White Sox Game Talk 2017

[The Hawk]

Kudos to Avi and Abreu for having the great years that they had despite not having a batting order to help them out much. I just hope that Reinny doesn't order Hahn to get rid of them before their contracts are up and they want more money.

Among the many milestones putting Abreu in Hall of Fame company, he’s close to becoming the third player to begin his career with four seasons of 25-plus homers and 100 RBI, joining Joe DiMaggio and Albert Pujols, and he’ll likely be the fifth to drive in 100 runs in his first four-plus seasons, joining Al Simmons, Ted Williams, DiMaggio and Pujols.

Abreu reminds me a bit of Frank Thomas in his start of a potentially great career. I only hope that they give him some better support in their line-up. They absolutely need two left handed hitting bats in the middle of the order.

 

[brett05]

Abreu in the Hall? WAY premature.

That said, the lineup is shaping up well already. Plenty of power in the lineup with Abreu 30, Moncada already 25, Anderson 15-20, Davidson 30, Avisail 20. Lineup should get better over the next two seasons with Jimenez, Rutherford, Collins, Burger.

Signing anyone for this upcoming season would not be wise.

 

[The Hawk]

Abreu in the Hall? WAY premature.

That said, the lineup is shaping up well already. Plenty of power in the lineup with Abreu 30, Moncada already 25, Anderson 15-20, Davidson 30, Avisail 20. Lineup should get better over the next two seasons with Jimenez, Rutherford, Collins, Burger.

Signing anyone for this upcoming season would not be wise.

They need left handed bats in the line-up. They need a LOT to make this team even average. THis is a very weak team.

 

[The Hawk]

Abreu in the Hall? WAY premature.

That said, the lineup is shaping up well already. Plenty of power in the lineup with Abreu 30, Moncada already 25, Anderson 15-20, Davidson 30, Avisail 20. Lineup should get better over the next two seasons with Jimenez, Rutherford, Collins, Burger.

Signing anyone for this upcoming season would not be wise.

They need left handed bats in the line-up. They need a LOT to make this team even average. THis is a very weak team.

 

[brett05]

They need left handed bats in the line-up. They need a LOT to make this team even average. THis is a very weak team.

This has been explained to you before. They do not. They need balanced hitters.

 

[The Hawk]

This has been explained to you before. They do not. They need balanced hitters.

Spare me your comment that "this has been explained to me before", like you are some baseball expert or something. You are not. I do know how to put a line-up together having played and later coached for a long long time. A good line-up needs a "balance" of left handed hitting and right handed hitting. Especially in the age of "specialization" of the relief corps. To deny it is silly.

 

[Raskolnikov]

Spare me your comment that "this has been explained to me before", like you are some baseball expert or something. You are not. I do know how to put a line-up together having played and later coached for a long long time. A good line-up needs a "balance" of left handed hitting and right handed hitting. Especially in the age of "specialization" of the relief corps. To deny it is silly.

I think though you don't need every single piece in a rebuild. Its actually good to have some flexibility, and overload at a couple positions which we appear to have in the outfield/middle infield. Then Hahn can make some big trades and pull in those fine tune adjustments like a power lefty, ace starter, closer and

I think maybe in master plans of rebuilds those guys look at fine tuning as something to be done last, you kind of just get the highest value assets you can and grow them, then see what you got and tweak/trade to a complete roster at the end, after you have made your final push free agency moves to the holes and seen what lines up out their in the FA world.

I'm confident they have enough assets now to have actual fruit in 2019-21, but many moves are yet to be made. Its not a sure thing, more positive maneuvers and luck will have to win out. Especially player development.

I'm still going to argue to the end we had 12-24 more months before we gave up on that core and sent Quintana/Sale away. There was plenty of time to get back desperate payment in the future for them, and you don't quit on two ace playoff potential.

But they quit on that run, and its done. They have done well with the moves, so its at least forgiven and agree to disagree. But I think the argument here, is between Brett who is rightfully optimistic, given the ranking of the farm team.

And I also think myself and Hawk are rightfully pessimistic to an extent, and express the tension of another angle, that a bird in hand is worth a dozen in the bush.

So it is our nature to remain more reserved, and accept the real possibility that this rebuild attempt fails and we don't see the playoffs for 10 years, or even lose the team to another city, or whatever.

There is reason to wring our hands, and reason to breathe deep, its over, its done, they have moved on and are trying to rebuild. I applaud the job they are doing with it so far. Good luck and may the right players and organization wisdom guide these next 2-3 delicate years.

 

[The Hawk]

I think though you don't need every single piece in a rebuild. Its actually good to have some flexibility, and overload at a couple positions which we appear to have in the outfield/middle infield. Then Hahn can make some big trades and pull in those fine tune adjustments like a power lefty, ace starter, closer and

I think maybe in master plans of rebuilds those guys look at fine tuning as something to be done last, you kind of just get the highest value assets you can and grow them, then see what you got and tweak/trade to a complete roster at the end, after you have made your final push free agency moves to the holes and seen what lines up out their in the FA world.

I'm confident they have enough assets now to have actual fruit in 2019-21, but many moves are yet to be made. Its not a sure thing, more positive maneuvers and luck will have to win out. Especially player development.

I'm still going to argue to the end we had 12-24 more months before we gave up on that core and sent Quintana/Sale away. There was plenty of time to get back desperate payment in the future for them, and you don't quit on two ace playoff potential.

But they quit on that run, and its done. They have done well with the moves, so its at least forgiven and agree to disagree. But I think the argument here, is between Brett who is rightfully optimistic, given the ranking of the farm team.

And I also think myself and Hawk are rightfully pessimistic to an extent, and express the tension of another angle, that a bird in hand is worth a dozen in the bush.

So it is our nature to remain more reserved, and accept the real possibility that this rebuild attempt fails and we don't see the playoffs for 10 years, or even lose the team to another city, or whatever.

There is reason to wring our hands, and reason to breathe deep, its over, its done, they have moved on and are trying to rebuild. I applaud the job they are doing with it so far. Good luck and may the right players and organization wisdom guide these next 2-3 delicate years.

Good post, Rask. Reasonable all the way around. I also question this pollyanna crap about this was the only correct plan for getting the White Sox to compete. The people who believe this really do not understand how shitty Reinsdorf is as an owner. I can hear the drum beats now echoing in the ears of Reinny ......TRADE ABREAU.......TRADE AVI...... All this SOB cares about is taking his money with him when he croaks. I hate the asshole.

He totally fucked White Sox fans after 2005 by his failure to continue the success of a very good team by spending a bit more of his hundreds of millions of dollars. I hate what he has done with the Bulls. All he is is a vitriol laden pompous ass.

 

[brett05]

Spare me your comment that "this has been explained to me before", like you are some baseball expert or something. You are not. I do know how to put a line-up together having played and later coached for a long long time. A good line-up needs a "balance" of left handed hitting and right handed hitting. Especially in the age of "specialization" of the relief corps. To deny it is silly.

To say what you have shows you're superficial at your baseball knowledge. If I have a hitter that hits RH pitching, it matters not what side of the plate he hits upon. you make it seem that a RH reliever gets all RH hitters out. Now that's silly.

 

[brett05]

I think though you don't need every single piece in a rebuild. Its actually good to have some flexibility, and overload at a couple positions which we appear to have in the outfield/middle infield. Then Hahn can make some big trades and pull in those fine tune adjustments like a power lefty, ace starter, closer and

I think maybe in master plans of rebuilds those guys look at fine tuning as something to be done last, you kind of just get the highest value assets you can and grow them, then see what you got and tweak/trade to a complete roster at the end, after you have made your final push free agency moves to the holes and seen what lines up out their in the FA world.

I'm confident they have enough assets now to have actual fruit in 2019-21, but many moves are yet to be made. Its not a sure thing, more positive maneuvers and luck will have to win out. Especially player development.

I'm still going to argue to the end we had 12-24 more months before we gave up on that core and sent Quintana/Sale away. There was plenty of time to get back desperate payment in the future for them, and you don't quit on two ace playoff potential.

But they quit on that run, and its done. They have done well with the moves, so its at least forgiven and agree to disagree. But I think the argument here, is between Brett who is rightfully optimistic, given the ranking of the farm team.

And I also think myself and Hawk are rightfully pessimistic to an extent, and express the tension of another angle, that a bird in hand is worth a dozen in the bush.

So it is our nature to remain more reserved, and accept the real possibility that this rebuild attempt fails and we don't see the playoffs for 10 years, or even lose the team to another city, or whatever.

There is reason to wring our hands, and reason to breathe deep, its over, its done, they have moved on and are trying to rebuild. I applaud the job they are doing with it so far. Good luck and may the right players and organization wisdom guide these next 2-3 delicate years.

Except they never were able to do anything but mediocrity with that plan. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. It was time to get off that cycle. For the White Sox organization it was proven that it was not going to work. SO they went another direction.

Will that direction work? The answer is unknown. Up to this point I don't think anyone would argue rationally against it going just about as good as it could have gone up to this point. They are ahead of schedule. The trick will be to stay the course and not be tempted to go back to the pre-rebuild days and let the hand play itself out. That's the proven path to failure.

I am with you Rask in that they have established quite a haul of assets to use for the club in so many different ways. Hahn deserves to be GM of the Year.

 

[brett05]

All (Jerry) cares about is taking his money with him when he croaks.

You've been shown to be wrong here as well. He's spent the money on the team. It didn't work out.

 

[The Hawk]

To say what you have shows you're superficial at your baseball knowledge. If I have a hitter that hits RH pitching, it matters not what side of the plate he hits upon. you make it seem that a RH reliever gets all RH hitters out. Now that's silly.

Funny stuff. IF you look through the history of baseball, managers throughout have tried their best to balance their line-up, especially with the advent of the specialized relief pitching. Truth is that if a team has good left handed hitting bats then it makes the opposing managers job much harder in what he does to combat that with his relief staff. It is also true that as a general rule, left handed hitting batters have better success against right handed pitchers than right handed hitters do. And the opposite holds true also. NOTE....I said a GENERAL RULE.

THe other thing that you do not understand is that it is important to a hitter who hits behind him and to a lesser extent who hits in front of him. Getting a good hitter to "protect" another guy means that you will probably get better pitches to hit because the pitcher doesn't want to face the next guy with a runner on base. That is a simple baseball fact.

 

[The Hawk]

Except they never were able to do anything but mediocrity with that plan. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. It was time to get off that cycle. For the White Sox organization it was proven that it was not going to work. SO they went another direction.

Will that direction work? The answer is unknown. Up to this point I don't think anyone would argue rationally against it going just about as good as it could have gone up to this point. They are ahead of schedule. The trick will be to stay the course and not be tempted to go back to the pre-rebuild days and let the hand play itself out. That's the proven path to failure.

I am with you Rask in that they have established quite a haul of assets to use for the club in so many different ways. Hahn deserves to be GM of the Year.

You cannot be serious. The White Sox are a terrible team. I like the job that Hahn did in obtaining talent. But the reality to me is that he was ordered to cut pay-roll and get low paid prospects in return. So he did a good getting the guys that he did. But GM of the year goes to the Cleveland GM. They did something truly remarkable.

 

[brett05]

Funny stuff. IF you look through the history of baseball, managers throughout have tried their best to balance their line-up, especially with the advent of the specialized relief pitching. Truth is that if a team has good left handed hitting bats then it makes the opposing managers job much harder in what he does to combat that with his relief staff. It is also true that as a general rule, left handed hitting batters have better success against right handed pitchers than right handed hitters do. And the opposite holds true also. NOTE....I said a GENERAL RULE.

THe other thing that you do not understand is that it is important to a hitter who hits behind him and to a lesser extent who hits in front of him. Getting a good hitter to "protect" another guy means that you will probably get better pitches to hit because the pitcher doesn't want to face the next guy with a runner on base. That is a simple baseball fact.

And that simple fact no one is arguing. Again, you need hitters. If they can't be balanced, then sure, go for a specialized hitter. We did that with Dunn as an example. But it's not ideal.

 

[brett05]

You cannot be serious. The White Sox are a terrible team. I like the job that Hahn did in obtaining talent. But the reality to me is that he was ordered to cut pay-roll and get low paid prospects in return. So he did a good getting the guys that he did. But GM of the year goes to the Cleveland GM. They did something truly remarkable.

Show the proof that Hahn was ordered. It's your crutch, make it reality.

As for Cleveland, Mike Chernoff has done a great job getting this team ready. But the players are the ones that did this, his work was in previous seasons. Hahn should win it, he will not.

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

dude when you go into a rebuild you shed salary, clear the deck as much as you can so you can invest in a different direction


if anything he was given permission to finally go into a rebuild cause the past strategy was spend to sucker fans into going. Sell the we are going all in and are close non sense

so I really dont see where you are coming up with all that hawk

 

[playthrough2001]

dude when you go into a rebuild you shed salary, clear the deck as much as you can so you can invest in a different direction


if anything he was given permission to finally go into a rebuild cause the past strategy was spend to sucker fans into going. Sell the we are going all in and are close non sense

so I really dont see where you are coming up with all that hawk

This is right in my opinion. Reinsdorf always sided with Kenny's plan to patch holes with veteran free agents. I truly believe Hahn sold the idea to Jerry and Kenny to clear the decks. What he's done is amazing. Even if Eaton wasn't injured, do you think there's any chance Washington would do that deal again if they had any clue how well Giolito, Lopez and Dunning would do this year? Not a chance in hell...

I think Boston would make their deal since Sale is such an exceptional player and they are in a win now window. However, they'll have to watch Moncada and Kopech do great things for the White Sox for years to come.

 

[The Hawk]

And that simple fact no one is arguing. Again, you need hitters. If they can't be balanced, then sure, go for a specialized hitter. We did that with Dunn as an example. But it's not ideal.

What the hell are you talking about hitters that are balanced? Dunn was a big over-the-hill dufus. He was the last thing that the White SOx needed. Why? Not because he was left handed. It was because he could not longer hit the ball. It was a stupid move to sign him. And what are you talking about "specialized hitter"? THe fact that you continue to ignore is the left handed hitting hitters have a better chance on the average of hitting right handed throwing pitchers than right handed hitter do. It is just a fact of baseball.

Left handed hitters at the top of the order have an advantage also because their swing takes them toward first base so they have an advantage beating out ground balls in the infield..

 

[The Hawk]

Show the proof that Hahn was ordered. It's your crutch, make it reality.

As for Cleveland, Mike Chernoff has done a great job getting this team ready. But the players are the ones that did this, his work was in previous seasons. Hahn should win it, he will not.

What kind of bullshit is this......."SHOW me the PROOF"? My "crutch"? It is obvious what Reinny wanted. He wanted to cut payroll. He also saw how the Cubs did well with their rebuild. This is entirely what happened. NO doubt in my mind that someone Hahn will be signed by another team. He certainly has done a good job and will earn a bigger paycheck working for a good owner, not the jag-off that Reinny is.

People do not win GM of the year award by losing a 100 or so games. This team is horrible and it is Reinny that has done it. Next year they will be lucky to win 70 games.

 

[The Hawk]

dude when you go into a rebuild you shed salary, clear the deck as much as you can so you can invest in a different direction


if anything he was given permission to finally go into a rebuild cause the past strategy was spend to sucker fans into going. Sell the we are going all in and are close non sense

so I really dont see where you are coming up with all that hawk

That is your belief and you are certainly entitled to it. I just do not buy into all of this optimism about a bunch of "prospects" going to magically turn into good or great major league players. They gave away to great starting pitchers, two very good relief pitchers, two good outfielders. They right now have TWO count them TWO good major league players on the entire team. Abreau and Garcia. That is it. All of the rest of these white sox players are unproven, proven to be below average, or downright bad. That is the reality to me.