Chris Getz identifies the problem, but solving White Sox still looks impossible
Chris Getz used last week’s general managers meeting to attempt to pivot to his populist phase. What he said drew plenty of attention, but what I noticed were the Tifosi sunglasses he sported in every photo on the wires.
There’s nothing wrong with Tifosi, mind you. It has a lot of direct-to-consumer competitors in a crowded market, but it’s crowded because they and a bunch of other companies make a decent pair of sunglasses for $25 to $50. I’m just not used to seeing a White Sox GM wearing shades that wouldn’t leave me crestfallen if I left them on a plane.
Rick Hahn was a dedicated Ray-Ban Man, while Kenny Williams wore various designer brands when he wasn’t terrorizing the backfields from his golf cart in Oakley Mode. Now here comes Getz, sporting a pair of sunglasses that you’d buy with a promo code. (“The future’s so bleak, you gotta shield your eyes. Chris Getz for Tifosi.”)
Just like a politician dusts off the denim for diners, Getz’s choice of eyewear meshed with his approach to the GM meetings, during which he embarked on a Great Leveling with the fans.
He doesn’t like the team. No players are untouchable. Yoán Moncada might have to play other positions besides third base. Oscar Colás needs more time in Triple-A. If Getz deployed an angrier tone, he could’ve been a worthy follow-up to Berto on the West Side …
… but stated flatly, they’re just plain, boring truths about a boring team.
When it became abundantly clear that the White Sox were going to lose 90 games, I wanted them to lose 100 — not because of draft position, but because I wanted the record to properly reflect the misery of following the team on a daily basis. It’d also give the GM greater mandate to detonate the way the White Sox conduct themselves, because nothing about the product was acceptable. Getz’s sentiments are therefore encouraging to a degree.
But like Hahn lamenting the White Sox’s lack of trade deadline activity when he was theoretically in charge of it, the words just ring a little hollow when they come from somebody who was an assistant GM for the debacle. Getz might not have been one of the top two guys in charge, but he also appeared to demonstrate no real positive influence on the proceedings. Now he’s tasked with doing a better job than he’s ever done as an executive, in a position he’s never occupied, while facing headwinds from within his own front office.
Brooks Boyer ran into the authenticity issue with regards to how the White Sox fumbled away one of the game’s highly regarded broadcast booths. He tried to spin the White Sox’s negligence with Jason Benetti, but there aren’t many ways to re-frame a lateral move, so he had to throw empathy out there to see if anybody would buy it.
“My own kids gave me a lot of grief about it,” Boyer said. “It’s hard because he is one of ours, but also if the situation is something that really advances someone, you’ve got to let him do it.
“Fans can be upset. I’m glad they are happy for Jason. … It’s not a secret that we’ve certainly faced our challenges with our fans, and that’s putting it lightly. I understand it.”
“Advance” is an inaccurate verb to describe a move from Chicago to Detroit, especially since it doesn’t seem like the terms are any different. Before the season, Jon Greenberg reported that Benetti was allowed to miss “35 (games), max” over the course of the 2023 schedule. The news out of Detroit says Benetti will call “a minimum of 127 Tigers games.” You’ll never guess what 162 minus 35 equals.
My sense is that the White Sox got grouchy about having to accommodate Benetti’s national schedule, and that opened cracks for other grievances to ooze to the surface. That’d explain why Benetti called his previous negotiations an arbitration hearing, and why Boyer didn’t offer any public sympathy on his end. Maybe Benetti gets a little more money or security with the Tigers, but neither of those count as advancement, just held ground. It mostly sounds like the White Sox wanted Benetti to lower his goals. 35th and Shields is where ambition goes to die.
Speaking of which, Bob Nightengale’s Sunday column makes it sound like Reinsdorf will be tying one of Getz’s hands behind his back, if not both of them.
This is why the White Sox cut ties with shortstop Tim Anderson and are making everyone available in trades except center fielder Luis Robert – including ace Dylan Cease – as they lower their payroll.
This isn’t a great sentence for plenty of reasons, but structurally, it seems like it shouldn’t lump in a potential Dylan Cease trade with the White Sox’s payroll reduction. The Sox have already shed tons of money from their books by buying out Tim Anderson, Liam Hendriks and Mike Clevinger while letting Yasmani Grandal and Elvis Andrus head to free agency, all after trading Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito, Joe Kelly, Kendall Graveman and Reynaldo López at the deadline. If they make a minimal effort to fill the majority of the vacancies, the payroll will be something like $50 million lighter from 2023 to 2024.
I suppose the problem is that everybody besides Cease and Luis Robert Jr. qualifies as either a salary dump or “one red paperclip” material, so nobody else is worth specifically mentioning. That’s why this sentence seems like it could’ve been two individual items.
But sometimes the questionable White Sox material Nightengale relays turns out to be entirely accurate as stated, so maybe Reinsdorf wants to cut as many seven-figure salaries as possible, in whatever order the market can allow. Neither can be ruled out at this time.
What can be ruled out is the primary justification Reinsdorf provided for promoting Getz without considering anybody else for the GM spot — that the Sox didn’t have a year to waste. It doesn’t matter whether Reinsdorf was telling his warped truth or issuing a flimsy lie to get through the only public appearance he’ll subject himself to this decade. Either one reflects a franchise in poor health. Everybody should be bracing for the Sox to punt 2024, and a Cease trade pretty much guarantees a rebuild with some sort of rebranding.
Getz faces an enormous task, and while admitting the problem is always the first step, there are usually 11 others after that. Rick Hahn stalled out somewhere in the middle.
There’s a template for action, but the snags are easy to see. Getz said he wants the team to get better defensively, and will forgo offensive upside if necessary. That’s a valid way to attempt to address the White Sox’s run differential issues, except it also leads to new hitting coach Marcus Thames issuing a troubling prescription for the offense.
“I heard Getzy’s interview, and he’s trying to make some moves to make the team a little more athletic and get some guys to put the ball in play a little bit more,” Thames said. “And I like that vision.
“The game has come to a point where situational hitting has been a lost art until the postseason, and then you see teams trying to bunt and hit-and-run and stuff like that during the postseason. We’re going to start hitting that in Spring Training and we’re going to change our identity a little bit, and I like that vision of what they’re trying to get done.”
If this is an accurate description of Thames’ weltanschauung regardless of the talent, then it can make like Taylor Swift and go back to 1989. However, if he’s trying to get ahead of a scenario where he’s tasked with taking an influx of glove-first guys and shaping a watchable offense, then that’s about the best way he can try to spin it. Unlike Boyer, he’s not the guy in charge of acquiring or retaining the talent. He can only try to anticipate it.
A little action would go a long way in clarifying vision, but besides finalizing a coaching staff that still has an unpopular, ineffective manager at the top of it, the only thing the White Sox have done is dismiss their popular broadcaster for reasons. The people at the top don’t have to make sense, but they make it harder for everybody else downstream to form a cohesive vision in their wake.
The GM meetings ended early due to a suspected norovirus, and the quick dispersion of all the newsmakers didn’t help us in our quest for more material to work with. Still, it was long enough to arrive at the first cliché of the Chris Getz Era.
Back in September, Getz said he spent the month “doing a deeper dive” into the organization. It only sounded funny because he was supposed to have an intimate knowledge of what the White Sox weren’t doing well enough, but there’s no harm in confirming everything once granted decision-making power. Measure twice, cut once, sure.
Now it’s November, and Getz still has his scuba gear on:
“We want to identify players that we feel like can help us, both short term and long term, and when those players come our way, then we’ll make a decision,” Getz said. “Obviously, there’s a financial component to it that Jerry gets involved in, and we’ll continue to have those conversations. … But right now, there’s certainly a deeper dive that needs to happen with this club as we improve moving forward.”
Again, something needs to happen, because a guy can only take so many deep dives into such a shallow pool before invoking the concussion protocol.
It’s death by a thousand cuts. Another 100-loss season is very realistic
More than realistic, it’s inevitable at this point. There is literally nothing positive going for this team other than Robert, who in two years will be the center of trade talks because there’s no way JR will pay market value on an extension. Ugh.
They are definitely going to be fighting against the 100 loss mark…. if I were Getz I would try to spend big on one legit starting pitcher with an eye on 2025, and everything else I do would be 1 year contracts guys that maybe can hold the fort down until minor leaguers are ready or maybe become flip options at the deadline. The worst thing you could do is blow payroll flexibility and tie yourself down to mid tier free agents in some desperate gasp to be relevant in 2024.
Death by 1000 deep dives.
I believe the 2024 team won’t lose more than 100 games. I know it is hard to believe, but the current team is already better than the one we had at the start of the 2023 season. It is at least more athletic. Defense has improved just by waving goodbye to TA, Burger, and Grandal. I assume Getz won’t allow Sheets, who should be DFA’ed, or Eloy to wear a glove ever again.
Getting a cheap RF that can field, playing Sosa in 2B, and Jose Rodriguez at short. With Lee catching. That’s a team that will field well. Get some SP that can go unimpressively to 5 innings, and this team will lose between 90 and 100 games.
I think Getz will do more than that, and the White Sox can be a 90 loses team in 2024. Contending? Not a chance. This team is truly bad to be considered a contender without expending a significant amount of money, and even so, as the Mets and the Padres can attest, that might not even work.
They traded away half their pitching staff in July. No more Giolito, Lynn, Graveman, Kelly, Lopez, Middleton. Clevinger had a 3.3 WAR and was easily their best pitcher, and he’s gone too. And Burger! They are much worse than at the start of 2023, not better. They lost only 101 b/c they had half their pitching staff for 4 months, and Burger, who was their 2nd best hitter. They were the worst team in MLB in the 2nd half. This is a AAA level, 110+ loss team with the current roster, ranked 30th in ESPN power rankings deservedly. Even with improved defense, which I’ll believe when I see it, that would do little to compensate for pitching and hitting that should both be near mlb worst. And they still have Grifol.
Unless they make unprecedented quality free agent signings to the shock of all, I’ll bet the over on 100 losses all day. Their over/under win total might wind up being like 55, if that.
That last paragraph. Pure Margalus gold!
I think everyone who read it had a broad smile on their face.
I thought we were being set up for a punchline involving the “bends” and of course Jim found a better one.
What is Getz supposed to say if he’s honest, objective, and has a realistic plan? The team is scorched earth. The reality is that it will take years to fix, b/c there is no foundation on the roster, or in their minor leagues.
My favorite new narrative is that they aren’t planning on going into another rebuild. Now that TA and Liam are officially gone, with Yoan and most likely Eloy to follow after next year, their list of notable players gone or that soon will be from their 2021 playoff team will include: Rodon, Lynn, Giolito, Abreu, Tim, Grandal, Yoan, Eloy, Leury, Engel, Madrigal, Liam, Lopez.
The 2021 team had 18 players with a WAR of at least 1. Gone will be 14 of them, 7 of the 8 position players, and 7 of the 10 pitchers. That works out to about 20 WAR of pitching and 20 of hitting, 40 WAR total. But they’re not doing another rebuild! That may be the most ridiculous thing this org has ever said, and that includes “the money will be spent”, “all in”, and “nothing but raves about Romy’s offseason”. When 14 players that combined for 40 WAR are gone from a team that flopped embarrassingly in the playoffs and wasn’t even that good in the first place, and their only replacement is a mediocre outfielder with no power who received their biggest FA contract ever, that’s a rebuild Chris. Just sell the damn team already Jerry, Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, the reality is.. as long as a Reinsdorf controls this organization, it will never be fixed. The Sox will fall further and further into the abyss.
The Reinsdorf’s will NEVER allocate the resources needed to get this team even remotely close their counterparts. Everyone knows, they don’t brace analytics, their scouting / drafting methods are archaic. And, their minor league coaching is farce.
And, now that have an even bigger idiot as GM and TLR “advising”… it is only going to get even worse.
Yep, pretty much. Ownership change or death is the only real hope, and neither is worth pinning hopes on or waiting around for. Time to find a different hobby or team to follow. Getz looks like a douchebag in those sunglasses, all this org is capable of bringing anyone is annoyance in various forms.
Jim quoting a player or front office cliché and taking it to its logical conclusion is reliably hilarious. Eviscerating Getz’s “deep dive” Is just the latest example.
How is it possible they hired a hitting coach from 1906 or even 1959? With one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball, the strategy is to play defense along with a contact oriented offense that moves runners over? The White Sox are smarter than anyone else, they are going to prove modern day analytics don’t mean anything, and they can bunt and hit-n-run their way to the promised land. JR and TLR are definitely calling the shots on everything.
I’m d enough to remember all the way back to 2019 and 2020 when we had a young & talented team that played hard for a Ricky Renteria…who was subsequently fired possibly because he bunted too much…and everything has gone downhill since then. And so it goes.
Now we’re going into a multi year rebuild again, right after MLB institutes a draft lottery to keep teams from tanking year after year.
That’s our Sox. A day late, and
/or a dollar short.
Guys that can’t hit homers are nice and cheap.
There’s just not much to say right now other than until Reinsdorf is no longer calling the shots, this organization is doomed.
After a long period of boring lies about a boring team, I am going to enjoy boring truths about a boring team for the time being. It’s impossible to fix this dumpster fire in one offseason, but I really hope Getz makes some sensible moves. That would be refreshing.
So many of Jerry Reinsdorf’s executives have worn sunglasses that perhaps the reason is not due to the sun.
The SEP field is powerful at 35th & Shields.
From the Sunday Notes at Fangraphs, Getz response when asked if he considers himself an analytically inclined exec:
A good follow up would have been is there any planned expansion of the analytics section of the FO, something which Getz has been pretty mum about when it does come up.
That’s because there won’t be any expansion on that front. Reinsdorf stated, he does not believe in modern analytics and won’t allocate the resources. All that does is add money to the payroll.
Has he actually said that? Because all he needs to do is look to Tampa to see how using modern analytics with an expanded front office can lead to more wins for less money, but again, as always, this organization under Reinsdorf is penny-wise, dollar-stupid.
I mean sure, but they also touted their pitching lab attached to the clubhouse that they had to have major renovations for. It’d just be nice to get an idea of the people working in there since they’ve been asked this same question for years now.
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza…Some Sesame Street for those who, like me, grew up in the 1970s.
Getz’s message is simple: We are going to put together the cheapest team possible because our owner does not care if we win or not. Basically, the erosion of the fan base will give Jerry leverage to renegotiate the lease or sell the team to outside investors who move the Sox elsewhere. Realize now, Jerry is tanking his own team to gain a financial advantage over the state and the fans. His final legacy will be as the man who sold the team, the fans and the city out.
how can a the erosion of the fan base give leverage of any kind?
Can you make a full roster of rule 5 picks??
My professional life has made me beyond wary of the term “deep dive”. It is a descriptor never used by someone I trust to accurately parse through whatever data they claim to be reviewing.
It’s right there with “we’ll have a robust conversation…”.
These are phrases that cause my BS-o-meter to start going off…
Let’s take this offline.
The word “bandwidth” is another trigger for me.
Hope you’re not talking about soxmachine.com! Though I would understand if you did.
Since I’m from The Netherlands every time someone at work mixes in an English word (where most of the time there is a perfectly fine Dutch alternative available) I grab my ‘bulshit bingo card’.
The lower payroll thing is what makes me concerned about the conflicting options Getz/Grifol will be able to work with. It sounds like they want to take a more patient approach to prospects in the system, but reduced payroll generally means younger guys. Not sure if the “everyone is available outside Robert Jr.” will have the level of detailed scouting to other teams prospects/change of scenery candidates to lower payroll while seeing positive results, so if things dont go right quickly, then I could see impatience winning out with pushing guys up before they are ready.
Hope to be wrong, but when the owner neglects a serious GM search for “no time to waste” and proceeds to say “the foundation is here” with little specifics so fans have to speculate on what that could mean, all the while leaking the payroll will be lowered with a new GM that could use every cent and similar payroll to 2023(probably needs a Dodger budget to truly do much in 24 but lol)…it’s overwhelming how bad Jerry is at this owning a sport team in the 21st century.
And thats not including the bad optics of the shooting at the park, losing a well liked broadcaster to division rival and all the off field non sense that has been far too common during his ownership lately…
We should hear from him more about things, even if he sucks at talking to fans, just so we can get the bias confirmation toward the team. It’s completely chaotic regardless of who is in charge because the owner himself contradicts everything about the team. I’m assuming he has good intentions and is just bad at this, over trying to sabotage fans in an effort to relocate the team because that would be a real dick move. Like in the movies but not real life Dick move. Please cut this crap out White Sox. Let us just enjoy the team for once and not be worried about the other shoe constantly dropping. Holy crap. Go Sox
We wish. Maybe with Getz will get that, but under Hahn/KW, reduced payroll meant Hanser Albertos, Josh Harrisons, Leuryses, Adam Eatons, Nomar Mazzarases, etc.
but what about his socks?
Probably Kirkland
I think John and Yoko said it best when they said, “All we are saying is give Getz a chance.”
Hear me out. I intend to judge him as GM based on what he says and does as GM. The “process” that led to his promotion was something out of his control, and I’m not going to bury him for taking what was on offer.
Like most of you, I wasn’t impressed with his record in player development. Was that because the raw talent he was given was raw but not talented? Did Rick force aggressive promotions that weren’t justified? Did Getz just suck at his job? It’s probably some combination of all that and more. If you can place the blame for player development at Getz’ feet, does that mean he can’t be a competent GM? It’s certainly not the place any of us would look to start from in making the hire, but it doesn’t guarantee it won’t work out.
So far, with one notable managerial exception, I’ve liked the hires he’s made. And liked the guts he showed in declining Timmy’s option. I’m not sure Hahn would have done that. I like that Boston is gone. He added no value. His honesty in saying he doesn’t like this team is refreshing. That honesty will wear thin if he doesn’t do enough to make us like the assembled talent, but for now I’m grateful for the absence of lawyerly nothing burgers of statements.
I was skeptical of the hire for all the obvious reasons, but Getz is starting to chip away at my doubts. I’ll be first in line with a shovel in order to bury him if he proves incapable of doing his job. Until such time I’ll comment on his moves, good and bad, and wait until we have enough first-hand evidence to pass judgment on his stewardship.
I couldn’t say it better. This is my position as well.
Keeping in mind that every major decision/hire that Jerry has made for as long as I can remember has been a disaster, I think we all know what we’re getting in Getz. It’s not like he is an unknown. He’s been here all along and was assistant to Hahn while a promising young team was destroyed faster than any I’ve ever seen. They had one full season over .500 in the past decade, and are notoriously terrible at everything from drafting to player development. Promoting anybody from within this steamer turdshow instead of hiring somebody externally with a non-disaster track record was so stupid and nonsensical there are no words for.
All your comments are pretty much a copy and paste of the previous.
Every new head-scratching decision, from sham GM replacement to letting a popular broadcaster go in a lateral move, leaves me slightly annoyed but then ultimately indifferent. Until the owner dies, the org will be on life support. So be it. Reinsdorf may act like we should all feel as miserable as he looks, but he’ll get no such satisfaction from me. Go Sox Machine
Sox is a concept by which we measure our pain
I’ll say it again
Sox is a concept by which we measure our pain
I don’t believe in Eloy
I don’t believe in Kopech
I don’t believe in Liam
I don’t believe in Timmy
I don’t believe in Gavin
I don’t believe in Graveman
I don’t believe in Hahn
I don’t believe in Williams
I don’t believe in Romy
I don’t believe in Touki
I don’t believe in Grandal
I don’t believe in Yoan
I don’t believe in Vaughn
I don’t believe in Andrus
I don’t believe in Benetti
I don’t believe in Reinsdorf
I just believe in Getz, Grifol, and Getz, and that’s…eh
The dream is over
What can I say?
The Dream is over
Yesterday
We changed the game
But now that’s gone
We were all in
But now we’re 61-101
And so, dear friends
You’ll just have to carry on
The dream is over
Brilliant! As a Sox fan, one thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside.
The Imagine song I’d dedicate to Jerry Reinsdorf is “How Do You Sleep?” (His answer, soundly, on a big pile of our money.)
A passenger jet is nosediving and the previous pilots were out of tricks to right it. So the owner of the plane hires a new pilot. He’s showing us something, at least—with his fresh tricks, the nose of the plane is pulling up slightly. That’s encouraging. On the other hand, the plane is still on a trajectory that leads to an explosion. The new pilot, after all, was picked from the cockpit and had the same training as the bad pilots. Worse still, the plane is still the same shoddily-built plane as before, with out-of-date navigation and old, recycled parts. From my seat at the back of the plane, I like feeling some of these encouraging jolts. It’s better than nothing. But it still feels like I’m on the downhill portion of a roller coaster and I’m still getting my affairs in order. Those with ears let them hear.
Good metaphor, but at least we won’t die if (and, I believe, when) Getz fails. I want to believe in Bannister, Barfield, Sizemore, and Thames, but after all the great talking Grifol did last year and how literally none of it came true, I am firmly in “I’ll believe it when I see it” mode.
I’m in finance. If I do a bad job at pulling together numbers for a forecast, should my bosses promote me such that I’m reviewing that forecast and having broader responsibilities? No. Same thing here. Getz failed at his job. While I think the Sox had a bad drafting philosophy, getting hitters with little discipline who couldn’t field and pitchers with live arms who can’t find the plate, the lack of discipline and control are often fixable with proper development. That was Getz’ department. Even if JR did force aggressive promotions for some guys, I’d still have expected to see more success than I did.
But all that aside, JR hired someone he knows. It’s his right, but that doesn’t make it right. I won’t blame Getz for taking more money and I’ll admit he has made a couple coaching / FO hires that seem pretty good, but he has a long, loooooonnnnngggggg way to to go to convince me he’s the man for the job. And the fact that he’s needed months to “do a deep dive” on an organization he was the Assistant GM for doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. He should already have an idea of who he wants to keep and who he wants to trade / let go. Even if he were still just Asst GM, he should have those opinions to help his bosses make decisions.
Then there’s the ever-present (and I’m beginning to think eternal) specter of JR hanging over everything he does. That would be the same with any GM, but JR meddles far too much and is completely stuck in how baseball worked 40 years ago. He won’t embrace analytics, won’t change how the team drafts, won’t stop signing past-their-prime veterans, and won’t stop hiring his friends to jobs for which they’re not suited.
He has a long, loooooonnnnngggggg way to to go to convince me he’s the man for the job, too. Since becoming GM, the only thing he’s done that I haven’t liked is keep Grifol. There are a slew of reasons to have doubts about Getz, but whether we like it or not, he’s the GM. I intend to judge him based on what he does in this role. I hope he’s successful because it will make being a Sox fan more enjoyable.
Like the idea of Moncada moving to 3rd. Gives Burger a spot to play there more often!
While the “I’ll probably watch 100 games because I’m a sicko” side of me is happy they’re gonna keep Robert; the rational part of me is thinking… why wouldn’t they trade him? He’s probably at his peak value wise and it’s not like the Sox are two years away from contending again. Considering the state of the farm system and the Sox track record of player development, this is a multi-year rebuild… which will likely fail like a Rockies or Royals and most Marlin rebuilds would/will/do. ANYWAY:
The Sox issues remains:
1) this bizarre fascination with winning every deal, which ends up with a bunch of penny wise but pound foolish moves. That’s always been the case with JR and it stopped the last rebuild from being anything other than the smallest window possible for a team that stripped it down to the studs. That leaves the FO waving in the wind hoping that they’ll at least get to spend some money at some point only for it to never happen.
2) Completely uncreative and uninspiring FO. Sure they don’t have as much flexibility as the Dodgers, but they also refuse to try anything interesting or different. Don’t land Machado, ‘oh darn not our fault’ but there is no plan B or C etc. So you’re hiring lazy thinkers and asking them to win your way and only your way.
Unsurprisingly it doesn’t work. Getz appears to be more of the same. And it’s also clear a change in thinking isn’t coming any time soon because ownership doesn’t want to change.
I’ve been beating this drum for a while. He’d bring back an absolute haul given his cheap and lengthy control. One analyst over at MLBTR said it could actually be more than the Nats got for Soto because of the extra year and better defense. Now that’s a way to jump start a rebuild! JR is fooling himself if he thinks this team doesn’t need a rebuild, especially if he’s not willing to spend like the Rangers.
There’s an old saying in freelance work: You can have it fast, cheap, or good. Pick two.
They can turn this around fast, but it’ll take a lot of money. They can turn it around cheap, but it won’t be fast (or if they make it fast, won’t be any good). But since we know how cheap JR is, I’m banking on a fast and cheap “turnaround” that gets them back to winning 70-75 games. Getz will tout the 10-game improvement, JR will proclaim his faith in the FO, and then they’ll stagnate because no more money needs to be spent once they’re mediocre again.
Tomorrow is the deadline to select players eligible for the Rule 5 draft in order to protect them from being selected.
Each and every time I think the white sox hit rock bottom they somehow find a shovel
WHITE SOX 2024! Learning new ways to step on our dicks.
Too sexist for a slogan?
White Sox 2024: Making you long for the next Bears’ season.
I’m going to hope that the Cubs do well this year. Not because I’m a fan, god forbid, but because a Cubs resurgence might be the only thing that would make Reinsdorf make wholesale changes to the Sox. As bad as he is, I still think he’s competitive enough that he doesn’t want the Cubs completely owning Chicago.
Frankly, I don’t think he gives a rat’s hind quarters how well the Cubs do, save for how it affects his finances. I don’t think competition or pride enter into it at all. If they did, he’d have tried to change his approach by now. His method is a clearly losing one, but what it has done is make him obscenely wealthy. He paid $19M in 1981 and the team is now worth a little over $2B. He might prefer to win, but not if it actually costs him money.
How deep does one need to dive to feel confident they’re in a sewer?