Look at Ray Ray Run

Unlike Gavin Lux, who has fully lived up to that vaunted potential you told us about!

This guy saying this out loud is amazing to me: "I was in a position to where I hate to say I was going through the motions. You know you’re not playing for anything other than your own career, and when you don’t want to play a selfish game because it’s not a selfish game, it makes it really hard." The head on Kopech's shoulders is not one I'd want to trade places with. For a professional athlete who has proven nothing to go through the motions is fascinating, and also a huge red flag. If I was a GM, I'd never sign a guy who admits such a thing to any contract.

In modern times, it's common for the world to subdue ones shortcomings upon passing. We spend a lot of time talking about how great or impactful people were when, during their life, they were complex and in some cases evil/abusive and bad people generally speaking. The only good you hear of someone is when they're gone - it's an observation that has gotten very loud as I've aged. With Bill, it's the exact opposite. All anyone ever had to say about Bill was he was a great guy, considerate, thoughtful, approachable and a man of integrity. Those words were spoken by everyone before bill passed. They were spoken while he lived. I'm glad Bill got to live a full life and even more glad he got to touch the amount of people he did and, most importantly, was able to receive the praise for those choices while he was alive. RIP to a guy I only knew via reputation; a reputation that, from all accounts, he not only deserved but actually exceeded.

Roster balance is really more of a playoff issue for teams trying to compete. You don't want to run into a team like the 2020 White Sox, for example, who destroy lefty pitching and roll out 4 lefty starters in a 5 game series.

The only way Garrett Crochet doesn't net 2 top 100 prospects is because Chris Getz is our GM. I can say confidently that the pushback is 1000% posturing and that there are people around the league, involved in talent eval and player acquisition, that have Crochet in their top 10 most valuable arms in baseball given his contract, innings pitched, and willingness to sign-on for, what is believed to be, a less than market-value extension (meaning his goal appears to be stability and not maximizing every dollar).

I don't think you pass on a talent like Crochet due to rotation make-up concerns given that teams are using 10-15 starters a year now-a-days anyway.

First base also, imo, faces an over correction in WAR and are undervalued by the statistic.

I don't hate everything Manfred has proposed like everyone here, but this is the dumbest thing I've heard floated in all the rule change conversations.

Present dollars are always worth a lot more than future dollars imo. A team with a deep system would be complete morons to not move 11 mil/yr over 12 years of total control versus 30+ mil/yr over the next 2. Supplementing for 11 is much easier than supplementing for 30. One player worth 5 WAR is closer to 4 times more valuable (due to scarcity and roster share) than a player worth 2.5 WAR. finding guys like Crochet is much more challenging than finding guys like jameson taillon.

I'm not sure why these two are correlated to you. Bigger guarantee short-term deals to questionable arms indicate a prioritization of the current value of a player versus the FV. A team trading for Crochet gets both that current value component, of which the market is telling you is worth a lot, but also a FV component to help justify moving control. If Boyd is getting 2 years, 29 million it means crochet currently is worth like 2 years 90 million over same current value prices.

Where were you when baseball destroyed itself from within?

No.

Players with top line tools who have down years are punished much less by the market (value wise) than players with lesser tools with prior success. Most teams look at a guy like Robert and see the ceiling. They'll try to rip Getz off because he's shown it's doable, but it won't be because the team acquiring robert doesn't think he's a 5 war caliber player.

I said this a year or so ago, and I still think so but I sadly feel this is the expected state until he passes away and not some precursor to one prior to that. Run it like the rays so the sheets clean when I pass is his logic.

He's been a fringe big leaguer coming off a terrible year in his 30s. He was happy his phone rang.

Eddy, I actually follow the game very closely outside the White Sox. More successful franchises aren't having their GM constantly cite coaches for acquisition reasons. What does Fuller know about player development and growth? His job is to develop not chose who to develop.

Find another fringe player who signed in the last decade and is quoted as saying "they told me I was their primary/top target" or anything of the sorts. Come on man, what are we doing here?

Disagree. No fringe player needs a premium to sign anywhere. The White Sox have misread the market every year since the rebuild started. A move like this just solidifies that they still have no grasp on market moves and player values. Also, why is a hitting coordinator making personnel decisions? Jesus Christ.

Fringe players have been signing later than other players for the last five off seasons. Yet the White Sox, regardless of whose in charge, continue to overpay and over committ to these kind of players year sfter year. Top target last season, Martin Maldonado. This off season, Austin slater. These guys are probably so hyped when their agents told them we've got early offer.

Getz jumping the market again on that scorching hot commodity of former fringe guys coming off terrible years at the end of their careers.

got it.

2028-2029? How old are you? If you think the Sox aren't going to compete again (even with great ownership) until 2028-2029 why are you even still here? Sheesh. No league requires 6-7 years of awfulness to be competitive. There's zero reason a competent leadership couldn't have the White Sox competitive in the AL Central by 2026. Competitive doesn't mean the best team in the world. It doesn't even mean winning the division, but it means playing competitive baseball into the year.

So please in both your future proposals, ask for lesser talent back then you'd want because we have a bad GM. You can't tell me you're being reasonable with your expectations because of ownership and then propose trade offers that don't consider the failure of your GM. Or wait... let me guess. It's totally fine for you to live in fantasy land when it comes to trades?

To an extent, yes. We also have a lot of data on TJ injuries now and recurrence rates and frequencies. All things considered, I'd trust Crochet over the next 5 years about as much as I'd trust any average arm over that period. There's risked tied to all, but Crochet is immediate post-opp and actually had a lot of very positive signs last year.

So now we're hoping we trade our ace lefty arm, because of his injury risk, so we can acquire a 22 year old coming off TJ who has thrown 15 innings since 2022? Some of you guys really like pain.