nrockway

Maybe they're gonna let him hit

I’m not super impressed by “clever” people who find loopholes and make a mockery of whatever system they’re involved in; in this case, professional sports. The MLB’s biggest fault IMO is how laissez-unfaire the financial system is, the deferrals just shines another light on how dumb and unregulated it is. Friedman seemed to do better work in Tampa Bay and they’re also in great shape after he left. That’s a good organization. They mention the Lightning too, an organization that made Yzerman look like a genius; now he looks like a fool being in charge of a historically excellent team. The organizations themselves are solid irrespective of the boss. I don’t think that’s true of the Dodgers as of late, they win because all the good players want to play there and LAD has an unlimited budget. None of this is to say the White Sox are competent or any Chicago team, I just question the methodology of the article. One time we used an analytic hierarchy process model to turn “professional” opinion into something quantifiable and the results were pretty good. New Dork Times should know how to conduct a survey, those con artists at the Athletic told me their publication was gonna be intellectual, what happened.

A 23-year-old 8th round, right-handed reliever that can’t throw strikes. I wonder why you’d select a guy like that to begin with. Who cares. This is only annoying because there are already 1000 pitchers on the team.

Most of these guys suck at baseball. You can do this for every team. It's not the second best front office in professional sports, that's absurd.

What does the current front office have to do with any of these players? I'm pretty sure Clayton Kershaw is old enough to be Friedman's daddy. Will Smith is the only player Friedman actually picked. He's the only one who was actually a useful player this season. Are the Dodgers ranked this way if they don't sign Betts, Freeman, Ohtani? Of course not and you can thank the city of Los Angeles for that, not a front office. Most of their recent prospects have busted or are in the process of busting. The Rays are more competent than the Dodgers, for example. This rating system is dumb and just some guys' "what have you done for me lately" opinions.

That #1 front office on that list traded James Harden entering his prime on a reasonable contract and couldn't win a championship with two future Hall of Famers also in their prime. In other words, lol, Presti is the most overrated GM in the NBA The Dodgers, the #2 (💩) team, are also not a particularly well-managed team, their impact players are free agents who like being paid a lot of money to live in the Hollywood Hills and be Hollywood as Hell. Is their GM "the angel", the namesake of LA? Don't think so, I think it's some guy that loves trading for White Sox pitchers because they can't develop any. When was the last time LAD developed a player that was any good? The only correct answer is the Green Bay Packers, don't need to use some pseudo-statistical method to reach that conclusion. Speaking of pseudo-statistical methods in journalism, I keep waiting for an article like this to be based on a survey created using some sort of multi-criteria decision analysis, it might actually be meaningful to ask these GMs (or whoever they're surveying) questions in a structured and rigorous way. PS didn't anyone tell you guys we're boycotting the NYT?

I think Fletcher can only be useful if he's an every day center fielder. Which I don't think he is. Low range, too short and too slow and I'm never going to forget him "oops"ing that easy out into a three-run home run. His bat is definitely not good enough to play in right field. Why have two non-sluggers in the corners? 80 grade TWTW I guess, can't teach that. Agree about Colas, he at least has the profile of a right fielder. Realistically Fletcher is probably a semi-useful bench player. Mena had a pretty good season but I think this trade is pretty much a wash. I bet Cannon could net an actually useful outfielder.

I can do that at the Lucky Horseshoe Lounge on Halsted and it's free and the drinks might be free. The Sox and Bananas could never. I might recommend a baseball theme night. Likely Cubs fans, unfortunately.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching umpires twerk to Mariah Carey as much as the next guy, it just gets a little old after the 10th time.

I feel like the bit is getting tired and they've run out of ideas. They can only milk the celebrity appearances and homoeroticism for so long. Don't have the staying power of the Globetrotters. Can't even dance. I think they're going to start a Barstool-esque network pretty soon.

is 'over 9000' an option? I vote "over 9000".

Santana gets $12mil, Goldschmidt $12.5mil. I'm still wondering why Brandon Belt didn't get any contract following a .858 OPS season.

what? like....what? have we been watching the same team? I'm glad you think he looks hot in the Sox uniform.

this is a good idiom, I will be fitting my rose-tinted glasses with jaundiced lenses. Merry Christmas, Sox fans.

Seems like a logical fallacy. Nevin isn’t the manager nor is he Tony la Russa. Every Sox player who played for him recently and speaks about him seems to admire him, read what Tim Anderson said about him for example. I’m not sure why you’re offended on the players’ behalf and treating them like children. I’m not sure what I’m “flexing” by saying that sometimes athletes get yelled at by their coaches and it isn’t a big deal. I’m a total wimp, I don’t raise my voice, I’m not “flexing”, but I am suggesting it works to motivate and if pro athletes are too sensitive, go work at Starbucks or whatever else they’re qualified to do. One can also clearly see the failure of past Sox staff to hold players accountable for their play and behavior. The previous hitting coach proudly said “the players do their own thing and we don’t interfere unless they ask”, like how well did that work? I also think posters are making up the temper thing. What do you know? Because he gets in umpires’ faces and scolded his team on camera once? This thread is bizarre.

I mean... it probably is a good idea lol. Certainly better than the hippie "do whatever you want, we don't care, have a nap" no accountability attitude the organization been had. How impressionable is a 22-year-old gonna be, are we worried Colson's gonna grow up and be like his daddy, Phil Nevin? Or that they'll crack if someone raises their voice at them? I'm nto sure why people are so up in arms about hiring a competent person to do a job they are probably overqualified for.

I'm of the thinking that the only actual shortstops are these glove first prospects, that the rest of them are third basemen/left fielders masquerading as shortstops for attention/minor league system value. He's 19 but you can see his floor pretty clearly. I guess a guy like that can turn out like Cristian Pache, but I'd also still give Pache a shot. He signed with the DBacks, fine by me, I watch them sometimes, but I was hoping it would be with the Sox, he could start in CF after a Robert trade or at least play a utility role. I'd rather have a glove-first player at SS/CF which is why I think Robert is such a special player and shouldn't be traded for low value players, he's a glove-first guy who can actually hit the ball occasionally. Pretty rare profile. Wanted Caba on the Sox if he was part of a Robert trade. Maybe not the main piece, but there are no true shortstops in the system to my knowledge...Montgomery and Bonemer are 3B and Gonzalez is a 2B if he even makes it out of the minors. I guess I like this trade for both teams, I think Luzardo is pretty good but had a tough 2024 + injuries, I would've thought MIA would've had to play him a little bit to show off his stuff, but Caba is a real nice get for them.

I was thinking that this guy was being super frank for someone who likes remaining employed. Really interesting listen though.

The ugly Sox should be looking to create guys Crochet and Sale and trade them away for youth, just like the White Sox did. In principle though, I agree, which is why I think they should probably trade Cannon and look to trade one or more of Martin, Adams, Iriarte, Thorpe, etc when the time is right. But in terms of which color Sox develops pitchers to trade, it doesn't really seem to debatable which team is better at it over the last decade or so. It's not that funny, they signed two lefties in Chapman and Wilson and are paying them a combined $12mil and Booser is probably not as good as them or nearly as well-compensated. If CBoozTheSock sucks, you lose a 17-year-old lottery ticket (extra lotto component is that he's a pitcher who doesn't throw 100mph), who cares. If CBooz is relatively good, he's under team control for a while and is more valuable to the White Sox than the teenager. The White Sox can afford the spot on the 40man, the Red Sox can't. Clearly it looks bad for the Red Sox if one of Wilson or Chapman performs worse than Booser. Wilson posted a 5.59 ERA last year, Chapman is up and down and old, it might end up looking pretty bad for them. They are a poorly run team, arguably worse than the White Sox, they just have, in theory, a giant budget.

I mean he was pretty good in the MLB last year. I was just pointing out it was goofy they'd suspend a guy that long for smoking pot and it probably factors into him finally getting a shot in his 30s. I don't think the trade was necessarily a good idea, but he seems like a cool dude and I like his grind to the MLB. I also don't really care about losing a 17-year-old pitcher I've never heard of. What are the odds of a guy like that making it past A ball, let alone posting a 3.38 ERA in MLB? It's not like he's another Tatis Jr., Tatis had hype when he was traded, I think most of us are just learning about this guy today and his, you know, pretty good DSL stats. I also tend to think the Sox pitching people know what they're doing and probably know more about either of these players than I do. My complaint is that some of the guys already in the organization should be getting a shot, don't really need to bring in more relievers. What are you going to trade him for? Those trades amounted to nothing last season, so unless Booser is as good as Fedde, I don't see the point.

I just heard that Roki is on a plane to Toronto where he will be eating dinner with Yu Darvish's wife, or buying her a Porsche or something.

https://www.milb.com/news/twins-cam-booser-yankees-matt-marsh-suspended-237457420#:~:text=the second time.-,Two Minor Leaguers will miss 50 games due to violations,abuse for the second time. seemingly derailed his MLB career (plus a back injury). as of 2019, MLB removed pot from its banned substances list.

I bet they try him as a starter, right? He has the pitch mix and it's his fastball that got touched up (though sits at 95mph) despite being projected as someone who "needs to work on his offspeed to be a starter". The offspeed stuff is OK. He hasn't looked very good in the majors and had more success as a reliever at AAA. But Cleveland is a competent organization so I imagine it's a little more than a salary dump and I think he gets some starts or otherwise acts as a swingman. I potentially like the trade for CLE more than for AZ. AZ is replacing Walker with Naylor which seems like a downgrade or at least a lateral move. They could've paid Walker $6m more AAV than Naylor and kept him. I liked the Gimenez trade too, Cleveland trades their guys at the right time, I don't think Naylor or Gimenez are going to play better baseball than they have going forward. Naylor kills the Sox, but he kinda sucks, his 162 game average WAR is 1.6. Eerily close batting numbers as Andrew Vaughn at more than twice the price.

Also once upon a time they suspended him 50 games for smoking weed. That probably is a PED for pitchers though.

all time favorite player. quite the character too. chas mccormick is his spiritual successor (sans baseball ability).