WestEddy

No, just offering the context that you will dig in and argue the inverse opposite of reality, then slink away when concrete proof is posted.

I would expect Monty to get a few at-bats in the bigs, at least, so we can then speak of him in the hallowed tones of success that "making the bigs" carries. I would agree with you that he was rushed to AAA. They probably wanted him to play through his back issues so that he didn't fall behind, and wind up being an A baller they needed to put on the 40-man. His final 6 weeks in AAA is a positive.

From 2000 to 2013, the Sox had one pick in the top 10. No, the White Sox have not been good. Probably bottom 10. But they aren't unique in their misses from the bottom half of the first round.

A bunch of posters, here, seem to be bending over backwards to make a negative out of a HS pick at #22 being on a slightly better than normal trajectory only because admitting to it somehow validates Chris Getz in their mind. Maybe you should be addressing the latter part of that sentence instead of the former. Monty being a HS #22 pick in the top 20 prospects is a big positive. Red flags exist for every prospect, and we can certainly discuss them.

If Abreu cleaned up his issues to OPS .650, that throws him into the Rowdy Tellez/Josh Bell pool. That fills a hole for about 5-7 teams.

Or they could just hold the Slater announcement off until after the Rule 5 draft. They did that a few times last offseason.

That's the guy who clearly stated that we'd be fools to believe Wheeler's and his agent's own words that the White Sox offered them more money. Consider the source.

Vaughn isn't going to be around for the World Championship parade. The only reason to gamble on him is that he breaks out, and is another lower level piece to trade for an arm July/2026.

I think we can agree that, at this point, Colson Montgomery hasn't played any Major League Baseball, and is currently a "prospect". Right? If your contention is that all prospects suck until they break out, then sure, Colson Montgomery sucks, as does the entire top 100 list of prospects. It's a bit disingenuous to argue that the White Sox completely screwed up Colson Montgomery, only because enough time has not yet passed for him to mature into a Major League Baseball player.

And protecting players seems to be more an exercise of assessing the threat of them getting picked over "protecting" them. Spitballing, 10 teams will be at 40 because their systems are so awesome, and teeming with prospects. Available players are ranked. 10 other teams are good enough so they don't have to carry a guy like AHT for an entire season. The 10 teams who are a risk to pick them have so many better options missing 40-man cuts that the chance of those 2 getting selected is remote.

3 of the last 20 #22 picks have had big success in the bigs (15.0+ bWAR). None of those three were HS picks. It's funny how a minor leaguer making the majors is definitely not a sign of success when talking about a minor league director, but when setting a floor for a White Sox pick, it's practically the Hall of Fame.

No real context. This seemed like something that would have been found before now.

It's really not like Crochet was chloroforming the starting pitcher every 5 days and tying him up in the janitor's closet. It's a silly argument to assume anybody who came through the minor league system wasn't "developed" because they were so freakin' awesome to start with. Sillier, still, to discard all of the adjustment and work the staff did with Crochet during a year where practically nobody thought he would reach October alive.

https://www.soxon35th.com/white-sox-sign-two-international-free-agents/

You know this is "pulled from his heinie" BS, right? Sean McAdam also said Tristan Casas could headline a trade for Crochet.

I guess my point was not that "Yes, Lux can be had for slot space", more that - "I wouldn't give anything of value beyond slot space for Lux." He's a 2-win shortstop who's in arbitration.

You're not making any case for anything by quoting arbitrary ranking numbers. And you're not disproving that the Sox ~$850k in slot space can bring back a similar legitimate prospect. You seem to feel that unless a minor league player is ranked #1 in the game, they're worthless, which is silly.

Not sure what your point is. Aldrin Batista is a legitimate prospect, regardless of ranking. He was acquired for international slot money.

A team has 14 starting slots to fill - 9 offensive players, and 5 rotational starters. A contending team has to at least get close to that 14. Maybe they can carry a light-hitting 2B, or do 5th starter by committee. Effective platoons certainly help. The 2004 White Sox started out with about 8 of those set - Konerko, Uribe, Crede, Lee, Rowand, Buehrle, Garland and Thomas/Everett. They added Garcia and Contreras at the TDL, and swapped out Podsednik for Lee in the offseason. Then, they added Pierzynski, Iguchi and Dye. That's 13 of 14 starting slots they had filled with legitimate major leaguers. (Argue about Pods and Uribe, if you want) This team starts out with Crochet, Robert, ... maybe a healthy Benintendi.... Cannon & Thorpe? 4-5 legitimate major league starters. Signing and keeping Crochet doesn't get you any closer to that 14, especially when you have 3 studs coming along, any one of which could replace his production among those 14.

They got Aldrin Batista and Maximo Martinez for $1 million in slot money.

I could see the White Sox trading their $850K international slot space so somebody could sign Sasaki. It it were the Dodgers, I could see that return being an A-ball position player/rotation arm PLUS Gavin Lux. The only reason for these nonsense "trades" (crochet + benintendi, robert for garbage) is that Reinsdorf is selling the team by the end of the year, and wants payroll cleared, which still only makes sense in the realm of a couple commenters saying that could be what JR selling looks like.

I use that shorthand for him. My way of honoring Montgomery "Monty" Clift.

Actually, no it isn't. You build around a group of cheap, young talent with 6 years of control. Not one pitcher who is an expensive, young talent with 2 years of control. Every rebuild begins with the amassing of young, cheap, controllable talent, not one great pitcher with 2 years of control. The White Sox don't even have a collection of studly prospects. Monty, Ramos and Quero look like they could top out at slightly above average ML talent. Nobody looks like a perennial All-Star.

How are we pretending that a young pitcher is worthless after TJS? You're also going with the premise that a pitcher as good as Crochet will never come along, again. We're trying to promote enough good pitching in their first 5 years of control so they can add larger contracts to a cheap base. I believe that when the Sox have developed and assembled a competitive base, they will spend the money (as you have shown) to add to it. They've only done so ill-advisedly under Hahn/KW. Maybe Getz will do a better job spreading that money around.