WestEddy

I guess my point was not that "Yes, Lux can be had for slot space", more that - "I wouldn't give anything of value beyond slot space for Lux." He's a 2-win shortstop who's in arbitration.

You're not making any case for anything by quoting arbitrary ranking numbers. And you're not disproving that the Sox ~$850k in slot space can bring back a similar legitimate prospect. You seem to feel that unless a minor league player is ranked #1 in the game, they're worthless, which is silly.

Not sure what your point is. Aldrin Batista is a legitimate prospect, regardless of ranking. He was acquired for international slot money.

A team has 14 starting slots to fill - 9 offensive players, and 5 rotational starters. A contending team has to at least get close to that 14. Maybe they can carry a light-hitting 2B, or do 5th starter by committee. Effective platoons certainly help. The 2004 White Sox started out with about 8 of those set - Konerko, Uribe, Crede, Lee, Rowand, Buehrle, Garland and Thomas/Everett. They added Garcia and Contreras at the TDL, and swapped out Podsednik for Lee in the offseason. Then, they added Pierzynski, Iguchi and Dye. That's 13 of 14 starting slots they had filled with legitimate major leaguers. (Argue about Pods and Uribe, if you want) This team starts out with Crochet, Robert, ... maybe a healthy Benintendi.... Cannon & Thorpe? 4-5 legitimate major league starters. Signing and keeping Crochet doesn't get you any closer to that 14, especially when you have 3 studs coming along, any one of which could replace his production among those 14.

They got Aldrin Batista and Maximo Martinez for $1 million in slot money.

I could see the White Sox trading their $850K international slot space so somebody could sign Sasaki. It it were the Dodgers, I could see that return being an A-ball position player/rotation arm PLUS Gavin Lux. The only reason for these nonsense "trades" (crochet + benintendi, robert for garbage) is that Reinsdorf is selling the team by the end of the year, and wants payroll cleared, which still only makes sense in the realm of a couple commenters saying that could be what JR selling looks like.

I use that shorthand for him. My way of honoring Montgomery "Monty" Clift.

Actually, no it isn't. You build around a group of cheap, young talent with 6 years of control. Not one pitcher who is an expensive, young talent with 2 years of control. Every rebuild begins with the amassing of young, cheap, controllable talent, not one great pitcher with 2 years of control. The White Sox don't even have a collection of studly prospects. Monty, Ramos and Quero look like they could top out at slightly above average ML talent. Nobody looks like a perennial All-Star.

How are we pretending that a young pitcher is worthless after TJS? You're also going with the premise that a pitcher as good as Crochet will never come along, again. We're trying to promote enough good pitching in their first 5 years of control so they can add larger contracts to a cheap base. I believe that when the Sox have developed and assembled a competitive base, they will spend the money (as you have shown) to add to it. They've only done so ill-advisedly under Hahn/KW. Maybe Getz will do a better job spreading that money around.

Pretending they don't trade Crochet, 4 of the 5 projected 2025 rotational starters were drafted and developed by the White Sox.

Nobody's going to sniff 300 triples, either. The game changes. Gossage was a p**** who couldn't start 41 games and throw 360 innings a year. He's nobody to talk.

The Hall of Fame isn't just about counting stats. Don Sutton got in through his 300 Wins and 3000 Strikeouts, and he was a pretty ordinary "good" pitcher for 23 years. He wasn't one of the greats. Cy Youngs and annual counting stat, top 10 finishes are a good place to start for pitchers. And you keep talking about "5-inning wonders". Most of the top pitchers in the game regularly go 6-7 innings in most of their starts.

Renamed "The No-p*****s Award".

Also keeping in mind that we're really firing on half our cylinders in amateur acquisition - international will take a few years to get cooking, if all goes right. Quero/Monty/Hagen/Schultz/Taylor all have to hit (at least as league average regulars), or we're really at zero.

I'm 61, how old are you? Sure. I don't think 81-85 wins is out of the question by 2026. I meant making the playoffs, and looking like they could be a factor. Having 7+ starting offensive pieces. Full rotation with no question marks. The richest person on Earth could buy the White Sox, and they're not signing the top 3 agents for the next 3 years. This is year zero. They have 3 stud pitchers in the minors. They have 4 nice rotation pieces on the ML team. Maybe they have 3 positional starters in the organization right now.

We keep bringing up ownership, and I really don't think that even enters into it. If the greatest team owner in history bought the White Sox tonight, they're not going to be "competitive" before.... what, 2028-2029? So we sign Crochet for 6 years, and we'll be competitive for his last 3 because no other good pitchers will ever come along? I've been bullish on Crochet coming back from injury, being fine, physically, and doing well, all along. I do think it would be a bit foolish to re-up him for most of the next decade until we see him barrel through most of 2025 without incident.

Shewmake injured his ankle in spring training, and was supposed to miss opening day. He came back miraculously quick. Maybe it just gave out in June, and that was it.

Personally, the game went to hell for me when ballparks put up outfield walls, and killed the triple.

And there will never be Cy Young awards given, again. Everyone will just lay on the ground and cry at awards time.

This seems to be piecemeal. They doing this to grab some other waiver dudes, or are they keeping the rest of the arb-eligible players?

Didn't watch, yet, but: The investment in the greatest players on Earth is such that you can't just grind them down, throwing them 350 innings a season. In the age of increased tech, discovering spin rates, bat speed, EV and such is inevitable. That data has to be made available to the most competitive players on Earth to keep up with each other. Unless you want the accessibility of MLB to rival Australian Rules Football, or Scottish Shin Kicking championships, enough entities have to be making enough money off of it for baseball to cut through the fog of entertainment options, and make itself easily accessible to you. In doing that, teams have to create efficiencies to keep the best players on the field, and maintain a modicum of competitive balance.

The Dodgers used 40 pitchers, this last season. They even ran Yohan Ramirez out there 27 times. Everybody grabs up guys like this. The Sox can probably promise more of a longer look with him.

Fukudome wanted to be a team's first Japanese player. Yeah, he would be a good signing.

If Sasaki becomes available under the 2024 period, the Sox would have to make multiple trades to for slot space to get to a competitive number. The biggest problem with Marco Paddy's folly is that we don't have a bunch of Aldrin Batistas we could trade and not miss.

From an AP article on remain pool money - 11/9: https://apnews.com/sports/mlb-2024-remaining-international-signing-bonus-allotment-list-5de31a9831cd49ca46077cf98d031890