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Some notes: Kanny were lost on defense to start the game. LMG looks like he's still knocking off the rust at 1B. Ronny Hernandez is usually solid behind the plate, but allowed his first 2 passed balls of the season today. He caught 2 runners...out of 8. Not the best welcome for the new arms. Kanny was down 5-1, but got the comeback 8-6 win largely anchored by Wolkow. Over in Charlotte, Knights won 8-3. DeLoach is staying hot. He was 3-4 with a HR, 2B, and BB. August line up to .348/.451/.565. Good defender too, I'm a fan. McGough (Eloy trade) has a 0.68 WHIP and .143 BAA as a Knight. I like him too. WS continued their streak of losing despite outhitting their opponent. Bockenstedt didn't have it today, allowed 6 baserunners in the first before getting an early hook for pitch count.

It still amazes me how many can't look at this soon to be 26 year old with an ERA over 11.00 in AAA, and admit, they were wrong. It was a bad trade.

Sounds a lot better than Las Espaldas De Diamante.

The most maddening thing is that there is no reason why the Chicago White Sox couldn't draft & develop MLB talent regularly while also carrying a $150M payroll and be in the postseason hunt year after year. JR is the sole roadblock. His chairmanship has destroyed the team, the org, and the fanbase; possibly irreparably.

You have no idea how bad it is

The trade rationale made sense at the time and the Sox should keep making trades like that. It's up to them to make sure the returns are successful. Also, let's pump the brakes on declaring this a bad trade already. It's definitely been bad value since Burger started hitting again and Eder forgot how to pitch, but Burger wouldn't do much for this team other than bump them from "worst team of all time" to "worst team of all time, but like 1 more win". We'll see if it stays that way - if Eder can become at least a solid reliever he's worth way more to this team in the next couple years than a 30+ year old Burger. One tool guys don't often perform well post 30, especially given his injury history.

The fun games are tomorrow. Hagen Smith making his High A debut with the Dash. He's expected to go just 3 innings. Schultz pitching also.

I'm a little shocked it got this far. It was out of most people's minds. Getting shot at aa sporting event should be a big deal. I am shocked JR just didn't cough up the $50k to keep it out of the news.

But you are though. Your own words… ”The average DH is about.750, so finding those hitters should not be too difficult. Burger is a little bit better than that, though.” A .050 difference in OPS is not “a little bit better than .750. An OPS that is .050 higher is a big difference. And guess what? It is difficult to find .800 OPS hitters! As I already stated, Getz couldn’t even find one hitter than could maintain a .750+ OPS this season, and barely a .700+ OPS before he traded him (DeJong). So now you have reverted to talking about Burger’s combined offensive and defensive WAR to prove why, a player that you described as a DH, is only worth 1 combined WAR. By YOUR OWN description of Burger, he shouldn’t be playing the field and should be at DH. Well, Burger’s fWAR on “offense only” is 6.2. So if you only start Burger at DH, the role in which YOU described him as, he actually has a ton of value, as long as he isn’t playing the field or is very limited in that role, so his poor defense doesn’t completely cancel out his offensive output. It’s completely obvious how biased your argument is. You are looking for ways to make Burger look less valuable than he is. On a competitive team, if Burger was employed as a DH only, and perhaps a part-time 1B, he would be incredibly valuable to that team. Definitely more so than a bust pitching prospect that may never pitch in the big leagues. Eder currently has a 6.56 ERA along with a 1.68 WHIP in 96 innings in AAA, and he’s turning 26 in just two months. It was an absolutely horrendous trade… period.

Lip is right… the ‘05 box set comes with game 3 of the ALDS. Knuckleballers will have a place; it’s not my position they don’t. But watch his mechanics. He barely uses any leverage to play up his FB. He looks like a stiff position player. Then look at Waldron by comparison. He’s maxing out what his body can do. Jordan Hicks threw more 100+ mph FBs than just about anyone last year, and hitters teed off on the pitch hitting over .300 against it. Yes, the ‘05 Sox had a collection of nice pitchers, many of which had career years, and at the time, that magic all coalesced around one perfect season. Two decades later, however, the game has accelerated and evolved. Bobby Jenks is just another high leverage reliever if you insert him into today’s game. Players are maxing out physically in a way they did not then hence all the injuries to the DeGroms of the world. A lot of this evolution is due to advancements in understanding and applying biomechanics to training methodologies and using advanced analytics to determine how to attack specific hitters/pitchers. If you’re not doing this, then you wind up with poor player development and being non-competitive. In today’s game, that is par for the course and creating some magic season from some bygone notion of the will to win becomes ever more elusive, if not impossible, if you’re not applying these things. The hill I’m willing to die on is that the ‘05 Sox was part talent and part just dumb luck, and we’d have a hell of a time trying to replicate that kind of magic in today’s game.

What do the Sox have to show right now for Getz spending $25+ million last offseason on mostly bad players? Miguel Vargas? Oh joy… I’d rather the Sox spend that money on their minor league system so they can actually develop and churn out their own players rather than let Getz waste another $25+ million next offseason on bums. We’ve seen the dumpster diving strategy employed year after year and it doesn’t work.

If I was suddenly in charge I would double or triple the going salaries for top FO & scouting talent and poach from the best organizations. Take the $35M or whatever wasted on vets every year and pump it directly into the infrastructure instead. Let Corlas, Baldwin, Dickman type guys start. You never know

Those are gone in Charlotte! Also, had a buddy that went to Memphis to watch the Knights. Montgomery really, really struggled. Talk of possibly calling him up makes no sense.

18 stolen bases too. If Mena was traded for McCarthy, we would all agree that it was a great trade. Instead, we got back a little person that can’t hit.

Fletcher should be allowed to use an aluminum bat

Boy, did Getz do the Dodgers a big favor.

Yeah I was going to say it’s not that simple as “robbed a homer.”

6 hitters .622 ops or lower.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/6prP2TemNQdKRPcw/?mibextid=xfxF2i

Initials costs to beef up scouting and player development would be more expensive but the continuing cost once everything is in place would be less. Yes personnel will need annual COLA but computer , biomechanical and other machines and facilities would only need periodical changes when they become outdated every 5 yrs or so. In every system there is personnel to do grunt work which goes to interns but there are intelligent people graduating with degrees in these areas too with a passion for sports sciences. You'd need a good headhunter and competitive wage scale with good benefits. I don't know how it works as far as number of year round full time employees there are but Tampa Bay has been doing it for years and always does pretty well. I'm pretty sure JR could make it work and would have more money to spend then the Rays ownership does The Rays have never won a World Series yet. But if the Sox could emulate TB success in the toughest division in baseball with top spending teams like the Yankees and Red Sox , surely it can be done against teams in the Central who don't spend top money. Cleveland is already trying to become the TB of the AL Central. They're winning and have a top farm system.

Sounds like a minimum length stay on the IL for Quero. Should be back this week and "under consideration" for a late season call up but they don't want to rush him, per Getz.

The Sox absolutely need hitting for the future. Not right now - what they need right now is for a giant tsunami to wash the other team into the ocean before every series starts. I don't believe in Burger as a key part of the Sox when they finally start to get decent again. By that point he'll be early 30s and guys with his profile are often in severe decline. A solid hitting prospect would definitely have been a better return for Burger, but I doubt the Sox were getting that, unless they went super young, and that's not a KW trade.

No, the Sox should not keep making trades like this in which they poorly assessed the return and ultimately got robbed. While Burger is going to put up around an .800 OPS and 30+ home runs last year and this year, Eder will finish with cumulative ERAs around 6.50 in the same back to back years. At the end of the day, they got a garbage return for a player who had value.

i guess you're right. It also opened up a roster spot for Nick Senzel.

He'll be a DE. He played LB in a 3-4 system. Situational pass rusher.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&pos=dh Burger, despite the oblique injury and rough start defensively would be worth around the #11 DH in baseball, probably at least 2 fWAR if playing there the full season. So that’s out of 23 players. And roughly 2 fWAR more than Sheets. At least average gets you 2 more games closer to .500 and respectability…lineup protection for Robert, etc. There are some spillover effects, certainly. Less times the team is getting shut out, higher entertainment value for fans who enjoy his effort level compared to a Benintendi type, etc.

Check ebay. The one I have is the 2005 World Series Collector's Edition. 7 DVDs. Game 3 of the ALDS. Game 5 of the ALCS. Games 1,2, 3 & 4 of the World Series. And a Bonus DVD I also have a couple of Commemorative 5 pin sets. Ones a Limited Edition . # 1245 of 2005. The other one is # 3394 of 5000 which I like more. The pins are bigger and more colorful.

Owners sort of do this.

No it wasn't. It was needed but did nothing to improve the organization and actually, remarkably enough made it worse. Getz is as bad at his job as Pedro was, if not worse. Outside of Bannister any average fantasy baseball player could have made the moves he made. Not sure it's possible he could redo his work any more poorly than he already has.

I wish you (and by default, all of us) good health and good luck in your endeavor!

I'd have more faith in Art Vandelay at this point.

Jerry is 88, overweight and smokes cigars. I will outlive him out of spite.

A little bit better than that? Burger is an .800 OPS DH. .050 points better in OPS is a big difference from .750. Keep trying to minimize it. The Sox can’t even find a single player that can maintain a .700+ OPS, much less a .750 or god forbid an .800 OPS. Our savior Eloy’s career OPS is .788. Moncada is at .756 but at least he has a glove, oh wait, he can never stay on the field anyways.

https://www.baseballamerica.com/players/7476-jake-eder/ Scouting Report: Before his injury, Eder's stuff placed him among the game's best pitching prospects. https://www.mlb.com/stories/jake-eder-671109 After rocking a 93-96 mph fastball that peaked at 98 with riding action before his elbow reconstruction, Eder pitched more at 90-93 last season and is sitting at 92-94 this year. He has regained the power on his mid-80s slider, which lacks consistency but can be a plus offering with two-plane depth and horizontal action when he stayed on top of it. He has added a low-80s curveball that can miss bats when he lands it in the strike zone, but his mid-80s changeup has gotten firmer and less lively. Eder had a history of inconsistent control and command before dominating in his pro debut, and Chicago is trying to help him regain the delivery he maintained in 2021. If he can repeat his three-quarters arm slot on a regular basis and recapture the stuff he had three years ago, he might be a No. 2 starter. This season, he has looked more like a guy who'll have to be a reliever who relies on his breaking pitches. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-top-100-prospects/ 62. Jake Eder, SP, MIA Before he got hurt, there were folks in baseball who considered him a top 30 prospect, so his ceiling is big enough to include him on the top 100 now even though he’s coming off injury. The average DH is about.750, so finding those hitters should not be too difficult. Burger is a little bit better than that, though. We lionize guys like Burger because we are bad at finding those guys, but every year there are guys off the scrap heap who can hit and give you positional versatility at 750 or so OPS. Even though I would not have wanted to trade him for nothing, I think we should take advantage of the opportunity to acquire a top prospect who has recently returned from injury. Eder was not just a back-end starter before getting hurt; he had front-line stuff. If Eder managed to return to his former form, nobody would be posting about Burger. We attempted a trade with a high ceiling but were unsuccessful. it happens. A soft-tossing MILB pitcher with a 4-5 starter ceiling is not someone I would much rather take a chance on; even if is what Eder turned into after returning, which is unfortunate but sometimes happens. Still, it was a risk that was worthwhile. TJS is a risk some guys come back throwing even harder other guys are never the same.

Is it just me or is the site flying now? Anyone else notice it is loading threads faster?

Nah, it was a shitty day because they solved nothing and in fact double, tripled down on in house bullshit hires. f*** this entire franchise. Fire Getz.

(In fairness 2005 was completely by accident. Lightning in a bottle.)

They leave, and they are replaced by the next batch of young, cheap players. You invest in the pipeline, and you get a constant churn of young, controllable talent.

The best instructors. The best talent evaluators. Fixing the Latin America facilities. Using all of the international allotment instead of trading it for salary relief. Better personnel means better players.

It was. Now make the anniversary even better and fire Getz's ass today.

Yea kids were thrown in the lake for not throwing 70mph. There was a big story about Carol stream in the 80s but it got buried. All the boys in Ms Jenkins class were gone after the championships

Also, if you want to know another thing that stinks about youth sports, it’s the stats on GameChanger. These poor kids have all their friends and family see their stats, good or bad.

Both of you hit the nail on the head. My hope is the current trainwreck forces a different view and a willingness to adept but I'm not optimistic on that path.

Also Jerry wouldn’t do that because it takes work. He’s essentially a shitty landlord who only wants to do the bare minimum. Here’s a piece of scotch tape for the crack in your foundation.

Makes sense but no way the mommies and daddies who want scholarships will allow their kids to play more than one sport. Traveling teams make me want to puke. They go to Florida and win the 10 and under World Series at Disney. World Series? LOL. There are probably 1000 World Series around the country in the summer for traveling teams to play in with mommies and daddies monitoring every step of the way. Back in the day parents stayed out of their kids business and kids were happy playing Little League at the 115th and Homan fields. Now ... travel teams baby. We'll teach your kids how to be stars if they play just one sport and we'll get em a schollie for sure if you pay the big travel team fees.

Any decision to have TJ surgery or any surgery is and will always be between a physician and their client. WSox cannot force a player to have surgery, even when they might feel it is in their best interests. They can suggest it and even request a second opinion from team doctors, but that is about how far that goes. Give the player some space to make his own decision.

It wouldn't cost but a small fraction of that much.

Well, except hip/trendy location, stadium, Ichirolls and the storied connection to Japanese culture through Nintendo and a plethora of Japanese players, mostly relievers.