WestEddy

I'm not sure what the conspiratorial narrative you're pushing here is. That Getz is a puppet, or that he fired every Hahn person in a rage? Caulfield seems to be saying that EVERY PLAYER and EVERY COACH has been summarily dumped and besmirched on their way out. They weren't. Most were kept for a year. Venable seemed to have to speak up to voice a change in focus on the hitting side, that wasn't happening, and Katz's bullpens can speak for themselves.

This is a unique collection of nonsense musings. Getz doesn't seem to be hung up on forcing guys into the lineup who just aren't producing, even if they're one of his acquisitions. He cut bait pretty quickly on Dominic Fletcher and Zach DeLoach. Flexen, Cannon there's a bunch of guys who got demoted to the bullpen or minors to work on their craft. That doesn't mean we don't think a GM could be non-objective, no GM is completely objective. They're human. But Getz' teams have been pretty quick to pull the plug on his own dudes who drowned. Any former player or coach connected to Hahn? Summarily dumped? What team were you watching? Everybody here complained about how Grifol was kept, along with almost an entire coaching staff. Katz and Thames made two years. Vaughn and Robert got every chance to produce. Robert still is. Some unnamed person dishing to Liptak isn't "the organization bad-mouthing them" on the way out. Vaughn bad-played. Nobody needed to bad-mouth him. But you keep making up these little conspiracy theories. Are you actually saying the Sox org is seeding bad thoughts into SoxTalk about Lenyn Sosa? That is 2 funny. I don't recall anybody calling Robert "low IQ" beyond his swing decisions.

Two teams took pitchers recovering from TJS last offseason. I think one is still with the selecting team. It's a calculated risk a team would take to bring on a real dude. Selecting a player, they take up a 40-man spot for 2 months. Once spring training opens, they can stow them on the 60-day IL. They have a period of time to rehab them in the minors before they have to put them on the 26-man roster, and if they make 90 days on that, they belong to the new team, no strings attached. A team like the White Sox (I stress "like") could certainly spare a 40-man spot for a rehabbing pitcher. We already have 3.

Oh, this is Scott Merkin taking fan questions, and weighing the pros and cons. Of course they have to listen. I'd assume that Teel, the two Montys and Shane Smith are the only untouchables at the moment. But for the way Vargas gets talked about as a clubhouse leader, and unrealized potential, I'd think they'd have to be blown away by a package to move him.

I don't know if Hahn specifically targeted post-hype guys like Getz is doing. They'd grab up guys like Charlie Tilson or Ryan Cordell, talk them up, then park them on the bench. Invariably they'd be caught in between with an injury, then Cordell would be horribly exposed, starting for weeks. And there was really no infrastructure or focus to bring these guys along or fix them. Don Cooper had that ability, but I can't remember a hitter they brought in and even turned around any. They did have a thing about picking through first rounders who they liked, but missed, and working with them. Rutherford and Humber were guys like that. You could almost pick a draft year, and guess the guys they would be targeting.

No way the Sox will claim their own player in the Rule 5? You're replying to something I didn't write. I was explaining Rule 5 restrictions regarding Mason Adams. The White Sox declined to add Adams to the 40-man. Period. Adams had a clear shot in the spring of 2025 until he got injured. He may have even beaten out Cannon, who was still trying to find his pitches late in ST, and never really recovered his 2023-2024 form. I have no idea where Adams fits in the hierarchy with Bush and Thorpe. You keep attributing some huge ego problem to Getz where he's going to force roster moves that there's really no evidence of. Thorpe was a top prospect. He was also showing well against middling opposition until he hurt himself.

I'm not even sure the Rays are as successful at identifying talent like the Rays. Didn't their recent braintrust take off for Miami? This current version seems more Earth-bound than previous.

First of all, just fantasizing about Robert returning to his old form with PoppySox really doesn't have to jump through your hoops. 2nd, if Robert did begin to look like a 3-4 WAR CF again, $20M would be a deal.

I've said I found Canario interesting, as well as Jordan Walker. I would have had no problem with Getz grabbing up Canario. I just don't think it's a huge fail that he didn't. It looks to me that 2025 was used to put training wheels on Vargas, Sosa, Meidroth, then Quero, Teel and Monty. Canario would have been as bad as Jankowski or the other non-injured OF crowd this April. Pereira can play CF, which Canario and Walker really can't. Fuller was brand new April of 2025, and now the Sox seem to have the infrastructure in place to take a whack at ironing out the swing and miss. They can bring Pereira along as a 4th OF, and expose him more as the season progresses. Or drop him in at the deep end, and now he's one glaring project, instead one of 7. Tanner Murray's also interesting, and along with Ben Cowles, will be the first men up when somebody goes down on the infield. I don't find the trade all that tragic. Steven Wilson was sunk cost. He lost something after the trade, and it was only coming back slowly. Gomez was a nice fixer-upper, I don't think either had too much more value than what they got back. Getz seems to be developing this weird profile - chip on his shoulder, won't get taken advantage of by the Phillies, yet will trade low level dudes for waiver fodder with the Red Sox and Rays. At least it wasn't a live rookie-ball arm.

There is no active roster in the off-season, just the 40-man. If a team takes Adams in the Rule 5, they can park him on the 60-day IL in the first week of spring training. He earns a full year of major league service time. If he doesn't make 90 days on the active 26-man roster, his Rule 5 status rolls over to the next year (if the team keeps him, or if he's waived, and another team selects him). Adams then is on the 26-man roster for the next full season, earning another year of ML service time.

Players don't get paid during a lockout. What do the Rays have to do with this?

It would be all kinds of cool for Robert to pick it back up this season, the Sox to clear .500, and then they still have him for another season after that.

What's with the search function? I was looking for a post of mine where I stated that Orioles' fans should understand, as we do too well, that windows slam shut pretty quickly. But when I advance from page 2 to page 3, I'm told to try that in 4 seconds, or something. You don't really have to answer, just that searching gets klugey.

And he should totally wear one of his Pope Leo 14 White Sox jerseys when he does this.

1 - "why are you comparing the White Sox to the Brewers?!?" 2 - who gives a s%*#? Start that string. 3 - losers do that. 4 - again, who cares? The Rays have the connotative connection to winning through development and trading a player a year or two before the end of their control to stay in contention. If you're going to be like this, I will request you send your replies directly to me before posting so that I can grade them and tell you what you're allowed to reference. Good day to you, sir!

Now comes the content about who are the best unprotected prospects in the game -

I get that you usually answer a simple statement with a flurry of distracting questions that have nothing to do with the statement. When did this motif become a rule where we're restricted in our comparisons? You compare the White Sox to whatever team crosses your head. As for the rest of your questions, Hahn/KW assembled a team not built to last, did not establish a depth of prospects to replace that team, and Reinsdorf dithered while other factors cut into their operational budget. Tampa Bay is a fair comparison, as the Sox are in a cycle where they're cheaping out because of bad business decisions, and under those restrictions, the Sox have to become lean and mean.

A lot of teams run a lot of garbage out there at 1B. One NL playoff team might even be starting Andrew Vaughn. The best defensive 1B in 2025? Ryan O'Hearn. I think that if Lenyn Sosa hit 25 HRs, he'd be fine. MLBTR wastes their keystrokes on analyzing Josh Bell's free agency outlook.

I think Sosa, Vargas and Baldwin get dinged at Fangraphs because of the utility. Sosa is passable at 2B, and doesn't project enough power to hold down 1B, LF or DH. I can certainly imagine him hitting 30 HRs as he matures, and that's nothing to turn one's nose up at. As far as his perception here and in podcast-ville, I hear the comment "low baseball IQ" thrown around, and I don't want to really touch that. There's some bone-headedness, but I don't think he's as bad as we've all conjured up. Looking at his splits, dude sure ain't streaky. I think he can and should get regular at-bats this year. He's a nice, cheap 2B option who could hit you 20 dingers. I would think that's marketable right now, and should bring back a steady OF or starting pitcher. Or he could plug in for four years.

I believe that's in the window where they can compel Ishbia to begin buying them out.

Not looking it up and just guessing wildly about it, I think starting in 2029, JR has the option of initiating a sale. That remains in effect until some time in 2033, at which point Ishbia then has the right to initiate the sale from his end. So, if JR passes before 2033, the family can compel Ishbia to start buying them out. If JR is still alive in 2033, Ishbia can begin compelling JR to sell to him.