caulfield12

By choosing to be the cool guy who's close to all the players...he will automatically lose rapport with Stone, who actually gets a lot more respect from players for his baseball accomplishments and acumen than Schiffren ever will (quite obviously). Same with DJ. Wouldn't be totally shocked to see DJ paired with Stone 2-3 years from now.

He (Pham) played in the World Series and NLCS the last two years lol. The difference is they at least want a superior athlete at every position in SD...the opposite of the Sox. But they aren't going anywhere with Machado and Bogaerts hitting the way they are...Soto was never a good fit and Xander is well down in the 500s for a contract much worse than Benintendi's.

Except that's some weird version of TQM from early 90's Japan where older veteran workers are protected or tenured and young "innovators" are pushed out the door in favor of the vets. Fletcher Colas Sosa Cannon Nastrini Korey Lee by necessity and Leasure are the only rookies to be extended any rope. And it feels like Ramos won't get his starting role back either upon return from injury. Mendick deserves and has earned that spot at age 30, Grifol will argue.

Without Robert and Fletcher...this is by far the worst defensive outfields in baseball. Maldonado is one of the worst starting catchers...if not THE worst. Vaughn is below average at first despite his stretching/yoga regimen. No FA pitcher would want that defense behind them for anything less than a 10-15% salary premium. The Royals, otoh, lost 106 games last year and spent on Wacha and Lugo (similar to Fedde's unusual history) to dramatically transform the makeup of that rotation...Lugo has been a Cy Young leader since Day 1, and Wacha has been their version of Fedde in terms of taking the ball every 5th term. Add in Ragans for Chapman and the whole pitching staff was transformed by three under the radar moves that many assisted at the time were early overpays (aka Hahn Offseason Specials).

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/tommy-pham/2967/stats?position=OF Seven negative defensive seasons in a row. It's a minor miracle he's just -0.1 playing mostly CF. That will age about as well as Andrew Vaughn...average major league CF. The Padres weren't even comfortable with him in LF and certainly not right.

Vaughn will undoubtedly do a Rodon 2021 and they will get exactly nothing for him in the end...but another hole to fill in the lineup. And any other organization on the planet would have moved on from Sheets years ago.

Terrible defender though...his fWAR numbers have been disappointing. Raffaela and Bello would rank up there with some of the best Hahn early extensions such as Moncada and Jimenez. Luckily the Red Sox didn't get stuck with Bogaerts...but Betts' loss was a franchise killer.

The point is that he seems to look down on all talk/sports radio workers. At any rate, McKnight was one of 3-4 finalists for his current job so not even being aware of that job competitor would be....well, very White Sox or very oblivious. Like mispronouncing Veeck. Why would you want to alienate those people you will rely upon in the future to help publicize the team you work for? It's basic public relations.

Whenever you have a player who comes from a non P5 conference, one season's worth of success when you're around a 790 OPS college hitter is not exactly going to move him up to a Top 10-15 prospect when you don't have a set "plus" defensive position.

"But what’s strange about this is how personal it seems to have gotten, especially with Schriffen’s “radio losers.” Criticism certainly can be tough to hear, and there’s undoubtedly a lot of frustration around the White Sox in general right now, but “radio losers” is quite the line to utter on a broadcast. And that then got quite the response from Riordan in particular. We’ll see where this goes from here." This is the kind of thing that Benetti might certainly THINK, but he would never utter it out loud. (Of course, in the pecking order of things, guys like Getz/Boyer/Hahn/JR/Stone would similarly look down on Jason in their own way as "lesser than them".) At any rate, this attitude comes across as incredibly arrogant...like Schiffren is so superior to the Chris Rongey's and Connor McKnight's and anyone who "has to do radio as a job because they're not skilled enough for t.v. work, lack personal/aesthetic appeal or past professional playing careers (at least that's my idea of what's behind his comment)." Losing your cool/composure and striking out at perceived enemies isn't going to make things any better for the White Sox or "rally the fans around the Southside Stand Up flag." The broadcast ratings their year must be the lowest in team history....like the late 00's/early 2010's Astros with 0.0 local shares.

If one is to believe JR, they don't even have cash on hand to write a one-off check to Benintendi. I would tend to agree that clearing him off the team and moving on from Hahn would be cleansing in a way, but we can't even jettison a manager because the owner doesn't want to pay 2-3 managers in the low millions (at best) simultaneously. He's certainly not going to reward an under performing player for giving him an easy out.

Here's the thing... Schiffren's not going to get along very well with Stone if he tries to get too close to the players and guys around the clubhouse. Especially with all his "rah, rah" supportive bro stuff and attitude. It's not shocking the first guy to call him out on it would be Pham. (Clevinger would probably be the second.) If you get too close to the players, it gets harder and hard to be objective and criticize them. Problem #2 is eventually you'll start to see the ownership/front office as the problem with the team, and that's eventually going to come across during broadcasts. I guess he believes creating a "Sox against the world/fans/social media" mentality is doing a favor to the team, but it's really not in the best long-term interests of the organization to cut off one's nose to spite one's face. Just not good business...when media attention is 80-85% focused on the Cubs already and the new stadium has become something of a joke when you have the worst team in baseball on the field representing your city and making it more or less a national embarrassment.

This is a non-starter. JR isn't willing to eat the rest of his contract with 3.7 years still left to go. I can't remember the last time a veteran with a guaranteed contract voluntarily went down to "work on things." Abreu's probably the closest recent example, but they're actually a competitive team with someone to replace him in Houston. We have DeLoach, Fletcher and Colas, who they refuse to give another opportunity to. The MLBPA would also be fighting you on this one as well.

Along with $50 million...?

He (Baldwin) is going to have to prove every stop along the way that he's more than a utility player... Way too early IMO to push Gonzalez up to AA. Zero harm in letting him get 100% comfortable in High A, letting him get that feeling he's something close to dominant at that level before challenging him again. Going to be shocked if he can post anything higher than a 650-675 OPS for the remainder of the season, but the White Sox love their aggressive promotions.

That was done primarily to send a message to the rest of the league why signing free agents like that is such a bad idea, lol...it worked out with the Sox, but the Orioles were set back for two decades with guys like Belle and Chris Davis.

Abreu Avi Viciedo Semien Bassitt Sale Q Eaton Reed might argue otherwise. Even Adam Dunn had a pretty decent 2012.

I hope those actually believing Keller was a key piece and would possibly end up with a 3-4 fWAR might number one hand's worth of fingers or less at SoxTalk.

Honestly would let him experience more prolonged success in High A and wait to move him until the Carolina League All-Star game in mid-July. A+ to AA always used to be the highest jump of all, especially with how big some of the Southern League stadiums play.

For the first time since 2008 Birmingham...they actually seem to care about "winning" a Southern League championship and bonding together and also placing as many player as possible on the All-Star Team as well in June. This was the exact strategy that the Royals utilized with their Wilmington, Wichita and Omaha teams leading into the 2012-13 seasons...promoting teams together as basically "core" units.

The Sox have been "unlucky" with injuries for going on 3+ years now. At some point, it goes beyond the training/medical staff and into the psychological with some of these situations. And you're never going to see any team in MLB history in last place (overall) at nearly the 1/3rd pole of the season described as "proactive" vs. reactive. They are being reactive simply because the measures they'd adopted to "hold down the fort" during the first half of the season (while buying time for the youngsters) simply weren't good enough.

He started off very well last year before collapsing...his reality is somewhere between abysmal AAA numbers and better than expected MLB stats. The problem is that he doesn't possess a single plus skill in his toolbag. Bunting, maybe. But best case scenario is always going to be the last guy on the active roster, PR/PH, defensive replacement. We need to worry much much more about CORE pieces at this point.

Well, the whole argument is going to be AAA vs. Chicago...which benefits him more after the AA All-Star Break? Secondly, he's arguably the first member of the future Sox rotation, so why not wait until May, 2025? Now if they could work out something with Crochet in terms of an extension, you can start to squint at that future rotation adding Schultz there as well. It's hard to write names like Cannon, Nastrini and Iriarte in anything but very thin pencil.

Up to 96.9 MPH. That's the unique selling point I guess for moving him back into the rotation now...might last 2-3 starts.

https://www.milb.com/player/jared-shuster-694363 He pitched just 79 innings last year at AAA...it would probably take him 3-4 weeks just to get to the point where he could throw 3 and then eventually 4 innings as a starter. With how well he's been doing out of the pen, probably better not to mess with it. That said, bringing up Thorpe to get massacred or start his service clock is just a terrible idea...but especially against an offense like the Orioles.