almagest

There’s not a whole lot of surplus value on Bummer at $7.25 or $7.5 million. He’s at $3.5 million next year on his refreshed deal. That would’ve been worth something in a deadline trade, assuming he rebounded here.

With this crappy defense behind him, and with less than half a year left on his contract? No way.

I can see the rationale behind Soroka and Lopez, and I’d bet they were basically free. I doubt Getz turned down anything useful to take those guys. Could they have instead gotten a low minors guy without any success so far that their scouts/analytics loved? Probably. I also don’t trust those guys at all. Not yet, anyway. Hopefully we can build the infrastructure to start making those kinds of deals with some confidence. Overall, if we want to say that Getz’s trades have all felt a little light, then I can agree with that.

Sox hitters: "Wait just a darn minute here... you can hit the ball IN THE AIR?!"

Yes I'm sure so many teams were beating down the door to trade valuable prospects for one year of a guy with a 6.79 ERA in 2023 who walked 5.6 per 9, and seemed to fold under any pressure. Switching out guys on the 40 man bubble for prospects would've returned marginal ones at best, and people would've bitched about that, too. GMs aren't going to overpay for performance several years out of date, nor are they going to just buy the "his FIP was so much lower so give me good prospects!" argument either. Soroka was a good flier to see if he could recapture some of his 2019 success. He ended up being a solid bullpen guy and I wouldn't mind seeing him back, though since he elected free agency that's probably not an option. Schuster produced 1 WAR in 73 innings as a long man/spot starter and should be an ok arb eligible addition going forward for a bad team. Lopez did what he was expected to - play good defense at a non-premium position and not hit at all. He was brought in to likely fill in a gap until the Sox felt guys like Sosa were more ready. If he's back I'll be really surprised. Shewmake sucks and likely won't be with the team. At best they'll stick him in AAA. He was a former first round pick, though, and is the type of guy the Sox should be running through to see if they can get anything out of them. Gowens was age appropriate for AA and pitched solidly. He also strikes out over 10 batters per 9. He'll probably be in AAA next season and could end up being a useful bullpen guy. Not sure he's a starter long-term, but we'll see. Bummer rebounded nicely with a team that could play defense and actually scout. His contract extension has no bearing on the value of the trade. Overall, the trade was fine.

That second rounder is also likely in the top 5 picks in that round. Super valuable.

I look forward to when the Sox release this guy and people have an an aneurysm when he goes to a decent team and has like a 3.95 era in 45 innings.

The Bears

Kopech was already pitching like this at the time of the trade. The Sox failure with him was to not recognize this and pull him back to potentially get more in the offseason. The injuries and lack of playing time, plus going into his age 30 season are all working against Moncada.

No way. He can't stay healthy. He's a part time player at best.

Tony LaRussa

Not much, in my mind. Starting pitching has been alright, given the talent, but it seems like the bullpen has underachieved every year he's been here. They also dropped a bunch of solid relievers for nothing, who went on to be good elsewhere. If Katz goes I won't be upset.

It could be a huge competitive advantage if they paid normal industry rates. I wonder if there's collusion amongst teams on this, though.

We're not, apparently, and that's been the major argument on this board for weeks. It's frustrating when people are just confirming their biases and not actually reading what you say, but also it's fun to pop in here sometimes and say "you know that could potentially be a not half bad move" and watch as people absolutely lose their MINDS.

Harold I’ll give you. Jimmy doesn’t praise Getz.

You doubt people who have connections on this board, then you pull out a fever dream like this.

Hiring additional people would be great, but even just allowing them to talk to other departments is a big step in the right direction. I also can't believe I had to type out a sentence about "letting employees talk to each other".

Yes we do. It's in the article Texsox posted. We also have confirmation from two board insiders that this is what they're doing. We didn't have that any other time.

No, I said comparing organizational silo removal to a crony hire was unfair. Not any change. If you want to say you don't trust Getz because he's a crony hire in an organization full of under-performing crony hires I would agree with you.

There was a lot more to this team's failure, and you know it. They didn't lose 121 games because the marginal players they signed this offseason performed like marginal players.

What does that have to do with removing internal silos?

No, the totality of terrible moves and internal nonsense of the last 5+ years led to 121 losses. You don't get historically bad without long term historic incompetence. There is also no universe in which removal of excessive siloing is a bad thing for the future of the organization, and comparing it to a crony hire like Shelly Duncan is just dishonest.

It's encouraging because of context. We have heard from board insiders and in the big expose about the White Sox that the org was ridiculously, comically siloed. That appears to be changing.

Every pitcher in MLB can locate on the inner third, so that’s very concerning. Hopefully Taylor is just working back from injury.