Balta1701

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.”

Did you miss something in the copying or was his control so poor they didn’t score it?

Jerry Reinsdorf has worked super hard to make sure people have this reaction. He’s been threatening to move the team literally my whole life, and I’m not supposed to get tired of the threat?

Stockpiling AAA nothings while hoping they become something is fine when those guys cost zero, or when they cost an Aaron Bummer that they want to get rid of anyway. The problem is - if this guy turns out to be tolerable, puts up an ERA in the mid 4s in the big leagues next year, is he going to bring back anything worth more than a strong arm, struggling guy from AA who is on the lower end of some team's prospect list? Unless he turns out really darn good, which would be surprising from his minor league numbers, the best you might hope to get back is...approximately a Matthew Thompson level wild card. If you're signing guys or bringing in NRIs to fill these spots, that's fine, I get that. I think they've been a little reckless with money this offseason (Maldonado), but that's at least understandable. If one of them turns into something valuable, maybe you can trade one of them for some A-ball player. But when you're giving the A-ball player up, and at the same time losing a 40 man spot that could do exactly what you say you want to do, be filled by a AAA+ nothing gotten for free, you're doing it backwards. You are hoping that, if they're lucky, they might be able to get back what they just gave up for this guy. Big deal? Probably not, unlikely to have given up the next Max Scherzer once again, but a decent red flag. You've outlined the correct plan, trying to bring in talent/wild cards using AAA+ guys, and this deal is the opposite of that plan - giving up talent/wild cards to bring in a AAA+ guy.

1 walk, 11 K's for that offense today.

Honestly, no, because they have so many NRIs who could fill this roster spot that this just replaces one guy who is likely bad with another guy who looks bad.

Thompson's K rate at Birmingham last year: 9.8 K/9. Horn's K rate last year at Iowa: 10 K/9. Yes, this is another of those trades that is, on its own, unlikely to backfire. It is unlikely that this specific pitcher will break out next year, just like the last one with Arizona. However, it is once again a low reward trade from the White Sox perspective. If you do that type of trade over and over and over again, you get low rewards overall, but eventually the odds start stacking together and it turns out that you get a trade that does in fact implode. It's unlikely to be any specific trade, but when it happens .... boom. That is how it went with Hahn and Williams - "it's ok to give these guys up, they never come back to hurt us", until they did. With the White Sox's current situation, adding another low reward guy to the 40 man roster is just bizarre. the hope is that Getz is just cleaning out guys he doesn't like for whatever reason, but even then why are you adding a guy to the already packed 40 man roster when you signed so many NRIs who could fill those slots?

What supports this?

This team has a ton of youngsters?

Oh come on.

You're right, most people would throw out Tanner Banks and Peralta as detritus that could be cut when some AAA name passes through waivers. Banks also has significantly better minor league numbers than Bailey Horn. He's 26 already, has a similar AAA K-rate to Banks, but a walk rate nearly twice as high. Most people would add Bailey Horn pretty quickly to the list of "Detritus that could be cut when some AAA name passes through waivers". Which is, frankly, what he's likely to be pretty quick.

That also doesn't count Crochet, but who knows exactly how they will be using him.

I would agree, that is an awful lot of LH bullpen-only arms. Not counting Drohan, that's 10% of a 40 man roster, whereas normally 1 or 2 LH relievers is normal, which is 7.7% of a 26-man roster (or 3.8% if you had only 1). That's just collecting LH relievers. They also have LH relief pitcher Fraser Ellard in camp. Ky Bush is there too and is also LH, although for now he's a starter.

Are there no other potential relievers on the current White Sox 40 man roster? I see quite a few, and there's numerous other minor leaguers in camp who could be brought up with a roster spot if one was available.

A 26 year old who has never made the big leagues, who requires a 40 man spot on a team without many available 40 man spots, who has a minor league walk rate of 5 BB/9IP, and a minor league ERA of 4.2 is a guy who has a chance to be part of the future? I guess in terms of "he's been designated for assignment" is an activity that would have to happen in the future.

I would be excited if I heard a positive report about Cease's spring velocity. Or Crochet's. Or Kopech's.

I am absolutely hoping for the opposite. Rushing the guy from AA because you have to fill a spot on your competitive roster that is totally competitive and definitely competitive is a Rick Hahn classic. Montgomery was hurt for a good portion of last year, has 218 plate appearances at AA, and a .218 batting average at AA. Let him play his way up. Give him 2 good months at AA if he's healthy, then move him up to Charlotte, and if he's still strong there, then bring him up later in the season. If he has any more injuries or struggles with anything, take your time and wait until next year - if you wait until April 2025 you might even have a shot at a compensatory pick for him being an opening day callus.

Results like a team the GM thought was competitive in a weak division that spent a season at each others throats, where basically everyone underperformed, where they were sloppy and unfocused, and where they lost 101 games? Tell me how I shouldn’t judge Grifol based on his team’s underperformance last year. They had the talent of a 75 win team. Fine, this wasn’t where they wanted to be, but they played like a 67 win team in the first half, so bad that they had to trade people away. Multiple veterans ripped them after they left, all the way to literally yesterday. How many seasons do we have to wait for before judging him? In spring 2025 do we have to hear that we can’t judge the coach until we see the results? 26? 27? Is Grifol still someone we are waiting on in 2028? 2029? Maybe he gets better in season 8, after all it’s unfair to judge any coach based on their first 7 seasons.

I do actually think they tried for Wheeler, but they weren't willing to step up and declare "We are going to put the highest offer out for this guy". There's lots of components about that. There's the team's hesitation to actually go out and buy guys that are really good fits. There's the fact that they blew $50 million on trash the offseason before that.

Well he’s 26 and has a .747 OPS in two seasons at AAA with a .214 batting average.

Thats rough, you can’t check out the whole year? Ick, that’s not worth what you’d win.

They are actually super well understood. In general they’re not worth the money, especially if the entire stadium is publicly financed. They’re usually awful deals for taxpayers. This concept is a little different from a normal one since it’s truly a blighted area that may not otherwise be developed. Some money going to put a stadium here is justified. But not the government paying for the entire stadium and a large fraction of the rest if the development.

2023: “This team is a 75 win team in all the projections, but Pedro Grifol is going to do a good job and get them up to 88 wins.” 2024: “This team is a 62 win team in the projections but Pedro Grifol is going to do a good job and get them up to 72 wins.”

I think Jerry absolutely has to convince the taxpayers since those are voters. Whether it’s a primary or a general election contest, if this deal is super unpopular then it will appear in campaign ads this year. The primary is March 19. Im usually ok with a representative democracy as mostly I see direct democracy creating messes. Representation should involve people making trade offs and telling the voters why they got a good deal. So far everything tells Me this is a really bad deal on paper, and I’ve seen zero that shows me different in any coherent way.

If this is a win win, if the city and state are going to come out of this well; then where is the detailed set of tax and economic analyses that support this? Show that to Sox fans and to taxpayers. Let the plan market itself if it’s such a win. What is Reinsdorf’s opening argument? “Give me all the money or your team walks”. First public interview, opening lines of the Crains article are a threat. If it’s a win-win, then you shouldn’t be threatening your fans and taxpayers. Again.