WhiteSox2023

Our fearless leader Grifol promised to clean all of that up last year. Surely he will get the job done this year.

Hahn actually hit on one of his few expensive relievers. Golf claps for Rick. But keep pretending like there is no difference in signing a Machado or Harper and signing a Graveman.

If the last 20 years of results from this Reinsdorf-owned team gives you any hope, more power to you. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/index.shtml

Yeah, he was actually good. It’s too bad the trade return for him looks so bad now. They couldn’t even trust Korey Lee to be a backup catcher apparently.

And why are you just assuming that their lesser known replacements in the bullpen for 2024 will be any better? Grandal was replaced with a 37 year old catcher in Maldonado that couldn’t defend or hit last year and that the Astros chose not to bring back. They also added a catcher that didn’t even play last year in Stassi, so who knows what to expect from him. They also brought in DeJong and Lopez who were backups elsewhere because they can’t hit at all. 20% of last year’s crappy core replaced by more crap is still crap.

Colson Montgomery and crew? Montgomery is probably the only prospect the Sox have that is close to being a “sure thing” major leaguer in the Sox entire farm system.

The Sox had their best chance in years and managed to blow it. We also saw what Reinsdorf did to contribute to this implosion (TLR, no top free agents, terrible mid-level FA signings, same cheap dumpster diving, etc.). There has been no signs of anything changing this offseason either. Nothing will truly improve until he is gone.

Many of Getz’s additions on the defensive side are of the one year variety. What happens in 2025 when those guys are gone? When Cease is gone and Getz didn’t work a better return than the Sale trade? If the collection of pitchers Getz acquired don’t all mostly pan out? Any incremental improvement next year doesn’t automatically mean it will carry over into 2025. Even if it somehow does, the team’s owner will simply refuse to spend the money required to further improve the team when and if the time actually comes.

Agreed, I still think the Sox are gonna suck hard regardless.

Once the Sox proved to be terrible last year, I couldn’t stomach watching many games. Was his defense that bad in RF or was it mostly his fundamentals? I remember he was supposed to have a great arm but didn’t understand the concept of throwing to the cutoff man.

Sure, they’ll be better. They’ll lose 90 games instead of 101. 11 win improvement! ?

I don't remember any trade offer rumors for Quintana either. I just remember KatyPerrysBootyHole getting the snub on breaking the news. Chuck only mentioned wetbutt23. https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/fTkpckR0H6

This was also Quintana’s contract when he was traded. The Cubs kept him for all 3.5 years, from July 2017 through his second team option for the 2020 season. I remember Quintana having a ton of value due to his multiple years of cheap control. 17:$6M, 18:$8.35M, 19:$10.5M club option ($1M buyout),20:$10.5M club option ($1M buyout) The best part of the trade at the time was that two posters on Reddit broke the trade, and they both had hilarious names that were published in ESPN, SI, etc. articles. https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2017/07/13/jose-quintana-trade-white-sox-reddit Good ol "KatyPerrysBootyHole" and "wetbutt23". ?

Seems to me the Sox are probably done making any multi-million dollar one year free agent signings, outside of picking up guys on very cheap or minor league deals. If Cease isn’t traded with an OF coming back, I don’t see who is reasonably solving RF outside of Colas. Also, the rotation is still likely to be terrible even with Cease in it.

Hicks did start 8 games for the Cardinals in 2022 but he didn’t fare very well, which is why they probably kept him as a reliever. He walked the world in a small sample size, but it is what it is. Failed starters become relievers.

Other than Clevinger, he might be the only other free agent pitcher that the Orioles could reasonably afford with their payroll. I think I heard Heyman also mention Hyun Jin Ryu as an option after Paxton.

That’s why Heyman gets paid the big bucks. ?

He’s going to walk the world.

You guys have bigger balls than I do. I wonder if Getz has the stomach to do this. There is still time to make a deal and it could even happen in Spring Training if some contending team’s starting pitcher gets injured during ST. I still can’t imagine Getz having Cease start on opening day.

Basically, the Orioles need a good cheap starter like Cease more than the Sox need to only trade him to the Orioles. There are other teams to deal Cease to and if the offers truly aren’t good enough right now, they can still hang on to Cease until the trade deadline (even though I don’t agree at all with this strategy primarily due to the risk of injury). How many other realistic starter options are there for the Orioles that don’t have much money to spend but a glut of prospects (and some redundancy) to trade?

I thought it was that the Orioles have a bigger advantage with Cease’s salary compared to other teams. But everything is relative based on each team’s payroll. It may be a huge deal to the Orioles cuz their owner won’t allow them to add much payroll but the additional tax hikes on Cease’s salary wouldn’t really matter too much to larger payroll teams like the Yankees and Dodgers.

The Eaton trade is probably the best trade Hahn ever made, and would probably go on the list of best Sox trades in history. I think most Sox fans would agree. But he also made some absolutely awful trades and was one of the worst GM’s in free agency. One great trade does not overcome his overall failures.

Good luck. You are going to be crapping your pants every time Cease has a funky finish to his delivery coming off the mound. ?

Those sources may not be exact, and I wouldn’t be surprised if posters’ payroll numbers on here were more accurate. I knew the Sox payroll was pretty high the past two years (especially 2022), but I didn’t think it ever got that close to $230-$233 million. That is pretty high and yet 8 teams were willing to eat the LT penalty. Pretty nuts.

Couldn’t two things be possible — either Getz is asking for too much or other teams aren’t offering enough? I mean, the Yankees supposedly wouldn’t even include Spencer Jones (#73 overall) in a trade for Cease, when they already have Jasson Dominguez. Is Jones really too high of an ask as the frontlining prospect in a trade for Cease? I don’t think so.