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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.

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.

One of the most incredible statements ever made in the very long history of this site.

You've been calling everyone overly negative for the past three years. In fact, when I search your name with the word "wrong" what is returned is about 100 posts of you telling others they're wrong while never once saying you were wrong. When people attack you for never being wrong, you say "I'm wrong all the time," but there's zero record of you saying you were actually wrong.

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.

If you think that was a homophobic comment or that @southsider2k5 was calling Getz a homosexual, you need to get out more.

Around the 13 minute mark he talks about how he's honest with other GMs about players and their makeup, but that the other GMs haven't always been forthright with him in return .....but he seems to comfort himself with the idea that it will catch up with those GMs in the long run (even though that wouldn't do a thing to make the Sox whole). That is some naivete that he's got to grow out of fast. I'm not surprised by this. He was obviously swindled by the Dodgers/Cardinals. I wish the interviewers had asked about that specific transaction.

Industry people are often stubbornly predicting moving players to lower defensive positions etc. On pipeline podcast they were talking about how one evaluator was convinced Verlander was headed to the bullpen. I say, we let Montgomery play and over time it will be obvious whether he can stay at short or not. Any talk of moving him to 1st is insane. He might be marginal at short, but he is great at 3b.

What in god's name are you talking about? Were you old enough to watch those teams? They never "rebuilt" anything. They just kept doubling and tripling down on the plan to win roughly 80 games and then they caught lightning in a bottle in 2005 (bless them for it) and then added a ton of talent for 2006 but completely collapsed as the pitching reverted back out of once every 50 years type lightning in a bottle. Look at the actual records but also the pythags from the time period in question (far right column). Basically it was a team that bounced around the expected variation in a .500 team on paper. There was no rebuild. They never sold off vets and turned them into prospects. They just kept being content with being average and got really fucking lucky with almost literally their entire pitching staff having a career year. As we saw immediately after the WS run, there was no secret sauce. On paper the 2006 team was much better, but of course regression happened hard and then reality hit for the next 7-8 years that the org was in decline. This of course culminated in the Hahn rebuild. @WestEddy if you're gonna throw down internet stickers instead of articulating any sort of argument for your position you're even sillier than I thought. Here's a simple test: did ANY SOX FAN AROUND AGE 35-60 ON THIS FORUM HEAD INTO THE 2005 SEASON THINKING THIS IS OUR WS YEAR? Of course fucking not. Because there was no rebuild, there was no "contention window" it was just muddling along on the tail end of Frank's career, making profits for JR, and hoping KW could eventually pull something out of his ass with his trades and "80 cent on the dollar" type FA moves.

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

Continuous rebuilds to maximize profits for Jerry until he sells the team / passes away. If this second rebuild fails, rinse and repeat with a third one.

I remember hearing he cried when the Sox traded him away....did he cry again because this is the best he can get now?

You’re attacking posters here but that anger should be directed at ownership. The post you are quoting is working under the same assumption we all have been…the Sox were never going to extend Crochet. 2025 and 2026 are going to be awful years for the White Sox, the same years Crochet is still under contract with the Sox. Working under that premise, it would have been asinine NOT to trade him.

Would anybody be shocked if Leasure and Wilson are lights out this year and suddenly have value? This is the nature of relievers with good stuff.

Yet none of those players were actually around for the WS team. Cameron had been traded for Konerko six freaking years earlier. Lee was traded for Scottie Pods in the offseason. It was just a series of moves that all panned out for one season. There was no rebuild. If there was a rebuild, the team shouldn’t have fallen apart after just one more season.

Can we get to a non 100 loss season or two before we make any more threads giving hand jobs to Getz?

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Very few want to hear it and refuse to see it. You're not saying it'll succeed.There's no way to know that or how long JR will live or even how long Getz remains . It's baby's 1st steps with toys on the floor and an old rug.

I didn’t say I believed in him. I said that’s what I thought his plan was. As a wise man once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

There is zero evidence the guy responsible for bottoming out in historic fashion is capable of creating any of that. Everything in your post requires excellence. We don't even have evidence that Getz is competent, let alone excellent. I honestly cannot fathom posting that, it's just wishcasting. You've watched the JR White Sox for your entire life, right?

And by the way, we don’t need to be at the forefront of any key area. The reality is if we can be average or slightly better at everything, we should be able to parlay our market size into a payroll edge over the rest of the division. We don’t much crazier of a plan than that.

Forget about the 2025 White Sox. There was never a chance for them. Be working on the 2028 White Sox.

Great answer!

He got rid of Grifol's guys.

Jesus, we act like every baseball player's a quivering mass of broken psyche jello, and one bad game will ruin him for life. He had a back injury this last year which affected his mobility. He also had a personal issue that he played through.

I don't know, moving from SS to 3B completely destroyed Machado's career.

There’s a lot we don’t know the answer to here, but one thing I do know is that if Montgomery’s career doesn’t go well, it will definitely be because the Sox signed Josh Rojas.

I don't know if I've seen anyone in the entire prospect industry give Colson a passable review at SS. He's not a bad athlete, he's actually a pretty solid, but he's a big dude. He would probably make a solid D1 TE. When you watch him there are two things there seem to be very apparent. 1) He seems a bit stiff. It might just be his size but it just doesn't look that smooth when he's on the move, especially to his right side. 2) His reaction time, or the initial explosive first step you would love to see in a quality SS is not there. Once he's moving he might be above average in terms of sprint speed, but with each play as SS my only thought was this guy is just way too big to play SS. I don't even think I'm being critical of him. For a man his size to be this close to the majors while still playing SS is very impressive. I look forward to seeing him at the MLB level. If I was making the decisions I probably would have moved him to 3rd simply because at some point this team will likely be semi-competitive again and you don't want to fool yourself into thinking you have a viable defender at SS and then scramble to fill a defensive hole. While at the same time developing 3B options that might be blocked (Ramos).

The big difference between us is that I'm going to pull for Vargas like hell, and you're going to hope he fails. You'd rather hate everything White Sox and be "right" and I'd rather have the White Sox just be good. It's the nature of this message board now.

Agreed. I'm still fine with giving Vargas another year. I do like the tools. He looks mentally broken though.

The Fedde trade looks bad right now, be it's not because of Kopech. Although people are really undervaluing Albertus and Perez.

Kopech has pitched 2 good months in 5 years. Let's not pretend he was a commodity.

I don't want to keep going back and forth and I haven't dug in this deep, but you just clearly miss the big picture. It's really hard to lose 20 more games. It wasn't a shell problem, it was Getz. Terrrible bullpens are how you end up with historic badness. Getz work there was next level bad. Getz traded Bummer for 5 players, 4 of which played in the bigs for 215 combined games. They combined accumulated .8 fWAR which was less than Bummers 1.1 in 56 games. From a cumulative perspective you're talking about a -4 win impacting trade. 12/28 he releases Declan Cronin who goes on to have a 1.3 fWAR season. He Signs Tim Hill who they release. Signs John Brebbia. Had jesse Chavez in camp and released him and he goes on to have a nice year in Atlanta. Then he targeted Steven Wilson in his prized trade as the bullpen piece and he was not pitchable. I'm ignoring everything but for the bullpen where Getz easily lost 15 games last year alone and he did it entirely to himself.

Meanwhile, the Giants are out there DFA’ing better players than the White Sox have on their roster… “Giants designated C/OF Blake Sabol for assignment. The move is necessary after the Giants signed Justin Verlander and needed room on the 40-man roster. Sabol, 27, should see interest on the waiver wire as a player who can play in the outfield as well as catch, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he was claimed or if the Giants were able to work out a trade for the backup backstop.”

His hands were completely tied don't you know. And then when given control he engineered the worst team in modern history. But that wasn't his fault either. Ugh.

Bwahahaha, he sucks but at least that garbage makes me laugh. This one cracked me up…

As Kenny called it when they moved Lee for Pods, it was a reshuffle. Their offense, while incredibly powerful was stagnant. They changed the build up of the team and it worked. I won't stand for the shade being thrown at the '05 sox. That was no fluke and those guys were dudes and that team was built beautifully.

You insinuated that the White Flag trade, as it was known, helped lead them. Caruso had that one year he had 700 infield hits, but then he was done. Howry was trade for Frank Francisco. Keith foulke was a guy no doubt, but they traded three MLB starters for 1 closer lol and that's why they succeeded??

Which is completely worthless to the Sox. Dude was on the team last year, and they lost the most games in the baseball history. Sox would win more games with Crochet in 2025, but they'd still be a terrible 110+ loss team. Sitting on that asset while it depreciates (and has significant risk of injury) is outrageously stupid. I don't care if Crochet wins the CY in 2025; in fact, I hope he does. It doesn't change anything.

Are you completely clueless as to modern lingo? I’m not 70 yet but I am pretty sure I understood what he was getting at. No GM that just set a record for futility should be fluffed and stroked as much as Getz is by some. Oh wait, I’m being homophobic and calling people who like Getz gay! 🤣

Are you Robin and he's Batman to you ? And how you came up with me thinking he was calling Getz gay is the dumbest thing I ever heard. JzFC it's pretty plain what I said.

Classy. The master baiter himself now says if you say anything positive about Getz you're a homosexual. Not sure if thats homophobia or just his normal bullying tactics . Why don't you just s*** his d*** while you're at it . We know that's what you meant.

@chitownsportsfan already explained this in his previous post. The Sox were an 80+ win team for years before 2005. They made some trades and acquisitions that led to the perfect storm of everyone playing well for that one year. Teams make acquisitions every year. That doesn’t mean it was a rebuild.

Facts in your own mind perhaps… No one but you could look at that 2005 Sox roster and say it was the result of a rebuild… https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2005.shtml

I don't know how anyone can listen to these guys without getting a headache. But Loaf's solo podcast (which he referred to) with Joe Sheehan was listenable. 2-3 year timeline on rebuilds. Last year, Getz turned a $7 million investment into $30 mill of value (Fedde; of course he didn't mention that Getz vanquished that value right back). Nothing to be gained in sitting in rest mode for multiple years.

No, actually Getz took over a team who won 20+ more games. It's hilarious to watch people pretend there's no difference between a 40 win team and a 60 win team and somehow that 20 additional losses were the creation of Rick hahn.Hahn. No one would ever excuse someone taking over a 100 win team and turning them into an 80 win team so no idea why 60 to 40 should be any different. Actually even worse imo.

I would put a lot more faith in someone who watched Montgomery on a daily basis for over a month than simply wishing or "he considers himself a SS" just like Eloy and Moncada dictated where and when they played on the field to their managers. Viciedo Teahen Josh Fields Mark Teahen Andrew Vaughn Gordon Beckham Sheets Burger...just a short list of players who the Sox played where they didn't belong, or moved to get their bats into the line up SOMEWHERE. Heck Pollock ever playing RF or CF was doomed...just as much as Fletcher in CF is a bad idea.

I’m still laughing that the 2005 White Sox World Series was the result of a rebuild that started in the 1990’s. 🤣 I always thought it was a combination of acquisitions that all surprisingly panned out in a pretty flukish season.

NO

Getz is too dense to have a real plan. I will give him credit for one thing. He appears to have figured out that more baserunners equals more runs scored. He's now trading for guys who will take a walk. Say what you will, but Ken williams and Rick hahn never could grasp that in over 20 years with the Sox. That one single fact makes him an improvement. The true test though is being able to tell the difference between athetes and actual baseball players.

and shouldn't.