Balta1701

Calling him up early last year would have been being rushed. That might be ok for some players, but it might destroy some other players. Some guys struggle for the first time, develop some bad habits, and that's their career. Some guys might thrive with that challenge. Calling up Montgomery now would not necessarily be "Rushing him" in terms of a schedule you might have drawn up when he was drafted...but my word is this a player who did not at all look ready for the big leagues for an entire season at AAA. What would calling him up last year have done to him other than embarrass him? I don't care about the schedule when he was drafted. I do care about the fact that he couldn't handle pitching at AAA and major league pitchers blow AAA pitching out of the water. Rick Hahn's thing, one of his nonstop things, was calling guys up not because they deserved it based on their performance but because of external factors. Moncada, Giolito, Lopez, were called up because trades created vacancies on the big league roster. Madrigal, Vaughn, Rodon, Anderson, Fulmer were called up because we desperately needed help filling holes on our so-called competitive teams. Robert, Jimenez were called up because they signed their contract extensions. How much did all this backfire? Treat guys consistently. If they do their job and perform at a minor league level, call them up when the opportunity presents itself. If guys struggle, they have to overcome their struggles before they move to the next level. If you don't want to do that, then just bring back Rick Hahn, he was masterful in making moves for reasons other than baseball performance.

When Scott Boras tells Heyman that there is a mystery team bidding on a player, and Heyman publishes it...do you accept it as 100% the truth?

If I hear someone is interested in Juan Soto, who do you think I believe leaked the information about the interest in this free agent? Take one moment on this. What person, good honest chap, involved in the Juan Soto negotiations might feel there's some benefit to him in leaking that teams are interested in Juan Soto?

Except that .710 OPS is motivation for Montgomery's call up now, in 2025. And the numbers are a prediction that AAA in 2024 would be too easy for Montgomery. Oops.

I'm happy to believe they are. I do not believe that if they're serious about it, they're all regularly calling up Heyman for updates. I do not believe that, if Getz was deep in getting strong offers, he would be leaking a general list of teams like that to Heyman.

If we are spending $6 million, the free agent options look better than Vaughn. Justin Turner, Mark Canha, Josh Bell, Anthony Rizzo, and Carlos Santana are all projected from $7-$8 million on 1 year deals from Fangraphs here. Turner and Canha were 1 WAR players last year, Santana was a 3 WAR player. Turner was tradable last year, Canha was tradable last year, Santana was good enough last year the Twins didn't want to trade him but he was tradable in 2022 and 2023. There are other options who are probably cheaper than this. Donovan Solano is regularly a 1 WAR 1b, he made $2 million with the Twins in 2023 and $700k with the Padres in 2024. Abraham Toro has been basically a 0-0.5 fWAR 1b in his career, he made $1.275 million last year. If we need to be cheap, sign someone like Solano or Toro. If we are looking to spend $6 million and be a little better, sign one of the guys who has a history of being a 1-3 WAR 1b and a good shot at being tradable mid-season.

Yes, because the leadership and performance of Andrew Vaughn was key to preventing the White Sox from losing 120 games in 2024. Without his leadership, they clearly would have lost 120+ games.

Because they could have easily designated Grandal for assignment or sent Perez (who started 6 games in the last 2 months) to Charlotte instead. But, they didn't care about Zavala's better defense.

By pointing out this series of transactions you make a convincing case that the White Sox don't care about the defensive side of a catcher's game.

In other words, Chris Getz hasn't had enough activity recently so he called Heyman and made stuff up to try to drive more calls.

So you were mocked for saying that Seby Zavala was a solid White Sox success when...they designated Seby Zavala for Assignment mid-season? That...seems like something you should be roundly mocked for as the White Sox seem to have laughed at you.

Let's play it out. What happens if Andrew Vaughn turns around his career and has a solid season. He's defensively limited, his base running is always going to be bad, even if he's putting up much stronger offensive numbers, Pete Alonso last year was a 2 fWAR first baseman bad on both of those categories. If Vaughn puts up a 1.3 fWAR first half, does he bring you a big strong return in a trade? That takes someone willing to pay for a slight 1b upgrade, which...eh? Next offseason, you have Naylor and Guerrero hitting free agency from that position in addition to anyone who signs a 1 year deal this year, so is there going to be a huge trade market for a guy who put up 0 WAR through 4 seasons of his career then had a peak 2 WAR season, who is then going to get paid $9 million or so on a 1 year deal and probably won't bring back a draft pick since you won't give him a QO? If he turns into a 2 WAR 1b for each of the next 2 years, the White Sox keep him and spend $15 million or so on him. Is that a good use of $15 million? Pushes them into competition for a playoff spot in 2025? 2026? If not, then he's a free agent, congratulations you've developed him into a tolerable 1b now he's going to go get $15 million a year on the FA market that the White sox probably won't pay. How is this a use of resources likely to make the White Sox better long term? Where is the value to them that they get for this money? Even potential value?

They all fit with it, but the tale of Omar Narvaez coming up with the White Sox, showing no progress defensively, going elsewhere, those teams saying "We can work with this guy" after the White Sox dumped him unceremoniously, and him turning into a good catcher within 2 or 3 years is pretty much the definition of it.

Tyler Flowers became an elite framer once he left the White Sox and went to an organization that cared about it. Kevan Smith wasn't a very good framer, and then was released by the White Sox in Hahn's 2018 purge of the roster's catchers. Seby Zavala was in fact a good framer, and it kept him as a reasonable backup catcher option. The White Sox, of course, non-tendered him midseason.

From a part time catcher, one hot streak is fine by me. What I’ve noticed from his numbers defensively is: 1. He has real promise controlling the running game, with elite pop time and above average accuracy so far. 2. There are two weaknesses in his game defensively. He’s poor at blocking the plate and awful at framing. 3. However, we have seen people on other teams get better at some of those with work, particularly framing. This hasn’t happened with White Sox young catchers though because they didn’t think of such things in the 1990s and that means it’s inappropriate to coach players on it. Is the new regime more open to working with him on improving pitch framing?

As the person who always wants guys to get more time in the minors…barring a terrible spring go ahead and bring Quero up. He checked every box I could have asked for last year as an outside viewer, and no one obviously complained about the stuff that isn’t in the stats.

Because the idea that someone could look at his 2024 and say “this went totally fine and as expected and raised zero concerns with me because it’s how I thought the season would go” is simply not believable.

If you can’t understand at least some disappointment in Montgomery after the season he just had, you’re being deliberately naive. He may well grab the starting SS spot next year, but we should not Rick Hahn this position and hand it to him until he proves he’s ready for it.

And by this logic his .710 OPS in 2024 at AAA says he should have been in MLB last year? I wonder how people would be talking about him if he played 400 PAs and put up like a sub .600 OPS and burned a year of control already.

If Colson Montgomery gets off to an incredible April, comes up mid-May, and wins Rookie of the Year, I promise to not be mad about his excellent performance. All that will mean is...if they want to keep him around for his career, Jerry Reinsdorf would have to pay a fair price for a guy his organization had developed in a few years. I will have zero sympathy for Reinsdorf crying that he's unable to pay a guy who has apparently come up and started winning awards contributing to his roster, in this setup where everything works that well.

The 2017 list appears to have been released on December 8, 2016. The trade to Boston appears to have been announced on December 6, 2016. So, while it is correct that he was not the number 16 prospect on the MLB.com list on the day of the trade, he was #16 two days later.

This really isn't quite accurate, or at the least its missing important context. He was #67 on the 2016 offseason list, but then he pitched through the 2016 season and was traded after that season. On the list published in the 2016-2017 offseason, the offseason when he was traded, he was ranked #16 overall, one slot ahead of Rafael Devers. The list probably came out after the trade, but he threw 0 pitches in-between the trade and that list coming out. He was ranked "number 16" that offseason, and had the list come out before the trade, he would have been #16 on the MLB.com list, unless being traded to the White Sox changed his ranking somehow?

When they have a clearly ranked #1 system and it collapses like this...yeah. Figuring out how to get through to a guy who is his "own worst enemy" is part of that coaching thing.

Good thing we don't have the same people in charge of the minor leagues now.

One of those "I will go to my grave believing this" things about the White Sox on my list is that the White Sox completely demolished Kopech when they put him in the bullpen in 2021. He hadn't pitched since 2018, literally closing in on 3 years, and they put him in a role where he couldn't work on his control and he couldn't' work on his secondary stuff. His lack of control and lack of confidence in throwing his secondary stuff were basically his two biggest downfall issues. In 2018, we saw that he struggled with his control early in AAA, but he found a groove around June once he had thrown enough innings, but they learned nothing from that. Gotta have the relievers.