CaliSoxFanViaSWside

I'm creating an over/under on number of times the Sox get shut out this year. The line is 10.

Keep dreaming. Once Hicks signed with the Angels that was the last shot we had of getting a decent OBP out of a minimum wage guy. Now the Sox have to pay $3M if Pillar makes the team. He sucks. Maybe he can still run well enough and throw well enough at 35 to simulate a decent glove in RF but he has nothing left in his bat except for a few bombs. Your 2024 White Sox, Last in OBP in baseball, runs scored, wins, largest gap between runs scored and runs allowed, 2 straight 100 loss seasons but 1st in signing negative WAR players for millions of dollars and in your hearts ! Let's hear it for Glove Love !

1st of all the scenario presented that I responded to was the Sox were 3 games up in July and would the Sox then decide not to trade Cease. No one said anything about actually winning the division and making the playoffs like you said. The question was do you think the Sox would still trade Cease or not ? In that scenario that would mean that besides Cease other players likely to be Free Agents this year or next year like Fedde, Soroka, Kopech, Flexen ,Moncada, Dejong, Nicky Lopez, Eloy and a few relievers would also be playing well . Why do you think the Sox signed most of these guys this off season ? They have 2 very tradable assets in Cease and Robert. They hired Bannister and got some of these guys to make the defense better and hope Bannister could perform multiple miracles and help some of the pitchers regain former glory. The whole point of doing this was to create more tradable assets because in the new rebuild tanking will not get you high draft picks anymore. Fix them and flip them . That was the whole point of getting them in the 1st place not to actually pretend you could win the division. Being 3 games ahead in the division means that plan was a rousing success ! Against all odds Bannister created something out of a lot of nothings. Then you want to abandon an epic win for the future of the franchise and not trade anyone, give up that epic win all in the name of making a few fans happy in 2024 If the miracle continues in the 2nd half of the season ? Make plan, plan is a success. You now have other guys you might be able to get a few prospects for, abandon that plan all while hoping to cling to that mirage of a 3 game lead . Getz would win Bozo of The Year for making a plan that has very long odds of actually working, having it actually work then deciding ,yeah, I'd rather try to win the division now and give up on the future. Let's just keep picking up rejects on the cheap and perform this miracle year after year !

That's a scenario that is 99.8 % unlikely but just to indulge you, 3 games up in the least likely to go far in the playoffs division is pretender status not contender. The whole off season has been to try to create tradable assets from unlikely sources through good defense and a new pitching guru. Getz would not deviate from that path since a 3 game lead would mean some level of success. The acquired assets were all meant to be short term tradable if possible assets. The better the Sox do the more trades they make at the deadline and would prove that Getz had a very good start to his GM career.

I could be wrong here but maybe Harold was talking about the Brewers trading for Cease? I know Brewers feel they need to hold onto minor league talent and trade away expiring contracts to compete. That's why it isn't surprising they moved Burnes. What's more surprising to me is that the O's haven't traded Santander yet. Maybe they were waiting to get a top starter like Burnes before pulling the trigger on Santander. Upgrade starting pitching to make up for potential downgrade in hitting from Kjerstad or Cowser struggling replacing Santander.

Remember that Cease still could be a member of the Sox after the trade deadline if he is hurt. You have to understand that risk entails that right now might be the highest value we see for Cease. He has to pitch much better than he did in 2023 and stay healthy to be worth more than he is now.

There are late bloomers who have turned into quality players . It actually happens fairly frequently. You need scouting and development people to sometimes reach a player to unlock their potential. Sometimes it's just a matter of paying close enough attention to grab a guy who is finally healthy. Getz in one of his latest interviews talked about how important it is to have "diversity of thought" among his new staff members. I'm not sure what the Sox are going to end up with for Cease. It better not be nothing or significantly less than could be had uptil opening day. They need a strong return not a great return. I'll take the best 3 guys you can get . If those are 2 guys from the Orioles top 5-10 and 1 from their 10-15 so be it. I don't want it thinned out by the last 2 guys being 40 FV guys. I'd prefer 3 position players including at least one LH OF. I figure 3 position players has better odds of one of them being good. I 100 % expect 1 pitcher though when/ if it goes down.

Yes. Tell me the last controversial thing you posted. You and some of your cohorts love to jump on the guys who think and post anything that is different from your own ultra -conservative baseball viewpoints. You wait to see which direction the wind is blowing then you just go with the flow and bust balls. So brave of you. Vaughn at many points was viewed as a high quality bat. When he was put in the OF his defensive stats looked adequate. You wouldn't dare use your own eyes and say anything controversial like he has no future in the OF while the majority was saying he looked OK out there. Basically you post like a coward. You'd be a yes man if you worked for JR.

This is a sad sad place some times. Caulfield is a great Sox fan. He wants to help and has ideas and is brave enough to share his ideas with us jerks he knows will scorn him and laugh at his ideas because we can't express ourselves in any other way than short chaotic bursts of sarcastic derision like cavemen grunting. Caulfield I think the mistake you are making is thinking the Sox actually want to compete quickly like Jerry told us. I, too, at first thought trying to get younger established high floor guys with control was more of a sure thing and the Sox could use more tradable assets. So early on in the Cease trade talks I suggested getting a controllable younger player who had already had a good year or 2. After all the Sox are so bad every avenue we turn seems like a dead end. So I figured try to get mix of a tradable controlled player and a prospect for Cease. I forgot the young controllable guy I wanted in return but it wasn't seen by the vocal majority as a good idea. We saw first hand how even the best prospects are extremely inconsistent in this organization or get injured. We think it's JRs fault for not hiring good scouts and development people and we probably are right . It also could be true that the Sox could be experiencing what other teams do with injuries and inconsistencies of many prospects. But what other choice do we have than to cling to the idea that Cease is a rare commodity worthy of the high asking price as recently described in a fangraphs article ? Getting top prospects is still viewed as the only way of actually getting in a strong position to be truly competitive again at least in recent competent organizations like the Astros, Tampa Bay, Orioles, Cubs Diamondbacks. Despite the way the rebuild crashed and burned, a bad organization like the Sox managed to get to the playoffs for 2 consecutive years for the 1st time in the franchise history. Those were exciting times and the glitter of top prospects is so very shiny until the corrosion sets in. The currently deceased rebuild showed us how destructive that corrosion can be when those prospects don't pan out. The corrosion is the nature of prospects, bad development, a bad organization , bad luck. Right now it could be all of those things combined. That makes for a very angry, divided, and confused fan base. Getz isn't calling it a rebuild because his boss says we want to compete as fast as we can . That's the excuse JR made for hiring Getz. Hit the ground running. A new guy from outside the organization will take time to learn everything Getz already knows. The scary thing is we can't yet get a handle on what Getz is doing for the future of the franchise. Everything he's done so far seems to be based on improving the current rosters defense and pitching at the expense of hitting . The only thing is it's all very temporary based on creating tradable pitching pieces out of the cheapest arms he could find. How could that go wrong ? It has very little chance of succeeding but that's how desperately the Sox need more guys who can brings in prospects . Getz knows it's a rebuild and he has to start from a terrible roster while Hahn got to start with a mediocre roster. Getz and the Sox are fucked if Cease or Robert start showing that same Sox corrosion that tarnished Giolito, Moncada , Eloy, Vaughn, Kopech and others. He's also fucked if he can't magically create some tradable pitching assets using defense and his staff to create something out of mostly nothing's. This is one high level SNAFU where nobody has the right answers and all ideas are inherently bad because the Sox haven't shown us that they are capable of running a Tampa Bay like organization that stresses low cost high level development of prospects , or do much of anything else right. This is everything we are getting from the fan base now. 1. We actually are expecting too much for Cease. 2. Cease is worth the high asking price but settle and trade him because something is better than nothing. 3. Start the season with Cease . Hold out for the best trade you can make by counting on a healthy and very good Cease. No further corrosion allowed . Cease will be shiny again. 4. Trade Robert ASAP before he turns into a pumpkin . Sell high before his shiny season gets Sox corrosion. 5. Robert, Jr. is too good to get what he is now truly worth based on his 1 healthy breakout season. Hold him for another year when he'll the model of health and a glorious vision of a shiny nice thing . 6. Getz is doing great. We might be able to win this crappy division if a few things fall our way. I like this new idea of speed, pitching and defense. f*** the HR , give me more Go Go Sox/ Royals championship baseball ! 7. We are going to be really bad in 2024. What the f*** is Getz doing ? He hasn't done one thing yet, as far as player transactions , go to improve the future. 8. Hope the Sox are just good enough in the 1st half of 2024 to actually trade half the pitching staff ,Moncada, Robert and Eloy for more prospects. We are a really traumatized fan base who finally realized that rebuilding with JR in charge is doomed to fail but now have to rebuild with JR still in charge hoping for more shiny happy prospects that can make us shiny, happy fans again... until the corrosion...

Ok that's why I assumed he'd be playing this year because he is getting paid and he may want to continue his career as long as he's productive and his time with the O's showed he can still be productive. He might not ever be worth picking up the option for 2025 but with a decent 2024 he can put himself in a good position for another couple million in 2025. It's just hard to imagine anyone giving up multiple millions in his mid 30's. You're not going to make close to that amount of money doing anything else. Unless you read something about him contemplating staying at home for a year because he's already getting $9.5M I assume he'll play this year and beyond.

No reason to pay for Merrifield and pay him w/ e it's going to cost when you can get Hicks for the minimum. I know Merrield brings some versatility but at this point of his career I don't think he's worth it. Use the money for Whit ( if that's the case) somewhere else. I don't think there's a reason to wait on a RF from the Cease trade when that may not happen until the trade deadline. There's no reason to wait on a minimum wage upgrade other than Hicks is holding it up for some reason.

Play little for a contender unless there is an injury or get a lot of PT with the Sox . He can retire right now if he wants to but I'd imagine if he was considering that he'd have announced it by now. He could get a lot of PT with the Sox probably batting in the top 6 in the lineup with his great walk rate in the 1st half with plenty of time to go to a contender in the 2nd half of the season when contending is more of a sure thing than it is at the beginning of the season.

I'm actually surprised this hasn't happened yet. High walk rate, switch hitter, great arm, backup CF and cheap cheap cheap. What are the Sox waiting for ? He'd get the most playing time here if he's cool with playing mostly RF. I know Hicks might be able to pick and choose among several teams but why wait ? Gives Colas plenty of time in AAA to show he can handle that level and make the necessary improvements.

I'm actually surprised the Sox haven't signed Aaron Hicks . He's 34 and sucked in his last stint with the Yankees but had a bit of a revival when the O's picked him up. Played mostly in CF but he can play all 3 OF positions. He has a strong arm so although he hasn't played a lot of RF he has the arm for it. Sprint speed says he's faster than Colas (50th% for Hicks 38th% for Colas) . In 65 games and 236 PA with the Orioles, the switch hitter hit .275/.381/.425/.806 ,Walk % 14.8 and career 12.7. So when push came to shove the O's opted to play Hicks a lot in CF when Mullins got hurt at the end of May. He easily got more PT than Cowser and Kjerstad combined. He’d be essentially a free pickup for whatever teams signs him. The Yankees are still on the hook for next year’s $9.5MM salary and a $1MM buyout on a 2025 option. A signing team would only pay Hicks at the $740K league minimum rate for whatever time he spends on the MLB roster, which would be subtracted from New York’s obligations. I'd sign him right now. He'd get a lot of playing time. What else could he want ?

You can continue to think it's fools gold but at least we have a recent end of season sample besides the from July 25th stats that were already given. The last 28 days of the season he played 19 games with 77 plate appearances. .292/.338/.597/.935 152 OPS+ . Of course it always is about his health but we do have 2019, 2021 and the recent samples from last year to at least know he can be very productive IF he can stay healthy. So I'll say silver lining rather than fools gold.

.281/.324/.464 /.788 with his usually good fielding is a pretty good line probably worth about 4 fWar over a full season (approx 145 games). Now if he can play often enough to duplicate his 2021 season of .263/.375/.412/.787 keep the same slugging he finished with in 2023 while upping his OBP back to the .350 range , then you're talking about an .800+ OPS and a 5 fWar guy. Depending on other teams 3rd base situation if Moncada is 2+ fWAR as they approach the deadline there could be some interested buyers.

You left out Elier Gil, Catcher, Venezuela.

Since we don't know who else they signed yet it's impossible to know. They have some DR signings and perhaps others .Seems like they always leave something in reserve for late signees or to trade. We may get more info this week or later.

Not Dominican , he's Venezuelan according to the link you provided.

Thanks kind of what I figured and then there's the prevailing voice in my head that keeps saying in supposedly down financial times when JR should be investing more in youth and player development he'll trade extra money away and let Getz play with $30-40M on dumpster dives retreads and nice guys who can field but can't hit all in the name of Ecksteindorf Ball.

Is all the money spent ? What's the breakdown of who the Sox signed , age, country , position played and bonus amount ?

That was Jordan Sanchez , 18yr old OF from Cuba . There were earlier tweets about him from Romero in this thread.

I won't pretend to know all the service time rules. According to Baseball Reference the Sox have him for 3 more years. Free Agency in 2027. If there's even a remote possibility of keeping him healthy enough to be a viable starting pitcher if the Sox can regain a year so much the better. Not sure if that's possible unless they keep him in the minors all year. But someone with a better understanding of service time rules may make it clearer.

When a team is so bad Zips doesn't even matter. I never quite understood the use for projection systems so I always leaned towards them pretty useless anyway.

Most of the misspellings I saw was after the Sox signed him .After we got used to seeing his name enough it got better. Performance is a whole other category.