WestEddy

I feel they should bring up prospects as they show they can succeed at their current level. Crochet is a major league pitcher. He's supposedly worked out and stretched out all winter for a starter's work load. If Crochet is in future plans, treat him as such.

I'd be happy to entertain legitimate critique as soon as I read some. Yes, because all the bad trades, questionable PR decisions, that's why Garret Crochet will fail. That's probably the most logical part of your rant. You do understand that every single pitcher in MLB history never started a MLB game before their first one, right? But if you want your critique to be treated as legitimate, maybe don't be the 20th person to lazily ask, "what could go wrong?" Or call the entire organization "yes-men". That's tired, and lazy. Nothing that I listed, that you called tired, is inaccurate about the initial deluge of comments on the opening day start. I just find it weird that you glum guys get so angry about people actually being excited for the baseball season.

See? When the Guardians stop cheating and stealing signs, they make outs. The trade's still a win.

Dude's nervous. He probably read SoxTalk, realized he's worthless based on a couple of really really smart fans' takes, so he decided to commit suicide by home run.

I had a guitar teacher claim that was the greatest rock'n'roll guitar solo ever. I don't disagree.

Throwing a baseball exerts the same strain on an arm regardless of whether one's throwing to AAA or MLB hitters. All throwing in the minors does is preserve an extra year of control. I know this is baby-think, but maybe making Crochet a starter on his request and giving him opening day buys some goodwill, and an extension for a couple of years. Guy's only 24.

Crochet has been one of the 3 best starters this spring on this team. It's exciting, and great for a veteran White Sox pitcher to get the opening day start over a newcomer. I'm not sure how you extract "victory" from that, but sure. I understand that every single move the Sox make must be framed in the worst light: Stupid move, everybody will get injured, OMG! starting their free agency clock early, they should try to lose every game while we all scream how they're losing every game, nail down that #10 pick. If Getz and Grifol succeed, my entire world collapses!!!

So, do we assemble an entire team in AAA for about 3 years, then promote them all at once?

This is great. The naysayers bending themselves into pretzel shapes inventing reasons why this is bad is worth it, alone.

Is Chuckie Robinson wrangling his way onto the 26-man? He's hanging around a lot for an unknown NRI.

No, you were told that players wouldn't be firing their agents on the spot for presenting an offer from the White Sox.

Everybody here mocks every statement made by Reinsdorf and Grifol as BS word salads. Except when we want them to be meaningful. I'll wait for camp to break to understand what they're doing.

You're kidding yourself if you think 29 owners are beloved by baseball players, and Reinsdorf stands alone. I'm sure that neither of us know the exact reason DeJong chose the White Sox, and why Getz wanted to wrap up DeJong early. My point is that because of the known toxic atmosphere (which you agree with), the White Sox pay a premium right now to get players they want. That premium either comes in non-discounts, major league deals, or whatever. Yes, there is collusion going on. Pollock wound up $1million down on 2023. A million is still money, and he left $8 million on the table to leave Chicago. Why would he take similar money just to leave? He had $13 million on the table, and went back to the open market.

They could always do something like: th 3/28 det - #1 fr 3/29 off sa 3/30 det - #2 su 3/31 det - #3 mo 4/01 atl - #4 tu 4/02 atl - #1 (4) we 4/03 atl - #5 th 4/04 kcr - #2 (4) fr 4/05 kcr - #3 (4) sa 4/06 kcr - #4 (4) su 4/07 kcr - #5 (4) The #5 slot could be Crochet/bullpen game, where they ease his workload from 3 innings up to 5. I understand you're not saying they must commit to a 5th starter. My mind just does sh*t like this, for some reason.

I'm not arguing they should go with a 4-man. They could skip the 5-spot the first time through the rotation, that's all. Gives them an extra week to make that decision.

C's get degrees.

As far as "chemistry", when people here, at Sox Machine, SSS, wherever, talk about this team, they all say that free agents won't come here. It was a toxic situation. Not mentoring fluff, but AJ Pollock leaving money on the table to get out. To not play here. I also agree that you'd be paying a premium for the Montas/Manaea/Severino level of guys who actually get to choose between a few offers. Benintendi should have been a 3 year deal, but I'm guessing the Sox had to go to 5 just to reel in a vet. If you're grabbing up 1-WAR dudes to fill slots, because you don't want to be paying a 50% premium to drag anybody in, seems to me that glove-first guys are the market inefficiency, and really, DeJong and Pillar are the only real guys they might roster. And again, they might have had to offer a major league deal instead of a minor league to DeJong just to get him off the market. Sure, I agree with the rest. I don't expect Fletcher to be anything more than a 3 year stop-gap, the strong side of a platoon. But there was nothing on the market, and they took a flyer on a guy who was blocked in Arizona. I'm ready to take the L. Every trade doesn't have to be a Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio robbery deal. But Fletcher not turning into a perennial All-Star isn't an L. Neither is the dude putting up 1.5-2 WAR a year until Wolkow takes over RF for the next 15 years. I really don't think Getz is playing 3-D chess, but he seems to be light years beyond Hahn, at this point, who, in retrospect, seemed to be more reactive, and wanting to win the news cycle rather than building a team in his image.

He's assembled a group of bodies to build a bullpen from. No 4 year contracts. That's a win. I don't think there was a silver bullet on the market to provide good offense, good defense at a low cost. DeJong? fine. Pillar? catch the ball. Moose and Maldonado were superfluous, but we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Maybe Moose just needed a spring training with anybody to showcase and stay in game shape. His buddy did him a solid. Maldonado could be, "Here, Pedro, here's your clubhouse leader. If that doesn't work, you can tell your story walking". I think Getz did what he could with the starting rotation. If they go into the season with Fedde, Soroka, Flexen, Crochet and Nastrini, I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of.

I'm joking about the great off-season, but I really don't have any problem with any of the moves beyond signing Maldonado. We all have a pretty good idea what restraints Getz is working under, and nobody believes he could put together a successful playoff team in this one off-season. Last season was such a sh*t show. He had to pick a couple areas to fix. One was team chemistry, and the other was defense.

It doesn't work that way. A team doesn't rank their utility players, then only decide to let the "worst one" go. If Getz wanted somebody's #9 prospect AAA starting pitcher, and they said they wanted Zach Remillard, or Jose Rodriguez, the deal wouldn't die if they wouldn't take Lenyn Sosa. You have a group of similar production players, take your pick. I'm sure nobody assumes that Cristian Mena was the worst upper level arm from our group of upper level arms. He's a guy Arizona wanted.

There's a day off after the opener.

The first year of clown college is all basic curriculum, like, Extrapolating career prognosis from 30 spring training PA's 101, Radar Gun Anxiety 101 and Everything Sucks - for beginners. Getz's entire off-season has been a series of great moves.

The D-backs have seen enough, and have already cut Mena to minor league camp. Since Reno is such a hitter's paradise that surely inflated Fletcher's stats, I wonder if Mena will have an ERA less than 10.00. He'll probably cry a lot, then retire. People pretending that Getz made a bad trade should be very worried.

How in the world do you come to this conclusion?