WestEddy

First of all, we're starting from a point where neither of us know anything about the inner workings of the Sox' FO, or Getz's thoughts. With that in mind, I say that they wanted to send Fletcher down to keep him getting reps and more importantly, away from the record setting parent club. They don't think Colas is ready for a full time audition, yet (the very type of decision making you're calling for), so they activated Ortega. The fact that they let Horn go means, to me, that they were done with Thompson, and took a flyer on Horn for their troubles. Yes, they knew about Horn. Maybe they tried to sneak him through waivers, or Bannister (who didn't have deep, previous knowledge of Horn) cut bait on him. This is all a lot of thought, already, for a couple of guys who will get an MLB.com write-up in about 5 years about how they persevered through 5 organizations, and now, they're finally having some success as a long man for a last place club. I don't see how having a plan, seeing the disastrous consequences of that plan playing out, then trying to adjust on the fly is panicking, or dumping one's plan. Seeing as they had zero (0) rotation pieces entering this season, and imagining the restraints on payroll Getz was dealt, he and Bannister worked out a plan to identify guys who are rehabbing, or trying to rediscover recent success, put a more competent defense behind them, give them a good game-calling catcher, and run with that, giving the prospects more time to develop. They're still running with Crochet, Fedde, and Flexen. Soroka got the Flexen treatment. Clevinger and Keller are innings. They tried Nastrini and Cannon, maybe even to discover what non-prospect hitters at AAA couldn't expose, and now they're working on their games. I don't see this as some huge divergence. If they traded Nastrini and Cannon for guys who could cover 5+ innings, that would be panic. Add to that, 3 starters went down with injury, and another 5 started out in extended catastrophic slump. I think if Chris Getz could predict batting slumps and injuries, he wouldn't be a GM. He'd be sitting on a mountain in Tibet, giving life advice to those who could reach him.

Then he's traded at that deadline for a package.

That Kinks song only reached #33 on the Canadian charts. Why would they be commemorating that?

The only question marks on Crochet are durability and whether the extra pitches stick. He looks like, at least, a mid rotation starter. We can have an idea of what Korey Lee can be going forward. No, we can't project WAR totals, but he looks like better than replacement level right now. He's also a pretty good defensive catcher.

I think vertigo is a big result of an acute ear infection.

Lee and Crochet aren't "unknowns". Neither is Ramos, at this point. If you're going to dismiss the entire White Sox minor league system, then no team can truly have any faith in rebuilding. All prospects are "unknowns". Yet, some work out.

2016 had 3 tradable assets, no development system, and little in the farm. While we had Semien and Bassett, nobody considered them to be much beyond utility and bullpen. The Giolito, Lynn, Burger, Graveman, Middleton and Bummer trades set us up far better than we sat in 2013.

Who said there was no point to having Ortega on the roster? Everybody here screams there must be accountability. So they drop Fletcher down to AAA for a few weeks for whatever reasons, and now that's bad. You keep connecting moves like, "if they were going to do this, why not that?" Again every acquisition isn't about learning. They took a flier on Horn, looked at him for a couple of weeks, and decided resources were better spent elsewhere. Same with Matt Thompson. I could also imagine that politics plays into it, too. Thompson was a Hostetler draftee, Horn was a Shirley draftee. Maybe the Shirley people had a better plan for Horn's development than Hostetler had for Thompson, and they moved on. From both. Like Jared Kelley. Pillar wasn't working for them, for whatever reason. That reason could be that Grifol wants to play the platoon splits, and there was no room for Pillar. Great. Maybe that's just another "we gave you what you wanted and you didn't make it work" tally. I'm not sure what the problem is with the roster churn. It would have been nice if Pillar had his hot streak in Chicago rather than Anaheim. I don't think the up and down will hurt prospects as much as staying up, and getting shelled every game in the national spotlight. You have 5+ starting pitching prospects at AA, A+ and A ball. Complex league has a few interesting arms. They're starting to get promoted. There's a draft in about 8 weeks. They have to make room for the better prospects who are coming along quicker rather than spend time and resources trying to figure out a new way to beg Matt Thompson to throw strikes.

For the most part, I agree with your whole post. Except this line. Depending on how a Robert trade works out, next year should already look more stabile, be more entertaining, and at the very least, on our way towards a .500 record. The AA team will be hitting no later than 2nd half of 2025. It would take 5 years to rebuild from nothing, and Getz already had 3 good drafts banked when he took over.

Nobody wanted to audition Ortega. He was a veteran OF who could cover CF in spurts. He's a 4th OF by definition. They have a major league team where they have to roster 26 players. Not every single roster move is going to be about learning or teaching. It's also unfair to saddle the front office with having to "know" whether a player will succeed or not upon promotion. Jackson Holliday didn't take off in his ML playing time, and the Orioles dropped him back to AAA. Is that a failure? Shouldn't they have known he wouldn't have succeeded? The gap is so large between AAA and the majors, short of the truly gifted and the guys like Remillard who are "fundamentals" guys, there's really no telling. I keep saying that they don't want to drop rookies into a situation where they're "learning", failing, and being splayed across the national news for knocking a fly ball over the wall, or screwing up a run down. Now that they're not the lead story for their historic futility, these guys can get lit up and not be THE REASON the Sox suck this season. I would also imagine Fletcher's riding the bench next to the OF coach, and learning that way.

Yohan Ramirez is another one. White Sox had him last year, selected off waivers from the Pirates. They DFAed him in the flurry of traded Braves guys and Erick Fedde's signing. The Mets grabbed him. Baltimore grabbed him in the roster crunch that hits everyone at the end of ST. For some reason, Baltimore DFAed him May 2, and the Mets grabbed him up again. The Mets cut him May 15 among a flurry of moves, and now, he's been traded to the Dodgers. And Getz only seems to be doing this with OFs. He's not cycling through the same IF guys who are making their way from team to team. We seem set with Remy, Mendick, Sosa, Ramos, Shewmake and Lopez, Lord help us. But hey, if somebody clearly better LH-hitting 2B than Shewmake or Lopez hit the wire, I wouldn't put it past Getz to try to upgrade.

Okay, well, you've been criticizing Ortega having been called up to the parent club, and here, you're saying to play him, not Colas (if it's just one game). Somebody here explained the situation pretty well, and everybody calmed down. They didn't know the extent of Moncada's injury, needed an OF on the 26-man, so they called up the only high level OF on the 40 man for a game while they evaluated their needs. They didn't bring Colas up to evaluate him. He was a body, then he went back. I think that's understandable. Nastrini and Cannon had nice first starts, then started looking progressively worse in their subsequent starts. I've said repeatedly that I can get on board with sending these guys back to work on some issues that revealed themselves with pro hitters - out of the spotlight, and not as part of a historic bad start. We all talk about "rushing kids" and "prospects not being ready". Those are all really subjective. I think the Sox have stabilized into just a bad team, and that's enough cover for a guy like Ramos to get a longer audition without national news outlets opening with that night's White Sox loss. I truly think that Brad Keller was more about getting Flexen and Soroka figured out. That is a plan Getz made early on, and is still holding to. Shuster's advancement makes an exposed Keller superflous. But the whole point is if somebody's angry and wants Getz to fail, none of these moves make sense. If you're along for the ride, trying to see what happens, there's sense in it.

Speas and Burdick have gone through the cycle multiple times. Smith Njigba. Teams claim guys they think might help. Then either they have a roster crunch, or realize what 5 other teams realized. If Getz is panicking, then half the league is panicking.

Why are you assuming that placeholder vets and struggling kids are two different plans? If you bring up a prospect, and you see he's struggling mightily, why are we married to "that struggling prospect must start every game the rest of the year"? That's not "how they learn", as everybody keeps claiming. I can certainly buy into Getz seeing the first three weeks, and realizing he had to do something to avoid the record books. He adjusted. Churned in more vets to see who clicked, cycled in Nastrini, League, Cannon, Ramos, Sosa, Fletcher, Shuster, and got the guys out who needed to work on something that would be catastrophic at the ML level.

I'm not disowning it. Okay, I was wrong to say the White Sox were right on par with all other teams. They haven't had the most transactions, and there's a good half dozen within 3-4 transactions. I would have expected them to have twice the amount of transactions as the next most team, the way everybody's screaming. I get it. You don't like Getz, so you call the churning through pitching projects "panic". I don't mind Getz, and I don't mind him picking up a bunch of players, throwing them out there to see if they're fixable, then launching them if they're not. I don't find myself embarrassed by it, I'm not angered by it. Any sports talk bro could go on a rant about Max Stassi not being on the parent club, and a bunch of meat-head listeners would think the guy's makin' sense. Or why Pham hasn't been traded. Or why this or that prospect isn't in the majors. But again, you have people spewing nonsense all day, every day. Actual false info about pitchers gaining 5 mph on their fastball upon leaving, and you don't chase them down to back up what they're saying. I know I have an argumentative tone, and I am trying to tone it down.

Of all the guys you listed, Shewmake is the only one who could have been "expected" to have produced at much below replacement level. But even so, we're arguing the word "panic". If Getz knew these guys were bad, then he's methodically churning through the guys he thought might rise to the occasion. DeJong appears to be the only one who did.

And they're adjusting. Until you can show me some "panic-o-meter" at fangraphs or baseball prospectus, it's all opinion. People here are calling for a guy to be DFAed after 2 bad games. That's inciteful observations. But when Getz DFAs the same player after 14 games, it's panic? LOL.

And I'm all for it. I really don't like calling dudes who have devoted their lives to playing a sport and have not broken through to major success "garbage", just as I wouldn't do that for salesmen or even journalists. But why not? Everybody expected this team to be bad, this year. Why not churn players through, give them a week of starts at AAA to see if they're viable, or teachable, then see if they can produce and be flipped? This season is really about bringing Crochet along. Conducting the Fedde/Flexen/Soroka experiment. Stabilizing the clubhouse with defense guys like Lopez and DeJong. Churn the bullpen looking for viable trade options and longer term pieces. Bring Sheets and Vaughn along to see if they're viable major league starters. Create opportunities for guys like Lee, Ramos, Nastrini, League, Cannon, Thorpe. If you catch a 2-3 year player like Corey Julks - score! If you catch a 2-3 month player like Pham? Enjoy the bullpen arm he brings back. Wait out Moncada, Benintendi and Eloy, either trade or DFA, or turn Benny into something plausible for a couple years. Nurture Robert for the next "window", or for a haul of prospects. Maybe I'm a weirdo. I like seasons like this as much as the 90 win competitive seasons. It's all in what you look to get out of it.

James Fegan indicating that Jacob Gonzalez probably moving to AA, too. https://soxmachine.com/2024/05/brad-keller-on-the-way-out-noah-schultz-on-the-way-up-to-birmingham/

AAAA filler, at best. With Mendick, Remy, Ramos, Lopez and Sosa on the 40-man, I'd see Shewmake as an easy DFA decision when the next 28-year-old OF comes across the wire.

I would take a .... wait for it ..... "wait and see" approach, and watch to see how he does. Keller's gone, so it's a moot point, but I don't usually have a preferred move that I will rail against when they don't make it. They put Keller (who I really don't like) in the rotation, so, great, let's see how well he does. I would love to read the headline "Clevinger attacked by rats, ends career". But he's on the team. I won't "root" for him, but trade him after 8 starts, and move on. I'm not sure why I have to cement my opinions in place, then be furious when the team goes different. There's a good half dozen guys I would like to not be on this team, this instant. Me fuming about it won't make it happen, so I'll practice my meditation when those guys start.

Woodford and Kuhl are the only non-prospect starters in the organization, right now, beyond Soroka. I'd like to see Shuster get the next nod. Nastrini and Cannon could stabilize at AAA before they start replacing Clev, Flex and Fedde. And, I guess, Crochet, as some point.

I really don't understand what you're considering to be personal. Is "panic-meter" your family's nick name for you?

I don't accept your premise that a GM churning through roster candidates is "panic". I didn't cherry pick. I listed all transactions. Look, you let trolls rail on all day every day, spouting the most asinine BS. Literally pretending that non-prospects added 5 mph to their fastball just by walking out the door. But you get your ass handed to you on one stupid, wrong narrative, and now I have to submit a doctoral thesis, which you'll strawman to death, anyway.

I'm sorry. I don't see an established Fangraphs panic-meter that registers this many moves as "surely panic". You calling it panic is your opinion, which isn't fact. Last year's team sucked. Any GM would have "panicked" and cleaned house. Everybody here wanted a new GM hired so he could "panic" and fire every single scout, player and front office employee. Y'all "panic" every day, and want JR to grab his chest and keel over so that a new team of owners could take over, "panic" and clean house. Seriously, it's a dumb narrative.