WestEddy

Thanks. Had Boise on the mind, and wasn't thinking. Had you ever come across this in your writings? One of those weird things where I'm amazed I never heard of it.

When researching the MLB amateur draft on Baseball-Reference, I'd always run into Bend, Boise and Miami on the franchise list. I never really gave it a thought, figuring it was some leftover place-holder when the site was being created, or something. Turns out, independent minor league teams used to be able to participate in the Rule 4 draft. Only 4 teams ever took advantage of this. I ran into Bend's draft picks while looking at the White Sox 1971 draft, where they took Bill Sharp in the 2nd round, instead of George Brett or Mike Schmidt. (Some things never change.) Turns out, Hawaii was trying to become an expansion franchise, and started building a team ahead of the next round of expansion. Hawaii contracted an independent team in Bend, Oregon to be their minor league franchise. The following is a SABR article some here might find interesting. https://sabr.org/research/article/the-next-pick-goes-to-the-miami-miracle-independent-minor-league-teams-in-the-amateur-baseball-draft/ Sorry is this seems way off what the focus of the board is. Please feel free to delete. It is baseball related, and I'm being driven nuts by refreshing MLB Trade Rumors.com, SoxTalk and Twitter. I figured somebody else might want a break.

I hope he makes his "come to the White Sox, Cuban prospect" video before he leaves.

Wouldn't open for me unless I truncated:

They had Kendall Graveman on the roster, who was a closer with Seattle. At some point, the players have to produce. I wouldn't have wanted Chapman on this team.

There weren't strong rumors of Cubs interest. More local reporters surmising that the Cubs were a good fit for Cease. The Yankees missing out on Imanaga ups the stakes for the Yanks if they miss out on Monty, Snell and Cease.

There's a couple of qualifiers in there. At least you were nice about it.

Yeah, 10-15 starts, then move to the bullpen. Or pair with another arm to go through he batting order once.

Bannister's found the cheat code for Flexen.

Weren't they also talking about pairing him up with Kopech? Each guy can pitch 3-4 innings of a game.

So he doesn't have a lot of mileage on that arm. I choose to see that as a positive.

He put up 0.7 bWAR when he was settled in for the long haul in St. Louis. Have you ever picked up and moved to Toronto, and then tried to put up positive WAR? They were probably mean to him, too. Made him self-conscious. And San Francisco's so expensive, DeJong probably had to live on the street, too. Putting on a White Sox uniform adds half a win, anyway.

Getz is approaching the season accepting that Crochet is getting stretched out to start. I would take 10-15 starts from Crochet as a huge positive. Davis Martin, Mena, Nastrini - somebody will be ready to step in when Crochet's innings are limited.

As I said in the Cease rumor thread, I like a rotation of Cease, Fedde, Kopech, Crochet and Soroka. If Cease leaves, there's 5-6 guys to shuffle through for a 5th man. I actually haven't felt this settled about an off-season in a while. At least now, the dumpster dives make sense. They're happening in context. We'll have positive WAR SS and 2B. If they pick up a RF, a few guys regress to the mean, I can actually see them challenging for a .500 record.

So, as it stands right now, your rotation is Cease, Fedde, Kopech, Crochet and Soroka. Toussant probably makes the bullpen, you have Shuster, Scholtens, Flexen and Kuhl behind them, and Mena, Nastrini, Sean Burke and Jonathan Stiever in AA or AAA. Davis Martin probably comes back 2nd half. That isn't horrible rotational depth, if there's a plan to nurture soroka, flexen and kuhl. Martin replaces Cease if he's traded at the deadline, and they have enough guys for a revolving door in the 4 and 5 spots. Get a RF, and I can see a .500 team if I squint.

I told Sports Dude he was a slightly younger Nicky Lopez to get a rise. He didn't take the bait. I guess he has so much other bait to take, his hands were full.

That Kevan Smith is 4th highest WAR for White Sox 7th rounders who signed and made the majors, behind Tyler Saladino (2010 - 2.5 bWAR), Mike Trujillo (1982 - 0.5 bWAR), and Bruce Kimm (1969 - 0.3 bWAR). Jordan Danks (2008 - [minus]0.3 bWAR] was also a 7th rounder. Good luck to George Wolkow (2023), Mark McLaughlin (2022), and Caberea Weaver (2018), the only White Sox 7th rounders still in the system. It would be nice if White Sox 7th rounders got together every 5 years, or so, and talked about life in baseball.

Imanaga to the Giants is one of those "best case scenarios" for the Cease market, right?

Dude rakes in AAA (.286/.355/.534 - lifetime AAA). Major leagues? Not so much.

Or you worked a job, had a small handful of people you trusted in a shitty workplace, and want their special skills. It's called networking. Everybody does it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Again, there's ex-Royals' guys all over the league. I guess every team is going to lose 100 games this year. Because they hired their accountant.

I trust that Getz is trying to change the culture here. I also trust that there might be key people he worked with in KC who recognizes were good at their jobs, and he thinks they could be a step up, here. I don't think that Getz locks eyes with a person who worked at KC, they turn into zombies and start droning, "Must fail!! Must fail!!" I'm sure these guys also tell people in their life they're implementing workflow and skills from other jobs that improve the new place. Again, it's like we're pretending that anybody who ever worked at Sears or Kmart should never work again. They bring fail along with them.

Good luck with "being close to family" in the Northeast. Eat lobster, go watch the tidal bore in Nova Scotia, enjoy the fall colours in New Brunswick. Read Evangeline on a snowy night. Make sure you pahk your cah correctly. Thank you for leaving.

I wonder if the people who complain about the Royal hires ever worked for a garbage company. Do you now consider yourself unemployable because you worked under a shady or incompetent boss? Like, when you were 24, your boss was a spaz, and a bad manager. Do you ask prospective employers to take into mind that you were trained to fail when you interview? I think the complainers should post their resumes and highlight the part that asks to be paid the minimum allowable because you will inevitably fail at your job, and put all the wrong procedures into place at their company.

Those two being Carlos Jorge and Sammy Stafura, neither of whom have made anybody's top 100 list. Jorge is at a-ball, so he has room to grow. Stafura just had a meh year in 12 games of rookie ball, so I wouldn't really call him "fringe top 100". At some point, I think there's going to be 4 pages of arguments over the meaning of the word "is".

This is Wong's description of his own responsibilities with the Royals from his LinkedIn page. Do with it what you will.