Chicago White Sox

I’m 100% behind holding onto Robert. Go sign someone like Joc on a very short term to provide some protection and hope he rebounds.

I think Robert has extra year of control for what it’s worth.

Hopefully more of an opening negotiating stance and not our desired outcome.

It’s just so insane. We desperately need controllable talent and Harold is looking to dump a bad contract that we can afford and acquire an ok player with limited control left. I refuse to believe Getz would actually do this stuff, but if he does, dear god are in we trouble.

To me, the pitching roadmap for us is pretty straightforward. First, you trade Crochet for much needed positional talent. Then you go with something like this for your opening day rotation. Davis Martin Drew Thorpe Sean Burke Jonathan Cannon Ky Bush* vs. Nastrini vs. Adams At some point during the season, Schultz will likely be ready for a spot. He takes over for the weak link whenever that is. Iriarte and the other guys who lost out on the #5 role can also reclaim a spot if they dominant in Charlotte. More or less, you are looking at nine semi-interesting guys to fill about five spots. I feel pretty good that we come away with a future ace in Schultz (if healthy), at least one mid-rotation starter, and several BOR types. From there, you really are just buying time until Smith & Taylor are ready for the big leagues. Smith should be ready by Y26, while Taylor may need a bit more time before he arrives. There are a lot more arms coming, but almost all of them are MOR / BOR types. Regardless, they provide important depth in the event some of the guys mentioned above get hurt or flame out. And hopefully they allow you to trade some of the proven backend types for other needs. As such, the top of your future rotation likely is built around Schultz, Smith, & Taylor. If one of those guys flop or gets injured (which is probable), we should have plenty of money to sign a short mercenary deal with a free agent SP. The rest of the rotation should be solid to good depending which guys emerge, but realistically Thorpe & Cannon already look like legit major league starters. The key point here is there is a path forward with the rotation. Trying to do this with our positional group requires basically every prospect of note to be a hit, Wolkow becoming a star, and some off the radar prospects emerging. It simply won’t happen. But if we can get two quality positional prospects for Crochet, the roadmap to building a competent lineup becomes much clearer.

Fully agree.

Who is ignoring that Crochet is 25 years old and is a legit ace? We all watched him last year and saw how dominant he can be. The problem that you refuse to accept is that this org is an absolute trainwreck right now and Crochet only has two years of control left. You seem to think that we can both make up 45+ games vs. the competition over the next two years and that Jerry will be open to a big extension for Crochet that keeps him around beyond Y26. And that’s awesome that we have three top 100 positional prospects and three years of control left with Robert. But guess what, most other teams already have a halfway decent to good lineup plus a wave of prospects coming. We literally finished 20 games behind the second worse team in baseball because we have no offensive talent on the major league roster outside of Luis. Three decent prospects is not nearly enough, especially when none of them are elite ones. And good luck if you think we can fill four or five spots in free agency. Look at the results from the C tier free agents that we’ve signed in the past and expect a lot more of that if we have to spread our financial wealth to that level. IMO, we are looking at three years minimum before we have any real shot of being even .500 and that’s if we hit a homerun on a Crochet trade and find a way to recoup some value from a future Robert trade. As good as Crochet is, holding onto him and using our financial resources to extend will likely slow things down vs. getting two quality positional prospects and having an extra $30M to play with in free agency when the time is right. It’s really that simple.

Robert + prospects for Lux. Crochet + Benintendi for crap. You and Getz really have a rock solid plan in place to fix this shitshow!

You continue to assume we won’t get quality prospects for Crochet. We should wait and see on that as Crochet is such a premium asset that I think we’ll get at least one very high end prospect and another very good piece (along with some filler). And that’s an absolute no-brainer deal for us, especially when we’re 20+ games away from even being the second worse team in baseball. Also, you continue to ignore that keeping Crochet around will cost money and that money be spent on other things. If you can trade him for two controllable positional talents then you still have the $30M in AAV to spend in free agency to fill other needs. You essentially get the best of both worlds, but requires you to acknowledge this team ain’t competing in Y25 & Y26.

Awesome, hopefully we can win a World Series in the next two years then.

The new GM element doesn’t matter unless it’s paired with a new owner. You can continue closing your eyes and plugging your ears, but Jerry is never going to give a massive contract to a pitcher. The fact that Rick was able to convince Jerry to offer Wheeler $125M is a miracle and is almost certainly the ceiling of what Reinsdorf would be willing to do. Will Jerry be willing to commit to that type of deal right now when we’re multiple years away from competing? And is that a big enough deal for Crochet to say yes to?

Let’s not compare Lenys Sosa to Marcus Semien. I don’t care about their prospect rankings, but Semien had incredible offensive splits (with elite patience) that wasn’t properly valued at the time. The other prospects you mention I do like but they all have warts and fall into the “far from sure things” camp. They will not be enough to build a competent lineup anytime soon and none of them really have star ceiling outside of maybe Colson (huge maybe). And where do you see 16 1 fWAR guys laying around? Yes, the team was bad last year and maybe they can quickly gain 20 games due to low hanging fruit, but they’d still be a ~60 win team and likely the worst in baseball. You don’t seem to be grasping how far we have to come to right the ship. It’s going to take serious time to become legit playoff contenders again and Crochet simply doesn’t fit the timeline. Wish he did because he’s an incredible talent, but this is the reality of a Jerry Reinsdorf lead org.

No offense, but that team isn’t 45 wins better than this year’s squad. And then Crochet is gone the following season. Your plan doesn’t work and sets us up for sustained mediocrity IMO. We need to cash in on Crochet and get two positional prospects that be everyday guys, one with a fairly high offensive ceiling. Until then, there simply isn’t a mass of offensive talent to think we can fill six spots or so internally. You just said prospects flop at very high rates and then just assumed we’ll be able to fill a lineup with the subpar group we have in place. It’s all a huge stretch. I am less concerned on pitching side. Crochet it will challenging to replace, but we do have two shots in Schultz & Smith. Taylor also has a very high ceiling. I strongly believe Thorpe will be a very useful mid rotation starter. Cannon looks like a solid innings eater type. And unlike on the positional side, there is a lot of pitching depth in the minors. I’m much more confident in Bannister building a playoff caliber rotation in the next two years without Crochet than us lucking into a competent offense without trading him.

But the prospects we have in place today will eventually be enough to turn a 121 loss team into a 86+ win team by 2026?

We were the worst team in major league history with an all time bad offense and little to no high-end positional prospects in the farm. Trying to build a team around Crochet is an exercise in futility when you won’t have the pieces to compliment him anytime soon and will require a large contract extension that Jerry won’t to agree to anyways. He must be traded this offseason because his value to someone else trying to win these next two years is worth more than it is to us and someone will swap the appropriate future value accordingly. Like what is your plan if you keep Crochet? What does that roadmap look like?

What in the world are you talking about?

Can someone summarize the report?

No offense, but no, we know Jerry won’t commit massive dollars to big time free agents. The year Machado & Harper were free agents, Hahn was slyly suggesting he wanted to sign two whales. For all his warts, Rick desperately wanted to buck the “Jerry won’t sign stars” trend. Unfortunately Jerry is a risk adverse b**** and would rather burn fucktons of cash on mediocre free agents who will likely to flop than take a calculated risk on a large, long-term deal.

Who are you referring to?

Wanting the Sox to target a very ordinary player with two years of control while coming off the worst season in baseball history is quite the take.

Make it stop 😰

You rarely optimize value by combining assets. And Robert is an obvious hold at this point given his bad 2024.

Every time I gain the slightest bit of optimism about Getz, Harold pops in with this godforsaken idea that Chris must be pondering.

He should certainly have a role in the process. Just don’t think he should be driving pitching roster decisions.