WhiteSox2023

Man, Elias sure is cheap when it comes to starting pitchers. ”Orioles signed RHP Charlie Morton to a one-year, $15 million contract. The 41-year-old hurler took a while to make his decision to return for the 2025 and had a strong preference to pitch for a team that has its spring training in commuting distance of his family home in Bradenton, Florida, so the Orioles wound up being a perfect match. Morton registered an underwhelming 4.19 ERA, 1.33 WHIP and a 167/65 K/BB ratio over 165 1/3 innings in 30 starts during his final season with the Braves.”

I know we have plenty of catching prospects but I’d still claim the catcher the Dodgers just DFA to add Kim. 23 year old Diego Cartaya, the Dodgers 16th ranked prospect.

Junis is a 32-year old reliever. Do you really want to sign him to a 3+ year contract until he is 35+ years of age so he can help the next good Sox team? For the Sox, Junis would improve their bullpen in 2025 but mostly serve as a flip candidate.

Agreed, no reason to rush Dark Lord Meidroth, or any other younger prospects with the current state of this team.

I have no idea what Getz is doing. Trading away young arms for DFA vet reliever candidates doesn’t seem like a wise strategy, regardless of how much young pitching you think you have. Especially when likely half of it will bust anyways. My point about Touki was that you keep saying the Sox ran out of pitchers last year. Huh? They had a historically bad season. They could have kept throwing Touki out there to eat up garbage time innings, regardless of how he performed. It didn’t matter anyways as they set the futility record!

BOOM. 💥 Exactly.

But meanwhile, the proof is in the pudding. What other role does Rojas serve on this terrible White Sox team on a 1-year deal other than being a potential flip candidate? So that means he is going to more than likely be a starter so Getz can attempt to trade him at the deadline, which will obviously block playing time for other younger prospects/players. Afterall, if Rojas wasn’t brought in as a flip candidate, what in the hell was the point of signing him for this team? And does anyone think that the potential trade deadline return for a mediocre hitting, good glove utility guy like Rojas will be worth the development time for other young players/prospects? I don’t, and moves like this make me completely confused by Getz’s decisions. Getz might at best get back some lottery tickets like the ones he already gave away for Booser and Gilbert. @Chicago White Sox already called it — if you are going the flip route, spend the Rojas money on free agent relievers on 1-year deals that could generate a greater return in prospects if they have a good first half. But maybe Getz realizes he s%*# the bed so much on this strategy last offseason by choosing all the worst FA veteran relievers that he’s trying something different with fourth outfielders and utility guys instead?

Pipe down! Getz wasn’t around when the young pitchers he just traded away for vets were acquired and developed! It’s not his fault! That was all on Hahn… Oh wait.

Let’s not look back at that trade. Arguably and literally three times as bad as the Shields/Tatis trade currently if you go by WAR output of the players involved. 🤣

The Sox ran out of arms last year? Really? No, they just never had good options to begin with. They kept cycling through either bad internal pitching options or Getz’s awful offseason and in-season pitcher acquisitions. All of their options were bad, primarily because Getz had a garbage offseason. Deivi Garcia, Brad Keller, Justin Anderson, Sammy Peralta, Jake Woodford, Tim Hill, Jordan Leasure, Steven Wilson, Jake Eder, Touki Toussaint, Nick Nastrini, John Brebbia, etc. And ultimately, the Sox were going to be terrible regardless so would it have even mattered in the grand scheme of things if they kept a guy like Touki and let him continue to get beat up? He would have at least ate up some of the innings you are acting like are so difficult to cover.

Trading young pitchers, especially recent draft picks, for 31/32 year old vet relievers without any history of success sure doesn’t seem like a wise strategy to me. Last year, at least Bailey Horn was still somewhat young but Getz still admitted failure on that move within two months. Enjoy those farm system rankings. We saw the same thing during the last rebuild. Remember that? Any team can dump their best players, wind up with a top 5 or so farm system, be as barren as the Sahara Desert with their major league team, and set a major league record for losses… Oh wait, other teams tear it down and rebuild and still don’t manage to achieve that last piece of history that Getz did…

I can’t imagine a contending team won’t be willing to pay more money for Junis than the Sox. He’s been pretty good the past three years.

Completely different situations. The Brewers are contending and looking for bullpen help now. The White Sox just started yet another rebuild, are not even close to competing in their own division, and should be prioritizing developing young pitchers rather than trading them away for veteran relievers. God knows they will have plenty of time to do so. Anderson’s numbers with the Rangers were terrible but his strikeout rate in both the majors and minors looks pretty good. The Brewers were buying low on his arm and thinking he will help the big league ball club before Molina who may take 2+ years to develop.

I’ve gotta think a contender will up the ante. What has he not done in the past 3 years to not get paid? I almost wonder if the Sox plan is to convert him back to a starter.

You are probably right on that. But it also gives the Sox plenty of innings to see if a bunch of their own pitchers can break out.

Maybe Getz wised up and realized Vargas has no glove?

Very, very small sample size at a low level of competition, considering his age, but the strikeout rate could have been promising.

Sure, contending teams wanted him as a backup / utility-man, due to his good glove but weak bat. Meanwhile, Rojas signed with our lowly non-contending White Sox. Why? Because he was likely told he would get plenty of playing time. The Sox will no doubt overexpose him as a full-time starter.

You are right. Lux is definitely a better player. But why does Lux make sense for this Sox team? With only two more years of control, are you thinking that Lux will produce more like he did in the second half of last season and will be flippable for prospects, or is he a guy you would want the Sox to give a contract extension to?

Exactly. That’s what he would’ve been for the other interested teams. We will use him as a starter at 3B.

Acquiring Lopez, Fletcher, and Rojas shows that he still values slappy little scrubs like himself. All guys that could be replaced internally with equally bad players, so why bother?

Look at the positives — if Rojas has a good first half, Getz can flip him for prospects like the ones he gave up for Booser and Gilbert!

You mean the rumor that Harold kept mentioning that made zero sense to begin with considering the Sox would have to give up talent for a guy with only 2 years of control left? No s%*#, fathom! 😉

Yep. I was hoping two Little Nicky’s would be enough for the Sox in Madrigal and Lopez. Now we have Rojas to fill the void. Other teams including the Cubs wanted Rojas as a utility guy, but he probably signed with the Sox because Getz told him he would have the starting 3B job. Even though this move won’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, it’s scary that it continues to show the type of players Getz values — crappy little infielders and outfielders that are as bad at baseball as he was.

Hyperbole is assuming that when someone says another team may have offered more than the Braves for Bummer, that immediately means it was two of the Orioles top prospects. No one ever said that, but it wouldn’t take much to beat an offer that included the Braves two DFA candidates in Soroka and Lopez, a mediocre longman with crappy stuff in Shuster, along with Gowens and the recently DFA Shewmake. I don’t care about last year and acquiring bums like Soroka and Lopez. Everyone knew it was a lost year and those guys sucked. So yes, it is possible that two prospects from another team could be worth more than Shuster and Gowens right now, and they don’t have to be two of Kjerstad, Mayo, and Basallo. I know I’d rather have the Twins #3 prospect right now over Vargas but I’m sure you’ll defend that trade to your dying breath as well.