Balta1701

The guy blew $4.5 million on a completely washed up Martin Maldonado, took on Lopez and Soroka even though the Braves GM tried to help by saying they were going to be non tendered, picked up Stassi who never played, signed guys like Flexen and Brebbia, and the true crescendo was giving Clevinger a contract worth more than the league minimum when no one else on baseball would sign him. Thats some serious wasted money.

While true, I think LaRussa at age 80 is probably unlikely to be physically able to survive it, and a manager dying in the dugout would be a lot even for the White Sox

Yup. You can’t find a guy who sounds more like “everything that has been wrong with this team” than him.

Honestly, no he wouldn’t be. If the team was actually better around him he’d be viewed as an unacceptable weak link and an easy place to upgrade. We’d at least be trying to find replacements for him at the deadline, or making him a full platoon then nontendering him in the offseason. A good example of this is Houston. Their plan A at 1b, Abreu, flopped big time. They had minimum salary guy Jon Singleton in their org and he took over as a replacement level player once Abreu was cut. this made them better, but they also kept playing their catchers, rookies, and injured players like Bregman there to try to find production. They will probably keep Singleton around this offseason because he’s at a minimum salary, but that’s probably their number 1 position to upgrade since an average 1b is a big upgrade that won’t cost a lot.

And as a final chefs kiss, when people write the history of this era, and there’s a footnote about the team that broke the all time loss record, it will note that the team was assembled by GMs Chris Getz and Rick Hahn. So his cowardice has left him in the record books for doing a terrible job. Beautiful.

I don’t know what their process was, but the definitely went through a process with real interviews in 2022, to wind up with Grifol.

Then he should have been a man and resigned.

Real simple. He had a .156 BABIP at the end of that series of starts. That is complete blind luck. Rick Hahn makes that mistake, believing ultra low BABIP numbers, we don’t have to. Thorpe currently doesn’t have a way to get actual outs. He doesn’t generate a lot of ground balls. His strikeout rate was 25% lower than any qualified starter in the league, and out of the bottom 5 in strikeout rate only Jose Quintana had an ERA under 5 this year. That is a huge gap to overcome. Thorpe’s strikeout rate was comparable to 46 year old Jamie Moyer’s strikeout rate, and his walk rate was 3x as high. I saw zero that suggested he’s a big league starter this year. Pitchers cannot pull off a .200 BABIP as starters. People were putting the ball in play against him hard, it just went at people. Pitchers don’t control that, it’s luck. It’s possible his numbers were affected by injury, the fact that they shut him down was about the only good sign this year because his actual performance was really bad. Maybe this was bad because of health, and that’s a way for it to improve. If he doesn’t become a fundamentally different pitcher, by either adding a solid sinker or by upping his spin rate to make people actually miss his pitchers, then maybe he can go to the bullpen and do something like Tommy Kahnle, throwing 15 straight change-up’s. But making your pitches harder to hit is a lot harder than “throwing more strikes”. A 25% increase in his K rate next year and a halving of his walk rate still leaves him likely to have an ERA in the 5s.

Yelled “holy s%*#” off the bat and wasn’t cheering for anything but the moment. Glad I didn’t turn this off!

Doug Eddings with the fan interference call!

Can’t ask for anything more than a tie game going into the 9th.

Nevin seems like a Reinsdorf hire, which presumably means a Getz hire.

Yeah but the White Sox also have invested heavily in starters through the draft and if they have 2 strong pitchers in Smith and Schulz, followed by someone like Martin at the middle part of the rotation, and maybe a guy like Cannon can hang in the back of the rotation, that's a lot of resources already putting into pitching. They also might have enough arms to fill out a decent chunk of a bullpen. On the other hand, their offense is currently terrible, one of the worst we've ever seen, and they don't have much in terms of MLB-ready players. One catcher, maybe 1 or 2 infielders. If they dump $30 million into an extra starter, and they have nothing to trade, how do they ever stop having an awful offense?

Would Jerry be drowning members of the ISFA in this to make sure he gets his lease renewed?

The best I can say about Drew Thorpe this year is "Thank God he was hurt". Because if that's the pitcher he is long term, maybe he can be a decent receiver?

Whether it's Thorpe or their bullpen decisions, either "they didn't actually talk to him about pitching decisions" or "they talked to him and he was on board with these ideas" or "They talked to him, he hated these ideas, and they ignored him" are the options I can come up with. None raise confidence.

One of whom was on the IL already.

Dusty in 2023 was absolutely LaRussesque.

Realistically hoping to see big measures this offseason? None, because they're not well run enough to make a strong play to get better. Would tolerate? Either get a strong return for Crochet early in the offseason (winter meetings time) or shut up and let someone else come to you because you're willing to hold the player if a strong offer doesn't appear. Don't play the "leak to our sycophants to generate a market" game the whole offseason before taking a weak offer, be willing to wait to the trade deadline if a market doesn't appear. There's nothing they're going to do to dramatically change this team's direction without spending money, and like the owner in Major League they're not going to spend money that could threaten their ability to move the team. Fine, fair enough, if they're doing work to improve it will show up in a few years...but DON'T COME AND BRAG TO ME ABOUT THE POSITIVE WORK THEY'RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND THE GREAT PEOPLE THEY BROUGHT IN LAST YEAR WHEN THEY JUST LOST 121 GAMES WITH THOSE PEOPLE AROUND. This thread includes that. I am told I am supposed to have confidence in Getz because of Barfield, for example and Barfield...was around for 2024 and couldn't tell him "Hey maybe that Maldonado deal, don't do that one, and maybe we should look into Vargas a little more than just listening to a guy in the middle of our coaching staff. People are trying to take victory laps based on an overhaul of the analytics group. This is the 4th one in 5 years!

It’s not realistic because of Reinsdorf. Not because it’s a bad move! If you don’t want snarky responses after…(checks notes)…THE MOST LOSSES IN A SINGLE SEASON IN MLB HISTORY, you should take pretty big measures to improve. You can’t live on “trust us we will do fine”.

1. A couple people are instantly celebrating and giving the benefit of the doubt already. 2. They are coming off a 121 loss season, full of moves that seemed awful at the time and worse the longer they look. They are constantly threatening to move the team. Want non snarky responses? Make better moves that can be seen, don’t expect undue praise for shuffling people around behind the scenes until you prove you can do it. Want a non snarky response? This team has minimal salary constraints for years and are in a huge market. They have no stars and desperately need a professional hitter. The last big offensive free agents signed 5 years ago have revamped their organizations into perennial contenders with packed ballparks and have totally been worth the money. Go sign Juan Soto and I promise zero snark, I will be totally impressed.