WestEddy

I would ask you which past administration they were blaming? Cashman has been GM for about 26 years. So, nice hypothetical, but that one's irrelevant. Maybe Yankee fans don't "make excuses", but I could probably count up the excuses made for the Guardians and Yankees here for not winning it all in the last decade(s) because "at least they've been there". Y'all kneel down before that string of not winning the big prize and worship it. I could mock the Dodgers for being on the verge of elimination, and a dozen posters would barrel in with their excuses. If I called for Cashman to be fired, y'all would excoriate me. It's amazing how many apologists the Astros, Guardians, Yankees, Padres all have here when I make fun of those teams. I'd guess you would call that perspective. You're not an avid fan of the Yanks, so you can see how they try to win, and how the playoffs is a crapshoot based on a single starting pitcher getting hot for two games, or a hitter going on a heater for a week. Now pretend I have perspective and can understand what Getz took over and how far this organization has come in 3 years.

With the resources the Yankees have, I would have expected them to go a little farther, or at least as far as the White Sox did in a bad year for the AL. Tampa is beatable. If we were fans of the Yankees here, I can only imagine the screaming about how everyone should be fired. The fact they didn't hit opening day with better options than Ryan McMahon, Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez is shocking. There was a FA market last winter they could have participated in to create some heft in that lineup. They can't even keep their FA starting pitchers healthy. Just think of the stories that would be trotted out if we had Cole, Rodon and Fried missing 41 starts between them.

1) The Yankees had an ostentatious owner who wouldn't settle for losing for decades. He used the attractiveness of the NY market and it's larger revenue streams to sign the top FAs. Over the years they've developed an organizational philosophy to drafting and developing that is successful in areas, at times. They don't spend like they used to. They went to the World Series two years ago and have been to the playoffs 10 of the last 12 years, and haven't had a losing season since 1992. You mentioned "50+ years". In that time John Allyn and Bill Veeck couldn't afford to run a baseball team, and they almost relocated a couple of times. JR started out sinking money into the roster, then slowly pulled back. He will spend when they're competitive, sometimes not very intelligently. Ron Schueller parlayed 4 great drafts under Larry Himes into a successful decade. KW had an actual philosophy that we know didn't include "develop extensively from within". I think it's pretty evident Hahn and KW weren't on the same page. The focus of the draft was college guys who could move quickly. The Yankees are more successful internationally than the Sox. We know that, we know why, and it has little to do with development. The Yanks also had a philosophy on pitching for years which is successful. 2) What did Getz do that I feel you should use to evaluate him now? Why are we still having this discussion? He ran development. Guys like Madrigal, Vaughn, Roberts, Jimenez, Yoan all made the bigs. 4 of those 5 were injured too much to contribute. Vaughn was rushed and played out of position. He either ran development the way he was asked to, or he ignored every plea from above to modernize and bring in targeted help. And still kept his job because JR liked him and wanted to keep watching draft picks he paid serious money to get released to go sell real estate. To believe the later, you have to imagine Getz is a manipulative organizational cancer who will willingly fail to indict and remove those above him so he could rise to the top, inherit a horrible team that will be his reputation, lose big for two years on the gamble he knows exactly how to build a winning organization. He's either stupid OR ambitious to an unhealthy degree.

Beckham was out of the org by the time Getz got here. Fulmer was pitching in the bigs before Getz's time. Colas was acquired after Getz's time as director of development. So, no. I don't believe he had anything to do with rushing those guys. It's kind of known that the White Sox would draft college players who were mostly "developed" in college and could shoot through the system. No, I don't think the director of development was making the decision to promote players prematurely, and then to allow them to languish in the bigs without proper support. The main evidence we have that Getz wanted to do things differently is that once he became GM, he started making wholesale changes to development that resulted in tangible success. I can't see how the way Bill Veeck handled a prospect's timeline in the 1970s has any bearing on how the organization is run today.

That's part of the "British Chef, American Wife" joke?

This is like a computer spitting out nonsense messages as it melts down. We shouldn't mess up the Bonemer thread with your pouting. Create one called "Caulfield enraged at WestEddy for being right" and we'll pick this up there when you calm down.

I get it. Sucks to be wrong. Come back when you calm down and we'll talk.

Here's me saying 82 wins on March 10 in the bold predictions thread.

March 25 - 77 wins

Here's me saying they'd be 13-18 coming out of April. They were 14-17. My bad.

Why would anybody predict wins before Spring Training even started? Go look at the predictions thread. Your panic is typical of somebody who knows they're wrongy wrong.

You railed on that I didn't predict 84 wins when I predicted 75+, 78 and 82. Maybe you should take your "make sense" meds.

Well, Samson sure didn't take it as life advice, as he only finished 2nd twice in 14 seasons. He finished lower all the rest. Maybe Reinsdorf didn't give him the primo advice of "always win", because it was free advice.

Chris Getz developed the system into back to back playoff appearances. What a failure. 2026 is just a continuation of that string of failure. LOL. Once Jerry Reinsdorf realized that the winning might start making him money, which he hates because he's so cheap, he had Getz promoted out of his role that was the true power center of the organization, so they started losing again. But then JR somehow thought that promoting Getz to GM would fulfil his goal of always finishing in 2nd place, so that he would leave billions on the table because he's so cheap, and Getz finished .... where? 2nd place!!! What a victory of failure!!!

No, you see, Jerry Reinsdorf, a billionaire, makes stupid decisions because he's cheap. He forces everyone who works for him to make the wrong move, which costs him billions in money and value, and that's how he remains chairman of the team. He once told a joke to a fellow owner that a good goal is to always finish in 2nd place, and we can interpret that as being his life's credo, but he fails at even that, which loses him billions of dollars, because he's cheap.

Andrew Vaughn made his debut in 2021. Getz became GM in 2023.

"Force"? Should they have tied him to the cuck chair? LOL. There's this thing called "The Union".

SS2k5 doesn't need me to speak for him, but he did say he hasn't seen it. He hasn't argued that generic "he sucks" comments can't be driven by any subconscious bigotry. Mention Trevor Bauer, our current president, Gay Pride nights, or a host of other subjects, and some off-center comments come right to the fore and cause a string to be shut down. Schriff is awkward and unknowledgeable. Maybe some get pickier because they won't give him the chance to grow due to his ethnicity. But I've never witnessed that type of ugliness rear it's head here over Schriff's ethnicity. Even argumentative accusations have fallen flat because they're so ridiculous.

I'm not even advocating for Ant to start against everyone. I was using him as an example of analytics being used to limit Ant's exposure and bring him along slowly against LHPs until he got more comfortable. I believe he's a guy you keep and build with. The bat plays. He can work himself up to an adequate LF, or backup 2B.

Are you replying to me? Antonacci, full season, vs. LH starters. Ant was OPSing in the low .500s, on the season, against all LH pitchers in August, sometime. By the end of the season, he dragged that up to .604. He improved against LHPs by the end of the season.

Davis Martin had a dominant first two months of the season (11 starts), then was adequate in 5 of his next 10 before he started to stumble. Except for the Rockies game, his September was normal for him.

The numbered list is the article. The paragraphs with the dash (-) are my own thoughts. 1) who is sox core - (Vargas, Droth, Taylor, Burke, Ant) - Vargas is the star, Droth, Peters, Ant, Burke and maybe Teel are the established "core" of this bunch. Grant Taylor, Hagen. While Teel took an effort to return from injuries, he OPSed .808 in September. Mune, Colson and Braden require some heavy work to be considered solid pieces going forward. Bonemer and Brooks Baldwin give Getz breathing room to make a decision on whether Braden is MLB-ready again at the end of ST, or he still needs a month in AAA to consolidate any advancements he pursues this off-season. William Bergolla, Nick McLain and maybe Samuel Zavala have outside shots at bench roles. 2) 27 rotation - (burke, taylor, Hagen, FA) - That's where it starts. They've also assembled a group of 4's and 5's. (Martin, Schultz, Sandlin, Schweitzer, Shane Smith, McDougal, Thorpe, a returning Mike Vasil, Ky Bush, and let us not forget Luis Castillo). 3) strikeouts - fix Mune, trade Colson, Droth to SS, Ant to 2B - Teel also requires a productive off-season to get his bat going consistently. Even though he OPSed .808 in September, he sported a 33% K-rate. I've seen Luis Arraez thrown out there as a profile who could compliment the K-heavy lineup. His defense is still solid enough where he's probably not old enough to commit to a DH-only role. 4) Shoman and hitting adjustments - cites K rates in postseason - The Sox were 1/2 (AL only) in many offensive categories, and top 5 overall. They led the AL in Runs scored. They did something right, even though the current trend of 3 true outcomes isn't quite as aesthetically pleasing. They also led the AL in walks. That's ambitious for a team starting 7 players who haven't logged a full year of MLB games, and then Vargas, who's the veteran of the bunch, coming into the season with 2.5 seasons of games under his belt. They're young. The Sox got a lot out of this bunch, for all the griping about RISP, bunting and platoons. 5) Pham is evil - I never understand focusing on one player who is the 26th, 27th man, as if he's indicative of why this team stopped astonishing. It's an incredibly young team. Veteran presence matters. The Sox entered the year with the goal of not losing 90 games. Getz flippantly floated improving another 19 games from 2025. The exposure came from the team achieving too much too soon. So a team built to audition a bunch of options had to cobble together some experience while not sacrificing the future. Pham wasn't the reason the Sox set all sorts of strikeout records. He's not the reason the Guards put up 9 runs in 2 drop-dead games in a row. 6) Venable needs growth - cites analytics, sticking with Teel, bullpen games - Analytics are what drive the game today. Sam Antonacci is a good example. He had huge platoon splits for most of the season, so they subbed in a RHH against some lefties. As he gained experience, they left him in more. At the end of the season, his slash line against left-handed starters was .318/.398/.430. As far as sticking with the regulars as they stumbled in the final three games, who else was Venable going to play? He got a young team thorough playoff experience. One can only hope these guys watched the Guardians pile on the Rays yesterday and get pissed at how close they were. Sullivan's take is that the team is still rebuilding, has a lot of question marks - beyond a few "tweaks".

He was a fine acquisition. He's not a CF.

The Sox were 1 or 2 in the AL for BBs, Runs, wRC+, offensive fWAR. My take is that a team of rookies froze up when they realized where they were and panicked. Their approach got them within a game of 1st place in the Central, and to game 5 of the ALDS. There's work to do to keep improving their offense, and to specifically work with Mune, Colson and Braden to even out their games. They had an above average offense in MLB this season. Their approach doesn't suck.

The Sox finished tied for 2nd in the AL with 104 wRC+. They were 5th in MLB. For as long as I've been online, fans have been screaming about the Sox using stats-driven strategies. Detractors kept posting how small our data analysis departments were, and how we would never catch up to the league because of a modern day Zeno's Paradox. We finally get close to state of the art, and everyone's complaining about one guy in the batting order who should be in a different spot, how the current trends are ruining the game, or whatnot. 25 other fanbases are all saying the exact same things.