Jake

Sox in the past couple years were very much "well if EVERYTHING goes right, then maybe..." and then we say your luck never goes all one way. Then the luck all went one way and it was the wrong way. Now we're in the "doesn't really matter" phase although if things do go well, maybe the Sox could sniff .500 in 2026 if things go very well and they throw a little money at the situation.

Just in case it isn't clear to anyone, his situation is extremely grave. I wouldn't expect us to have him around much longer. Send him your appreciations and such while you can. Heartbreaking

Playing MLB the Show must have biased me because I kinda like Gallo (as a NRI who is more likely than not to never play for the Sox).

MLBPA has been criticized for taking bad deals due to bad leadership. But most recent CBA makes me think it may not be leadership problem so much as a lack of resolve. And adding minor leaguers to the picture is likely to make them even more likely to buckle in a lockout in exchange for a few peanuts to the minor leaguers and fringe guys.

I think last offseason, Getz was making moves like he was afraid the Sox might find themselves in a situation where they have one too many deserving players for the MLB roster/lineup. This offseason, I don't think he's looking it at that way anymore, which is good. Not to say I think we'll find the Sox with too many good players at any point soon...

I'm not always right, but man I hated this deal from the get-go before I even knew we were putting Bassitt in there.

Tiny 210 pound Edgar Quero? Right-sized 190 pound Kyle Teel?

I read that at least 15 times before realizing what you were referring to lol

Gonzalez had a real Jekyll and Hyde season. First 9 starts, through June 21: 39.2 IP, 38 R (!), 37 H, 29 BB, 9 HBP, 4 WP, 3 HR, 4 balks (!?), 43 K. Final 10 starts, starting June 28: 44 IP, 22 H, 10 R (1.84 ERA), 17 BB, 1 HBP, 1 WP, 0 balks, 3 HR, 49 K So I'd like to know what was going on starting in late June. Pretty clear the Sox believe/hope that he solved something.

Ultimately, strong catchers are so hard to come by it's hard to complain about getting multiple prospects. If they both pan out, Sox will manage.

Turning a pitcher with only two years of control, only one productive season, and a significant injury history into these prospects is very good for the White Sox IMO.

Fantastic deal IMO. Hope it works out.

I don't really care, but Flowers had top shelf framing numbers his last season with the Sox and they were always solid before that. Looks to me like he really solved framing in that last year with the Sox and carried it forward when he left. To some extent, it looks like he decided to give up on throwing out baserunners which he had done decently well and traded it for a lot more framing value. By the end, his arm had become a total noodle anyway so it was a wise move.

Given the alternatives are likely worse and it's not my money, I guess I hope they bring him back. I buy the argument that non-tendering is a shrewd move, but in the current situation it feels more cheap than shrewd to me.

I suppose it depends what we mean by company man. He's not going to bad-mouth him, that's for sure. It seems to me that Getz's talent is knowing how to get some of the things he wants from Jerry that others were unable to. Whether he can pry money out of him when it counts, we shall see. We have seen some reporting to the effect that he's managed to convince Jerry to trade some MLB payroll for organizational payroll (analytics, coaches, whatever). That's probably a good trade to make right now and something the previous regime was always unable or unwilling to do; how much was GM vs. owner, I don't know, other than we know the owner has long been skeptical of the organizational spending.

Well I didn't write "Getz is cleary a great judge of baseball talent" But if you're looking for reason to hope, I think you'd look at Getz's apparent vision for how an organization should be run. It doesn't seem to be the Reinsdorf way. Hopefully that might result in him hiring some smart people who give him the kind of advice that leads to better trades, signings, etc.

Nothing too shocking here, but I'm seeing a theme this season that it seems Getz is not philosophically a company man. He doesn't seem to have been aligned with a "side" of Kenny vs. Hahn, seems to highly prioritize staffing up with outsiders, and seems to want the Sox to operate like the teams reputed to operate well. I hated the process that led to his hire and his baseball judgment is clearly suspect. But if he's the Jerry whisperer, and can hire the right people, that could be our way out of the wilderness.

I know, not the biggest deal in the world, but I wonder what's going on with him. From what I can tell, in mid-May the Sox demoted him, he plays for a couple weeks in AAA (as badly or worse relative to MLB), and then is placed on the 7-day IL in AAA with no explanation. Since then, I don't see any updates about him, including the nature of the injury. The Sox have seemingly preferred to release players to make room on the 40-man in the meantime rather than put Shewmake on the 60-day IL (or release him). Any idea what his situation is? Maybe a beat writer has dropped some info on him and I missed it.

lol I would love to see a player like that find a way to be successful in MLB. Not totally unprecedented even if it's very unlikely

Promote Rikuu NOW!!

I kind of get the theory that 1. A large portion of free agent contracts go bad in a hurry and therefore 2. Spending years ahead of the anticipated time of contention has a high chance of leaving you with dead weight rather than a stacked roster. That said, you should really look at the free agent classes of the past 5 or so years. It's...really bad. No matter how much money you want to spend, you're not going to be able to buy yourself into contention in one offseason unless something changes in terms of the quality of player reaching free agency. The ideal is probably identifying the good long-term investments and "buying" them as soon as they are available even if it just moves you from 70 wins to 75. But if it was so easy to identify those players, every team would be building through free agency.

Sizemore is new this year. He's basically a Barfield guy.

Let us also mention that Nishida decided to go to Oregon because he liked their colors and also that he voluntarily used a wood bat in college ball. This guy is built so, so different. I am not capable of thinking rationally about him because I'm not sure he is capable of thinking rationally

He hasn't done anything today, but I just want to state for the record that I want so badly for Rikuu Nishida to succeed

I think the batters played a role here too. Older culture saw striking out as a major negative and didn't properly value walks. So you have hitters going up there who are pretty satisfied to hit a pitch into play the first time they get something hittable, even if they can't square it up. And the pitchers are trying to go the long haul so they're serving up stuff to try to induce that imperfect contact. You're left with batters swinging earlier, with more contact-oriented swings, at softer pitches. Once you had more people looking at the numbers and thinking tactically, all these approaches started falling out of favor. Draw walks, wait for your pitch, realize that a strikeout isn't the end of the world if it means you can make the pitcher throw more pitches and get a chance to hit a meatball out of the park. Then the pitchers realize the hitters aren't swinging at as much bullshit so they need to up their game, leading to higher effort *and* longer at-bats.