Comments on: Hunt for a cheaper new core

By: jdserafini19

jdserafini19 — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 19:47:38 +0000

They announced their player development staff today. The list is littered with former players, starting with Chris Getz at the top of it. I guess when it comes down to it, you have to pick your poison because Jerry takes care of his own when it comes to hiring people to run his teams. You would think he’d try to find people off of the Cleveland, Boston, Houston, etc. trees because those guys have seen success by using Sabermetric methods. Only Boston has a fat checkbook of those three.

I don’t know what to say about that anymore. There isn’t much White Sox supporters can do. I personal preference is they start over. Sale and Quintana would yield the most in return to try. Prospects don’t always pan out, yes, but you have to at least try something different. What they’ve been doing hasn’t worked. Doesn’t mean this will work either, but you have to change course.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 13 Nov 2016 17:09:10 +0000

Prospects are just prospects. There is no guarantee of their success. Let’s get rid of Sale or Q or anyone else who has a team friendly contract for some guys we don’t even know if they will pan out. I have witnessed too many “can’t miss guys” end up missing horribly. We have a core. Now we just need to put on our big boy pants and stop being a major market team acting like a small market team. Oh wait, I am talking about the Sox right? They don’t think they are a major market team. Let’s face it is this an organization you want to trust with a rebuild, or an organization you want to trust with a reload? What makes anyone confident either direction is going to work. Either way we could end up losing. Might as well just pick your poison. ….my preference is build around the core….but then again maybe that is just my poison.

By: Russ

Russ — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 21:41:05 +0000

So they should ignore Cleveland’s success in putting a winning roster together with farm system depth?

Cleveland made no eye-popping FA transactions in the last 3 years. Prior to that they wasted money on Swisher and Bourn. But they stopped doing that dumb stuff and started drafting better. Heck, they still blew (lesser) money on Byrd and Uribe but they had the farm depth to cover for those failures.

They should be looking to move Frazier, Robertson, and Cabrera. All over 28, all with contracts expiring in a year or two. They set themselves up for winning by 2016 and it didn’t happen. Trying to squeeze one more year out of this is like an alcoholic taking just one more drink – it isn’t going to do them any good.

They shouldn’t squander any top 100 draft picks by signing FA’s, it will only retard the rebuilding of the farm system. If 2016 was a good draft, then let 2017 and 2018 drafts be as productive as possible and you can start thinking of winning in 2019 when you can then decide to extend Sale and Rodon if it is worth it.

If you want to win sooner, you either have to sacrifice the farm rebuild, or you have to trade one or two of Sale/Quintana/Eaton/Rodon/Anderson to get enough capable talent (capable, not comparable) in return to cover multiple lineup holes.

By: Marty34

Marty34 — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 18:58:02 +0000

Given the assets the Sox have to deal, the state of their division, and their revenues, I don’t see any reason why a rebuild can’t be done in short order.

One thing that I’m sure makes ownership hesitant is a rebuild puts the front office squarely on the hot seat. If they can’t get this right it will shatter the “Jerry really wants to win” narrative. It will prove that it was more important for Jerry to have people he liked running his team than people who are competent.

By: Daniel Rivera

Daniel Rivera — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 05:29:46 +0000

Sox should not base their decisions on another baseball teams success.

By: Nick Schaefer

Nick Schaefer — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 20:22:05 +0000

I don’t have any evidence for this either, but one could equally posit that if the Cubs and White Sox are both good at the same time it will generally raise the level of interest in baseball across the whole city.

By: Nick Schaefer

Nick Schaefer — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 20:20:32 +0000

Has there ever been any evidence that White Sox attendance had any relationship with how well the Cubs are doing?

By: Russ

Russ — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 18:02:13 +0000

Good article!

My feeling is the Sox, from a business perspective, might as well go through the rebuild now. The Cubs are hot and spending money to field a competitive team for 2017 isn’t going to get them a lick of interest from the casual fan unless they are in first place by 5 games come June 15. The odds of that happening even by expanding payroll to $160M are low, so it’s just throwing money away. If you’re going to be ignored, rebuild and be ready when the Cubs core starts aging or leaving.