Balta1701

...I'm pretty sure this is completely false? That spot isn't in good shape at all.

Dog and I spotted one out walking.

You are correct in that rebuilding and hopi my they can make it work is the strategy both times. You are also correct that it is being done in a Reinsdorf organization so full skepticism is warranted. However, let us also consider that Rick Hahn was a uniquely terrible GM in just about every way. While Getz can be as bad as Hahn, it will take effort to be that bad. Furthermore, also consider that the only reason the White Sox have any playoff appearances since 2008 is that rebuilding was a correct enough strategy that it overcame how awful Hahn was and got them a playoff spot. Had they continued trying to patch holes like they did in 2012-2016, do you see any path to a playoff appearance? If you aren’t going to at least hope Getz can figure some things out, then what’s the point? They aren’t going to turn themselves into an 80 win team through trades, they aren’t going to sign free agents to make them an 80 win team (ask the Mets how that goes), at the very least Getz so far has done the right things in general with the overall Strategy, now it must play out.

Gave up too much for guys who are likely to produce too low of an impact.

yes they would be. That doesn't change the problems with these two deals.

I do agree that the "Profit-taking" teams in MLB is a problem - the teams that have lower payrolls than they receive during revenue sharing. This does hurt the whole league as it leaves those markets under-served, with little chance at a multi-year run of competitive baseball. I think that what the Dodgers did this year - backloading a $550 million contract and relying on revenue growth to deal with it - is a potential new threat to competition, as most markets won't be able to do that. I don't know whether that will make a huge difference until we see the results. I think that baseball has an impressive degree of parity despite these couple of problems. The teams that make the playoffs nearly every year - one of them has a lot of resources (The Dodgers) but they also have a front office that is as good as any in the league and regularly develops their own talent. Other franchises that regularly make the playoffs get there because they have skilled employees. The Rays, the Astros, the Braves, the Guardians - they have front offices that are doing their job. With a few financial exceptions (Pittsburgh, Florida), the teams that are always at the bottom of their division are there because their front offices are poor. The Rockies, the White Sox, the Mariners, the Royals - they can't compete because they can't identify or develop talent, so they make the playoffs once every decade or so. I think it's especially impressive in baseball that teams like the Yankees and the 2023 Mets cannot buy their way to the playoffs. That tells me the financial difference between teams still is less importance than the skill of the front office. Teams like the Rangers make the playoffs by spending money, but who was key to the Rangers last year - Adolis Garcia in the playoffs, for example, was a guy they picked up and developed. The Diamondbacks made the playoffs last year. The Rays overcame a key player seemingly having his career ended early in their biggest contract. Aside from the teams where the owner is a parasite just taking in money, parity in MLB is mostly fine, hire good people, have them do a good job, and your team will have a competitive run soon enough. Finally, I see no problem with the cycle of competing and tanking. That is absolutely normal in most sports. Normal behavior in sports should involve a team developing a lot of players, peaking for a couple of years, trying to win a title, then backing off to rebuild, get younger, and restructure their financial situation. The Golden State Warriors drafted and developed an incredible team, but it seems like their guys have gotten old and there's only so far they can push them. The Buffalo Bills couldn't get past Mahomes in their best chances, now they're losing a lot of their players to free agency. The teams that manage to shortcut these cycles tend to be ones that have elite front offices regularly developing players - the Chiefs and 49ers in the NFL, the Rays and Dodgers in MLB. The NBA, because of the dominance of a few stars and the way their max contracts work, has in many ways been the least competitive, lowest parity league, but even with them we're now seeing teams go through cycles. The Bucks weren't that great, but built a great team and won a title. The Heat are seemingly an elite coaching and front office combination. The Spurs fall apart, get a #1 draft pick, then build championship teams around them. The Thunder sold off Durant, Harden, and Westbrook, piled up tons of draft picks, now those draft picks are growing up and they're back to a #2 seed. This is normal, it's how leagues should work.

Most, not all. Some of us did say that the roster looked just plain bad coming into the season. Throw in guys being traded away, and dropping into the 60s was entirely within the realm of possibilities. It was an old, bad team.

I think the market inefficiency on relievers is always going to be what it has been - finding starters who have stuff but who hit limits in the upper minors or big leagues and converting them to relievers.

You could have literally included John Q Fakename in your list of reasons why you’re aren’t concerned about the bullpen and I’d totally have believed he was a real person.

After all, no teams tank in the NBA thanks to their salary cap.

I don’t care one bit about any of this. Promote guys and call them up when they deserve it. We just spent 10 years with a GM who would find any reason possible to bring people up or leave them down other than how they were actually performing. If a guy earns a call up, call them up. Nastrini and Eder are guys we’d like to see make progress and earn a call up, but if they struggle or get hurt, don’t call them up just to save the bullpen or to meet some artificial deadline. Montgomery was injured last year and struggled in his AA stint. If he doesn’t tear up the minors, take your time, he doesn’t have to come up. Ramos outperformed Monty last year, if he does that again bring him up to AAA and then see if he earns a call up. Quero is probably two years away if we’re being honest, take our time with him. Actually make these as baseball decisions. It’s the one thing Hahn basically never did.

Yasmani Grandal made the playoffs 7 years in a row, we should have signed him.

If they were truly a ".500 team" like the poster I replied to suggested, I'd imagine they'd convince themselves not to sell guys.

What are the odds that everyone breaks out? That no one gets hurt (including Soroka and Kopech), and that things go well for everyone? People were predicting that for the roster last year, that everyone would be excellent and break out, and that might have been enough to get them back into competing for a weak AL Central. That was with a stronger roster than this one, and we saw how it went.

He's making $3.25 million this year. That's less than Lopez or Maldonado, so that's not unreasonable money to risk on seeing if he could be any better this year. Taking that up to $5-6 million in arbitration year 2, if he performs the same as last year, would be questionable at best. The out, for him, would be non-tendering him at the end of the season, if as you say he doesn't hit this year.

It still seems unlikely to me that Grifol isn't here in 2025. Just in general - let's say that the White Sox win 55 games in 2024. Do we fire the manager over the lack of performance? Naw, the team wasn't very good and we knew that. How do you give a guy an evaluation that is negative enough to fire them when you can't really use wins and losses? If they win 68 games, they over performed! What a credit to the manager that must have been. I suppose that they might have to do so just from fan frustration, but that hasn't made them do things in the past. The only obvious way I've got where Grifol might be replaced is LaRussa wants to come back.

At least right now it seems like the Royals, Tigers, Guardians, and Twins could all be in a pretty tight race, within a few games of .500 this year. Things probably fall apart for one of them, but that doesn't seem like an awful guess right now does it? The only team in this division that looks hopeless in 2024 is the White Sox. If you told me the 4th place team had 77 wins and the 1st place team had 85 wins, that seems believable to me?

You’re right but Hahn had to Hahn. But conveniently, the team has yet to move to American Samoa and conver their roster to cricket, so a guy who needs innings can, during 2024, throw innings.

Best case scenario, with returns from a few more trades like Cease and Fedde, this team will have some guys who can step in and a fair amount of money to spend next offseason. They don’t look anything like a World Series champ, but getting close to .500 and being back to 4th place in the AL central is feasible. More realistically, that probably involves too many things going right. They don’t have a lot of talent in the organization and their development staff has yet to give us any reason for confidence. Especially with Grifol probably still managing in 2025, my guess is it looks a lot like 2023 - they make some signings, think they’re better than they are, and then disappoint. That is my standing prediction for 2026-2027 as well.

How exactly does a guy who hasn’t yet made his big league debut in Nastrini have a $7.5 million 2025 salary? I think this is an error but Rick Hahn was the GM for a long time so…

Thats why they should follow a plan to get him those innings.

Montgomery had injury problems last year and hit .218 in 218 at bats at AA. Bringing him up late in the season not because he blows away the minors but because we have roster room and want the press coverage is exactly how Rick Hahn handled his guys.

Quero should almost certainly be no where near the big leagues this year, and several of those guys (Ramos, Montgomery, Cannon, Bush) it would certainly be Rick Hahn type decision making to pencil them in as coming up to the big leagues in August when they haven’t played more than 1/2 a year at AA and few of them were successful there early.

‘Twas a trade.

Got a little confused as espn only shows 1 K through 2 for Cease, guess that’s just the wording.