As we enter the third-to-last weekend of the MLB season, you still have questions besides "Why am I still watching the White Sox?" and "How could God let this happen?"
OK, you still asked the first one, but regardless, thanks to everybody who remains curious about a team that seldom has a different day than the one that came before, unless, like Thursday, they didn't play.
Have you considered getting BetterHelp as a sponsor? Trauma like paying attention to this season seems worthy of therapy.
You’ve touched on it in the past, but any non-baseball activities that are keeping you sane while covering this?
-- ERIK J.
James: I’d prefer a sponsor with fewer run-ins with the Federal Trade Commission, but that’s just me. I’ve found myself diving into MLB The Show, and did a Road to the Show career as a pitcher to put some of things I talk to players about like reading swings, tunneling, moving eye levels into practice. It worked … too well? Even at the highest difficulty level I’m on my fifth Cy Young and third MVP.
But I bring this up because despite making it clear I had no team preference, my character got drafted by the White Sox. He raced through the system and was in the majors at the end of 2024 and was terrible, but pretty much excellent in every year since. Yet the White Sox didn’t so much as win 70 games until his final season before free agency, took him to arbitration every single year and never made an extension offer, nor successfully traded him for prospects despite me repeatedly requesting it. It’s not like there wasn’t churn elsewhere. They traded Colson Montgomery to the Twins, where he became my personal Ryan Raburn for a few years.
My player’s last game for the Sox was throwing a no-hitter on the second-to-last day of the season to keep them tied with the Yankees for the final Wild Card spot. On the next day, the Sox missed the playoffs. Without a contract offer to stay, my character signed a $400 million deal with the Twins right after the World Series.
So yeah, that’s how I clear my mind.
Jim: I tried to force a trade from the White Sox in MLB The Show when my center fielder, Constable Johnstable, got moved to left because Luis Robert Jr. was there, then didn't move me back to center after they traded him to Baltimore. Perhaps being 5-foot-5 and 270 pounds had something to do with it, but still, he raged impotently.
Otherwise, I dabble in this little-known sport called curling. Perhaps I've said a little bit about it here and there.
If anybody is interested in trying it, this winter is the best time to do so – not just because the best time to start was yesterday, but because next year is the Winter Olympics, and that's when everybody remembers curling exist and looks up where to try it. Open houses may be more slammed, beginner leagues may be booked up, etc. A non-Olympic year is a more representative experience, and if you get a season under your belt before the Winter Games, you can then "well, actually" everybody when you're watching it with the common people the following year.
The lack of talent is enormous, and to close the gap thru the free agency will require hundreds of millions of dollars. I expect another 100 loses year in 2025, do you expect it too? How is Sox Machine preparing for 2025? Too early to think about it?
-- AS CIRENSICA
The team has had three double-digit losing streaks as well as not having a top ten pick this upcoming draft. Is there light at the end of the tunnel for this team? Can you convince a fan of some positives to look forward to?
-- LIL YUMPER
James: I firmly believe they will not set new benchmarks for futility in a sports league that has existed for roughly 150 years, in back-to-back seasons.
Barring weird trades, you probably see a healthy amount of Bryan Ramos, Edgar Quero and Colson Montgomery playing in Chicago in 2025. That alongside hopefully full years of Jonathan Cannon, Drew Thorpe, Davis Martin, some more Sean Burke and Jairo Iriarte, and the possibility of Noah Schultz’s debut should provide a team that isn’t good, but is easier to find purpose in watching. With Prelander Berroa looking better, Peyton Pallette on his way, there might even people worth monitoring in the bullpen.
Jim: I think it's worth considering how different a White Sox team could feel without Eloy Jiménez, Yoán Moncada and Luis Robert Jr., assuming the last one is traded. That's not to say it will be better, but it's worth keeping an open mind to see how Chris Getz responds to an unprecedented (for him) lack of obligations before firming up a mindset about 2025.
Even though the Sox probably shouldn’t have hired him, some of the infrastructure changes Getz has implemented seem to be positive. Hiring Bannister, empowering the amateur scouting team, the pending overhaul of international scouting, etc. How should we balance the foundational changes being made with the complete major league failure? Has he shown a basic level of competency by trying to modernize this archaic organization?
-- STEVE G.
Also how has his injury prevention and training updates shown improvement? I know he harped on offseason accountability in his opening press conference but that didn’t seem to work, but what will be in place to prevent all these recent injuries?
-- MUHAMMAD D.
Jim: When I want to be more excited by Getz's potential, I try to picture a guy who held a position that was important enough to be involved in big conversations, but with too many layers above him to have real say in anything transformative. He's seeing what other teams are doing, he's coming across people he wants to give more autonomy to, but he can't really do anything about it.
That may or may not be true, but the changes you cited do paint a certain picture. I'm still not certain whether Ethan Katz is a good pitching coach, but if he was tasked with modernizing the entire pitching operation while running the day-to-day operations of the MLB staff, then the hiring of Bannister takes things off his plate. Likewise, emphasizing the importance of acquiring international talent and parting ways with Marco Paddy shows him identifying and reacting to a problem the previous administration didn't prioritize.
What limits my enthusiasm for that particular standpoint is talent evaluation. His trades for high-minors/MLB-ready talent – Dominic Fletcher, Prelander Berroa, Zach DeLoach, Miguel Vargas – have produced weak returns, and Drew Thorpe's injury clouds the picture for the Dylan Cease trade. When he's girding his loins for dealing Garrett Crochet and/or Luis Robert Jr. in the offseason, I'm prepared to be disappointed by the returns. Hahn was pretty successful at acquiring exciting players and packages from players who had to be dealt, which is the only reason I wish he were still in the chair.
Regarding injuries, the White Sox have an ordinary health record this year outside of the usual suspects, and just about every key prospect has played a full season this season besides Grant Taylor. It's possible they've already turned the corner.
Do you have any thoughts on Ken Rosenthal's Athletic article about how there are team owners that seem content to be bad because they still make profits?Should we hope that new ownership would deviate from this or is it more like the Megamind clip where there is no savior--just a change in management?
-- JUSTIN D.
Who would be an ideal owner for this club and why haven’t any of the silent owners staged a coup to make this org competent?
-- MUHAMMAD D.
James: It feels a little far-fetched for me to speculate on whether the One Good Billionaire might own the Sox one day, or why part-owners would rebel against a profit-making organization. But for me the ideal owner is always a non-meddler. If not for that their ideas are usually bad, but because they muddy up the chain of accountability and our ability to assess and judge the progress of the plan for the team. Seemingly half these questions are asking about tracking down clues if Chris Getz is good at his job or not, and the specter of the influence of ownership on baseball decisions is the cause of that confusion.
Jim: The entire White Sox board of directors is about the same age as Reinsdorf, give or take a decade. Any changes of the way the White Sox are run will be incremental until they aren't.
I am hoping you can answer my wife’s question:
W: you are watching the Sox ?
Me: yep
W: are they winning?
M: Nope
W: what’s the score?
M: 12-0
W: inning?
M: 5th
W: Can they come back?
M: Nope
W: why is it that you have watched 3x as many Sox games this year when they are so historically bad, than over the past 3/years combined ?
M: I dunno know. I’ll ask Jim, Josh and James if they know.-- MARK
James: In every year of doing this, baseball has revealed itself to be containing another level of complexity, another layer of the competition that’s swinging the balance of small moments. It helps that the sport is constantly evolving, but every game feels like it offers more to learn, so I’ll miss watching it everyday when it’s gone.
But why you’d watch this Sox season more than others? I don’t know man. Maybe you got something weird going on.
Jim: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." "Then don't do that." But you keep doing it, don't you?
Are you interested in absorbing the experience for posterity? There's value if you get a "Grandpa, what was it like..." question, and you can answer it with clear and convincing details of things the record won't show, just like the Onion op-ed foretold.
How will you think about setting the $ number for the off-season plan project? If they trade Robert, could the payroll be lower then the current A's payroll of $62M?
-- GAR RIDGE
Jim: Over the last 20 years, a full-season White Sox payroll has never been lower than $71 million, so I'd expect them to run one level above the true skinflints of the league. I tend to set the payroll limit a little higher than what's likely because 1) I'm mostly interested in seeing what people think is possible, and more money = more possibilities, and 2) I don't like encouraging the White Sox to spend less, so it will be nine figures. I hope the White Sox will say the same.
James: I’d mostly think in terms of not assuming Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez coming off the books will result in similar AAVs replacing them.
They can acquire a slate of 1 WAR-level depth and cheap upside plays to give a professional sheen to a roster with more prospect muscle, while still maintaining some sobering factoid like Andrew Benintendi being tied for the highest salary on the team.
What do you make of “The 78” property getting baseball field and sod put on it over the last week or so? Is Jerry going to do something right before he’s done with the Sox and buy his own stadium?
-- KEVIN P.
What happens first: The White Sox play a game in the ALDS or the White Sox play a home game in a new stadium?
-- MARK H.
Jim: I called it the stadium equivalent of a dick pic on the podcast, and the White Sox enhancing the landscape only reinforces the notion. My out-of-town-stupid take is that they're going to keep texting "u up?" to city and state leaders to be in position to take advantage of any kind of panic refinancing of the Soldier Field debt. I don't see Reinsdorf budging toward paying a more significant amount for a stadium himself because benevolence has never been his thing.
As for the latter question, they'll play a home game in a new stadium first, because postseason expansion creep will require a series victory before the ALDS, and the White Sox only win a postseason series once every 88 years. Even though I think Guaranteed Rate Field doesn't need to be demolished now, it probably won't be worth saving come 2090.
James: I’m summoning every romantic bone in my body to imagine some sort of magical run to the ALDS in 2028-29.
Do you think Jerry is trolling us? Does he want the team to be bad to have an excuse to move the team? This "diamond in the south loop" makes me wonder if Jerry doth protest too much.
-- ROCK_BEATS_PAPR
What would Sox Machine do if the Sox relocate to a different city?
-- PAT MCNALLY
Jim: If White Sox relocated to Nashville, I'd do the same thing I've been doing, except I'd live 10-20 minutes away from the ballpark, assuming they chose one of the two (highly speculative) sites. It'd benefit me immensely on a personal level, but I neither care to see it nor see anything beyond a remote possibility of it on either side of the equation.
Referencing the question about the ownership structure above, I think that's giving Reinsdorf too much credit. He likes being an important person in baseball even though he's bad at the baseball stuff, he likes making money without spending it, and he's insulated himself from most criticism. When you put it that way, it's easy to understand why he is what he is.
James: I’m not sure what I’d do if my childhood team that made me fall in love with baseball left the side of town that I grew up in, but I know I’d be tremendously emo about it.
