State of the farm system

[WestEddy]

1 hour ago, Tony said:

But here is the argument you haven't answered.

You made the statement: "The White Sox minor league system was woefully behind the rest of baseball in all new development tools and methods."

According to his bio, when he was named President of Baseball Operations for the White Sox, this is how it read: 

 

So even assuming he realized he needed those things and they were not available, given that he spent seven years in the White Sox front office before being promoted to President of Baseball Operations...What was he being judged on? According to you, his job was was "basically entry level" (which is another ringing endorsement for being given the President of Baseball Ops job) so what earned him the large promotion? 

You can't seem to cite any large success stories that you believe Getz was responsible for (again, his job, according to you was "basically entry level" in what he was doing...so why should fans believe he is the right guy to oversee the major league team? 

Why do I need to cite success stories? The guys who made it to the major leagues and had any success, somehow, developed himself, whereas, the guys who were drafted with serious flaws, or were 1 dimensional players, those are his failures. He's GM. I'm not sure why you guys keep needing to have this argument. 

But here's a case in point. Hostetler was demoted or kicked upstairs. He was removed from running the draft. That's clearly a situation where KW/Hahn thought he wasn't doing his job, and they promoted/hired Shirley. Yet Getz was promoted to Asst. GM. So that tells me that the higher ups weren't begging Getz to do his job while he played Tetris on his phone all day every day. They had the capacity to get rid of somebody who underperformed and replaced him with somebody much better. If Getz was f*cking up, so counter to KW/Hahn's expectations, why didn't they remove him? 

I don't care if "fans believe he's the right guy to oversee" the Sox. He is overseeing the Sox. He has the job. I don't understand why I have to believe nonsense arguments about his constant failing and ruining every single prospect, personally, that came through the system. 

By your logic, if a person working in a system doesn't get what he wants, he needs to quit at the earliest possible time. That's ludicrous. 

[WestEddy]

41 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

The circular logic is just wild.  Everyone else failed.  We never drafted anyone who could be developed, including multiple consensus top 10 picks, and every single draft pick after.  All of the players we acquired from other organizations were either un developable, or Chris didn't have enough time with them...  but the guy who had zero involvement in any of those failures learned them all well enough to know how to fix them all, mostly because he was the only one to ever ask for resources, and the notoriously high spending JR w as so impressed he threw everything at Chris and gave him everything he needs.

You calling it circular logic doesn't make it so. You're not making any assertions beyond any I make are ridiculous. I really don't know what your point is. If you have one, it would be helpful if you made it. Getz was director of development for 3 years. I've taken the time and laid out the top 3 draft picks from around his tenure. Please tell me where I'm wrong instead of pretending to be floored by the insane stupidity of someone disagreeing with you. 

 

[WestEddy]

2 hours ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

Couldn’t that also just mean the Sox kept drafting a bunch of busts?  Guys that never were going to make it anywhere?

That's part of what I'm implying. Maybe not busts, but a guy like Konnor Pilkington, junk-balling lefty. Nothing really to develop. He was seen as a high floor college guy, kind of like Cannon. Cleveland wanted him, then couldn't do anything with him. 

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, WestEddy said:

You calling it circular logic doesn't make it so. You're not making any assertions beyond any I make are ridiculous. I really don't know what your point is. If you have one, it would be helpful if you made it. Getz was director of development for 3 years. I've taken the time and laid out the top 3 draft picks from around his tenure. Please tell me where I'm wrong instead of pretending to be floored by the insane stupidity of someone disagreeing with you. 

 

You not understanding things after all of this time doesn't negate your circular logic.  I would hope if you saw it, you would fix it, though I guess I shouldn't assume that.

[Tony]

1 hour ago, WestEddy said:

Why do I need to cite success stories? The guys who made it to the major leagues and had any success, somehow, developed himself, whereas, the guys who were drafted with serious flaws, or were 1 dimensional players, those are his failures. He's GM. I'm not sure why you guys keep needing to have this argument. 

But here's a case in point. Hostetler was demoted or kicked upstairs. He was removed from running the draft. That's clearly a situation where KW/Hahn thought he wasn't doing his job, and they promoted/hired Shirley. Yet Getz was promoted to Asst. GM. So that tells me that the higher ups weren't begging Getz to do his job while he played Tetris on his phone all day every day. They had the capacity to get rid of somebody who underperformed and replaced him with somebody much better. If Getz was f*cking up, so counter to KW/Hahn's expectations, why didn't they remove him? 

I don't care if "fans believe he's the right guy to oversee" the Sox. He is overseeing the Sox. He has the job. I don't understand why I have to believe nonsense arguments about his constant failing and ruining every single prospect, personally, that came through the system. 

By your logic, if a person working in a system doesn't get what he wants, he needs to quit at the earliest possible time. That's ludicrous. 

Once again, another case of everyone else is wrong, you’re the right one, even when multiple posters have attempted to show you your math doesn’t math. But keep doing your thing, sure it will work out for you. 

[WestEddy]

49 minutes ago, Tony said:

Once again, another case of everyone else is wrong, you’re the right one, even when multiple posters have attempted to show you your math doesn’t math. But keep doing your thing, sure it will work out for you. 

A person here was blaming Getz for the bad draft picks and international signings while he was head of player development. I'm not sure why I need to enter bizarro world, and start agreeing that something which is demonstrably wrong, is now right, just because. 

Actually being right and sticking with it is working out just fine for me. 

[southsider2k5]

54 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

A person here was blaming Getz for the bad draft picks and international signings while he was head of player development. I'm not sure why I need to enter bizarro world, and start agreeing that something which is demonstrably wrong, is now right, just because. 

Actually being right and sticking with it is working out just fine for me. 

No he is being blamed for developing literally no one.

[Nardiwashere]

41 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

A person here was blaming Getz for the bad draft picks and international signings while he was head of player development. I'm not sure why I need to enter bizarro world, and start agreeing that something which is demonstrably wrong, is now right, just because. 

Actually being right and sticking with it is working out just fine for me. 

Not sure why you engage with the same 5 posters for over a year over the same argument...  No minds are being changed.  They blame Getz everything.  This is the same group that thought the Corey Julks trade was the end of the world and a fireable offense because they gave away Luis Rodriguez. 
 

We are about a page and a half from you and SS2K doing the whole “Getz should have known Moncada, Robert, and Eloy would be hurt within the first month” back and forth I have read 5,000 times.

[WestEddy]

4 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

No he is being blamed for developing literally no one.

You should probably learn the definition of "literally". 

[WestEddy]

38 minutes ago, Nardiwashere said:

Not sure why you engage with the same 5 posters for over a year over the same argument...  No minds are being changed.  They blame Getz everything.  This is the same group that thought the Corey Julks trade was the end of the world and a fireable offense because they gave away Luis Rodriguez. 
 

We are about a page and a half from you and SS2K doing the whole “Getz should have known Moncada, Robert, and Eloy would be hurt within the first month” back and forth I have read 5,000 times.

Fair enough. 

[WhiteSox2023]

1 hour ago, Nardiwashere said:

Not sure why you engage with the same 5 posters for over a year over the same argument...  No minds are being changed.  They blame Getz everything.  This is the same group that thought the Corey Julks trade was the end of the world and a fireable offense because they gave away Luis Rodriguez.

That’s hyperbole.  However, unsurprisingly, Julks sucks and is a DFA candidate.  I’m surprised he’s even still on the roster.

[Dick Allen]

12 hours ago, Nardiwashere said:

Not sure why you engage with the same 5 posters for over a year over the same argument...  No minds are being changed.  They blame Getz everything.  This is the same group that thought the Corey Julks trade was the end of the world and a fireable offense because they gave away Luis Rodriguez. 
 

We are about a page and a half from you and SS2K doing the whole “Getz should have known Moncada, Robert, and Eloy would be hurt within the first month” back and forth I have read 5,000 times.

Getz is great. It was everyone else that was clueless.

[WestEddy]

Was always rooting for a win from the farm system. 

 

Jonathan Stiever announced his retirement on Mondayhttps://t.co/aBn36kMs6n

— Sox On 35th (@SoxOn35th) December 17, 2024

 

[southsider2k5]

9 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Was always rooting for a win from the farm system. 

 

 

Sad to hear that his body couldn't support him.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

17 hours ago, Nardiwashere said:

Not sure why you engage with the same 5 posters for over a year over the same argument...  No minds are being changed.  They blame Getz everything.  This is the same group that thought the Corey Julks trade was the end of the world and a fireable offense because they gave away Luis Rodriguez. 
 

We are about a page and a half from you and SS2K doing the whole “Getz should have known Moncada, Robert, and Eloy would be hurt within the first month” back and forth I have read 5,000 times.

 I think part of the reason you addressed Eddy is because you know he will respond fairly while the other guy  won't be so kind. So it actually seems like you should address the other protagonists too.

I don't spend a lot of time defending Getz but I do once in a while. I think it's much harder to judge middle management like when he was Director of Player Development for maybe 3 or 4 years. It's not like he's coaching these kids, or allocating the budget. He only can do so much and not one person here knows what he could or could not do. They just see that the farm system was ranked very high when he started , which he had nothing or little to do with since the 1st rebuild trades were mostly completed that made farm highly ranked already. Then they see who got drafted while he was in charge and little success from those drafted and the farm getting worse when all the top prospects get to the majors.

Can anyone really point to a Sox farm director who had success and tell us why it happened ? Drafting is largely based on scouting reports and these days on more data or micro scouting, too. Drafting is also a group decision . We have no idea if players Getz thought should be drafted were actually drafted. We don't know anything except what we imagine we see or can point to and say from 2017 to 2020 they couldn't develop anyone . If Colson  Montgomery becomes a star which Director of player development gets credit or any other Minor Leaguer who been in the system 3 or 4 years.

[Balta1701]

13 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Can anyone really point to a Sox farm director who had success and tell us why it happened ? Drafting is largely based on scouting reports and these days on more data or micro scouting, too. Drafting is also a group decision . We have no idea if players Getz thought should be drafted were actually drafted. We don't know anything except what we imagine we see or can point to and say from 2017 to 2020 they couldn't develop anyone . If Colson  Montgomery becomes a star which Director of player development gets credit or any other Minor Leaguer who been in the system 3 or 4 years.

How about this - the last time I thought player development did its job was in the 2000s. In the early half, the heart of a World Series team was developed in the White Sox system, and you had unexpected successes like Crede, who was a 5th round draft pick, or Brandon McCarthy from the 7th. You can't name a 5th round draft pick who became a success for the White Sox in the last 15 years, because around the time Hahn took over it just plain stopped happening. In the latter half, a rebuilt rotation including Danks and Floyd came up out of that system, at least partially. 

That isn't to say the White Sox didn't have talent in their system or get talented guys in later rounds. Despite giving a way a lot of draft picks and never spending their international funds, they managed to have guys like Semien and Tatis in their system who had tons upon tons of talent. The guys they had in their system actually out-performed their system rankings, by a lot. However, by 2014, under Hahn, when those guys were coming up, the system had reached a point where they couldn't recognize those guys were good or help those guys build anything. Marcus Semien was a 6th round pick in the White Sox's system, he's damn near been an MVP caliber player, but the White Sox's system pigeonholed him as a utility man. As soon as he went somewhere else, he struggled because he hadn't gotten quality coaching the entire way up, but after a year of work and a couple of years experience, bang here's a 7-WAR player. 

That story has continued to repeat itself. Normal teams get good players in rounds other than round 1. It's not every one, but guys come up and contribute. Occasionally you should still find a Spencer Strider. You can't name a contributor for the White Sox outside the first round probably since Hahn took over, and what did they wind up doing as a consequence? Overspending on utility guys, overspending on relievers - the guys you often can find in middle rounds.

[WestEddy]

I just brought it up on the FutureSox podcast Sunday, and today I hear that the White Sox are getting Trajekt Pitching machines. Today was a good day. pic.twitter.com/gMmg4eVW7T

— Ian Eskridge (@dailywhitesox) December 17, 2024

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

On 12/16/2024 at 5:48 PM, WestEddy said:

Why do I need to cite success stories? The guys who made it to the major leagues and had any success, somehow, developed himself, whereas, the guys who were drafted with serious flaws, or were 1 dimensional players, those are his failures. He's GM. I'm not sure why you guys keep needing to have this argument. 

But here's a case in point. Hostetler was demoted or kicked upstairs. He was removed from running the draft. That's clearly a situation where KW/Hahn thought he wasn't doing his job, and they promoted/hired Shirley. Yet Getz was promoted to Asst. GM. So that tells me that the higher ups weren't begging Getz to do his job while he played Tetris on his phone all day every day. They had the capacity to get rid of somebody who underperformed and replaced him with somebody much better. If Getz was f*cking up, so counter to KW/Hahn's expectations, why didn't they remove him? 

I don't care if "fans believe he's the right guy to oversee" the Sox. He is overseeing the Sox. He has the job. I don't understand why I have to believe nonsense arguments about his constant failing and ruining every single prospect, personally, that came through the system. 

By your logic, if a person working in a system doesn't get what he wants, he needs to quit at the earliest possible time. That's ludicrous. 

In the post immediately proceeding this, didn't you argue profusely that Getz failures were the result of KW/Hahn's horrible ability to identify talent in employees and their leaning towards hiring friends/family? Now those guys not firing Getz is a glowing endorsement?

Interesting.

Edited Wednesday at 02:25 AM by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Tony]

1 hour ago, WestEddy said:

This is the perfect example of glass half full of glass half empty approach. 

Glass half full: Sox are investing into modern technology, which should help the product on the field. 

Glass half empty: As of June 2024, 19 MLB teams had Trajekt. Like always, the Sox are behind the times, playing catch up with the rest of the league as forward thinking teams are two steps ahead. 
 

In my opinion, both are true. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

5 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

 I think part of the reason you addressed Eddy is because you know he will respond fairly while the other guy  won't be so kind. So it actually seems like you should address the other protagonists too.

I don't spend a lot of time defending Getz but I do once in a while. I think it's much harder to judge middle management like when he was Director of Player Development for maybe 3 or 4 years. It's not like he's coaching these kids, or allocating the budget. He only can do so much and not one person here knows what he could or could not do. They just see that the farm system was ranked very high when he started , which he had nothing or little to do with since the 1st rebuild trades were mostly completed that made farm highly ranked already. Then they see who got drafted while he was in charge and little success from those drafted and the farm getting worse when all the top prospects get to the majors.

Can anyone really point to a Sox farm director who had success and tell us why it happened ? Drafting is largely based on scouting reports and these days on more data or micro scouting, too. Drafting is also a group decision . We have no idea if players Getz thought should be drafted were actually drafted. We don't know anything except what we imagine we see or can point to and say from 2017 to 2020 they couldn't develop anyone . If Colson  Montgomery becomes a star which Director of player development gets credit or any other Minor Leaguer who been in the system 3 or 4 years.

The Director of Player Development absolutely would be allocating budget and resources within his department. That's what Directors do, Cali. You're right in that Getz wasn't on the field day to day. It was his job to guide those who were though, and to give them resources to succeed. The build a consistent message and platform from rookie ball through AAA - should I cite the articles where disjointment in the White Sox minor leagues are cited?

I've given two examples in this very thread of low-cost solutions and advancements Chris Getz could have implemented in his role, regardless of the scope of his job. The highlighted portion is how you'd judge a Director of Player Development, imo, but you've somehow made those things not his fault at all.

Your post is actually worse than WestEddy, because your entire argument is "we can't judge him because we didn't know his day to day job duties and we've never done that job ourselves."

What did Chris Getz improve about the minor league operation while he was in charge? Can you name a single thing? All I've read the past four years is how archaic and inconsistent they are from level to level.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

7 minutes ago, Tony said:

This is the perfect example of glass half full of glass half empty approach. 

Glass half full: Sox are investing into modern technology, which should help the product on the field. 

Glass half empty: As of June 2024, 19 MLB teams had Trajekt. Like always, the Sox are behind the times, playing catch up with the rest of the league as forward thinking teams are two steps ahead. 
 

In my opinion, both are true. 

What's funny is Trajekt costs like 18k a month and you've got to prepay for 3 years. Even with all that, it's a little over $200,000 a year which is a drop in the bucket.

I haven't really touched on your point much, but it's my actual criticism of Chris Getz as our GM. Chris has been in other orgs and he knows people around the game - he will be a copycat GM. Will it get the Sox more with the times? Sure, but the White Sox will always be behind with Getz as GM because he's copying others as opposed to trekking his own path forward. Sustained winners in this game find their own value; their own edge.

[southsider2k5]

26 minutes ago, Tony said:

This is the perfect example of glass half full of glass half empty approach. 

Glass half full: Sox are investing into modern technology, which should help the product on the field. 

Glass half empty: As of June 2024, 19 MLB teams had Trajekt. Like always, the Sox are behind the times, playing catch up with the rest of the league as forward thinking teams are two steps ahead. 
 

In my opinion, both are true. 

Getting the Sox to move into the 2010s is a huge step forward.  Maybe by the 2030s we will sign a real free agent.

[caulfield12]

35 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

The Director of Player Development absolutely would be allocating budget and resources within his department. That's what Directors do, Cali. You're right in that Getz wasn't on the field day to day. It was his job to guide those who were though, and to give them resources to succeed. The build a consistent message and platform from rookie ball through AAA - should I cite the articles where disjointment in the White Sox minor leagues are cited?

I've given two examples in this very thread of low-cost solutions and advancements Chris Getz could have implemented in his role, regardless of the scope of his job. The highlighted portion is how you'd judge a Director of Player Development, imo, but you've somehow made those things not his fault at all.

Your post is actually worse than WestEddy, because your entire argument is "we can't judge him because we didn't know his day to day job duties and we've never done that job ourselves."

What did Chris Getz improve about the minor league operation while he was in charge? Can you name a single thing? All I've read the past four years is how archaic and inconsistent they are from level to level.

Camp/Project Birmingham, lol...

Or does he not get credit for that.

 

Grouping all the top prospects together on minor league teams and promoting them together as a cohesive core so that they can experienced sustained success/winning/playoff appearances in the minors is something that was already a concerted strategy of the KC Royals and Dayton Moore roughly 15 years or so ago when they started bringing all those Top 10 picks along with international prospects such as Salvy Perez, Alcides Escobar and Yordano Ventura.

Not exactly cutting edge stuff.

[WestEddy]

33 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

The Director of Player Development absolutely would be allocating budget and resources within his department. That's what Directors do, Cali. You're right in that Getz wasn't on the field day to day. It was his job to guide those who were though, and to give them resources to succeed. The build a consistent message and platform from rookie ball through AAA - should I cite the articles where disjointment in the White Sox minor leagues are cited?

I've given two examples in this very thread of low-cost solutions and advancements Chris Getz could have implemented in his role, regardless of the scope of his job. The highlighted portion is how you'd judge a Director of Player Development, imo, but you've somehow made those things not his fault at all.

Your post is actually worse than WestEddy, because your entire argument is "we can't judge him because we didn't know his day to day job duties and we've never done that job ourselves."

What did Chris Getz improve about the minor league operation while he was in charge? Can you name a single thing? All I've read the past four years is how archaic and inconsistent they are from level to level.

My post conveys my feeling that I'm tired of posting Getz's successes, because the top players who made the bigs developed themselves, whereas the ones who failed, failed because of Chris Getz. That doesn't make sense to me. That's why I argue. 

These guys forsook an advanced metrics department, took years to think about hitting and pitching labs. Housing, nutrition and sleep monitoring  were an afterthought. 

I'm really befuddled why everyone is expending so much energy to pin all of this in Chris Getz. Yes, he was part of the previous regime. No, he didn't quit. Sure, maybe he shrugged his shoulders and kept notes. 

I don't want all the perpetrators to burn in the fiery cauldrons of hell. If Getz is bringing in competent people to get s%*# in order, I'm all for it. I'm 61. I've got 20-25 more years of baseball fandom in me. I'm not going to spend it furious that the guy making good changes didn't earn his job. 

[WestEddy]

4 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Camp/Project Birmingham, lol...

Or does he not get credit for that.

 

Grouping all the top prospects together on minor league teams and promoting them together as a cohesive core so that they can experienced sustained success/winning/playoff appearances in the minors is something that was already a concerted strategy of the KC Royals and Dayton Moore roughly 15 years or so ago when they started bringing all those Top 10 picks along with international prospects such as Salvy Perez, Alcides Escobar and Yordano Ventura.

Not exactly cutting edge stuff.

Why does it need to be cutting edge? Why can't somebody pounding some fundamentals into JR's skull be "cutting edge"?