southsider2k5

So if there was no point to having Ortega on the roster, why cut Bailey Horn to make room for him in the first place? They could have just kept Kevin Pillar if they wanted the extra placeholder OF. He would have brought exactly what you needed to the team without having to cut someone to make room for him, knowing full well you weren't going to get anything for him.

If that is your point, it is wrong. No one wants this failure that is happening now. People recognizing that there is a complete lack of vision and strategy here are also not wanting it to happen. The rest of it is again a lack of patience and consistency. The daily win loss results for an awful team are secondary to accumulating and training talent. Take Rafael Ortega and his singular butterfly effect. If the Sox really felt that no young OF was good enough to be on this team, then sticking with a guy like Ortega is fine. But dropping someone from the 40 man roster, so that they could recall him, barely play him, and then drop him doesn't make sense in that you had to drop someone to make a slot to not stick with blocking whoever you decided wasn't ready in the first place. Ortega was on the roster for 18 days and got 14 PAs. If he is needed to block someone from the roster, then keep him. If you wanted to audition him to see what he had, what did you get out of 14 PAs scattered over 18 days? He got neither consistent time to get comfortable, nor a real chance to show you anything in the first place. Did Fletcher learn so much in the minors in those 18 days which justified DFAing Bailey Horn to make room for Ortega in the first place, that they couldn't have just been left alone originally? if guys like Nastrini and Canon were being "rushed" why roster them in the first place? What did Nick Nastrini really get to do in 8 innings that helped him or the franchise learn something about him that they couldn't see in Charlotte? If you don't know he is ready enough for the majors to go through more than 8 innings to know he isn't ready, you probably shouldn't have rostered him in the first place. Same with Cannon and his extra appearance/5 innings. If you don't know they are ready enough to stay longer than 2 or 3 starts, just stick with the same roster holders as you did before. What are you doing for the confidence of these kids to give them 2 chance at the MLB level, only to pull the rug right back out from under them? Did they really learn from that? They sure didn't build any comfort or confidence in themselves with that fragile of an existence.

Oscar Colas got 1 AB. What could management possibly have learned from that one AB that gave them the knowledge he wasn't ready? Conversely if they already knew he wasn't ready, why did they recall him in the first place? Nastrini got 8 innings in two appearances. Canon got 13 innings in 3 appearances. Berroa got one appearance. What exactly are they learning that quickly, that wasn't apparent before they were called up, but they learned in once on the mound or at the plate? If they aren't ready, don't recall them, use these shitty placeholders. If you are going to recall them, give them some time. That's why it looks like lurching from plan to plan. Most importantly quit giving guys away so you can get one AB or one appearance from someone.

Right now years of control is very important, especially when you are talking about making room for a guy with no control and giving up a guy with a ceiling that isn't going to be any higher than the guy you send out of the system to get him into the roster.

A ridiculous exaggeration, as many of these moves which required our minor leaguers to be ditched never had to be made. Again, we didn't need to see Brad Keller to know he sucked. There were plenty of these which forced out guys who were long term controllable.

One more time, it isn't about one individual guy. I know you keep coming back to disqualify each guy one by one but that is not the point here.

Some of the guys we have gotten rid of have been very young and or very raw, including Thompson.

Again, it isn't always about the individual players. It is about the concept of hording as much as you can for as long as you can trying to get the one in five, one in ten, one in a million (like Tatis Jr.) No one though Getz was going to to remembered for losing Declan Cronin so they could sign Tim Hill, yet Cronin is singlehandedly destroying Hill in terms of production this season. Sure the odds are against each of these guys individually, but as a bucket full of guys, the odds increase dramatically one of them can breakout.

Ah, I didn't get that parse. How we paid people wasn't the problem, it was selecting one guy and who that guy was. The tax implication part was fine IMO.

The stategy makes sense, it was the player selection that didn't.

We also gave away Bailey Horn from the Thompson deal for cash. Look like I said, the odds of any one guy turning out to be big from one of the deals is low. But the point is you horde as many of them as you can to increase the odds of having the one guy who breaks out. I don't think anyone thought Declan Cronin was going to be anything when they waived him. Yet here he is in 2024 putting up huge numbers at the MLB level out of the pen. Take a Matt Thompson, he was an awful minor league starter. Why didn't we give him run as a reliever to see if he could redeem value instead of trading him for a 26 year old reliever who we also didn't keep around for any amount of time, only to trade away for cash? Also it isn't just those two/three guys. Alex Speas Sammy Peralta Jake Cousins Peyton Burdick Lane Ramsey Romy Gonzalez Plus there are other guys we have waived that just didn't get claimed like Berroa and Garcia.

They shouldn't be giving away any of them for guys who aren't going to be here in a year.

I will be honest, the Mariners aren't my first choice for a deal like this, because they lack that supertstar top prospect, and I think you need that huge frontliner to start a good deal for Luis Robert. I have no idea what the market for him looks like, but as with Cease, I am also willing to let the market come to us if the market isn't there yet.

The panic narrative is born by lurching from plan to plan. I would understand a team full of awful placeholder vets to protect the kids. I would also understand a team full of struggling kids. What I don't understand is going back and forth between the two in very short periods of time, and losing rostered prospects in order to do it.

I have to think that in some of those cases that the tax savings could have been the difference in being the highest bidder, or not. Obviously I don't know all of the bids, but just thinking of us tax structure, keeping an extra 30/40/50% of that signing bonus by not paying taxes on it is a defacto bonus of that many dollars higher than if they brought them to the US right away. Take a 3 million bonus, and say a million dollars would have gone to taxes in the US, but doesn't in the DR. An extra million dollars is a LOT of money.

I think that is kind of the point though. Did we really need to see five minutes of Brad Keller to know that he sucks? Did we really need to see Rafael Ortega hit like Martin Maldonado to know he sucks? If we are going to use sorry vets to hold places until the kids are ready, do it. Let them suck. But then two seconds later we are churning kids for a start or two like they are going to come up and be stars right away. If we are going to roster kids, let them play and learn on the job by occasionally getting their asses kicked. Either let them learn, or protect them. This thing of being all over the place isn't helping anyone.

This is where I at least wish we had an organization that worked better together. For example, what better player to talk to Colson about being selectively aggressive in spots than Yoan? He went through exactly this the year he was getting murdered on called 3rd strikes two inches off of the plate by MLB.

I am going to say this much. One minute you literally pulled out the transaction meter as a measure of how the Sox are just like other teams, and then when those transactions were dove into, then you instantly disowned it because it went against your narrative.

When facts don't support, get personal. My work here is done when you start having a meltdown because you have no facts.

So you basically proved yourself wrong, and then tried to claim victory, even with cherrypicking one stat while ignoring the composition of those moves to do it. The fun part is while you tried to equate teams with 10-15% less moves were "right in there" with the Sox. Even by this measure they have had this many transactions while not having had anywhere near the number of forced transactions (injuries) as most of the "right there" teams.

Guessing they are stuffing everyone on the same team to try to win something.

Because unlike you, I deal in reality. Using the fangraphs transactions tracker: -No team has had more different hitters on their roster than the White Sox at 22. The only team tied with the Sox has 6 on the IL currently (sfg) the Sox only have 3. Pitchers weren't show for some reason. -since the end of the 23 season, no team has as many transactions as the Sox (264). The closest team has 22 less. (242/nym) -Sox lead mlb in dfa's (21), including Keller today. -Sox lead mlb in demotions (41) -Sox lead mlb in promotions (44) Any other imaginary statements you'd like to be proven wrong on?

If you are going to try to make a statement like this bring proof. Otherwise run along.