Balta1701
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Posts posted by Balta1701
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3 hours ago, South Side Hit Men said:
I’m thinking Charlie Montoyo would be manager for any in season change. He managed Charlotte when they were with the Rays, then served as the Rays Third Base Coach before managing the Blue Jays. Think it would be worth giving him an open audition to become the permanent manager over the next two seasons.
It’s a shame Joe Estrada passed on the job, though can’t blame him with the Astros job lined up.
It still seems unlikely to me that Grifol isn't here in 2025.
Just in general - let's say that the White Sox win 55 games in 2024. Do we fire the manager over the lack of performance? Naw, the team wasn't very good and we knew that. How do you give a guy an evaluation that is negative enough to fire them when you can't really use wins and losses? If they win 68 games, they over performed! What a credit to the manager that must have been.
I suppose that they might have to do so just from fan frustration, but that hasn't made them do things in the past.
The only obvious way I've got where Grifol might be replaced is LaRussa wants to come back.
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2 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:
You think the AL Central is going to field 4 ~> .500 teams in a single season with balanced schedules? I can't see that.
At least right now it seems like the Royals, Tigers, Guardians, and Twins could all be in a pretty tight race, within a few games of .500 this year. Things probably fall apart for one of them, but that doesn't seem like an awful guess right now does it? The only team in this division that looks hopeless in 2024 is the White Sox. If you told me the 4th place team had 77 wins and the 1st place team had 85 wins, that seems believable to me?
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2 hours ago, baseball_gal_aly said:
They should have developed him as a starter from the beginning. They just had to bring him up at the end of 2020
You’re right but Hahn had to Hahn. But conveniently, the team has yet to move to American Samoa and conver their roster to cricket, so a guy who needs innings can, during 2024, throw innings.
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Best case scenario, with returns from a few more trades like Cease and Fedde, this team will have some guys who can step in and a fair amount of money to spend next offseason. They don’t look anything like a World Series champ, but getting close to .500 and being back to 4th place in the AL central is feasible.
More realistically, that probably involves too many things going right. They don’t have a lot of talent in the organization and their development staff has yet to give us any reason for confidence. Especially with Grifol probably still managing in 2025, my guess is it looks a lot like 2023 - they make some signings, think they’re better than they are, and then disappoint.
That is my standing prediction for 2026-2027 as well.
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1 hour ago, South Side Hit Men said:
I thought about making this a poll, but it really comes down to two positions:
- When can the Sox amass enough major league talent through their organization over the next 12 months?
- Will Jerry continue to drastically slash payroll like the $50M this year, or will he stabilize and possibly even increase payroll over the next season or two? They are starting around $100M for 2025 depending on any option pickups before any FA signings.
- Will there be enough funds to fill-out a competitive roster, pick up 1-2 each of solid starters, SPs and RPs?
- Or is 2026 or beyond a more realistic target in terms of player development and an extra year of signings and drafts?
- Are there any options or 2025 FAs you would pursue, without the benefit of knowing how 2024 plays out?
Position (2025 fWAR projection) Player (2025 Age) 2025 Contract / Projected Arbitration
Manager:
Payroll before any FA signings $96.4M
$44.3M Position Players (13.1 fWAR)
- C (1.0) Edgar Quero (22) $0.8M
- 1B (1.1) Andrew Vaughn (27) $5.5M (Arb 2 Estimate)
- 2B (0.6) Lenyn Sosa (25) $0.8M
- 3B (1.0) Bryan Ramos (23) $0.8M
- SS (0.9) Colson Montgomery (23) $0.8M
- LF (1.2) Andrew Benintendi (30) $16.5M
- CF (3.9) Luis Robert Junior (27) $12.5M
- RF (1.0) Dominic Fletcher (27) $0.8M
- OF (0.7) Peyton Burdick (28) $0.8M
- C (0.1) Korey Lee (26) $0.8M
- INF (0.3) Jose Rodriguez (24) $0.8M
- SS (0.6) Braden Shewmake (27) $0.8M
- OF (0.0) Oscar Colas (26) $0.8M
- OF (0.7) Zach DeLoach (26) $0.8M
$30.5M Starting Pitchers
- SP (3.1) Dylan Cease (29) $10.5M (Arb 3 Estimate)
- SP (1.2) Erick Fedde (32) $7.5M
- SP (1.3) Nick Nastrini (25) $7.5M
- SP (1.2) Jared Schuster (25) $0.8M
- SP (0.7) Michael Kopech (29) $5.5M (Arb 3 Estimate)
- SP (0.6) Garrett Crochet (26) $3.0M (Arb 2 Estimate)
- SP (0.8) Josimar Cousin (27) $0.8M
- SP (0.7) Jake Eder (26) $0.8M
- SP (1.3) Davis Martin (27) $0.8M
- SP (0.8) Jesse Scholtens (31) $0.8M
$11.3M Relief Pitchers
- RP (0.3) Touki Toussaint (29) $2.2M (Arb 2 Estimate)
- RP (0.3) Matt Foster (30) $1.3M (Arb 2 Estimate)
- RP (0.2) Jimmy Lambert (30) $1.1M (Arb 1 Estimate)
- RP (0.5) Tanner Banks (33) $1.1M (Arb 1 Estimate)
- RP (0.7) Prelander Berroa (25) $0.8M
- RP (0.9) Shane Drohan (26) $0.8M
- RP (0.2) Deivi Garcia (26) $0.8M
- RP (0.2) Bailey Horn (27) $0.8M
- RP (0.6) Sammy Peralta (27) $0.8M
- RP (0.2) Alex Speas (27) $0.8M
- RP (-0.3) Nicholas Padilla (28) $0.8M
$10.3M Potential to Likely Buyouts or Cuts
- C (0.9) Max Stassi (34) $0.5M (Club option $7.5M)
- C (-1.1) Martin Maldonado (38) $0.3M (Club option $4.0M)
- 3B (1.6) Yoan Moncada (30) $5.0M (Club option $25.0M)
- DH (-0.4) Gavin Sheets (29) $0.0M (Arb 1)
- DH (1.2) Eloy Jimenez (28) $3.0M (Club option $16.5M)
- RP (0.2) John Brebbia $1.5M (Mutual option $6.0M)
2025 Free Agents
- 2B (0.6) Nicky Lopez (30) - Arb 4 eligible
- SS (0.8) Paul DeJong (31)
- INF/OF (0.8) Danny Mendick (31)
- SP (1.3) Michael Soroka (27)
- SP (1.0) Chris Flexen (30)
- RP (-0.4) Tim Hill (35)
How exactly does a guy who hasn’t yet made his big league debut in Nastrini have a $7.5 million 2025 salary? I think this is an error but Rick Hahn was the GM for a long time so…
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46 minutes ago, baseball_gal_aly said:
He doesn't have enough innings to be a starter.
Thats why they should follow a plan to get him those innings.
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35 minutes ago, Timmy U said:
Meh. The new normal is bring young players up and give them less than 40?days so you can start them at the beginning of next year and go for the extra draft pick. That’s what the Cubs did last year with PCA. I would be shocked if the Sox don’t do the same with at least Montgomery. I think Ramos has a good shot as well. I agree Quero might be a stretch. If Gonzalez has fixed his swing, even he has a low but real possibility.
Montgomery had injury problems last year and hit .218 in 218 at bats at AA. Bringing him up late in the season not because he blows away the minors but because we have roster room and want the press coverage is exactly how Rick Hahn handled his guys.
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1 hour ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:
The Cease trade is obviously a big part of it but without that you can still see a lot of young players on this roster in August and September. Montgomery, Quero, Ramos, Nastrini, Eder, Cannon, Leasure, Bush. etc. They have lots of guys in the upper minors who are more than capable of making the jump to the big leagues.
Quero should almost certainly be no where near the big leagues this year, and several of those guys (Ramos, Montgomery, Cannon, Bush) it would certainly be Rick Hahn type decision making to pencil them in as coming up to the big leagues in August when they haven’t played more than 1/2 a year at AA and few of them were successful there early.
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1 hour ago, oldsox said:
This signing is a real head-scratcher.
‘Twas a trade.
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1 hour ago, South Side Hit Men said:
Cease started well with 3 scoreless Ks through 2 innings. Turned the radio broadcast on traveling between breweries on this gorgeous Chicago day.
Got a little confused as espn only shows 1 K through 2 for Cease, guess that’s just the wording.
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1 hour ago, WhiteSox2023 said:
Well, Getz had to go above and beyond what Kenny and Hahn did to get the GM job with very little experience. JR thought Getz was head and shoulders the best candidate.
Apparently you should read it closely a few more times.
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Just now, WestEddy said:
Who's ripping Thompson? He's lost all prospect momentum, and now he's a project. He's not bad. He's just not standing out from the guys behind him. I'm not alone in that assessment, either, as he has fallen off of pretty much all prospect evaluators' radar. you keep ignoring that.
You also seem to ignore that, all things being equal, a left-handed pitcher has a bit more value than a righty due to rarity. You think the Sox have too many, already.
I just find it weird that you don't think an organization ever gets to trade a player until there's no possible way any other team can see him as useful. Maybe there were still some fixes they could work with Scott Ruffcorn on. I think they cut bait there, too soon.
QuoteDo they now start working with him as a reliever? And when he still can't throw strikes, teach him a knuckleball? Then when that doesn't work, try him at 2B
The above sure sounds like you're ripping Thompson to me.
And yes, it is rather weird and frankly bizarre that you look at 27 innings of a guy at Kannapolis in 2021 and think "See he can get his walk rate down" and then say that a guy who had 84 innings with a comparable walk rate in 2022 at Winston-Salem is a guy who has "lost all prospect momentum".
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2 minutes ago, WestEddy said:
He did in Kannapolis. I guess Chris Getz personally taught him how to be great, but he forgot it when the Cubs meddled.
So you're ripping Thompson for not being good at AA, and your support for Horn is 27 good innings at A-ball. Yet you don't see any distinction here.
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9 minutes ago, WestEddy said:
Matt Thompson is no longer a "prospect", as we use that word. He has quietly slipped off all but one top 30 lists. So, Getz is at a crossroads with Thompson. Do they now start working with him as a reliever? And when he still can't throw strikes, teach him a knuckleball? Then when that doesn't work, try him at 2B? Or they can deal him as a change-of-scenery candidate, or possible reliever, and get some value for him. And yes, a AAA lefty who is getting good reviews in his sick stuff is definite value.
Except of course that lefty also can't throw strikes.
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13 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:
I guess I meant more he plays a full season in the MLB, not necessarily as a starter all season. Start at SS until Colson comes up and then shift to a bench role or 2B or whatever.
We're in a thread on Grifol.
I will trust him when he has earned it. His behavior last year gives me deep skepticism about his willingness to correctly make use of his young guys.
If he has a crappy veteran and uses that as an excuse to mistreat a young guy....again...it will create anger about the presence of the veteran as well as anger about him. And I think I'm pretty clearly expecting this to happen - hell, they already blocked Korey Lee because they needed veteran leadership around their other young catcher on the roster, Max Stassi.
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12 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:
Both are false. It's tough.
I was thinking about this the other day, but what would he have to put up offensively to be considered "good?" If he plays great defense and sustains how he did with the Cardinals last season but over a full season, is that considered good enough?
You're talking about a 0.5 fWAR player, basically.
That performance is tolerable, it's acceptable given the money, it's understandable for where the White Sox are in April of 2024. It's not really tradeable for anything of value, so maybe still a little more money than we should have spent on this guy.
My question then is - why is he playing a full season? Is he playing a full season because Colson isn't ready, or because Colson is getting benched for him in the 2nd half because they have to play their Vetz?
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12 minutes ago, Tnetennba said:
Which is what made JR's statements about not being able to survive at the current location disingenuous from the start. If he cared to put a winning product on the field regularly, hired competent baseball ops people, and did not meddle (cough cough TLR), they could easily average 2.5+ million fans year on end. Moving 2 miles north might draw more tourists and casual fans, but the reason they don't draw well on 35th street has way more to do with the team and those in charge than location.
Having been elsewhere around the league, the US Cellular Field Ballpark experience really doesn't measure up to other spots.
Some of that is the neighborhood and lack of things to do around the park. Some of that is the lack of walkable options or good transit options. A good amount of that is the park structure, the upper deck is legitimately still not pleasant, even if chopping 10 rows away from it helped somewhat. There is nothing visually that interesting about it, it's too cookie cutter.
This is absolutely a factor in how it draws.
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7 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:
Because he's the manager of the team. When he's blantantly lying about this stuff, can you ever expect him to be truthful? There are ways around taking about these players without sounding nuts. . Why don't they sign Buehrle to eat some innings? He was pretty good 8 or 9 years ago?
"Well even the best teams have guys there to play different roles. Great teams have guys who are there to play great defense, to be great on the base paths. We have guys in our lineup who we are counting on to generate offense, we have other guys who we're counting on for defense or to work with the pitching staff. If we're counting on guys for defense, we expect them to do their best with the bats, and the other guys will be knocking them in."
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9 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:
Does he think we are stupid? We can Google players' stats.
The bigger problem is when he acts on this stuff. When he says they can hit just fine in the spring, then in August he insists that they need to get their at bats because we're trying to win games.
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1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said:
Substitute "right hand starters" for "left hand relievers" and "Thompson" for "Horn", and it is pretty much the same sentiment.
With the notable differences that one of them was already on the 40 man roster and one of them wasn't, and one of them could be transitioned to the bullpen to try things out and one of them...already was there.
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Just now, southsider2k5 said:
of all things, this one I don't care about. I don't expect a manager to come out and say "these guys suck, see you in 2030."
You are better off saying nothing than saying something obviously untrue. Give a meaningless word salad, its fine, just don't lie to our faces.
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25 minutes ago, WestEddy said:
To me, the funniest part of all of this is the pivot from calling Mike Elias some uncomplimentary names for not wanting to jettison multiple top-20 in the game prospects for Dylan Cease - to prospect hugging on a guy who is getting passed on the depth chart by pitching titans, like Chase Solesky.
Left-handed relievers are a commodity.No, "GOOD" left handed relievers are a commodity. We have several left handed relievers right now, they're just not "Good" left handed relievers. Tanner Banks has better minor league numbers than Horn, but he's not a commodity.
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9 minutes ago, WestEddy said:
It's really a chicken and egg situation with drafting vs. development, with a side of KW/Hahn jerking the top picks around by rushing them to the major league bullpen ahead of schedule. The organization is developing pitchers, with guys like Chase Solesky and Christian Mena even passing Thompson to AAA.
They have a group of guys right behind him in Kohl Simas, Jonathan Cannon, Tyler Schweitzer, Connor McCullough, Josimar Cousin, and Juan Carela. They still have Eder, Nastrini, Bush, and another 3-4 veterans to keep fresh at AAA, where frankly, they don't have the innings at AA or AAA to fart around with this guy anymore.I guarantee you that Christian Mena is not pushing Thompson anywhere right now.
They also don't have roster spots to fart around with Horn either.
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1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:
I know you want to run the front office like an algorithm. Do something the wrong way enough times and it's likely to bite you in the ass trading younger minor league guys for older minor league guys.
At least they don't have enough talent to get 36 yr old vets the Sox have to pay $10M for a year.
I don't know if what Getz is doing now will work. He's just hoping you get enough young vets and 26 yr old minor leaguers that someone is going to blossom even for a short period to trade them or in the case of the 26y yr old minor leaguers either trade them or see what they have for another year of 2.
This is precisely how they wound up having to pay mediocre vets $17 million per year. They gave away so many pieces to cover needs that by the end they had more needs than they could fill.
Here Getz is not trying to find guys he can turn into a 23 year old starter, he’s giving away those 23 year olds to fill the 23rd and 24th slots on his roster. It is the exact opposite of what you’re saying.
Getz is doing this because he thinks he knows these guys better than everyone else. Maybe that’s true and he has gotten two guys worth more than others think. Maybe he’s unloading Hahn’s trash and taking what he can get for them. That’s all plausible, but forgive me until I wait for evidence that these guys are massively smarter when they’re acquiring players who have little power or who walk the world.
And yes, eventually this blows up in your face. These are the types of moves the Twins should be making to fill holes in the back side of their roster and maybe push them up to 92 wins rather than 89.
These are not moves that prep for Trades. For the white Sox to get back more than they gave up in these two young pitchers, the guys who came back will need to be so good that the White Sox won’t want to trade them.
Getz is paying over market value right now. If it works it is to his credit. If it doesn’t I hope we’ve learned enough not to discount it with “oh we didn’t give up that much.”
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2024 Priorities
in Pale Hose Talk
Posted
He's making $3.25 million this year. That's less than Lopez or Maldonado, so that's not unreasonable money to risk on seeing if he could be any better this year.
Taking that up to $5-6 million in arbitration year 2, if he performs the same as last year, would be questionable at best. The out, for him, would be non-tendering him at the end of the season, if as you say he doesn't hit this year.