WestEddy

I think there has been signs of something changing. Sure, JR could derail everything by running Gene LaMont back out there to right another old "wrong", but it sure looks like Getz has a plan, where Hahn/KW didn't.

The 2024 team doesn't have to get better in 2025. That's what Colson Montgomery and crew are supposed to do. Chris Flexen isn't the long term answer. Neither is Nicky Lopez. And sure, they can blow through every pitcher they signed in the last 2 months by the end of May. But I think it will be interesting to see what Bannister and Katz can do with Soroka and Fedde. The whole point is to put a good defensive team out there. I believe that alone will make 2024's team better than 2023's. I also think the plan is to have competent place-holders that prospects have to beat out for those positions. I'm already breathlessly happy that we're not running Micah Johnsons or Jacob Mays out there and hyping the crap out of guys who will take 6 weeks to get their first major league hit, or play their first inning of gaffe free ball.

I'm going by B-R. Catching (I know that WAR isn't a good indicator for catchers), RF, 2B and SS were black holes for wins, last year, and a quick addition of the guys who got the most PAs at those positions looks like negative bWAR. I would expect Benintendi, Eloy and Vaughn to at least inch up towards their means this year, unless those are the players they are. Nobody's claiming they're going to win the next 3 world series. It's not "insane", or I'm not "high on crack" to state that the 2024 team can win more games than last year. Seriously, is there a rules of the site page here, where I should have read that being positive about a bad team is not allowed?

Again, please explain the joke to me. 72 wins is more than 61. Go nuts and throw another 5 wins through regression or not letting a Lance Lynn or Michael Kopech start 20 games to realize they suck, and now you're in the mid-70s. It's like the glum crowd is really a bunch of drama queens wanting to pretend they're victims because their team won't win this year. Everybody here wants the Sox to win 120 games and the World Series every year. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but they don't. So some of us choose to not just whine for 3 months about it.

You give me what you're shooting up with, first. It's almost like "the experts" here have no idea how bad this team was last year. If you replace [minus] 5 bWAR with 0 (zero) bWAR, that's an improvement. I guess it's fun to keep repeating that this team will lose 140 games next year. They won't. Instead of just posting laughing emojis and calling us stupid or high, please tell us how a zero WAR player who can field his position will make the team worse than a [minus] 2 WAR player who thought he was playing soccer when a ground ball came his way.

The team had negative WAR at 4 positions, and got less than a full win from 3 others. If they at least have a quicker hook for the horrible pitchers they throw out there, that could mitigate some damage (that is, if they're trying to put "W"s up on the board). Lynn and Kopech pretty much sucked all year. Maybe they stayed in the rotation, and Anderson stayed in the leadoff spot due to infighting in the front office. Who knows? If Chris Flexen or Soroka doesn't have it, I don't think it will take 20 starts to realize that, and somebody else will take their spots.

If they keep Cease and solve RF, I think this team could easily be better than last year's. You had negative WAR at 4 positions last year. Just putting replacement level players in RF, 2B, SS and C probably adds 5 wins. And just having options vs. Lynn/Kopech/Toussant/Scholtens adds a few more.

Thanks for this.

Reynaldo Lopez was getting all the closing opportunities in April.

And after strong 2021 and 2022 seasons, they decided to make Lopez their closer in April. With Graveman still on the staff. Aroldis Chapman was coming off of two incredibly sub-meh seasons with the Yankees. It certainly seems reasonable for the sox to think they had the position of "closer" covered in house.

There are so many other more convincing arguments to support this statement than the one you're making. The Sox had 4 proven, veteran relievers on staff, one of whom has closing experience. They also has a small bunch of arms with MLB experience on the 40 man, and freshly signed to minor league contracts where it wasn't crazy for them to look at the market, and decide they were good. The problem wasn't that they weren't prepared to throw money at a violent abuser to prove they "wanted to win", the problem was that Kelly and Bummer sucked @ss, and Graveman didn't pitch to his ceiling. I remember Lopez being a pleasant surprise, mostly when it didn't matter. The fact that they went into the season with Andrus at 2B and Colas/Sheets in RF is the argument that JR will pound away at a square peg before buying one of the cheap round ones laying at his feet.

Apparently, Scott Boras is a follower of Sports Guy.

Cubs helping out the Dodgers by sending them young prospects to send on to the White Sox for Cease.

But teach him to develop fish ...

Thanks. Had Boise on the mind, and wasn't thinking. Had you ever come across this in your writings? One of those weird things where I'm amazed I never heard of it.

When researching the MLB amateur draft on Baseball-Reference, I'd always run into Bend, Boise and Miami on the franchise list. I never really gave it a thought, figuring it was some leftover place-holder when the site was being created, or something. Turns out, independent minor league teams used to be able to participate in the Rule 4 draft. Only 4 teams ever took advantage of this. I ran into Bend's draft picks while looking at the White Sox 1971 draft, where they took Bill Sharp in the 2nd round, instead of George Brett or Mike Schmidt. (Some things never change.) Turns out, Hawaii was trying to become an expansion franchise, and started building a team ahead of the next round of expansion. Hawaii contracted an independent team in Bend, Oregon to be their minor league franchise. The following is a SABR article some here might find interesting. https://sabr.org/research/article/the-next-pick-goes-to-the-miami-miracle-independent-minor-league-teams-in-the-amateur-baseball-draft/ Sorry is this seems way off what the focus of the board is. Please feel free to delete. It is baseball related, and I'm being driven nuts by refreshing MLB Trade Rumors.com, SoxTalk and Twitter. I figured somebody else might want a break.

I hope he makes his "come to the White Sox, Cuban prospect" video before he leaves.

Wouldn't open for me unless I truncated:

They had Kendall Graveman on the roster, who was a closer with Seattle. At some point, the players have to produce. I wouldn't have wanted Chapman on this team.

There weren't strong rumors of Cubs interest. More local reporters surmising that the Cubs were a good fit for Cease. The Yankees missing out on Imanaga ups the stakes for the Yanks if they miss out on Monty, Snell and Cease.

There's a couple of qualifiers in there. At least you were nice about it.

Yeah, 10-15 starts, then move to the bullpen. Or pair with another arm to go through he batting order once.

Bannister's found the cheat code for Flexen.

Weren't they also talking about pairing him up with Kopech? Each guy can pitch 3-4 innings of a game.