WestEddy

It's like a three legged horse won a horse race. So then we start looking for 3 legged horses to bet on, because now, 3 legged horses will always win horse races. The White Sox underperformed their Pythagorean by 7 wins. They have made improvements to the offense, and where they haven't, I'd expect some regression. They were historically bad. It would be hard to be worse.

Crochet, Fedde and Flexen produced about 11 bWAR over 83 starts (427 IP). Cannon, Martin, Burke, Thorpe and Bryce Wilson were good for about 5 bWAR in 52 starts (341 IP). It doesn't really work to triple the latter numbers and say we're good for 15 bWAR in 156 starts. I think the new 5 can put up at least as much production as last year's starting rotation, even throwing in Clevenger, Soroka and Nastrini's travails. The top starters aren't as good as Crochet and Fedde, and the back end won't be as bad as Soroka, Clevenger and Nastrini. I would also expect Baldwin, Ramos, Vargas, Sosa, and Meidroth to put up a little more offense than the trio of Nicky, DeJong and the clown car of AAA utility infielders. Why? Growth. Higher ceilings. Regression to the mean. That alone, like the "Chicago White Sox" guy pointed out a short while ago, a team of replacement level players (AAAA) would be expected to win about 48 games. I think the top 4 of our rotation are somewhere between replacement and average ML player (0-2 WAR). Last year's team was uniquely bad. That's why they set the record for losses.

And if people would just live healthy lives, insurance companies wouldn't have to deny them life saving coverage. JR has run a s%*# organization for a long time. This deflection is just weird.

The Brewers used Wilson differently for a while. In alternate starts, Jerod Koenig would pitch the first inning, then Wilson would come in and pitch 5. He seemed to be a bit more effective pitching the 2nd through the 6th innings than being the true starter. game logs: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=wilsobr02&t=p&year=2024

Yes. 2 years.

Nice article on the future of White Sox international scouting https://soxmachine.com/2024/12/david-keller-talks-about-the-future-of-white-sox-international-amateur-scouting/

Duke Ellis will never aspire to be a Herb Washington. Luis Rodriguez is to whom I refer.

My brain hurts when you guys are waterboarding logic like you do. That's why.

Dos Equis clara - and a monster burrito de carne asada, con todos. Feliz Navidad

I can still imagine a merry christmas for you, dude. And all your cohorts. f*** off and have a good holidays.

Somebody just wrote an article about how the next frontier is "empathy". The biggest advancement in college sports is sports psychology. Venable has a firm grasp on that concept. Seriously, stats analysis is tapped out. Sleep and nutrition adjustments are pretty finite.

I keep thinking a lot of these articles are written, not by AI, but by a foreign language AI. I sometimes run my own writing through ChatGPI. I'll get into arguments, late night, after a bottle of wine, with it. Asking for rhyming words for a particular word, I finally got ChatGPI to admit it doesn't really understand the concept of rhyming.

You've earned your SoxTalk Christmas Bonus. Now go drink your fill of Michelob Ultras. These Tuesday night Christmas Parties are a b****.

I think the guy they sent to Houston would be more annoying. Rookie bullpen arm they immediately had start and looked ... competent.

Why does it need to be cutting edge? Why can't somebody pounding some fundamentals into JR's skull be "cutting edge"?

My post conveys my feeling that I'm tired of posting Getz's successes, because the top players who made the bigs developed themselves, whereas the ones who failed, failed because of Chris Getz. That doesn't make sense to me. That's why I argue. These guys forsook an advanced metrics department, took years to think about hitting and pitching labs. Housing, nutrition and sleep monitoring were an afterthought. I'm really befuddled why everyone is expending so much energy to pin all of this in Chris Getz. Yes, he was part of the previous regime. No, he didn't quit. Sure, maybe he shrugged his shoulders and kept notes. I don't want all the perpetrators to burn in the fiery cauldrons of hell. If Getz is bringing in competent people to get s%*# in order, I'm all for it. I'm 61. I've got 20-25 more years of baseball fandom in me. I'm not going to spend it furious that the guy making good changes didn't earn his job.

Dogecoin

I'm guessing the AAA pitchers liked working with him, and they realized they were cutting Maldonado and promoting some of those pitchers. He's a guy. I can certainly see keeping the status quo and letting people work with familiar catchers in a lost season.

Thaiss has no options remaining, so he makes the team out of spring training, or he takes a walk through waivers.

New friend alert:

Yeah, reminiscent of Brett Hull wanting to come to the Hawks. I guess, like Dick Allen said below, I'm just not sick of it, yet. I used to be a Bears' fan. Watched every game. Listened to sports radio all the time in the car. I just got sick of being angry, and stopped paying attention. Maybe I'll get there with the Sox, at some point. I just don't hang around Bears' boards and jump on the people liking on the team.

Yeah, when somebody calls me a dunce and other names for making note that the Sox are being mentioned as a team "in" on Sasaki, it's not "crying" to push back. When somebody regularly mocks a single comment made back in spring training to end every convo, it's not "crying" to find a comment of his and push back with it. If you don't like commenters pushing back on rude behavior, I'm not sure why you're a mod and subject yourself to all this "crying" on a daily basis.

I don't see people being criticized for "being skeptical". I see people criticized for turning every move into multiple "Chris Getz is in over his head, he sucks" posts every day. I see a couple mods criticized for mocking people who want to evaluate moves on face value, not based on "the guy making them didn't deserve his job, so they must suck". I don't feel like I defend Getz. I root for a team. I really want to see if Fletcher grows into a 4th OF who can hit. Getz was made GM 16 months ago. It's been litigated.