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I think he does have a plan, but it’s not sexy. Build industry-standard or better processes/practices in all departments — scouting, development, analytics — outcompete other teams for young talent, then have a choice of players to form the core of a team. That is, don’t count on three guys you got from one trade to save the franchise. Then when you have that base, spend more to retain/acquire players for sustained success. That is easier said than done and is going to take a lot of time and money to complete, but it is perfectly rational. On the Future Projection podcast this week, Carlos and Ben talked about the successful teams have excellent communication between FO, PD, and scouts. The Sox have been remedial in all three areas and had terrible communication. Getz is trying to fix that and get them to at least league-average. It was clear by the second half of 2021 that the Sox needed a complete demolition of their org, scrape it below the foundation and then build something entirely new. Last year was year -1, this is year 0. Building something competitive is gonna take a long time.

He was their hitting coach last year and they won the Southern League title

I previewed the international signing period for the White Sox at FutureSox. It's currently available on Patreon: https://www.futuresox.net/2025/01/03/2025-white-sox-international-signing/ The White Sox have $6.2 million to spend and their agreements total around $4.2 million so far. The group is headlined by Cuban 3B Alejandro Cruz. They've also signed Cuban righty Yobal Rodriguez. Pitching has been a focus and they've given some other bonuses as well. Cesar Familia RHP Dominican Republic $350K Jhonny Morao LHP Dominican Republic $300K Roderick Medina RHP Panama $275K Yordani Soto SS Dominican Republic $750K Diego Natera C Venezuela $225K Jeremy Aponte OF Venezuela $200K Igor Escobar Inf Venezuela $70K. I'm curious to see how the presence of Roki Sasaki affects the White Sox. Can they trade money to help someone sign him? Can they sign a player that gets their deal voided from the team who actually signs him? I'll be curious to see that.

Stop trading younger players for old, lefty relievers

WHITE SOX ALIVE

Must be what Cincinnati needed to get Luis Robert or something

I will go to the grave believing if Andrew Vaughn was drafted and developed by a better organization, he's a totally different, and better MLB hitter than he is today. What a waste.

Gross

Solid move, was gonna be tough to block all the infield prospects without an addition of some kind.

Thanks. God forbid anyone express any optimism about anyone. Negativity until proven otherwise.

Given what we know about how Jerry runs an organization, the above seems totally ass backwards to me. Signing a 300 million dollar player is never going to happen with JR alive. I question if we ever see a $100 million dollar contract given. Player salaries will always tower over any other cost associated with the team when it comes to the balance sheet. Because of that, if I had the restrictions that I’m sure Getz has, I’d be investing as many resources as possible in pitching labs, new tech, and FO staff that can put you ahead of who you are competing against. FO expenses are fractions of a cost compared to player salaries. It’s why the Rays, Brewers, etc have been successful. Being “average” at everything is going to get you exactly what you’re asking for. A very average W-L record. If you gave me these two choices: A. Killer developmental staff but same payroll as Twins B. Average staff but $35 million more in payroll room I’d take Door A everytime for the White Sox

You'd honestly have to be a complete dunce to think there's any justification for the level of spending taking place right now. The Sox have already proven once they won't save and splurge later.

we're 4th after trading everyone. any other team could do the same. the trick is to draft and develope good players. that way you don't go 41-121. my january cynicism is starting to boil up to the top.

This board is getting worse than Congress with its extremist views. Either you must hate everything the org does no matter how trivial in order to get the rage out of your system or you must spin everything that Getz does in a favorable light regardless if it has sound backing to it to help retain some level of hope. This board used to have great discussion and now it’s just non-stop whining & spinning by the same group of posters 24/7. Unfortunately, those of us who are angry AF at the organization but still want to give Getz a chance (even if 100% undeserved) can’t have good honest debates on moves as the loudest posters disrupt everything with their relentless pessimism or optimism.

To be fair most of the 15 million went to his defense attorneys

You are allowed to be excited by moves. What the hell are sports for if not that? Take some joy today. They got the best guy on the market.

Ugh...he was the best! What a great person...and for White Sox fans...he was the perfect manager at the perfect moment for this franchise!

I'd take my chances.

“Roki Sasaki has informed the White Sox that he has never heard of them.”

This has been a debate for basically the last decade, but I think the argument is a fairly simple one. The 2005 White Sox were an absolute force and absolutely deserved to win the World Series based on their play. However, coming into the 2005 season, there were not waves of predictions they were a World Series caliber team, from fans or media members. - A 31 year old Jermaine Dye doubled his WAR from 2004 - Podsednik had a 1.7 WAR in 2005, up from 0.6 in 2004 (He played in 25 more games in 2004!) - From 2002-2004, Konerko put up a 3.8 WAR total. In 2004 he had a 4 WAR season. - Two guys who I consider some of the most important guys in 2005, Politte and Cotts, came out of absolute NO WHERE and both had WARs over 2 as RPs. I could go on. There were a few guys that actually had somewhat down years from where they were before (Rowand, Frank obviously) but generally speaking, a lot had to come together from some unexpected places for 2005 to be as memorable as it was. That is often the case for World Series teams, but as history unfortunately showed us, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 weren’t playoff teams. It was a magical season, but the key word there is “season.” It lasted a year.

Why? They have Rojas for a year. You can afford to play Montgomery at SS and see if he can play while the team is bad.

Loved the interview. Thanks for posting. I run a smallish organization and how he talks about delegating, getting info, process, etc. is spot on. Very impressive.

It should've been a big signing in a series of acquisitions to push the team over the top. The problem was that it turned out to be THE big signing while other gaping holes were never addressed.

I am so sick of the payroll disparity in baseball. I’m so sick of JR too.

Someone check on Harold.

From the Chris Getz hatred, we all know that the Assistant to Player Development is the true power center of this organization. Hell, Chris Getz ran the White Sox from that roll with the Royals. Nevin now has more power than Reinsdorf.

Just heard the news and am devastated. Jeff, Billy Pierce and Roland Hemond were three of the finest men I ever knew. Words fail me right now. We talked often over the years and he was always gracious with a lot of stories. I'll call the family on Monday. Just terrible news.

The Dodgers have 2 World Series titles in their 11 year run of dominance. There is no amount of talent they could stockpile that outweighs the randomness of October baseball.

Why didn't the Padres trade for Roki's friends and family?

1) This is cool 2) Dear god why are there three fonts, and why does that last one even exist?

As the 2023 season ended with 101 losses, JR didn't talk about improving the team. Instead, he went to Springfield to lobby for a new stadium. The result? A record setting 121-loss season in 2024 with another 100-loss season in the 20th anniversary of the only World Series championship in 108 years. Conservatives like JR preach about people "pulling themselves by their bootstraps." No government handouts. But there is JR with a handout for an obscene amount of money. Instead of the team improving, it worsens. Getz supporters say he will eventually turn the team into a winner. But until that happens, Getz and the White Sox will have no credibility. I've been a Sox fan for a long time. I don't listen to promises anymore, and JR can build his own stadium.

Seems like you’ve invented collusion.

Holy s%*# we need actual baseball to talk about...

Impressed. Unbelievable. I used to wonder how these MBA's pulled the cloak over people's eyes. Chris Getz just lost the most games in MLB history. He lost 20+ more games than any other season we've ever had. He could manufacture the biggest single season turnaround in MLB history by 5 wins (40 more wins than the year prior) and they still wouldn't get over 500. He also is about to run a payroll out there that is lowest the organization has had since 2004! 21 years ago! The league has TRIPLED it's revenues since 2004. But hey, he gives you some basic business school type of answer and you're impressed. The only impressive thing Chris Getz is doing is lining the pockets of ownership. There are rules in place to prevent the small market A's from spending at the levels the White Sox are spending. Think about that for a second. That's beyond disgustingly embarrassing.

Do you think he (or anyone) would volunteer to go on a podcast that would try and destroy him?

That Jon Lester move never came for the Sox....they just pretended it was Grandal, Keuchel and 'ol Meat and Potatoes instead of Machado/Harper/Wheeler.

Who

Ok

The idea that we are 3rd tier free agents away from being even mediocre or entertaining is just absurd. There is no one that is saving this disaster of a season. The sooner people wake up to reality, the better. No one wants this, but it IS happening. The only question is will the Sox do what they need to at the bottom to fix things, or will they continue to half ass it to win a couple of more games now, only to lose a lot more games in the long term. The wanting Getz to operate like Hahn stuff is astounding.

I also disagree with this. As Ray pointed out, if there was history to tell us “ok the payroll is going to be historically low but when guys start to develop, that saved money is going right back into the payroll” but that’s not how it works. It’s just going into the pockets of ownership. This team still has no foundation. Is signing Santander going to make a Sox a contender? Absolutely not. Is he going to make the lineup better? Yes, and he’s not going to be blocking anyone, because there is no one to block. There were a few boobs here saying “there is no difference in losing 100 games and 120 games.” Which most of us, myself included, strongly disagreed with. But that works both ways. There is a difference between winning 60 games and 75 games. And I think a lot of fans are starved, and deserve some competitive baseball on the South Side. The point is adding some actual talent to the 2025 team shouldn’t be a bad thing. It simply costs money, and shouldn’t take away from the efforts of actually rebuilding the right way. You should be able to do two things at once. The Sox probably can’t because they’re incompetent, but that’s also not an excuse for them.

It’s absolutely wild. The only spot we have multiple prospects at is 2B & 3B and we just blocked them all. No fucking clue what we are doing here.

No player worth anything wants to sign with this organization when it’s been in such disarray over the past few seasons. The Sox can only sign players who don’t have a lot of options to play elsewhere.

If you’re talking Montgomery or Ramos or Teel or Quero or even Vargas, sure. But Fletcher is a low ceiling 26/27 year old guy. He is not a future piece. He is a now piece. He hits, play him. He doesn’t, minors.

The Dodgers built a brand and reap the rewards of it. If the Sox spent the money, filled the stadium every game, and built a competitive marketable product they would be printing money just like the Dodgers. While it does suck the same handful of teams are the only ones signing these players and trading for the superstars, they weren’t given an advantage they built it. It’s 2025 for fucks sake how do you get away with $75 million being the largest contract you’ve ever given out. Same goes for all these other teams that aren’t interested in trying.

Do you have strong feelings one way or the other about the McCaskey family? You seem to be an enigma on that subject.

I know everyone has their favorites but the Lux fascination at this point in his career is bizarre to me.

Basically there's a subset here that refuses to see anything good. Even if they see it like a good amount of pitching prospects and a top 5 system they refuse to talk about it. It's like I've been hurt and I'll never love again. We usually find those people just as annoying as eternally optimistic people, maybe moreso except they formed themselves as the Soxtalk cool kids . Now it's cool to be a Sox Goth because it's the majority. We can accuse anyone optimistic of being Getz lovers . OMG the stigma is devastating. Only there are no eternally optimistic people here. There's just the Sox Goths and those who choose to see some good. It might not get us to the playoffs soon but I've rooted for the Sox all my life as have many of you when they weren't making the playoffs so it's not much different to me. You either make the playoffs or you don't. Here we're the tree in the forest that no one hears fall.