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Sports are a results centered industry, not process centered. The things you list only matter if you get results. Otherwise they're just pathways of distributing garbage. Improving "process" so it can be run by incompetent people isnt a win in any regard. My argument has not always been there's no reason to be positive, but I am honest about one of the worst GMs in professional sports. the Sox never lost more than 101 games in my lifetime until last year. Now they've done it two years in a row. Theyre running record low payrolls relatively speaking.

You could at least getting my name right when you want to stereotype me by your bias.

Will Venable isn’t going anywhere. He’s just getting his own guys.

Strong C to a light B. I understand the 102 loss argument, but I don’t feel things are that black and white. There’s a whole lot of nuance and circumstance behind that number. He came on the scene with a roster in complete disarray coupled with a severely toxic locker room. He made a slam dunk managerial hire and has brought in character-first players to completely rebuild the culture of this franchise. Doesn’t matter how great your roster is if the culture is irreparably toxic. To me, he has aced the biggest test of his tenure. Once you have a strong culture (and a dead Reinsdorf, if we’re being honest), it becomes much easier to attract talent and bring guys up from the minors to a good, supportive situation.

Getz should have been fired after the last game. 60 win seasons should not be tolerated.

Heard from a source this morning on the firings. Didn't reach out to them on this so I was a little surprised. They provided some insight into the situation to help clarify. Take it for what you think it is worth: "For all my criticism of the White Sox, I applaud the firing of their coaches today. Good riddance to Ethan Katz. One of my Giants sources referred to him three years ago as “High School Harry,” said he milked his distinction as HS pitching coach for Flaherty, Giolito and Fried. Was told by a Sox source in the middle of 2023 that Grifol wanted his own pitching coach but was denied. My sense is that the hiring of Brian Bannister, who worked with Katz in KC, saved his bacon for a while. Katz was viewed as the anti-Don Cooper, so he got a long runway from James Fegan, the Comcast/CHSN groupies and radio clowns. After the firings of Grifol and his buddy Mike Tosar, Mike Gellinger was promoted to his spot. After the season when Venable came on board, Thames felt somewhat threatened by Gellinger’s presence, so Gelly went back to his former role as minor league hitting coach. Gellinger was Konerko’s guy. Last winter Cleveland asked and was granted permission to talk to Gelly, but they found out Gelly makes a lot of money. Never understood the love for Katz, now they need to get rid of Gene Watson. Losing 511 games in five years is no reason to be employed. Here’s his losses over the last five years: Year Team Losses 2021 Angels 85 2022 KC 97 2023 KC 106 2024 CWS 121 2025 CWS 102 “Has one of the worst reputations in baseball.” - Former MLB executive"

In Hagen Smith's last 4 starts he threw 16.2 innings and walked 16 guys. They fixed him? All systems will have some guys get better. Some fans are acting like no other teams have guys who they draft play well. Bonemer has been good and will get his name on some top 100 lists for sure. McDougal is a 45 prospect, nothing to hang your hat on. Meanwhile Smith looks like a reliever and Schultz went from a bonafide stud to a huge question mark. Help me understand how are the minors improving when the players are regressing and the system took a step back?

nothing about this post makes any sense to me. starting with the lemon cookie, to 'tampering' to the implication that the sox are constantly tampering. is it a black sox reference? why a lemon cookie? is that even something people say? i don't think that's an expression.

I think Katz will be snapped up quickly. Not at all a fan of letting him go. Especially odd after bringing in Bannister from the same coaching tree.

He's looked like he'd run 27 different version of Gordon Beckham out there over 5 years.

Maybe they believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, too.

these various Crochet threads are awesome

😭

Would Sox have gotten more by trading Crochet 2 months into the season? Would we have gotten Roman Anthony instead? It would be fair to grade Getz based on how Crochet trade has ended up.

Ozzie couldn’t look in the mirror and truthfully say he identified a good hitter. And just look back at some of his favorite players and how terrible they were at hitting, yet he kept sticking them in the lineup. Ozzie was Darrin Erstad’s biggest fan in 2007 and kept batting him lead off. 🤮

Probably throwing a temper tantrum

I don’t imply anything. It’s all on you. Lemon cookie is my expression. What part of I think they have people in mind is troubling you? Thanks for asking and have a nice day.

I disagree with the process doesn't matter. The White Sox have been terrible with developing hitters in the past. Changing the development process is a key point. When you are drafting teenagers development is paramount. I agree in the end, results are what matter. However, expecting those results to appear overnight is short sighted and what leads to organizations having 1 good season every decade because they happen to get lucky with free agents. Look at the historically good teams over time and they are usually built around drafting and developing their own players.

Essential oil peddler feels more apt.

WestEddy acts like he's behind the scenes with the White Sox assessing their day to day processes and value add from data implementation perspective. Sam Hinkie Jr over here. "Trust the process." No matter the results.

He absolutely dominated in that playoff game in Oakland......damn that feels like 15 years ago.

An under-looked aspect here is Venable was a first time manager and wasn’t really able to bring a bunch of coaches with him from previous spots. If you look at other hires from last year, I believe many of them had a lot of carry-overs as well. I don’t it’s all that crazy to keep some guys around a year, evaluate them while also buying some time to identify other better options. Now, if this was about Jerry saving a buck, it wouldn’t be a totally different matter.

No offense to Lip who was just relaying but what a cowardly way to talk about folks on their way out. Put your name on that. At least the "radio clowns" do. Speaks to the disfunction and tribes within this s%*# org.

For years Sox managers have been told they have to keep certain members of previous staffs on their own. As far as taking the job with little autonomy, a big check and the chance to get that position trumps all. I mean look at Rick Hahn and Chris Getz.

Basically an uninterpretable number in terms of what it says about fan interest in the team. But I assume the team is in pretty poor financial condition right now, at least not ready to start cranking up the payroll.

This is Chicago for God's sake. Dude is asking for his bribe. If he gets what he wants, Sox Park would happen there. Let's not act like this bit of Aldermanic theater hasn't been going on for the entire history of Chicago. Aldermen wield the power to shutdown projects in their districts as a hammer to get what they want from something else. Of course he is "Going to take some convincing". He's looking for a new pet something.

You mentioned a few regressing, I mentioned a few progressing. The system isnt perfect here everyone is progressing. Both Montgomery progressed. With McDougals stuff he is more than a 45 if he maintains the control which progressed this year. I disagree Smith is a reliever. Schultz is a question mark due to health. Quero is also a positive. If you want to dive deep antonacchi looks to he an MLB piece. There are few few relievers who progressed as well. The draft philosophy is also a positive. I know we are going to agree but there are many positives especially in the lower levels.

Some of the prospects did some excelled. Bonemer was a league MVP. Montgomery did well through the system. The changes they made with Smith didn't work early but did well later. McDougal took a massive jump forward. My overall grade is based in the fact that we all know JR isnt going to spend for big free agents. So the only real option for Getz to have a winning team is to draft well and develop them. I like all of the changes they made for development. The minors as whole are improving. I really like the draft of the two high school kids. The new complex in yhe DR will help the international players as well. The down side is that all of it takes time. Looking solely at the MLB club this year is short sighted. I get it they sucked but I think they also achieved the goals this year. First and foremost get the best odds for a top draft pick. Second show progress from the young players. What they did with Montgomery is outstanding. He looked like he may never make the MLB. We became an above average MLB shortstop after all they issues. So overall, a B for the organization progress, not necessarily the MLB club in isolation.

We're going to pay 10-25% premium over market rates for the best coaches to join the second worst organization in baseball? Will believe it when I see it.

1. Issue your grade and don’t worry about what others grade him. It’s not difficult, lay out your reasoning and that’s that 2. this is not our “standard of excellence”. This is our grades after this season. 3. It’s not a comparison. He was just pointing out that there are more Bs than Fs.

come on bro are you just baiting? Ron must be giving you lessons. there are more "B's" than "F's" at this point. I haven't voted yet but I'm about to send another B as a FU.

No one seems to think Venable going to manage the Texas Rangers after one year is even something to give a thought to except you.

it shows you the number

Absolutely a D

Is Katz the only person in the organization with a four-letter last name ending in "tz" being fired?

I think this would be an enormous mistake. The dude is a gamer, full of TWTW. Not even being sarcastic.

I didn’t realize that Mike from “Breaking Bad” was writing Sox articles for the Sun Times these days. Pretty cool.

funny how you could probably search any White Sox forum and not find the love for Katz like there is now. I'm not sure why there was a reason to keep him. Nothing really outstanding about him but isn't that like with most coaches. It's about time a manager gets to have his own coaches. That's not White Sox. I guess you have to purge as much as possible from the TLR/Grifol era. I look at this as a good thing.

Amazing to see so many coaches released after the "B" performance that was filled with positive things.

Katz is one of the best organizational hires they've made in a very long time. I'd imagine he'll land on his feet quickly. Hopefully the Sox can upgrade but I am very skeptical.

Well after my rant in the other thread, maybe the Sox see the need to have coaches instead of over the hill players acting as coaches.

Weird that both the assistant pitching coach and assistant hitting coach are still around.

I would park him in LF. Beni can ride the pine. If Sox had any type of solid ownership they'd just DFA him and eat the contract.

I am surprised Wise wasn’t canned cuz the bullpen has been historically bad for the last two years.

I don't think it's normal for a typical pitching coach/organization to have similar before & after results Katz had with guys like Giolito, Crochet, Cease and Rodon. Every time he had success with a legitimately talented pitcher they were traded away. Fedde's career basically fell apart (again) after the Sox traded him away, FWIW. Whether you want to credit Bannister or Katz for his success is a fair question.

Was he, though? He had some successes, sure. Sox have always had that type of stuff happen on the pitching side, though. His pitching staffs sure seemed to throw a lot of balls.

I think his value will come from being serviceable in like 5 positions instead of below average at 1.

They need to stick him in one place (probably LF) so he can get comfortable defensively. He’s not good enough anywhere defensively to be moved around so much at this point, but he has a live bat. Maybe after he becomes proficient in LF, the transition to the other outfield spots will be easier. I’m more confident in him doing something offensively than I was with Sheets or Vaughn, and they got tons of opportunities in the outfield.

I don't get Santos being let go, the rest...yeah, I see it.