WestEddy

What's the difference between a stain and a red flag? And a huge failure? Are those three different things? And if it doesn't make sense to you, shouldn't you reserve judgement until you can understand what's going on? Are you actually implying that they made him hurt his plant knee? It looks to me like they challenged Schultz to lean on only part of his arsenal to clean up his mechanics, and pulled Hagen Smith aside to clean up his. They caught two injuries before they developed into something worse, and they'll both be back on the mound this fall. I'm not sure I see the "stain". Or the "red flag". Or even the "huge failure". Yes, it would be nice for these two pitchers to have pitched their way into the major league rotation, and be in the ROY conversation. They're not. They've had about 5 pitchers perform their way into the greater rotation picture (Murphy, Oppor, LaCombe, McDougal, Lucas Gordon), while others just progressed. Seriously, I'm sure that if I was to explain fully how I see any positivity in this system, you would argue with all of it, so pretend I said something, and have at it.

And they probably did. They did, after all draft 4 bats with their top 6 picks in 2024. I have read that Getz probably wanted to go "safe" with a pitcher. That was probably either written as an aside in a SoxMachine article, or I heard on a FutureSox podcast. Sorry I can't provide any further context.

And 4 of the top 6 picks last year were bats. I don't think Getz is telegraphing any fear of developing offensive players.

This year's draft seemed very focused on position players, so there's probably no lack of confidence.

SD must be elated to have used up their cache of prospects to acquire the bunch of guys they wanted to make their playoff run. The Sox just graduated (7) Teel, Quero, Meidroth, Monty, Burke, Shane Smith and Grant Taylor. They just had (8) sidelined for a year - Drew Thorpe, Mason Adams, Juan Carela, Ky Bush, Nick McLain, Blake Larson, Aldrin Batista and Casey Saucke. (7) all had serious rework seasons - Schultz, Hagen Smith, Tyler Schweitzer, Bryan Ramos, Colson Montgomery, Wolkow and Sam Zavala. That's 21 real hits to their minor league system, and they're still hovering at the back of the middle third. I'll take that.

I'm not really concerned about the White Sox nailing rankings on listicles. The handling of Colson shows the White Sox aren't, really, either. Should we care about Hagen Smith's "prospect luster"? I'd rather he develop as a strong pitching prospect. The rankings will take care of themselves.

I think I've read that Getz felt he had to nail his first 1st rounder, so made a choice they felt they could develop properly. Bannister was already in place, and Fuller wasn't. As "bad" as Smith looks like, the Sox avoided an injury. He's pitching with reworked mechanics, and is striking out 12.8 per 9IP at a level he's 3.5 years young for. He's walking guys, but I'd imagine that'll work itself out as he grows into his delivery.

Yeah, that's kind of how the word "if" works.

Did you just make an insane leap in logic that had nothing to do with the discussion to dunk on a point nobody made?

I'm not sure what this means, but they're around a .420 w-l % since about May 1, last I checked.

Your comment was vague. I took it to mean that if he was any good, other orgs would be sniffing around. My bad. If Getz builds a winner with a slashed budget, and basically rebuilding the entire scouting, development and procurement apparati from the ground up - on the fly, half of the league would be throwing PBO offers at him after his first high profile finish. Dombrowski and Friedman both had success in weird, cheap organizations, and when they hit the open market, they were spoiled for choice.

If you wanted to do one or two wins better than last year, they could have just kept Jesse Scholtens and Jared Shuster to eat innings.

Getz started with a team basically assembled from parking lot tryouts, and 2 years later, has a team playing somewhere between a 68-80 win pace over 162.

Placating the owner and carving out the space one needs to do one's job is an important skill. So perhaps you're saying that Getz was uniquely qualified to take a job that would have had few applicants.

Civale asked for the trade, Milwaukee didn't "punish" him by trading him. I think all of the White Sox, Brewers, Civale and Vaughn all won. Everybody got what they wanted.

Is "what" now? Rockway pointed out that Vaughn has had 100 PA runs like this before. I stated that he needed a change-of-scenery kick-in-the-pants to focus him. Vaughn's success doesn't change my opinion on development from 2017-2020.

Of course. Whether Getz was qualified, or "deserved" his promotion has been talked to death. Development was not getting the best out of what was acquired. I found it affirming that as soon as he became GM, he made a slew of changes to scouting and development. That told me he wanted those changes all along, and was using his authority to enact them. They're still a long way off, and a lot of assets are still going to fall through the cracks. I find it amazing to look at the history of White Sox first rounders, and during the period between the drafting of Alex Fernandez (1990) and Chris Sale (2010), there was a vast wasteland of opportunity. Aaron Rowand put up 12 bWAR for us, and Gordon Beckham put up about 7 bWAR. That's it.

You both seem to have said the same thing.

I hope so. At the very least, he replaces Cannon while he gets his s%*# back together.

Frankly, I'm surprised that Shuster made it this long.

@Y2Jimmy0, why no love for a guy like Grant Umberger? He seems to have been dominant for a stretch at Kanny and has similar or better numbers than Luis Reyes. Is it that somebody like Reyes exhibits better mechanics and ceiling, is it age or pedigree? Thanks.

He had the same coaches that Monty, Meidroth, Vargas, Robert, Sosa, Quero and Teel had. Vaughn needed a kick in the pants to focus, and he's done that.

I don't even think another club can request an interview unless it's for a clear promotion, which means that teams would have to interview Getz for PBO. That's ludicrous.

Winnah! 12-11 since the All-Star break.