Media, "Dusty, why are you laughing?"

Dusty, "Because the White Sox provided 3 games of batting practice. I gave my players game 3 off to mess with the South Side losers hope and now we are ready to play a real team and go to the World Series!"

McCullers sure looked like an ACE this series.

Free Agency is the only option for the Sox. So much for those "Waves of Talent".

Funny, hearing how they are 1 year away and just one big signing away from a World Series. What happened to all the aces on the South Side. Keuchel and Lynn, Cease and Gio future Cy youngs in the waiting. Where was the big bats everyone boasted about when they played teams like DET, KC, MINN and CLE?

Jerry is not going to break the bank and sign an ACE. Never has and never will.

Nope they are doomed.

Sox fans, do not listen to this man.
https://chicagofanatics.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=117827&p=3239946&hilit=cubs+playoffs#p3239946

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I agree Giolito is the best pitcher we have. Now what? How do you get Cease to GO HARD? Both pitching coaches have told him this but he still mickey mouses around. The only mickey mousing he should be doing is putting guys on their ass when need be.

Well if Jerry is known for one thing it is spending a ton on free agents.

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Particularly pitchers.

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They started two rookies in these playoffs, who went 6-14.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

He wasn't known for tanking either before they stole the Theo plan.

If they are serious about winning the World Series they will be major players in free agency to see how it goes the next few years.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

No one is saying the Sox aren't good. But certain things that are both in their control and not in their control are lacking for a push in October that isn't simply "getting hot".

The Theo plan calls for actually winning a playoff series and eventually the WS..fyi.

Bob seems to think that trolling is simply saying something stupid and then being refuted in embarrassing fashion

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Is Grandal still their biggest signing ever, at $73m?

For his swan song, maybe he'll pull an Albert Belle out of his hat again. He still has all that Machado money, right?

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100% this.

The White Sox pissed the bed for the second playoff series in a row. Maybe the Astros being more seasoned helped them, I don't know. But they took advantage of every break the Sox game them and every mistake the Sox made. That is what Championship level teams do. They play their best when the spotlight is the brightest.

The Sox have a ton of talent, but there needs to be some serious soul searching this offseason. Lynn, Giolito, Cease have to get thru at least 5 in the playoffs. Abreu, Moncada, Eloy ALL need to be better in the playoffs. Every single one of them. As MANY times as Robert and Anderson got on base, they had zero extra base hits between them. Moncanda, 0 HR 0 RBI. Robert 0 HR 1 RBI. Eloy, Abreu, 0 HR. Maybe the OB% was good, but the production was not good enough to win.

The Astros aren't vastly more talented than the Sox. Anybody who says otherwise is a dumbfuck. The Astros executed almost flawlessly, and it seemed that every time they had 2 outs with a RISP, they got a hit. Every time the Sox gave them a walk, they pushed that guy across the plate. They played better in almost every facet of the game. The Sox hardly did anything right.

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but it does refute Bob My Knob's point that yet another wave of talent didn't come crashing in

Obviously adjustments have to be made. The bottom three in the order, while actually producing at times in these playoffs, was not championship quality.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

In the end, I'm sure I'd be thrilled with a big money RF signing. However, given the fact the huge spending isn't typical for this team, seems like using whatever the budget is to go after starting pitching makes more sense. Give RF to Sheets/Vaughn combo and hope?

The "waves" of talent that crashed in, the best they could is a team that gets bitch slapped by the Astros in the playoffs. You need more talent to make the next jump. And it will have to be via FA. Good luck.

The "best they could get" is a 93 win Division winning club in which the starting slugging LF, the starting Gold Glove MVP caliber CF missed 100 games a piece, the starting catcher who hit a homerun nearly half the time he got a hit missed 40 games, and their starting second baseman was lost for the season in early June.

There are a thousand things to troll Sox fans about, and Bob still falls flat on his face all while the Champagne that the Astros popped to celebrate is still cold.

You have to try to be that fucking stupid

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The starting LF is a china doll. He was a china doll in the Cubs organization, probably why they included him in a trade. You can't say "oh poor us, Eloy got hurt" that's what he does at this point.

Can and will.

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I blame Covid for that response.

This is a good, well thought out post but I take issue with the bolded. As shown this year, as bumslayers and the shitting of the bed in the playoffs, they have a ton of POTENTIAL talent. This is Houston's 5th straight ALCS and it not on accident. They do all the little things, including cheating. Talent HAS to be realized. It is NOT theoretical.

Dumbfuck, it is because THEY ARE MORE TALENTED! Keep drinking the cool aid.

The Astros are very good.

The Sox are very talented but didn’t play well. Sox pitching needs an upgrade at the top of the rotation

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Objectively, I don't think that's true. Houston had a better lineup. Their top echelon batters went seven deep while the Sox only went six. The Sox had better pitching but it was all beat up at the time of this series. That's the way it goes. Staying healthy matters and if you're going to win you have to have some luck when it comes to staying healthy. To be truthful, it's amazing the Sox ran as far as they did considering all the injuries they had this season.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

And that's why I said most of the Sox players need to take a serious look at themselves in the mirror this offseason. Ricky was made the scapegoat last year, and he fucked up the last week of the season and game 3 so fair enough. This year the Sox won as many playoff games with their new manager as they did with Ricky.

Neither manager was perfect, but Sox have to play better in October. The Sox have to strive to get homefield for at least the first round of next year's playoffs. It's that simple really.

Houston is a better ballclub, but the talent gap between them and the White Sox is not incredibly large. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a dumbfuck and given the replies here from Juiced and Bob, I'd say my comment is 100% on the money.

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That's yet to be determined. They are in a division where 2nd place was 80-82 and where they played these teams for damn near half their schedule.