I can endure a lot as a sports fan, but the White Sox have broken me. Trading away Chris Sale for nothing is just too much. The return on a future HOF pitcher has been reduced to what we hope and pray we can get out of Luis Basabe. The Eaton trade is really not much better. I had no problems with dealing those guys, I was very publicly down on Sale, but they were still stars for the Sox. To get absolutely nothing for them is crazy.

And its beyond getting nothing for them really. Its almost more that what they got for them was so poorly developed and carelessly handled in such a prescribed way that took no interest in what approach each individual player called for that bothers me. The Sox by rule seem to never let anyone skip a level anymore. The Sox by rule keep guys for an entire season at Charlotte. The Sox come up with an innings number preseason and dont stop until a guy has hit that number, even if like Kopech his velocity is cratering for no discernible reason.

Moncada is a bust no matter where he goes, that was just obviously stupid scouting and a case of Dombrowski tricking Hahn by slapping a BMW badge on a Chevy. But Giolito, Lopez, Kopech and Dunning all had real potential to be stars. Now they're all either injured or on their last chance to play well enough to stay in MLB. They could have endured the Moncada problem if they had made the right decisions with the pitchers. But issues like player control, and perception, and what it would look like to other minor leaguers crept into their minds and clouded whatever trace amounts of baseball judgment they had to begin with. The end result is: they have no idea what they are doing from a development standpoint. Hahn did a decent enough job bringing in a lot of young talent to the minors but the way in which they have squandered very nearly ALL of that talent is...I cant even think about it.

I'm done.

Thank god for 2005.