Joey Gallo Rumor Thread

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

6 hours ago, Tony said:

But Max is also right…it just doesn’t matter. A Jake Diekmam there, and Leury Garcia here…yes they are bad and short-sighted moves, but when teams like the Mets, Yankees, Phillies, Astros etc are making moves like they are, what are we talking about? 
 

I know it’s not fun to just throw your hands up and say “it is what it is” but that’s where we are at. The team was a total flop last year and objectively by any metric you want to use, the roster is in worse shape than it was during the 2022 season and they have shown NO indication they have any interest in making it better. The organization has 0 interest in trying to win. They’ll pat themselves on the back if they somehow dust off the 2005 horseshoe they found and get incredibly lucky in 2023, but aside from blind luck, the White Sox are no where close to any sort of contender for a World Series. That’s clearly not the goal of the organization, and they’ve done everything to show us that without actually saying it. 

And if you have approached this season realistically and post about acquiring youngish players to improve the team because as a Sox fan you want to feel you are making wise choices for depth you get kicked in the head by our fans hoping for money to pop up out of nowhere and belittling that approach or the players you pick when Cespedes was your best depth OF until a few weeks ago and it's not really much better now.

It's just sad being a fan now.

[bmags]

11 hours ago, SoCalChiSox said:

LMAO ....they are getting outbid even for a Plan D option. That's pretty pathetic even for this team.

Aww don’t be silly. He was their plan A.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

6 minutes ago, bmags said:

Aww don’t be silly. He was their plan A.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[bmags]

I think despite the offseason, as a fan of baseball I don’t think we are in that late 90s/early 00s feeling where you just can’t compete.

I still think Braves are most likely to win NL east.

Scherzer and Verlander we have every reason to believe are the exceptions, but so was Nelson Cruz and you do eventually hit that wall.

But to be the Braves the Sox needed to go back in time and perform their drafting and player development better.

They didn’t, but neither did Phillies or Mets really, but they had owners who weren’t going to let missteps derail the years it took to build their initial foundation.

Obviously Phillies are exhibit A.

But it’s never too late to stop operating better in scouting and pd, and at the very least I do think we may have at the end of the year be impressed with the wave of pitching arriving from there.

The last part I hate is just knowing now this was doomed from the start, because unlike orgs that legitimately feel they must win, clearly there was going to be a point in this rebuild when the Sox were like, wellp this is it, let’s see how they do.

Meanwhile the other teams keep adding, never stopping trying to get an overwhelming advantage.

JR wants to find the perfect equilibrium of where exactly what’s needed meets exactly what it would cost and never risk going above it that equilibrium.

[ChiSox59]

9 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

True, but Hahn should have known better.  Diekman alone wasn’t making us a playoff team last year and he made the move anyways despite the fact it would eat away at the little money we’d have to play with.

With these contracts being given out, Diekman is probably tradable tbh. It was a dumb trade and Diekman has no value, but I am fairly certain someone would take him from the Sox for minor league filler. 

[Sarava]

34 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

And if you have approached this season realistically and post about acquiring youngish players to improve the team because as a Sox fan you want to feel you are making wise choices for depth you get kicked in the head by our fans hoping for money to pop up out of nowhere and belittling that approach or the players you pick when Cespedes was your best depth OF until a few weeks ago and it's not really much better now.

It's just sad being a fan now.

Two things...

1) The money is there, it's just that Jerry won't let it see the light of day. The White Sox themselves told us over and over that the money is there.

2) I wasn't one of the fans getting on you about Outman. But you were kind of obsessing over a tweener triple a star who turns 26 early next season. Those types usually are fool's gold.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

On 12/11/2022 at 6:46 AM, Sarava said:

Two things...

1) The money is there, it's just that Jerry won't let it see the light of day. The White Sox themselves told us over and over that the money is there.

2) I wasn't one of the fans getting on you about Outman. But you were kind of obsessing over a tweener triple a star who turns 26 early next season. Those types usually are fool's gold.

 There's very few choices out there who can both field and hit. I mean what else am I supposed to look for ? AAA stars are not a bad thing. He took a while to get to where he's at now. That's what happens when you take a guy in the 7th round with a great body and a great athlete who didn't have much of a college career. I wish the Sox could develop a guy like that.

WE always have to keep in mind that minor league players players missed all of 2020 which is the case with Outman. In 2021 somewhere between A+ and AA the things the Dodgers had been working on him with all started clicking. The 2nd half of 2021 in AA he started blooming. In 2022 the Dodgers started him off in AA again to make sure the changes would stick and he did even better  . Then promoted to AAA and did even better. So basically he's had only 1.5 years of good results with only .5 seasons in AAA. Based on that I can't call him a "tweener" because he's hasn't been bouncing back and forth between AAA and the majors. If he had done in 2020 what he did in 2021 he might have started getting some national attention in the rankings and then higher after if his 2022 performance came in 2021.

Will he be a good player ? I don't know. 1st round draft picks bust all the time too. I'm just going by skill set and recent performance. I don't have much else to go by. Speed, power and defense. Most guys the Sox have picked up in the OF never had this guy's skill set. Haseley, Cordell, Palka.

If it helps there's Jarred Kelenic too . He's only 22 and he might hit MLB pitching well some day. He needs time to develop too. If he becomes a star 2 or 3 years from now with another team I don't think that team will mind at all.

Even a guy they let walk like Luis Gonzalez showed he can play in the bigs. Who else are recent OF  that the fan base had high hopes for in the last few years ? Rutherford ? Basabe ? Adolfo ? Nothing wrong with targeting players who have skills in a position lacking talent and depth. You show how good he's been and how far he's come and list everything you can about the guy and then some wise ass says you're basing in it all on a 4 game sample (1.400 OPS) with the Dodgers. Even if I was basing it on that a 1.400 OPS for 4 games its better than going 0 for 16 and looking bad . But as you can see from above with his progression and the missed year in 2020 there's more to him than 4 games in MLB.

For all we know if the Dodgers don't fix their own OF problems he might get 300 AB's with them in 2023. But the Dodgers have all kinds of money to spend but even they are having a hard time finding a guy ATM looking at retreads like McCutchen and Heyward.  The Sox aren't the only team looking for OFers in a barren desert. It's slim pickings and even more so for a LH OF with skills and 6 years of eligibility.

On the bright side I see his name more so I've convinced some people he might be worth a try. I'm not going to apologize for hoping the Sox get better and making suggestions on how they can do it given the apparent payroll restrictions.

Edited December 12, 2022 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[Highland]

44 minutes ago, Sarava said:

Two things...

1) The money is there, it's just that Jerry won't let it see the light of day. The White Sox themselves told us over and over that the money is there.

2) I wasn't one of the fans getting on you about Outman. But you were kind of obsessing over a tweener triple a star who turns 26 early next season. Those types usually are fool's gold.

You may be right. The money may be there. However, it if isn't, it just shows the White Sox can't realistically compete as a major league franchise. Maybe one year things will work out like 2005. But so far this offseason shows that the rebuild will not work out in the long run. And we fans are stuck in this situation.

[Tnetennba]

11 hours ago, fathom said:

It really seems like they’re basically at their budget already. Just a gross misuse of funds and then pathetic approach by Jerry.

If they can’t even afford Gallo it really makes me think they will push for that TA, Liam, Gio combo of trades to shed payroll.  As ass backwards as it is to be selling off parts in a supposed contention wisdom. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

I think despite the offseason, as a fan of baseball I don’t think we are in that late 90s/early 00s feeling where you just can’t compete.

I still think Braves are most likely to win NL east.

Scherzer and Verlander we have every reason to believe are the exceptions, but so was Nelson Cruz and you do eventually hit that wall.

But to be the Braves the Sox needed to go back in time and perform their drafting and player development better.

They didn’t, but neither did Phillies or Mets really, but they had owners who weren’t going to let missteps derail the years it took to build their initial foundation.

Obviously Phillies are exhibit A.

But it’s never too late to stop operating better in scouting and pd, and at the very least I do think we may have at the end of the year be impressed with the wave of pitching arriving from there.

The last part I hate is just knowing now this was doomed from the start, because unlike orgs that legitimately feel they must win, clearly there was going to be a point in this rebuild when the Sox were like, wellp this is it, let’s see how they do.

Meanwhile the other teams keep adding, never stopping trying to get an overwhelming advantage.

JR wants to find the perfect equilibrium of where exactly what’s needed meets exactly what it would cost and never risk going above it that equilibrium.

"JR wants to find the perfect equilibrium of where exactly what’s needed meets exactly what it would cost and never risk going above it that equilibrium."

This is it in a nutshell. 2005 was when that happened and it took all kinds of luck and some very good and career years from quite a few of the guys on that team. That's exceedingly rare . Just look at the Sox  talent. Moncada's best was 2019. Gio's best came before Cease became really good. Keuchels best came in the short season. Hopefully we havent seen Eloy's best yet but so far in was either 2019 or 2020 depending on how you view the short season.

The best we have seen from Robert was 2021 but only for 68 games and now he's had a major injury to go along with all the minor injuries he's had so far.

Had a great season from Rodon but he was never going to be able to pitch like he did early in the year to the end of the season.

[bmags]

17 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

"JR wants to find the perfect equilibrium of where exactly what’s needed meets exactly what it would cost and never risk going above it that equilibrium."

This is it in a nutshell. 2005 was when that happened and it took all kinds of luck and some very good and career years from quite a few of the guys on that team. That's exceedingly rare . Just look at the Sox  talent. Moncada's best was 2019. Gio's best came before Cease became really good. Keuchels best came in the short season. Hopefully we havent seen Eloy's best yet but so far in was either 2019 or 2020 depending on how you view the short season.

The best we have seen from Robert was 2021 but only for 68 games and now he's had a major injury to go along with all the minor injuries he's had so far.

Had a great season from Rodon but he was never going to be able to pitch like he did early in the year to the end of the season.

I think you also see 2005 reaffirmed “spread the money spread the risk” (unfortunately not for a single contract).

likelihood of success on a contract less important to JR than likelihood of failure.

To the extent that this works, it may be fine to enforce this only on pitching staffs. But also enforcing it on position players has just destroyed the org since then.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

3 minutes ago, bmags said:

I think you also see 2005 reaffirmed “spread the money spread the risk” (unfortunately not for a single contract).

likelihood of success on a contract less important to JR than likelihood of failure.

To the extent that this works, it may be fine to enforce this only on pitching staffs. But also enforcing it on position players has just destroyed the org since then.

Unfortunately spread the money ,spread the risk is hardly even a concept when you have Bellinger getting 1 one year deal for $17.5 M and a guy like Gallo may get $10M and you trade for Kimbrel, pick up his option and trade him for another older guy who came here , only to have his worst year ever in the Toxic Sox environment. Then you pay Leury for 3 years and give an injured pitcher 2 years $17M.

Right now it's spread the money and watch how badly it all goes while my boss picked our manager and the whole core crumbled.

Expecting JR to cover his and Hahn's mistakes that led to the mess was never going to happen. He figured $190M was enough but can't seem to grasp they need a strong infrastructure to support that payroll.

He's invested in making the park a better place to watch a game but isn't close to investing in how to create a model for being a winning franchise.

 

[fathom]

2 hours ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

I don’t think their starting left fielder is on the roster yet. They’ll add someone. I just don’t know what else they’ll do 

I agree the LF isn’t on the roster, but it’s very likely IMO they’re going to have to trade someone first to open up payroll. My belief is Hendriks is most likely to be traded now.

[bmags]

8 minutes ago, fathom said:

I agree the LF isn’t on the roster, but it’s very likely IMO they’re going to have to trade someone first to open up payroll. My belief is Hendriks is most likely to be traded now.

Also not a dig at @Y2Jimmy0 but at Hahn, but last year he kept saying he didn’t think the 2B was yet on the roster and that ended up being Harrison. Hard to care too much when they are fishing for a 2 WAR guy.

[Y2Jimmy0]

7 hours ago, fathom said:

I agree the LF isn’t on the roster, but it’s very likely IMO they’re going to have to trade someone first to open up payroll. My belief is Hendriks is most likely to be traded now.

They aren’t going to give Hendriks away. If they trade, I think we’ll all like the return. 

7 hours ago, bmags said:

Also not a dig at @Y2Jimmy0 but at Hahn, but last year he kept saying he didn’t think the 2B was yet on the roster and that ended up being Harrison. Hard to care too much when they are fishing for a 2 WAR guy.

Yeah true. Same options remain at 2B which is why I’d play Sosa there. 

[poppysox]

10 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

And if you have approached this season realistically and post about acquiring youngish players to improve the team because as a Sox fan you want to feel you are making wise choices for depth you get kicked in the head by our fans hoping for money to pop up out of nowhere and belittling that approach or the players you pick when Cespedes was your best depth OF until a few weeks ago and it's not really much better now.

It's just sad being a fan now.

I'll second that!

[kitekrazy]

On 12/10/2022 at 12:38 PM, Balta1701 said:

Kenny Williams was not the GM at the time of that trade.

Still part of the 3 headed monster.  Organization fail.

[kitekrazy]

16 hours ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

They aren’t going to give Hendriks away. If they trade, I think we’ll all like the return. 

Yeah true. Same options remain at 2B which is why I’d play Sosa there. 

Unless that hole becomes bigger.  Reylo's success last season what due to having Cueto around. I forget the other option but the pen was a crapshoot last year. 

[Y2Jimmy0]

4 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

Unless that hole becomes bigger.  Reylo's success last season what due to having Cueto around. I forget the other option but the pen was a crapshoot last year. 

What do you mean by this? Lopez was going to the bullpen regardless. 

[Bob Sacamano]

2 minutes ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

What do you mean by this? Lopez was going to the bullpen regardless. 

Feel like he means leadership wise? Maybe they were close? I’m not sure.

edit: not leadership but you know what I mean.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Bob Sacamano

[GreenSox]

17 hours ago, Y2Jimmy0 said:

They aren’t going to give Hendriks away. If they trade, I think we’ll all like the return. 

I certainly hope they don't give him away, or use him to move another contract.  But they've done that before.
And then I wonder who they could sign that would require additional payroll room; if it's Gallo, that would be ridiculous.
 

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

5 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

I certainly hope they don't give him away, or use him to move another contract.  But they've done that before.
And then I wonder who they could sign that would require additional payroll room; if it's Gallo, that would be ridiculous.
 

When have the included a valuable player with a negative value player to dump the negative value players contract? 

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

When have the included a valuable player with a negative value player to dump the negative value players contract? 

I believe there was general agreement that the Robertson, Frazier, Kahnle trade to the Yankees was light on the prospect return because the Yankees were taking on Frazier and Robertson's decently big contracts.  Kahnle in particular had like 5 years of control remaining or something ridiculous like that. 

[GreenSox]

17 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

When have the included a valuable player with a negative value player to dump the negative value players contract? 

They've done many contract dumps; some to create room, others just to dump.

[LittleHurtCG]

36 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I believe there was general agreement that the Robertson, Frazier, Kahnle trade to the Yankees was light on the prospect return because the Yankees were taking on Frazier and Robertson's decently big contracts.  Kahnle in particular had like 5 years of control remaining or something ridiculous like that. 

Or The Sox just did a terrible job of scouting the Yankees prospects and asked for total bums?