WestEddy

Now the Pirates have more cost-certainty at 1B. I wonder which of O'Hearn/Horwitz moves off of 1B to LF or 2B, respectively.

Yeah, I don't know if it's conditioning or whatnot, but I think Getz just wants to move on from that era, which is fine.

Maybe the O'Hearn signing makes the Reds a bit more eager to get Robert done.

Or with International pumping 2-3 guys into the system, annually.

Yeah, they're most likely pretty close on parameters and people. If it doesn't blow up, it's days away.

wrong thread

Chicago White Sox Top 37 Prospects | FanGraphs Baseball Rk Name Age Highest Level Position ETA FV 1 Caleb Bonemer 20.2 A+ 3B 2029 50 2 Noah Schultz 22.4 AAA SP 2026 50 3 Hagen Smith 22.3 AA SP 2027 50 4 Christian Oppor 21.4 A+ SP 2027 50 5 Braden Montgomery 22.7 AA RF 2027 50 6 Tanner McDougal 22.7 AA SP 2026 50 7 Billy Carlson 19.4 R SS 2030 45+ 8 Jedixson Paez 21.9 A+ SP 2026 45 9 Jaden Fauske 19.1 R LF 2030 40+ 10 Sam Antonacci 22.9 AA 2B 2026 40+

Probably because the whole front office was stunned by the fact that the Sox didn't trade Luis Robert after the 2021 off-season, which everyone knows is when he should have been traded.

It's become a meme that Getz is dumb for not trading Robert at the end of 2023. That's hindsight. We now know his production was going to fall off the table. We now know 2023 wasn't the year he magically became healthy to play 145 games a season. Yes, in hindsight, we know that the 2023 off-season would have been the perfect time to trade him. Hell, with this crystal-clear hindsight we possess, why not say that the Sox should have had a fire-sale right after the 2021 season? Moncada just put up a 4-bWAR season. They would have gotten a haul for him.

nevermind

Are these 20 other GMs in the room with us?

No, actually, they would have traded him by the 2023 trade deadline. I mean, if we're going to play 20/20 hindsight, do the whole gameboard, not just the parts that pretend you were clairvoyant.

Well, that probably takes Benintendi to the A's for Severino off the table

I thought somebody just made the example here that getting the owner to exit their comfort zone is the sign of a great GM.

Here comes the parade

I do think the days of running a Palacios/Taylor platoon in RF for a solid month are behind us....I hope.

Vaughn, Rojas, Palacos and Amaya being gone is already baked into that win rate after the ASB. Most of the worst was long gone by then. Pereira and some of that bullpen still indicates that '26 is going to be tryouts, still. Which means some dudes are going to snap and put up 1.4 bWAR, while others struggle. I don't think they're far off, being competitive requires a lot of the young guys to not stumble.

We can all stand to take a hint from Muni

I've been saying for a while - the Sox played at a 70-win pace after the ASB. I thought just a couple of acquisitions could augment the growth of the 'core' to push them up to 75 wins, or thereabouts. If they follow through with a mid-level, established starter, maybe keep or replace Robert with an ML average OF and everything breaks right for them, I would not be surprised by 81-83 wins. But that's like buying 5 scratch-offs and having all 5 hit. Kay could certainly be a step up from Cannon/Burke/Gomez, but replicating Fedde's 24 is a huge ask. Even Houser's total output paced over a full season would be Christmas morning. To be competitive, a couple of Smith/Davis/Burke/Schultz/Hagen would really have to blow up and become dominant. And then Monty/Teel would have to look like 4-WAR contributors over a season. Vargas/Baldwin/Murakami/Meidroth would all have to step up and be above average. The bullpen would have to snap to, and Leasure/Taylor/Vasil/Wikelman - all get solid, maybe with a closer pushing them all into slightly lower leverage rolls. That's asking Getz to check every item off his todo list, every one of them hitting, and most (if not all) of the 'established' starters continuing to progress - and then they could get over 85 wins and get knocked out in the first round.

I think they still do that somewhat, evidenced by Kyle Teel and Braden Montgomery, but I don't think we're going to have a "Getz always gets his man" meme. Acquiring former 1st rounders like Jared Shuster and Ryan Rolison seems more inadvertent than the focus.

If they sign on the wrong lines, does Murakami have to pay Getz $34M?