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Just now, TaylorStSox said:

He's also shown elite patience, he's already moved to A+ and he's 19. I like Law, but he's the king of hot takes in the baseball community. Keith Law really like attention. 

Your argument is way too close to Keith Law hates the White Sox. You have rejected his analysis to say that this guy is a hard worker because you don't like Keith Law. Bull.

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5 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Wouldn't it just suck if he's got a sore shoulder or elbow.

I'd call that Karma for Santos. 

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Just now, SoCalChiSox said:

Did the FO like funnel money to them or something?

I get it, a B- is fine. They got depth and the key 2 guys are A-ball players so there's some ceiling available. Cease wasn't good last year and wasn't worth all that much. B- is an acceptance of this being the best you could do with how bad Cease was last year and his unreliable career.

 

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Just now, TaylorStSox said:

Generally, it looks like Getz is taking a more fundamentally sound/high ceiling approach eg Thorpe and Zavala. I'm not going to complain about that. 

Keith Law literally said Zavala looks uninterested and sloppy.

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2 minutes ago, HoosierSox said:

Thorpe is the highest rated prospect, but this deal being good or bad hinges on Iriarte and Zavala hitting their ceiling. Thorpe is the safe prospect.

I don't think Thorpe is that safe at all. What do you consider safe, a #3/#4 innings eater? Thorpe may have a good shot at that, he threw 140 innings last year, that's fine. With that fastball you can't say he's safely an upper part of the rotation starter until he actually turns into one. But if he comes up and his control and off speed stuff doesn't play against big league hitters, his ceiling is out of the league in a couple years. How is a guy who is throwing under 90 in spring training safe?

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4 minutes ago, TaylorStSox said:

Cease doesn't throw a change up. Of course velocity is going to be more important for him. That doesn't say a lot about Drew Thorpe though. 

Neither does Kopech's control, but I didn't bring it up.

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4 minutes ago, baseball_gal_aly said:

I distinctly remember Santana sitting 93-94 at his best and topping out at 95

Also, 93.1 mph average in 2007 is very different than in 2024

 

HEre's Santana's 17 strikeout game, I saw 5 on fastballs. They were all between 92-95, with only 1 at 95. 

But yes, 93 in 2005 is 96 now.

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7 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

You would think after years of watching top prospect Kopech walk 5 batters per 9 innings, acquiring a top prospect that actually throws strikes and still gets a bunch of whiffs would be a positive thing. But nah, soxtalk says give me the guy that throws 100 but has no idea where the ball is going lol

You'd think after Dylan Cease dropped from an ERA of 2 to an ERA of 4.5 when his fastball dropped by less than 1 mph that Soxtalk would understand the importance of every single mph of one's fastball, but nah, Soxtalk says give me the guy who can't bring that fastball.

Equal and fair, right?

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2 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Fangraphs has their farm at #12 now. Quote the improvement in less than a year. Should be top 10 after the trade deadline with very little money committed to mlb payroll after this season. About as clean of a slate as you could ask for at the onset of a new rebuild.

Projecting what they will look like at the trade deadline depends on 2 things:

1. Development. If Eder has an ERA of 6 and a couple guys get hurt, this system is way worse. If Gonzalez makes no progress, they look a lot worse. If Schultz's arm limits him, they look way worse. If Montgomery has any injuries this year or looks like he did at AA last year, they look way worse.

2. MLB player accomplishments. As of right now they have 1 tradable piece in Robert. If Robert gets hurt, as he has each of the last 3 years, they have no major trade pieces. It is possible that someone like Fedde could turn into one, but I would not say at all they "Should be top 10". 

3. Who is called up early in the year? the last GM loved rushing guys and turning them into bullpen guys. Will this GM? If Nastrini is in the big leagues, or Thorpe is in the big leagues, this also affects system rankings.

They're going to add a draft pick who should slot into the back half of the top 100, but it's not a #1 pick. One or two injuries makes things look worse. 

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2 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Except they didn't get Snelling or Lesko either...all these teams involved in potential deals with Cease basically holding back their Top 4 prospects.

yeah, they took less overall because they wanted whatever pitching they could get.

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Just now, baseball_gal_aly said:

I'm not saying that it's impossible for Thorpe to have MLB success. 

Giolito did just that before getting traded from the Sox up with a 92 mph fastball and an elite changeup just last year. Idk when was the last time that has been sustained over a career though. Garland? 

I'm not able to judge his pluses or minuses based on his performance in the Yankees A-ball team, that's just too much of a stretch either way. What we have now is solid stats and peripherals, but clearly with a questionable fastball. How that translates is a big question, you could have a #2 guy or you could have a #6 guy.

Garland could ramp his 4 seamer up to the mid 90s. He just didn't pitch that way, he threw a low 90s sinker as his main pitch, aside from one fairly important game. 

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4 minutes ago, Jake said:

TBH, I don't care about the balance of pitching/hitting coming back in a trade like this. Just get the most value you can. Pitching is sort of easy in that you can never have too much but there's not enough guys locked into the lineup to worry about getting too much position player talent right now either. I'd just take whatever I can get.

It SURE feels like this was a deal you only make if the #1 thing you care about is ensuring pitching comes back.

[Grade the Cease trade]

15 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

At this stage, a B or C grade would be reasonable. Would like to hear from the A, D and F voters.

There are currently 0 A voters to hear from. 

For reference I was in with C. Better than I thought it would be at this time but unimpressive compared to holding him.

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Just now, PaleAleSox said:

That’s why I’m willing to give Getz a chance and roll my eyes at the “he was in charge of development” lines. He was given nothing to develop. 

I have no choice but to give him a chance because there's nothing I can do to change things, but the way things went down justifies skepticism until there is a substantial amount of evidence that I shouldn't be. 

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1 minute ago, Tnetennba said:

The GM acquired top end prospect talent then sat on his hands and hoped for the best. Never built even a second wave of talent or even average major league depth. Didn’t sign top FA talent, didn’t properly supplement. Nothing sustainable. The system was a barren wasteland after the top graduated. We are sifting through the aftermath today. 

I fully agree. I wanted him fired after 2013. 

That doesn't mean I automatically give credit to and express confidence in his replacement.

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5 minutes ago, TaylorStSox said:

I also don't give a s%*# who "won" the trade. I just want the White Sox to improve. 

It will take a lot of successful development for this to actually make the White Sox improve. Hard to insist that they just got better today.

They did get deeper.

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1 minute ago, Jake said:

Don't feel like digging it up but Law is down on Zavala, saying he got some negative reports on the kid's level of effort/focus and has gotten more worried about his propensity to whiff.

At least now we can say that Law hates the White Sox again.

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Just now, WestEddy said:

That development system turned a high school shortstop into a top ten in the game prospect. Ramos came out of no where. Pallette and the highly lauded (here) Mena were also developed from the ground up. I've got no problem with our development. 

"I've got no problem with our development" is a statement about the White Sox that is going to make me go grab the next whiskey. 

Mostly, you're talking about Hahn's work there, and that is some of the worst development possible. They took a clear loaded #1 system and turned it into a playoff appearance. The system produced 1 playoff appearance, broke down, then 2 years later produced a 61 win roster. It is hard to imagine worse development. 

The hope is that the guys who were just hired will be a significant improvement, particularly on the pitching front. But so far, this is totally hope. They could be the best ever, but skepticism is warranted.

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26 minutes ago, Chick Mercedes said:

Oh dear. The excitement for the deal hinges on Zavala having CF upside totally for me.

I don't have access to the pay stuff but found this from a year ago. 

Quote

Law wrote that Zavala has “absurd bat speed, rifling the bat through the zone with big hip rotation for hard contact and power, while he’s already shown unusual plate discipline for his age, especially when it comes to laying off pitches out of the zone. As a defender, he shows good instincts and routes, playing center so far more than right, but the odds are he’ll move to the corner in the long term. His combination of high-quality contact and excellent decisions at the plate point to a huge long-term upside, with the risk inherent in any (18-year-old) with only 411 career plate appearances to his name.”

 

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2 minutes ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

How many times were Kenny and Hahn wrong before they were fired?  JR has made countless dumb decisions but he isn’t going to fire himself.  If Grifol is still the Sox manager, I’m sure Getz has many years to prove himself, or his failure.

There's my problem. They are absolutely going all in on "we can develop all these guys into way more than they're worth right now". If 2 years from now they were wrong, this team looks like the 2020 Royals, 4th place, not all that good, and future 5th place finished coming, but likely with the same guys leading the way.

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4 minutes ago, Jake said:

Bold statement I know, but chances are the Sox are projecting some of the players involved differently than we are.

If they're wrong do they get fired?

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2 minutes ago, mac9001 said:

While the return doesn't blow me away I think people are vastly underrating Thorpe. The kid has some elite numbers that tend to transfer over to the big leagues. Zavala as a 19 year old put up a .420 OBP in low A ball and played CF. 

 

Thorpe probably slides in as our #2 and Zavala might be our #4 best prospect and probably no lower than #5.

 

Note: I do believe Schultz will probably be out best pitching prospect by end of year, but right now you have to put Thorpe slightly ahead of him on production alone.

This is more an expression of their inability to find the kind of elite guys they gathered up during the last rebuild than it is a strong supporting statement for these guys. 

Perhaps this works better, but this statement illustrates how they are trying to rebuild based on depth alone. It's at least different from Hahn, but not obviously better?

And elite numbers without elite velocity is a harder thing to say will translate. Sometimes it's Buehrle, often it isn't.

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2 minutes ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

I think $200 to $500 million dollar deals has changed the game.  Teams don’t want to give up their top prospects if they’re are top 50 prospects in the MLB.  They know they can’t afford to buy these potentially top players in free agency so they are more willing to give up a larger quantity package of their slightly lower rated prospects.

My guess based on last year was that teams would be more willing to give up those prospects if they were sitting in a playoff spot in July and Cease was sitting there with a 2.85 ERA.

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1 minute ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Sure but what did they have after the top guys? Just seemed like a barren wasteland. I’m hoping that in addition to 10-12 top prospects getz is able to build additional depth beyond that. And, hopefully, he will also be more effective in free agency when it’s time to spend serious money.

Hell, from that point they added 2 more top 5 picks and a top 15 pick before their first playoff appearance. 

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2 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:

It might sound like me moving the goalposts, but looking at the return I’m convinced Getz was told to take the best pitching package he could get. Two near top 100 pitchers might be the best pitching offer made. I’m holding to that caveat because I still think Cease should have brought back at least one top 50 positional prospect. 

I would buy this also, which would tell you a lot about who the actual GM is right?