WestEddy

Right. Keeping par with half of your acquisition engine working, and the other half having been recently reworked is promising.

Jordan Walker better be the 3rd or 4th piece in that deal. Dude's out of options. Frankly, I think he's a DFA at this point.

I'd say: SP - S. Smith, Martin, Burke, the odd journeyman signing, and a hodgepodge of Gomez, Cannon, Shane Murphy, McDougal, Tyler Schweitzer, and Duncan Davitt until Mason Adams, Thorpe and Bush rehab, and Schultz rounds into shape. I agree that Grant Taylor gets starter innings at Charlotte. RP - Somebody practically announced that Vasil will be in next year's bullpen again. I also see the cast of usual suspects getting another shot. Getz has shown he has little patience for the guys who get a clear shot and muff it (on the offensive side). Maybe he relies on Bannister more on the pitching side. That said, Eisert, Ellard, S. Wilson, Gilbert, Leasure, Wikelman and Booser should all get long looks here. We keep hearing names like Chase Plymell and Peyton Pallette, but none of them seem to have forced the issue, yet. C - Teel/Lee. I see a few "this team has big questions at catcher" articles on MLBTR and think the Sox can capitalize. Quero graded out as one of the worst defensive catchers in the game, and while he put up good BA and OBP, the power hasn't shown up. Maybe there's enough offense for Miami or TB to gamble on coaching his defense up. 1B - Gotta be Lenyn Sosa. Vargas' bat takes a hit here. Unless they find that Naylor's very affordable. 2B - Meidroth/Sosa until Antonacci or Gonzo force the issue here. And by "force the issue", I guess I mean, look slightly more like an average major leaguer than Meidroth. 3B - Vargas/Mead - Vargas started out strong, defensively. Maybe further conditioning and development turn him into the 3-WAR 3B I envision. I'd also imagine Mead has pretty clear instructions on what's expected of him coming into 2026 camp. I blinked, and the dude fell to a .584 OPS. SS - Colson. duh. OF - There's got to be a spot for Brooks Baldwin for regular ABs here. Maybe WillBob and Fletch pick off a month or so? Also a spot for a Quero/Robert trade return OF? Rule 5? DH - 10-D. If they can't trade him, he's got to spend more time here than LF. tl;dr - Quero, Robert and Tauchman are all good candidates to get traded. Meidroth is a nice story, but Getz doesn't strike me as having his Gordon Beckham who will start 5 years without a swipe at an upgrade. Rule 5 could make SP and OF fun spring training stories. There's probably 10 bullpen arms bouncing around the game that will be tweeting their White Sox horror stories at the end of 2026.

And keeping par with Minn, Det, and Cle is happening with a very muted international presence, as of yet.

I'd imagine the Chinese team he played for beats out the Brewers and Rangers.

So you're saying it's very noble of me to post something that disproves a belief of mine...

This was asked about in a SoxMachine P.O.Sox column. It's subscribers only, so no link. James: How much do organizations monitor offseason regimens? A lot. Most advanced prospects and big leaguers are training at private facilities but are talking with teams both about their baseball activities and also their lifting and training programs. The bulk of players you’ll find in the team facilities over the winter are rehabbing injuries, but the recent draftees are pulled in for performance camps and other sorts of orientation over the offseason as well. It tends to be younger players or guys who already live near facilities who make use of training at Camelback Ranch or the Dominican Academy over the winter, but that is an option. Lenyn Sosa memorably trained at the Dominican Academy before the 2022 season to get guidance on some major swing changes he was making, but now the location and capacity of the Sox DR academy is part of why they’re replacing it. But Prelander Berroa blew out during a spring game. Drew Thorpe’s UCL gave way in a backfield game after he had spent most of the spring rehabbing from his surgery from last August. Ky Bush was throwing a bullpen the week before spring started and felt his elbow give out. They didn’t arrive with elbows which happened to be injured that no one knew about until they were in the facility, but got hurt in the ramp-up process that is precisely when pitchers are the most at-risk for these sorts of blowouts. Elbows are still exploding all over the place across baseball, so there are clearly elements of the offseason process that could be improved. But part of the reason the last lockout caused so much anxiety was the absence of offseason monitoring and communication on training between teams and players, which has been the norm now for a while now. So, something new to worry about when they lockout after next season, I suppose.

I read that three times and didn't see Getz mentioned. Am I missing something, or does your brain automatically insert Getz into every sentence, now?

#3 - Mexican League

This seems desperate.

I just think it's interesting the lengths a team will go to save a few hundred dollars. I'm gonna guess he's got some gruesome stories from the Mexican teams.

I think it's cool to bump the prediction threads. I certainly ate my share of crow over my embarrassing nailing of 60 wins and the w/l record on the morning of August 1st. I should have predicted Lotto numbers, too. It's only fair, as I still have welts on my heart over calling the 2024 spring training version of the bullpen "shutdown".

That was his nephew, Mac McClung. Mac McClung - Wikipedia

#4 The Pirates:

#5 The Rays.

I think we all recognize that this team wasn't going to compete during Crochet's arb-time here. Therefore, a trade looked like a clear path to goosing the current rebuild. In the initial analysis of the return, it does look like Getz got back two impact prospects in Teel and Monty, a serviceable player in Meidroth, and a possible bullpen piece in Wikelman. So, in grading this particular season, Getz did what was required and didn't cause consternation with the horrible return. As far as a long term grade, obviously, Crochet, Monty and Teel have their entire careers in front of them and it really can't be judged until we see how these guys turn out.

"We're Self-Actualized"

Yeah, these rookies had a new set of coaches at each level. I don't think they're adjusting to anything.