Balta1701

Wait what?

Note that everything here is the stuff that Billy Beane complained about in Moneyball. "Look how short he is to the baseball, you see a guy taking a good swing on the ball, you're working from your notes you're working from your memory and that's where the video helps, how hard of a worker is he, how does he overcome adversity." They never talk about guys being intelligent, they never talk about guys approach at the plate, they never talk about how guys have different positional value, no one has ever mentioned statistics translating, no one is actually taking any data from their performance and interpreting anything based on these hundreds of independent scenarios, it's 100% classic scouting. Guy writes a report and it gets filed somewhere so they decide their draft based on that. They have more video, and they can file their reports electronically, but there's no Paul DePodesta in the room saying "He gets on base" every time he's pointed at.

Has anyone mentioned yet that one of the reasons why Vargas might be struggling even more, and one reason why he might be extra concerned, is that he went from an organization where he asks for help and gets "here's our 400 page textbook on this pitcher, would you like to spend 3 hours in our virtual reality simulator seeing his pitches" as a reply, to an organization where he asks for help and gets "We think this guy might throw a fastball you should be ready for that" as a reply?

Before the pandemic as in the mid-2000s, yes, I believe that. By 2015, not even close.

Yeah, I can't think of any reason why the White Sox in 2024 would have their fans being selectively miserable. Buck up, nothing unusual happening to this team right now.

The GM doesn't have the authority to choose the people who work beneath him, and this is supposed to make White Sox fans feel confident in their GM.

With the defense the White Sox have seen from him so far?

No talent teams typically still win 50 some games. The As won 50 last year. The rebuilding Os won 47, 52, and 54 (COVID in there). This isnt just a lack of talent.

Chris Getz should have to date Mike Clevinger.

There are 30 managerial jobs. There are far more than 30 qualified managers who would take a job like this. Even losing for 2 years and being fired, it’s good money and can be a stepping stone to a better job (the AJ Hinch path). There are not more than 30 qualified manager candidates who will tell Jerry Reinsdorf and Domestic Violence Enthusiast Christ Getz that they're doing a great job and nothing needs to change. There are likely zero.

Since theyve all but guaranteed they will pass the Mets, 38 wins would be the worst winning percentage in the modern era. 7-15 or worse gets them that distinction.

In 2007 they finished 2nd, but they finished in last place 9 times in 12 years from 2004-2015, averaged 73 wins a year, and averaged finishing 21 games out of first in their division. 8 managers in 12 years, 0 playoff appearances. I guess losing 120+ is truly something special and we should be impressed at Domestic Violence Enthusiast Chris Getz for his novelty in this campaign, but last place 9 times in 12 years - even Rick Hahn couldn't pull that off.

I think that holding him on a roster this barren and with clear salary limits in the next few years gets you a strong chance at a "Felix Hernandez", a guy who was the best pitcher in the league for a decade, hall of famer, and Garret Crochet has more postseason pitching experience than him. But hell, if their returns are as weak as the ones Domestic Violence Enthusiast Chris Getz has been getting for his other trades, it's probably not worth arguing about.

In two years, when he would have been a free agent and making good money? Naw, not worth guessing.

If they cannot develop their own players, then this rebuild will turn out worse than the last one, as they got an impressive set of talent in the trades last time and they had multiple top 5 draft picks. So yes, they will have to go through a few cycles of this process, developing guys and trading them away hunting for even better returns, to find enough talent to be competitive, which is why this could easily be a 5+ year process. And if they continue to be unable to develop position player talent and unwilling to spend on top flight performers, this process could easily continue forever - there have been more than a few franchises that have been stuck in the waste bin for a decade+ - the Rockies, Pirates, Marlins, and Royals come to mind, and yeah the White Sox are pretty regularly getting compared to those teams. A team that can develop pitching but can't develop hitters to save their jobs is the Mariners, and they had about a 20 year playoff drought.

1. There are always realistic off-season signings who contribute to teams. Jurickson Profar is being paid $1 million this season and has been amazing. These signing will not reshape a roster, but it is also unusual for the White Sox to be as bad with their signings as they have been. What I have been watching for 1 calendar year now - Domestic Violence Enthusiast Chris Getz will talk about the importance of defense, or of leadership, but I have yet to hear him once talk about the importance of working a count, drawing walks, or getting on base. They should not be so consistently bad at their offense, and I think the reason is that they look for this super aggressive, swing at everything and hit it on the ground player format, you know, like David Eckstein, and this is the offense you get when you try to find 12 of those. 2. No, they cannot currently count on Montgomery and should not do so. He should clearly be back in the minors and he has to earn a callup. Whether it's injury or something else, don't leave spot open for him, he isn't a big leaguer right now. 3. I think Quero probably breaks camp with the big league team. He should catch full time. Maybe he gets sent down for a little time for service time manipulation, but yeah Quero has earned a chance at the big leagues. Go ahead and pencil him in.

Quite Simply, for an organization this bereft of talent, "Players returned in a trade for Gerrit Crochet + having $25 million to spend" is a better situation than having a good Gerrit Crochet and spending $25 million on him. The same calculus was correctly made for Cease and he brought back a couple of the players you think are part of the potential future rotation, it's no different with Crochet.

This is a different woman from the pre-2023 investigation.

This seems relevant to where this thread went.

He needed 37 more games to qualify for the Baseball-Reference listing of managerial career records. Sigh. Would have been the 3rd worst.

Luis Robert is the perfect distillation of the laziness of the White Sox’s staff. Any other, professional organization with a guy coming up with his talent level, they would work with him on good habits like preparing for games and using information to be better. The White Sox firmly believe that this is too much work. This is where the lack of staff employed by the team matters. While he’s coming up, he isn’t coached, and when he’s healthy he has success based solely on his athletic gifts. When he gets to the big leagues, he doesn’t know the coaches names because he doesn’t want coaching and doesn’t believe in it. This has been said publicly, he doesn’t want scouting reports he just wants to do his thing, and no one in the White Sox organization was willing to correct it. Now, it has become a bad habit that he doesn’t think he needs to change, after all he’s an all star. They drop videos about how great of shape he’s in, but not about him working on recognizing pitches or studying film, because convincing him to do that and then teaching him effectively would take hard work, and the White Sox don’t do that. Then a few injuries start nagging more, he goes from 99th percentile skills to something less than that at least for a time, and his athleticism doesn’t carry him as much as he used to. Because they allowed him to get away with not wanting to learn anything, he has not become a smarter player like many guys do with experience, he’s still trying to swing as hard as he can, but it’s just less effective.

Loperfido has more home runs in the last 2 years than Vargas has in the last three.

Loperfido isn’t a terrible comp in value for Vargas. Big AAA performance, old for that level, has done tolerably at the big league level for a rookie but not breakout numbers. Needs to cut down on the Ks to be anything but a backup.