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I smell the 2026 Marketing campaign.

Time for a new banner methinks

20 million is ash tray money. Why would you let an asset expire for free rather than invest a little to make a little down the line? If absolutely nothing else Robert in CF makes this team a helluva lot more watchable in 2026 until he's moved. That's not nothing at this point in the team's progress.

Here's my story: My parents owned a deli. On Saturdays, my Dad would give us money, each, to go to the Metro on Belmont, and buy a toy. My older brother would con us to use our money to buy baseball cards. So we'd open the packs. My older brother and sister would grab up the Ron Santo, Billy Williams and Ernie Banks cards. When I cried hard enough, my brother gave me the Rich Morales and Wilbur Wood cards, telling me that they were also Chicago players. I never looked back.

Kelenic speaking on culture is like Mussolini speaking on liberal democracy.

Maybe I am mistaken but Getz became GM with Robert coming off of the best season in his career. Getz immediately started another rebuild, waited too long to trade Robert, and watched his value diminish into that of a utility player. If Getz can get praised for the Crochet trade, he should definitely be dumped on for this Robert trade.

If Getz was crazy for picking up the option then he can't also be stupid for getting a couple pieces in return for LouBob without paying LouBob any of that supposedly ridiculous money. Anyway, Sox can now take this money and work on finding an outfielder!

Eh, I think unloading a huge contract to an iffy oft injured player on the downside of his talent after 2 sucky years is fine, but we did get garbage in return. It’s an expensive flyer for a cheap flyer. Hopefully they do stick Acuña in CF.

Take the points, good lord. Also be nice if Rome could do something

Good for the Dodgers, they care about winning unlike a bunch of other teams.

This trade has me bummed out. There is no way it makes them better in 2026, which means that they feel zero urgency to not lose 100 games for the fourth year in a row. The number of failed prospects they’re hoping to catch lightning with would be very appropriate on a AAA team. It seems like they are comfortable running out absolute crap teams for the foreseeable future as long as they can have one of the three lowest payrolls in the league.

JR is very happy tonight as the Sox payroll is hitting ridiculous lows. That being said Robert needed to go (a few years ago in fact...)

I was in the minority wanting to keep him. My screensaver is Robert hitting a homer at the 78. Oh well, deep down i knew this was coming. Brooks Baldwin step on up!

Robert was scheduled to be at Soxfest. So Jerry also saves two nights at a hotel and minibar charges. He’s gotta love this deal.

Ronald Acuña is a free agent in a few years (as long as options get picked up). We’re just back on the friends and family plan trying to bring him in at the time.

"Nothing" seems like a pretty accurate description of the return.

This is such a D list operation.

If we picked up cash for this return, burn the franchise down. If we didn't pay cash, and this is why we got a garbage return, burn the franchise down.

One of the best and a part of three noteworthy White Sox teams. The 1967, 1972 and 1977 groups. A record setting relief pitcher before he became a record setting starter. Had the chance to interview him in 2005. Very nice guy. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/18/wilbur-wood-chicago-white-sox-obit/

That he could go more than a day without making a post that contained eleven random names that were not related, in anyway, to the topic at hand. Just couldn't do it....

I wanna give a shoutout to @Kyyle23 for sharing all the "good better best" locker rooms videos each week. Helped make a really fun season and an engaging soxtalk community even better.

And if you had told Johnson that they’d hold the Rams to 17 through four quarters, he probably takes that fucking field goal. But it was a hell of a season. And I don’t think anyone’s beating Seattle.

So sad this year is over.

If you watch the all 22 of the interception, Ben Johnson drew up a play that created a massive window in the defense. Moore ends up running way too deep of a crossing route and doesn't flatten it like he's supposed to. If he turns his route into more of a dig instead of a deep crosser he would have been wide ass open. At the very worst that's incomplete because Caleb maybe leads him on the throw a bit too much. Everyone maybe should have gotten a little blame on this play. Johnson with maybe too aggressive of a play call (even though it should have worked), Caleb with maybe leads DJ too much on this throw even if he runs the correct route, and DJ for straight up running the wrong route for the situation. But the main issue stems from DJ running the wrong route. You can't be having miscommunications like this in the playoffs in overtime in a gotta have it situation. That's something that Ben Johnson and the FO have to address. Cause this is a personnel and coaching issue.

Sorry to hear this. Herrmann,Melton,Allen and now Wilbur Wood all passed. They were all heroes to me as a young White Sox fan. May they all rest in peace.

You are completely ignoring walks and OBP, which is another big edge for Chase over Sosa. I also think the Madrigal comp is a very poor one. Nick was tiny while Meidroth is fairly average height (neither offer much power). Meidroth is also one of the most selective hitters in baseball and Nick was one of the most aggressive.

Until they actually sign him I'm not going to worry about this.

Here’s my write up on the class: https://www.futuresox.net/2026/01/17/white-sox-ink-18-player-class-to-open/

SWINGCHANGE, EVERYONE DRINK!

This thread need a ConfortNo

Looking at this lineup written out, I’d honestly rather keep Robert and hopefully extend him and just sign a veteran masher to DH. It’s a lot easier to find a DH than a CF with Robert’s defensive abilities.

More like Canfarto.

Cags will (probably) be fine, but the rush by some to crown him as the one that got away while calling Colson a bust is funny in retrospect

Conforto is a washed player. He has been for past many years.......let Baldwin play instead of bringing in crap like conforto

This is an absolutely absurd post. The Dodgers have a regional TV deal that lets them outspend the competition and the dumb MLB has limited rules in place that prevent them from doing so. Glad you think it’s cool a sport has no market size parity.

The Dodgers lol. This league is just dumb. Best is those who think there are no issues. "Free Market."

Luis Robert and Yoan Moncada: Lazy, bad character issues cause they get hurt playing the sport. Jarred Kelenic: Untapped potential cause he blew up his foot kicking a cooler in rage.

I hope he's a late bloomer, realizes his potential, and @Harold's Leg Lift makes his triumphant return to s%*# on us all about it.

Stiwarts Valdez is a Dominican center fielder who is 6-foot-4, 200 pounds with a standout combination of size, righthanded power and speed. He’s a plus or better runner underway with big bat speed and power for his age. He’s an aggressive hitter who will expand the zone and there isn’t a lot of rhythm to his swing, but it’s potential plus to plus-plus raw power and he has shown the ability to tap into his power against live pitching, making him a potential power/speed threat if everything clicks. Franchel Crisostomo is a Dominican righthander who is 6-foot-2, 165 pounds, a loose, limber build with significant physical upside to add to a fastball that has already been up to 93 mph. He throws his changeup with more frequency than most amateur pitchers his age in the Dominican Republic Yordany Marte, signing for $275,000, had been an outfielder until last year when he converted to pitching. His athleticism shows on the mound and he has a quick arm to run his fastball up to 92 mph, but his best pitch is his curveball, a high-spin pitch with good shape and depth that should collect a lot of whiffs. Dominican shortstop Felix Lebron is a quick-burst athlete at 6 feet, 175 pounds with plus speed, good hands, body control and a plus arm to go with a quick swing from the right side of the plate. From BA

Isn't it fun to always talk about players we will never get?

"Yes, Luis Robert will defer $15M to facilitate that trade!"

Im not a betting man but if I were I would smash the over of 2.6 WAR for Colson Montgomery. I am higher on him than any player in the Sox org and even after last years power tear for the big club I think he’s being criminally slept on. The main concern for Colson is the K-Rate. His K rate in AAA last year was 33% which is a bright red flag but in 284 big league plate appearances he got it down to 29.2%. Certainly not great, in fact it would’ve placed him as having the 8th worst K rate in the league had he qualified. His 8.8% walk rate was around league average and was actually far lower than what he was able to do through most of his time in the minors. What I find particularly promising is that even with that K and BB profile as it is, he’s in the same range as guys like Eugenio Suarez, Riley Greene, Jazz Chisholm, and Byron Buxton who are 120+ RC+ guys. Those four guys share a key set of traits with Colson that allows them to succeed with those low rates. The swing hard and they barrel the ball at elite rates and when they’re squaring up the tend to be very strong pull hitters. That is a recipe for damage. Those guys are 3-5 war players and are established veterans who generally don’t provide the defensive value Colson provides. Assuming that Colson takes a big leap in BB and K rate is a bit optimistic. In fact, I think 27-29% is K rate is probably around where he’ll be most years. I think the walk rate has a much better shot of shooting up to 12% or so as he’s has shown better plate discipline in the minors and teams are going to have to respect the power a bit more. If he settles in with a 12% BB rate and 27% walk rate with how hard he swings and how much he finds the barrel you are looking at a perennial all star with upside for more. One of the things I mentioned about him last year was his off the charts infield fly rate in the minors. I’m not sure if the minor league clubs measured it wrong but that went right back down to where you would hope it would be. He went from twice league average!! in the minors to perfectly average. The next step in his career is the biggest and it has to do with plate recognition and getting ahead in counts. He hit fastballs well overall last year with a SLG of .514. His xSLG was only .390 but his whiff rate was 25.1% which was much better than what we saw elsewhere. When it came to sliders he was essentially Javy Baez. He had a .933 SLG in 33 PAs with a 47% whiff rate and 57% hard hit rate. It’s really hard to find a player as all or nothing on a pitch as him. With two strikes it wasn’t the slider that really burned him it was the change up. He had a 44% whiff rate and 36% put away rate on Change ups without nearly the same amount of changeups as sliders. He had a lot of trouble with curves and sweepers as well. When you look under the hood you see it’s not his chase % that gets him in trouble as he’s about league average. It’s that his chase contact rate is 40.7% compared to a league average of 58%. On pitches in the zone his contact rate is just about league average. What that tells me is he doesn’t have a huge discipline problem or a huge contact problem. It’s that when he chases an off speed pitch he isn’t close. That tells me it’s more of a pitch recognition problem as opposed to being a hole in his swing. For a young guy that came straight out of high school and ascended fast, I don’t think it’s too wild of an assumption to say he can improve in pitch recognition. Even if he chases, he should be in the same zip code and he’ll likely bite a lot less if he sees the ball better. How badly did this hurt him last year? With 2 strikes he was 15/131 (.115) with a .465 OPS and 83ks. When he was ahead in the count he had a 1.083 OPS. You’d expect big splits like this but ideally you get him ahead a bit more often. It goes a bit deeper than that. There is a .260 point OPS difference for Colson from being up 1-0 vs down 0-1. After 0-1 had a 40.6% k rate. After 1-0 his K rate was only 22.8%. Colson fell 0-1 in 145 PAs and got ahead in 105. You’d like to see that number improve. When he made contact on the first pitch (which he did 34 times) in 109 PAs where he swung first pitch he had .559 SLG on a .212 Babip for a guy who’s overall BABIP is .262. You’d like to hope when that sample gets bigger that’ll creep up. I’d have to look deeper into what exactly he was swinging at first pitch. Colson is going to have to establish himself as a guy that’ll cause damage on first pitch strikes. If a pitcher knows that he is going to be aggressive first pitch, they’re going to try and get him to chase. Sometimes they’ll hang one and he’ll get him, sometimes it’ll be far enough that he’ll be able to take it for a ball. What he can’t do is take first pitch strikes. Thats .260 OPS points without getting a shot at it. If his problem was his chase rate I wouldn’t recommend him be that much more aggressive but he’s shown that he has a decent eye. Eventually when pitchers realize that his going to be aggressive first pitch they’re going to give him less to work with. I trust his eye to be able to lay off pitches that are clear misses. Long term I think that’ll get him to more 1-0 counts where we see the best version of Colson. The main thing about Colson that is constant is that he swings incredibly hard and barrels the ball incredibly well and pulls those balls at an incredible rate. That is a recipe for a monster home run hitter. The main hole in his game is that when he chases a pitch you get nothing from him. The fact that he has a decent eye makes optimistic that he can mitigate a lot of that damage with better pitch recognition and by changing the dynamics of his at bats by making himself dangerous on 0-0 counts. Colson actually saw a slightly above average amount of strikes last year. Hell probably see less this year and if his chase rate goes up a bit we’re going to see a regression. If he maintains his chase rate well see more walks and more hitters counts. Ultimately if he isn’t chasing at a high rate and he’s not being passive they have to attack at some point. Last year he had a first pitch strike rate of 63%. That’s a number I’ll watch closely next year as that is above average and something that if he can improve makes him that much closer to the Colson with a .260 point higher OPS

I really wish they would just hand an OF mitt to Sosa and just play him in LF

Well, for one, when's the last time a team had a Zoom call with a NRI?

Red Sox finally sign someone from the FA market. They've done a good job assembling a ton of rotation depth this season. Crochet, Suarez, Gray are a great 1-3, bumped Bello all the way down to 4, Oviedo has a lot of breakout potential, and then you have Tolle and Early waiting in the wings.

He chose to be nicer to everyone else

Looking at this roster, I still think the Sox end up trading both Sosa & Lee before Opening Day. Mead certainly sucked last year, but offers a similar hitting profile to Sosa, is a better defender, and has more years of control. Given that Mead is out of options and Sosa should theoretically have some trade value after last season, I could Getz cashing in and giving the limited bench role to Mead instead. The Lee situation is pretty obvious. If you keep both Teel & Quero, there is simply not enough playing time for him and he becomes nothing but an insurance policy against in-game injury (which is a poor use of a bench spot). He won’t return a ton, but there is zero chance he slips through waivers and must be traded if you don’t plan on putting him on the OD roster. I fully expect a trade to happen at some point, although it’s possible the Sox hold into spring to hedge against injury.