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69th pick? Nice.

The actual greatest thing that could happen would be for the Mariners to flip Santos to St. Louis, so Kenyan Middleton could watch him sleep in the bullpen every game.

Truly amazing how far this franchise has fallen in just two years.

I was told Santos was untradeable because of the injury.

Fletcher is a fine player and this likely means no more Gavin Sheets so it's a fantastic trade.

What does Tray hate more: Andrew Vaughn or a South Loop stadium?

@Balta1701 - Remember when you said he was untradable?

Best trade of Getz’s career. He peddled one year of success (and possibly an injured arm) for a nice return. We might actually have a lefty RF power bat. His strikeout rate isn’t very pretty though.

?

Why would the Sox dump their young and cheap first round pick and who would they start at first base instead?

Mena has struggled at EVERY SINGLE STOP not named Kannapolis. I'm not losing sleep over moving a kid with his repertoire in favor of a kid who is ready to play the OF for a team that sorely lacks MLB ready OFers.

I like this deal, I dislike the other one. Time to read through all the comments so that I can change my opinion 5 more times.

This move legit terrifies me. How does trading Mena for a 26 year old, 5’ 6” OF enhance our long-term outlook? Like I get this guy isn’t completely powerless, but we now have a pair of contact-oriented hitters in our OF corners. This just seems like such a low ceiling move and I struggle to see the broader strategy here. And now I’m actually worried that Getz places very little value on power.

Was he the serial bullpen napper?

Can't be. Harold likes him.

Does anyone think the Mariners were trying for a Cease and Santos package deal but they just settled on dealing Santos separately?

Now do Cease.

This team needs more veteran leaders to show the other veteran leaders how to be better veteran leaders.

We’re going to need designated hitters for most of our position players.

Having this much disdain for a player is unhealthy.

The year is 2044. The White Sox trade for Michael Kopech’s firstborn son. Soxtalk: “could this be the final piece before a Dylan Cease trade?”

Andrew Vaughn starting the first game at the new South Loop Stadium.

I think Madrigal's top 5 in MLB WAR for that 1st round. He's certainly logged more bWAR than the 3 guys chosen before him.

Seems like there’s a very fine line between that being a positive thing for Mena and just organizational mismanagement. Being promoted to AAA at 20 without any kind of sustained success in the minors is definitely an interesting development path to say the least. It would be 1 thing if Mena had dominant stuff and just needed to hone it, but the fact is that if he doesn’t add at least a couple of MPH’s to his average fastball velocity he’s going to have a real uphill battle. His fastball was killed in AA/AAA last year. My fear for him is that his + curveball worked well vs young minor league talent, but won’t get as many chases as he advances in levels and the rest of his arsenal being average will get exposed. But of course he’s still very young so he could prove me wrong. At the end of the day Mena is the Sox 9th/10 best prospect…meaning he is the 17/18th best prospect in most respectable organizations. The typical “lotto ticket” arm we’ve all been asking for as the 4th piece in a Cease trade. The fact that we traded that for a 26 year old that has a decent shot at being an above average MLB regular really shouldn’t elicit any overly negative reactions.

One thing I like about these two trades, when taken together, is that Getz is trying to create competition in Spring Training and into the early part of the year. They have such little talent and such poor depth that setting up some roster churn and giving opportunities to players like Fletcher, DeLoach, and Shewmake might yield one cromulent regular somewhere on the field.

Where did I compare them? I responded to someone saying that Fletcher is a minor league free agent level talent. Which is indeed ridiculous given his track record.

I’d say a #3 starter ceiling. He’s not an elite prospect by any means, but the kid is also a legit 21 year old in AAA who has posted nice K rates throughout the minors thanks in part to a plus curveball. People here will harp on the fastball being below average, but he’s also built up a considerable amount of innings over the past couple years and I wouldn’t be shocked if the fastball eventually goes up a notch. Regardless, it’s dangerous to trade a young, athletic starter who just put up 135 innings in the minors when you have zero long-term guys in your rotation. Even more dangerous when you’re trading him for a 26 year old who screams 4th OF or second division regular. I don’t like the move in isolation and I like it even less given where we stand in our rebuild.

What world do you live in where 26 year olds that have a great track record of hitting at every level are just floating around on the free agent list? What a ridiculously bad take. And Mena is a mediocre prospect that got overrated amongst the mess the Sox have in the minors. A RHP that has a 90 mph fastball and below average control isn’t a recipe for success…and the results show so far in the minors.

Not a fan of this deal personally. I liked Mena and trading him I would think you can do better than another midget with average speed (although good instincts) and ok power.

Why would this team need a closer?

No idea but they have that new big brained guy in the FO. I'm hoping he can come up with a creative way to turn all that deferred money into a new contract.

Do not like

Love the return on Santos and getting a bigger draft pool is huge!

The Colas have gone flat.

Here's your complimentary scouting reports from BA's latest Mariner's top 20.

Draft pick not withstanding, why would you add substantive money to this roster? So they can win 68 games instead of 60? They were never going to be able to add enough to this roster to be the the 19th best team in MLB anyway.

What’s scary is that outside of Robert, there isn’t a single player in the lineup who will be under 30 by the end of the season and with three years of control left. Vaughn has two years of Arb left after the 2024 season, Eloy has two club options, and Moncada has one club option. Beyond that you’ll still have three years of a 30+ years old (and likely declining) Benintendi. That’s it for the guys already in place, which means filling six to eight everyday spots over the next couple of years. Hahn really left a heaping pile of s%*# on his way out.

Yeah this has been ridiculous. Joey Ortiz isn’t Nick Madrigal. He can actually play shortstop and he impacts the baseball.

I’m starting to think the White Sox are unaware of the tanking rules, and still think they have a shot at the first pick in 2025.

Honestly, I don't think any ballplayers that can actually play the game at the major league level want to play for the chicago white sox in 2024.

648 posts already? HOLEEE SHIIIIIT

It sort of feels like year -1 of the rebuild, at least on the offensive side, considering the ages I added to CWS’s reasonable guess at the opening day lineup Average age 30.1 ?

If I was managing against the White Sox, I would walk Robert 4 times a game, or at least have the pitcher throw sliders 2 feet outside exclusively, and take my chances scoring 3 runs against the Sox pitching staff. I think if you take Robert out of the equation, scoring more than 2 runs is going to be a colossal challenge .

Good on Getz for not budging and standing his ground. Kjerstad and Westburg would have been the exact return needed to give up on 2 full seasons of a Cy-Young Candidate to ignite the “re-tool”. Good on Mike Elias for finding a better deal. That’s why he’s built, arguably, the most talented organization in baseball

Nothing says can’t waste a year more than the guys Getz has picked up. Awesome.

This team truly could lose 110 games. We are just entering year zero of this rebuild. I support the new South Loop stadium just to get a target date on when they will try not to suck.

They are not very similar players. Ortiz has way more defensive value and significantly better power. Madrigal probably has the better hit tool. Like I said before, I’m not saying Ortiz is certain to turn out better than Madrigal has, but they’re really not analogous at all in terms of skill set. And honestly, I just thought the whole snarky “Nicky Ortiz” thing was juvenile. The tone bothered me more than the substance. Elias said in his press conference today that Milwaukee strongly desired Ortiz and that he had many inquiries about him over the offseason from other teams. And just to say it one more time, I never thought Ortiz would be the feature piece of a Cease trade. I just think you guys were too dismissive of him as the second piece in a deal, though there certainly were other ways to go in a potential trade with the O’s.

They haven’t spent much of anything this off-season. That save the money for later ended up being complete bullshit. They spent over a quarter billion on Lynn, Grandal, Keuchel, Benintendi and Leury. Not to mention over $100M on ancient bullpen guys who knew and played for TLR back in the day. They aren’t blocking a single player worth a damn, including the dozen already cut. A bunch of scraps held together by meat glue. The entire organization was/is that barren. The few solid prospects they do have are either in AA or just getting started in AAA. Colas needs to get his act together first before playing here.

Ortiz isn't even an O's prospect any more. Why the f*** is this dude still here arguing with Sox fans?