Balta1701

What really hits me is that I was in Houston in 2023 so I know what a complete mess Maldonado was both behind the plate and in the locker room in 2023 (maybe not all his fault, a lot of it was definitely Dusty, but clearly stuff involving him hurt that Astros team). It did not take much to understand why he'd be a problem.

God that's amazing.

After all, who would expect that we’d get derailed talking about Chris Getz in a thread titled “Could Getz Have an Actual Master Plan?”

I quite literally was focusing on "Things Chris Getz did in 2024 that made the White Sox worse and that look bad on his record." Things that happened before he was the GM have nothing to do with this particular topic. Chris Getz is not the only reason the White Sox lost 121 games last year, but Chris Getz's bad decisions were absolutely a part of that and made the White Sox worse. For the people who say we should give Getz the benefit of the doubt and look past how he was hired, fine I'm willing to do that. You know who has nothing to do with things happening after Chris Getz was hired as GM? Jake Burger. You didn't need to derail this.

This has absolutely literally nothing to do with Getz’s year 1 decisions and I encourage you to delete this post.

But what we do know is that Getz himself made numerous moves that were confusing at the time and blew up in the 2024 record. The Maldonado signing that looked firable on its own, bringing in all of his other precious veterans that were supposed to at least improve the defense, the moves that were supposed to improve the bullpen, the weak return for Cease, and during the season the weak return for Fedde. On top of that, keeping Grifol, whoever they brought in for coaching hitting, the numerous personal and attitude issues. While there were a handful of decent moves, notably signing Fedde, had a GM taken over a strong team with a real owner and wound up with a performance record like his in the first year, there's a good chance he gets fired after year 2.

December 2026? Well that practically guarantees a three month lockout since there’s no penalty for it as no games are lost.

I think messing with service time in multiple ways affects development. With Colson, the reason to keep him down is he stank last year. I've just stopped caring about service time, we obsessed about it last rebuild and every way that we paid attention to it wound up backfiring. Do whatever is best for development.

However, if the service time manipulation also impacts their development, or their attitude, that also affects their value.

While true, he's also still below average as an offensive 1b. That includes both his numbers last year and his career numbers.

Andrew Vaughn is not a league average 1b offensively though.

They changed that rule? Do you have the new text linkable?

Oh wait totally my bad this was about them going to arbitration with him. Yes, you're right.

I know the report is garbage, but boy how bad would that Rojas signing look if they went out and signed another SS? Literally blocking the entire infield with vets.

lol Kyle Tucker is 100% going to be a free agent. The Cubs knew that before the trade. If he’s the player next year he was before a freak foul ball injury last year, that’s a massive boost to his value. No one knows if he can be that player again, so there’s a big issue with valuing him. If he drops an 8 War MVP caliber season next year we might look at him as a $500 million player.

Naw, he’s young he’d be benched and blocked. Hed get signed by the white Sox at age 33, then started at 2b and wound up with a .540 OPS.

The As are playing 2 seasons in an outdoor minor league park where last year July had 5 days over 110 degrees F. They signed several good free agent contracts this offseason.

That they all hated each other.

Was I the only one who read the articles about the rival groups and cliques for years in the locker room that hated each other?

I’m not sure what this post has to do with anything but it does check a lot of boxes.

Naw, everyone in the team was fine with their callup schedule.

Yes I think it was a part. Eloy Jimenez literally had to write an article called “I’m ready” about service time manipulation for the players tribune. Both Eloy and Robert got threatened to be held down if they didn’t sign extensions. Do we really believe they didn’t notice how Vaughn and Madrigal got very different treatment?

I can’t fathom how “the stupid ways we treated the last set of prospects contributed to the team hating themselves and to so many prospects busting” is a controversial or hard to follow statement. If Colson had pushed the issue, no I wouldn’t care about service time. If they call Quero up to start the year, I’m ok with that, he earned it. Colson should only be held down because he stank last year, not for service time reasons. Simple rule: call guys up when they earn callups. Anything else - we saw how toxic the white Sox became, that was a part of it.

Is this contract still voidable?

Honestly, the reason I dont' like the Rojas deal very much is that I do think it blocks people who are ready for at bats - specifically Vargas, Sosa, and Meidroth - I don't see how any of these guys would benefit from time at AAA, that's 3 guys, 2 positions and DH, just yuck, this is the spot where we don't need a veteran taking up 500 plate appearances. They've all clearly put themselves in a position where they should get at bats to start the year and at least get a shot to sink or swim this season. Shortstop, that's just a weak spot. We're either going with Baldwin, who may or may not need more time at AAA since he was promoted from AA, or moving someone like Sosa into that spot out of position, or calling up Colson who quite simply hasn't earned it yet. A utility guy who plays SS and also could back up the other IF positions would have been well justified. Blocking only the other positions and taking up a roster spot in addition? I'm not sure why we'd do this.