caulfield12

"A journey of one thousand miles begins with a step..."

Going to bed. You guys can continue to argue Murakami, Getz vs. Rays' Way and Okamoto. Throw in some Michael Conforto debate for good measure.

Maybe bigger font will accentuate the point even more? If only it would make it come true. Let's beat the Twins for fourth before worrying about juggernauts and possible dynasties. It has only been six years since the last budding dynasty.

Except you won't get both. Small market teams pretty much have to hit on those comp.round picks to come close to competing.

Modern baseball technology and players' evolving needs basically forced the tech adoption on the team...instead of the other way around.

"That leaves precious few high-end relievers available for teams like the Yankees, Cubs, and Marlins to pursue. Pete Fairbanks and Seranthony Dominguez are among the best options remaining on the market at this point, with hurlers like Shawn Armstrong and Pierce Johnson sitting a tier below those two." mlbtraderumors.com

No no no. This was 2022 or maybe even early 2023. You could ask James Fegan about it, I guess. Sheets wasn't together with Burger in Central Illinois and Missouri at that time. He's from the Baltimore area due to his father. "There might be another reason for Sheets’ anger, though. It has to do with Burger, his friend, and the White Sox top pick in the 2017 MLB Draft, with Sheets selected in the second round. “I’ve seen it a couple of times, especially today I was late for our I-pitch session,” said Burger with a laugh when asked if he ever has viewed Sheets as angry as he was Wednesday. “He got on me a little bit. Maybe that anger spilled out onto the field, I’m not sure.” Early 2023

Sitting out 2020 was the beginning of the end.

"Could be"...the key words there. Should be...definitely. You can't be so risk averse after Benintendi and Robert that you never offer a long term contract again...because it might go wrong. It might also work out spectacularly.

After last season...Kopech is a viable closer in the same way Dillon Gabriel or Justin Fields is a starting NFL QB. He has to prove he can stay healthy first. Same with Grant Taylor, for that matter. Btw, that "moving on" lesson seems to apply to about 30 former Sox players lol. Well, except Clevinger I guess.

Burger and Sheets independently started going out and buying the tech with their own money...that shouldn't have to happen in a high class organization before someone else notices. Or integrating systems across all minor league teams and interfacing with Chicago. Was Rick Hahn or Jeremy Haber so scary or unapproachable that a seemingly good idea would lead to adverse consequences?

And two things can be true simultaneously. We can take an NFL example. Maybe Brian Flores in Miami wasn't a very good head coach. At all. But Tua has proven himself numerous times since his "inside expose" that he's neither a good QB nor a respected team leader. Blaming others for one's own faults never gets you very far in life. You think the Rays' various leaders looked at their respective budgets...compared with NYY or Boston or Toronto...ana said, nah, we just can't compete in this division??? Might as well just give up.

AI just quickly amalgamates all those news sources instantaneously and provides a succinct set of key bullet points.

This source seems VERY familiar. I've seen it pop up quite a few times for various professional sports articles the last 2-3 years.

Well, I will gladly take Carlos Rodriguez over either Hahn/Getz in a heartbeat.

They aren't/weren't morons. The end. Hahn maybe a baseball moron...outside of contracts and public speaking.

OF/CF 1B/DH pitching pitching pitching

Eye for talent is one half of it. Developing that talent and also finding players with that burning internal drive to be great...well, look what happened to Moncada Kopech Jimenez and Robert, Jr. I mean...I literally taught narco trafficantes' kids in Colombia, but also one student whose parents both attended Harvard and earned doctorates in opthamology, and their daughter also got in and excelled, too. The lines are blurry when money gets involved with education. Girls are forced by society there to grow up too quickly into young women, and the machisimo culture also dictated that beauty was prized over brains...that being too smart was actually a big negative to the majority of "prized" men. About half of my female students had multiple plastic surgerhe's already at ages 15-16-17. But at least they never had to make that choice to utilize their beauty in order to save their families financially, thank god. That was the saddest part of the Franco case...how much the mother manipulated her daughter to target famous athletes to provide a better lifestyle for herself. Afaik, she was also charged and held criminally responsible for her actions as well.

Except those morons went to Stanford Northwestern/Kellogg Harvard Law and Michigan. Not morons...just not well suited to working together as an executive team and sharing decision making power when KW and Paddy still wanted to overrule Hahn on talent evaluation/trades.

KW stopped caring, simply got acclimated to a comfortable executive lifestyle with all the perks (2005's long shelf life) and Hahn just never had the eye for talent. Rodriguez was the first to sign an eventual Brazilian major leaguer in Yan Gomes. That was at the same time the White Sox were going after Andre Rienzo and Anderson Gomes, middle of the Wilder scandal days when Jerry Krause was also scouting Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia.

It will fun to now shade every Sox transaction with Friedman/Rays-colored glasses from this point onwards. We did it with McKinven visit a vis Milwaukee players and Barfield on the ill-fated Mena deal. There will be the same debates behind every good and bad move depending on if you want to stake a position...just like the ubiquitous Hahn vs. KW inquisitions that went around in interminable circles.

If it's so ridiculous, why is there no mention of it anywhere in his bio? Wander Franco was a generational talent, his biggest signing ever and the first $100+ million contract for the Rays. Obviously it wasn't Rodriguez's fault...anymore than Sherrone Moore's delfish individual actions can only be blamed on himself and not Harbaugh/UM. From having lived in that Latin American world, one can certainly see everyday the temptations and potential snares that are out there for young and rich athletes who transformed entire villages with unimagined wealth virtually overnight. But sometimes it's also just time to move on for both sides. A fresh start. The same thing kind of gut check reassessments happened in the Marlins' organization when Jose Fernandez passed away. There are a number of individuals who felt responsible then, all the way up to the owner's box. At any rate, Rodriguez would probably tell you the same exact thing after 16 years with the same organization. Time for a change and challenging new opportunity.

"The Rays have formally announced the departure of longtime Assistant General Manager Carlos Rodriguez. When Chaim Bloom (current StL GM) departed the Rays to run the Red Sox in 2019, the team did not elevate a General Manager due to the equity found in talent between Peter Bendix, James Click, and Carlos Rodriguez. Since that time, James Click was recruited to be the General Manager of the Houston Astros in 2020 (winning the World Series in 2022), and Peter Bendix was named General Manager ahead of the 2022 season before being recruited to become President of Baseball Operations of the Miami Marlins after the 2023 season..." https://www.draysbay.com/rays/85871/rays-announce-departure-of-agm-carlos-rodriguez This article neatly summarizes the rationale for Rodriguez's departure. Basically as part of a four headed Asst GM situation and under both Eric Neander and advisor Jon Daniels (ex Rangers)...there was nowhere left to go organizationally under new ownership as Matthew Silverman and Auld both stepped down from top exec roles. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46295886/rays-presidents-silverman-auld-step-part-sale&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwifz_aA38aRAxUAHUQIHUNCL2AQFnoECBQQAg&usg=AOvVaw2NwCh9zLK7AsmRKOQjryjA Rays during the Carlos Rodriguez years 2010 96 wins 2011 91 2012 90 2013 92 2014-2017 *77/80/*68/80 2018 90 2019 96 2020 40-20 (108-54 pace) 2021 100 2022 86 2023 99 2024 80 2025 *77

"As for Rodriguez, it’s not surprising to see the Cubs explore poaching a Rays’ executive. The Rays have proven adept at building a farm system that should keep Tampa competitive for years to come. Former Rays’ executives hold top positions in Los Angeles, Boston, and Houston, and they’ve proven successful both in and outside of Tampa Bay. Rodriguez is their vice president of player development and international scouting. For the Cubs, they are desperate to build a development team that can do a better job of sustaining success than their previous efforts." https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/10/cubs-narrow-search-for-new-general-manager.html Out of those Cubs' interviews, James Harris went on to interview for the Houston Astros' GM position and is still one of three Asst GMs with Cleveland under Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/01/guardians-announce-several-organizational-promotions.html

What's the latest out of this new role?