an extremely high regard. That in some ways, Reinsdorf said, presented a challenge in negotiations with Konerko, who eventually signed a three-year, $37 million deal to stay on the South Side.

 

"What I tried to do with Paul is take myself out of the equation. I can't allow my emotion and my feelings for this guy cause the White Sox to do something that's not smart," said Reinsdorf. "So I basically let [general manager] Kenny [Williams] and [assistant GM] Rick Hahn handle that part of it. What happened, at the end, was they were pretty much in agreement with Paulie's agent on dollars, but the issue was the third year. They were kind of reluctant to commit to the third year. And that's where I stuck my nose in and I said to 'go ahead you might as well give him the third year.'"

[southsider2k5]

"So then we flipped it over the other way. We said OK, what do we have to do to try to win this year? Obviously it started with bringing A.J. and Konerko back, but that wouldn't be good enough. That would give us the same team we had last year and it wasn't good enough to beat the Twins. So we said what do we have to do to add on? And the key to everything was Adam Dunn. Then once we got Adam Dunn then we said we just got to go all out. We gotta go all out and try to win this year."

 

There you go.

[Jordan4life_2007]

The "all-in" epidemic is getting out of hand now. I feel like I hear this term every five seconds. Think of something else, people!

[Quin]

The "all-in" epidemic is getting out of hand now. I feel like I hear this term every five seconds. Think of something else, people!

 

I agree with this.

[TheChrisSamsa]

The "all-in" epidemic is getting out of hand now. I feel like I hear this term every five seconds. Think of something else, people!

 

Agreed. Good off-season marketing, but I really hope they go with a different campaign once they start playing ball.

[Balta1701]

Agreed. Good off-season marketing, but I really hope they go with a different campaign once they start playing ball.

"Come see your first place White Sox..."

[TheChrisSamsa]

"Come see your first place White Sox..."

 

Works for me, I've already got my seats! All those who come late to the first-place party can sit behind me!

[knightni]

I read somewhere on here that the Bulls turned multi-millions profits last season.

 

Perhaps, JR is taking his cut and putting it into the Sox this year.

[greg775]

Agreed. Good off-season marketing, but I really hope they go with a different campaign once they start playing ball.

 

I agree. It's stupid because we're not really all-in when you think about other teams who are as good or better than us on paper.

Stupid slogan.

You are not all-in when you have a lot of question marks.

I mean the slogan should be "Right There." This team should be right there, but it ain't all in.

I wouldn't bet 10 bucks in Vegas that we'll even beat the Twins much less bet the house.

[witesoxfan]

I read somewhere on here that the Bulls turned multi-millions profits last season.

 

Perhaps, JR is taking his cut and putting it into the Sox this year.

 

I'm quite sure that's illegal. He would have had to have sold his shares to be able to use that money towards the White Sox.

[daa84]

michael young is asking for a trade out of texas...Its too bad hes got a ridiculous contract (16 mil per for the next three years), because hed be a solid option at third for this season, though certainly not for 16 mil and certainly not for 16 mil in 2013

[Iwritecode]

Just looked it up, Omar has 2,799 hits.

 

Chances he plays long enough to reach 3,000? My gu says no, but it also says that he defies age like no one not named Julio Franco.

 

This is funny because I just watched Mr. 3000 the other day. I also told my friend about how John Kruk retired. He didn't believe me. In fact, he never even knew Kruk played for the Sox.

[Balta1701]

You are not all-in when you have a lot of question marks.

Then no team is all in.

[Steve9347]

michael young is asking for a trade out of texas...Its too bad hes got a ridiculous contract (16 mil per for the next three years), because hed be a solid option at third for this season, though certainly not for 16 mil and certainly not for 16 mil in 2013

A Michael Young acquisition sounds quite all-in to me!

[Balta1701]

A Michael Young acquisition sounds quite all-in to me!

Serious question...where would he play? 3b? His weak defense there is why the Rangers replaced him. He's been worth a couple wins with the bat in the fangraphs world...but the fact that the Rangers spent stupid-level money to replace him tells me a lot.

[Steve9347]

Serious question...where would he play? 3b? His weak defense there is why the Rangers replaced him. He's been worth a couple wins with the bat in the fangraphs world...but the fact that the Rangers spent stupid-level money to replace him tells me a lot.

I wasn't being serious.

 

In all seriousness, I feel like the White Sox are pretty stacked right now. This might be the best team we've had on paper save 1994/2006.

Edited February 7, 2011 by Steve9347

[NorthSideSox72]

I'm quite sure that's illegal. He would have had to have sold his shares to be able to use that money towards the White Sox.

I wouldn't be so sure. These are not publically traded companies. The "shares" they issue are private investments of personal money, so it depends entirely on the nature of the contracts. Its possible he could pull his money out of one team, and put it into the Sox. There is nothing per se illegal about it, unless he violates the contract - and that's contract law, not criminal law, anyway. What laws would he be breaking?

 

Now, if you are talking about an outright transfer of capital, that's different. But even then, I am not sure that's illegal either - it would just be fraught with potential problems.

 

[southsider2k5]

I'm quite sure that's illegal. He would have had to have sold his shares to be able to use that money towards the White Sox.

 

Depends on their profit structure. If they roll gains over, he can't do it. If profits are paid in cash at the end of every year, he can do whatever he wants.

[RockRaines]

Hope everyone knew today was the day to get single game tickets for Season ticket holders. Since the Sox f***ed me on Cubs/Sox this year since its on a mon/tues/wed I got 4 to each.

[Leonard Zelig]

Hope everyone knew today was the day to get single game tickets for Season ticket holders. Since the Sox f***ed me on Cubs/Sox this year since its on a mon/tues/wed I got 4 to each.

Doesn't MLB make the schedules for all teams?

[southsider2k5]

Hope everyone knew today was the day to get single game tickets for Season ticket holders. Since the Sox f***ed me on Cubs/Sox this year since its on a mon/tues/wed I got 4 to each.

 

Nothing personal, but, good. These should be weekday games. We know they are selling out, so why take up prime dates? Stick them on days when we don't sell out. Hell I wish they were weekday games in April, so we could get an extra 30,000 people in those crappy days versus summer weekend dates which would have 30k at them anyway.