The White Sox had a chance to prove their commitment to winning to their fans this offseason, and instead got double-upped by the San Diego Padres.
The White Sox ownership and front office had one last chance to prove themselves to their fans. They did not even try.
For the White Sox to turn things around for their so-called “rebuild” they needed to acquire either Manny Machado or Bryce Harper. Instead, they will get neither of them, and they don’t have an excuse other than greedy ownership and front office ineptitude, and those, of course, are not excuses.
The White Sox have not done a lot right this decade. They haven’t signed the right players, made the right trades, or drafted well at all. They haven’t hired the right managers and don’t seem to get player development, or really anything right. But they had one chance this off-season to fix that and make it up to their fans and they completely blew it.
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The San Diego Padres understood this, and gave Machado the $300 million that was necessary to get him. The White Sox, for some reason (most likely the greed of owner Jerry Reinsdorf), think they cannot offer any player more than $250 million or include an opt-out in the contract (which is basically standard for these kinds of contracts at this point). Have fun adding no one good with that strategy!
The Padres have a losing tradition and have never won a World Series championship, but they at least understood that they needed to make things up to their fans, and boy did they ever. Not only have they added Machado this year, but they also added Eric Hosmer last year, and have the top-ranked farm system in baseball.
The Sox, despite years of tanking and trading several good players away in their prime, rank below them. The Padres are what the White Sox think they are, and up until recently many of their fans thought they were too. Best of all for them, there are some reports that the Padres are not even out on Harper after signing Machado. They are in it to win it and are willing to sign BOTH players, and not merely one or the other. Simply put, the Padres get it, and the Sox do not.
The Sox, on the other hand, have amazingly not had a 90-win season since 2006, something only the pitiful Seattle Mariners and Miami Marlins can say, yet they have done nothing necessary to turn things around. How is a team in such a big and great city the third most pathetic franchise in baseball? The fact is that the owner is not trying, nor does he care. When it comes to showing up to games, White Sox fans should not either.