WestEddy

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?

The funniest part of this is that everybody laughed at thinking Fletcher was good based on 102 MLB PA's, but are now declaring him a bust over 30 spring training PA's. Smells like Troll Spirit.

They started out with about 15 starting pitchers, and are now down to about 3.5. They have to play the games, and put 9 players on the field. Why not get the more advanced guys started this year? It would be nice to not reenact the 2011-2013 Houston Astros clown show, or the modern loss wonder that was the 2003 Detroit Tigers with an all-rookie team.

It's the future for the next 3 months. Thorpe and Nastrini will be in the rotation by year's end.

It's not just the Sox. I think the Marlins have 4 starters injured right now. We're doing pretty good still having Soroka, Fedde and Flexen still standing.

Fedde, Soroka then pray for sunstroke-uh. Then Flexen. I'd guess Kuhl and Touki might get a couple turns until they earn an extra year of control on Thorpe and Nastrini. Crochet can get major leaguers out, so why not give him 3-4 innings every time through? I don't mind starting Thorpe's or Nastrini's time clock a year before Monty, Ramos and others. There's something to be said for staggering their free agencies.

Didn't see this coming...

Nightengale informs us Clevenger's looking for a 2-year deal for over $20 million. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2024/03/17/padres-dodgers-pandemic-espn-karl-ravech-eduardo-perez/73000437007/

per Nightengale, White Sox showing interest in Tommy Pham if he doesn't sign with the Padres for a 1-year, $3-4 million deal. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2024/03/17/padres-dodgers-pandemic-espn-karl-ravech-eduardo-perez/73000437007/

Wait until they find out the White Sox infected him with the failure virus, which will spread to the rest of the team. Should have given up Kjerstadt, MFers!

He should mix it up. "Hey, now!!" "Hey, then!!"

Yeah, Jared Shuster's shaping up to be one of those DFA's you sneak through at the end of camp to outright to AAA, no big hit if somebody claims him.

Counterpoint: Jump-starting the rebuild/retool with a couple major league ready guys staggers free agency on these dudes. If you have a MLB-ready arm that won't be a perennial Cy Young candidate, give the fans a taste of the future, have a few veterans in for the long run waiting for Monty, Ramos, Schultz etc to come of age.

The Giants no longer have a perfect game going. Phew.

I'd like to believe the utility infielder battle is between Remillard and Danny Mendick. Shewmake's only sticking around because he's on the 40-man. Does anybody know if the Mariners' lineup is more opening day-geared than the Giants'? Joey Bart is a red flag of "B team" for me. That being said, Kuhl seems to be having a better day than Woodford. Thorpe may make the opening day roster, yet.

This is an article that touches upon Lawrie being part of the clubhouse issues in Oakland, 2015. Seems he was just too high-energy, all the time, and wore on his teammates. There was some weirdness when he left the Sox, too, like phantom illnesses or injuries. Like, he was hurt, but the medical staff couldn't find anything wrong with him. https://whitecleatbeat.com/2016/01/25/oakland-athletics-brett-lawrie-cause-of-clubhouse-chemistry-issues-in-2015/ Here's another I found that just talks about Lawrie's clubhouse problems in generalities, mostly hung on a Billy Butler quote featured in the first article. https://www.brewcrewball.com/2017/3/4/14811690/the-fall-of-brett-lawrie-release-brewers-blue-jays-oakland-white-sox Most of what else I found at the first page of a Google search reference the same incidents. Staring down Adam Lind for not scoring on a sac Fly where there would have been no chance. I found another where he wore on umpires, to the point where they'd call him out on multiple 6-inch-out-of-the-zone balls because he had shown them up, or something.

Totally. I would much rather see if Woodford or Kuhl could turn into something, either to trade, or eat innings until the prospects arrive than watch Clevenger. The Sox have way too many options to fart around with an idiot, good innings or not.