Balta1701

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.

They were 100% clear that they held him down to limit his innings. They even got him on board with this right at the start of his career. Note the contrast between "open communication with your player about your plans for them" and "what do you mean the player says he doesn't want to pitch in the postseason I thought we had a good working relationship?". https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/41443457/paul-skenes-says-pirates-made-right-call-bringing-slowly

Jackson Merrill's .782 OPS was lower than Colson Montgomery's .710 OPS?

No, people aren't writing off Jackson Holliday, but there is legitimate concern over why he struggled so much in the big leagues. His 2024 performance was absolutely a reason to use one of his 3 option years in 2025. If he is actually good enough to earn a call-up in 2025 and sticks as a big league starter, then it shouldn't matter that you've burned an option because he will never go back down. If he comes up and stinks, by the time he's out of options at the end of 2027, you won't be crazy about giving him another shot anyway. Calling a guy up who isn’t succeeding at Charlotte or BHam because having to fix something or make a decision about the big league roster is tough and no one wants to do things that are challenging - welcome to Rick Hahn s%*#.

No. Baseball Savant is struggling to load right now so I can't copy graphs, but while his velocity stayed high, he was genuinely hit harder in the 2nd half. Just as an example, total exit velocity month by month: April: 87.6 May: 86.1 June: 88.8 July: 86.7 August: 91.0 September: 89.7 Expected wOBA: April: .252 May: .218 June: .257 July: .265 August: .377 September: .261 All of the months other than August that expected wOBA would be a performance in the top 10% of big league pitchers. His drop-off in August was real, not just luck as that would be factored out by xwOBA, as was the mostly-recovery in September.

I get that athletes are typically arrogant, but I definitely prefer honesty when I get it from management and I think I'd prefer it here too. "I know what I can do and I showed it off in the AFL. I understand my performance this year wasn't where I wanted it to be, so it's my job starting in March to come in ready and show the team the kind of player I can be. They'll make decisions like that, about when I come up and stuff like that, but I'm going to come in ready to dominate next year."

His career WaR right now is in the mid 50s, which is pretty low for a HoF starter. I wouldn’t call this open and shut if his career ended now.

Calling guys up based on artificial timetables and not because they earned it was a defining move of Rick Hahn’s GM career.

I did not expect to learn one of these details. https://bsky.app/profile/chgo-whitesox.bsky.social/post/3lbfpp2s3ws2x

I think that’s right, but I think we also didn’t hear those reports until like 9 months after it happened.

In 2022, both Moncada and Grandal were simply terrible. Moncada would have an occasional 5 hit day (really), and then the a week later he'd be back to 2 for his last 20 or something like that. It took until December until there was a report of "oh yeah both of them had major back injuries that they were playing through" report for us to know what was going on. Grandal even went on the IL for something like a Knee injury, but never did anything about the major back injury. That's for 2 big leaguers, we didn't learn the entire season why they were so bad. For a guy in Charlotte? Who is going to bother reporting that? Are any of the insiders these days going to leak something negative?

Ammo? Not sure what you mean, are you saying you think this guy could actually be traded for something useful? Or that he'll be so bad it will help their 2026 draft pick? Trying to follow the thought process here.

No, I complain about moves like Vaughn, Lopez, and Maldonado, where they spend $4.5 million or $6.5 million on negative value guys, because they always come back a few years later and cry poor. If you're going to lose 120, then don't spend $4 million here, $4.5 million here, $6.5 million here on your precious veterans. Spend $1 million on them, or $750k. If you're spending $3 million on someone, on a team that may have an $80 million payroll, tell me how that player helps us in 2027. Does the player have multiple years of control? Is the player likely to be tradable? For a reliever, sure if they're cheap enough. For a 1b? Eh, maybe depends on the player.

Oh no that performance will totally sabotage the White Sox's playoff chances next year. Whatever will we do. Anyway, the hope would be that you can get better out of him than that, for whatever reason. If you can't...hey look, you put him on a minor league deal, you don't have to call him up, you can look for an alternate option later in the year because you're not committed to Vaughn.

Who is spending $6 million on Jose Abreu? Jose Abreu, by rule, would be $750k if he makes a big league roster, and most likely he'd be signed on a minor league deal first.

That's a really pathetic "Strong sustained period of AAA success". Especially when a decent portion of it is associated with a BABIP spike from .250 to .320 - it wasn't unsustainable, but there was no drop in his K-rate in September, he actually had fewer extra base hits overall, there was no big increase in his was rate, he had a few more balls fall in as hits. And the "15 WAR" was literally your line of how we need to credit their success with Montgomery because it's rare for guys to have success at the level of putting up 15 WAR when they're a 22nd pick. Read this quote and explain to me how exactly this writer is doing anything other than taking a victory lap after the team developed a player who put up 15bWAR. There is literally zero other way to read this other than "Wow you did great look how few guys put up 15 WAR so we should credit them for developing Colson Montgomery into that".

I did not see this player have success for an extended period at AAA. He had a .710 OPS on the season. He had one month with an .815 OPS, which is better than the rest of his season but frankly not all that great either. When did this extended period of success at AAA happen? Before or after his 15 big league WAR?

yes, I would agree I think he will get there unless his health is a much bigger issue than I think. But that's also normal. Most #22 picks get that far, and it was an exaggeration when a poster said he's vastly ahead of most #22 picks for precisely that reason. The next step up, a big league regular, is more rarefied air. But real simple, you don't get to credit them for successfully developing a 15 WAR player until he's at least a 1 WAR player, regardless of whether Chris Getz was involved.

I see one poster who said the White Sox screwed up Montgomery. He got called out correctly for that being an exaggeration, and I have nothing else to add. It's possible they did screw him up, moving him to AAA last year was aggressive and I wouldn't have done it. But, I don't know that screwed him up, at least not yet. It's possible they didn't have him on a proper training program and that led to back issues last year. It's possible he was just hurt last year, and that proper training will bring him back to where he was prior to last year. It's possible that he has a degenerative back condition and we never hear from him again. A #22 pick in the top 20 prospects is ok, it's a decent positive, but with a tiny bit of context it isn't amazing or earth shattering. There's a long way to go, and health is always a factor. As soon as he said the White Sox screwed him up, an exaggeration in one direction, you Getzlyfans chimed in with how vastly far ahead of #22 picks he is, which is false since most of them get to the big leagues, and how few #22 picks put up 15 WAR, which is giving him credit for 15 WAR more than he has put up. One poster overshot the worries from last year by saying they screwed him up, and you guys bent over Getzwards to say how no #22 pick has ever done stuff like this. Maybe you should take your own advice there.

This is the team that angrily declared they couldn't guarantee Machado's 2027 and 2028 seasons when offering him a contract in 2019 because they needed to make sure they could extend their next core.

And I'd go Abreu, as I have zero desire to pay Vaughn $6.5 million and hear in 2 years how we just can't afford a big name player after doing so.

No, but same issue, teams hold onto guys at least until Friday in case a trade offer appears.

I'm sure it is, the deadline for non-tenders/arbitration offers is Friday. I'm sure all those notes will come down on Friday, since teams would hold onto most guys to see if a trade appears. If the White Sox knew they were dropping both guys, they could have pushed their 40 man roster full right now by adding 2 of the Rule 5 protects, without Slater counted yet, then been down to 38 on Friday, then back up to 39 when Slater is finalized.

I never said the White Sox screwed up Colson Montgomery. I said that declaring Colson Montgomery a giant success at this point because "the vast majority of #22 picks don't make it this far" is simply false because out of the last 10, 80% have made the big leagues, which is more than Montgomery has done so far. It isn't fair to call him a gigantic success in the big leagues and better than those guys until he's actually even in the big leagues, let alone a success. Similarly, saying "Colson Montgomery is a great success as only 3 guys drafted there put up 15 WAR" definitely brings up the question of when Colson Montgomery put up 15 WAR. He didn't! You can't call him an enormous Getz big league breakout successful development all star when he's currently a AAA player having some issues. It's not unusual at all for a #22 pick to be a top 50 prospect, it's totally normal. He has gotten slightly better ranked than most guys drafted at that spot, but that's a big stretch because a college player like Stroman who has early success in the minors will be in the big leagues before he's ranked highly. And there's a lot of things that can derail a guy who is a highly thought of prospect when they get to AAA - the guy before him, the 2020 #22 pick, was the #39 prospect in the league, called up in 2023, and immediately went down for TJS. He's on an ok trajectory, there's definitely some concerns based on his 2024 season, and there's a legitimate worry that there could be a lingering injury that affects his career based on this year. If he can overcome that, then he has a big league future. But he's not some incredible developmental legend that makes Chris Getz's career a success and overwhelms everything else he's ever done, at least not yet. Statements that "The vast majority of #22 picks don't get this far" are simply false. Before we take the victory lap and congratulate Getz on finally developing a 15 WAR player out of a mid-20s draft pick, let's at least let him get into the big leagues. Most #22 picks get there eventually.

Checking a projections site that I can find without a login, Fangraphs has Santana at $7 million, Bell at $8 million, Rizzo at $8 million next year. Compared to Vaughn, Santana for example was tradable in 2022 and 2023, and was a 3 WAR player last year. I'm not sure I am excited about spending $8 million on him at age 39, but I think that's better money spent than the $6.4 million projection on Vaughn.