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Look I don’t buy Getz’s crap, I don’t think they ever had any intentions of keeping him what so ever. Is there really a difference between getting a couple organizational filler guys and just outright losing him for nothing? At least when you held onto him you had a chance to truly increase his value. By all accounts they weren’t offered anything worth a s%*#. What’s the difference? The true travesty here is they botched the situation with him long ago, this is just icing on the cake.

If he's out the rest of the year I don't see how you could blame them for declining the option in the offseason even after not trading him at the deadline. That would change things in my opinion.

Not exactly, there's something to be said for the team playing better and not wanting to ruin the chemistry by dumping Robert for nothing. The scenario also exists where he gets hurt (like right now) or he completely craters out the rest of the year and then picking up the option doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. If he finishes strong, then of course you pick up the option to either try to trade him again or you just want to keep him. You still face the possibility that he does not show very well the rest of the year and declining the option makes sense even if you didn't trade him at the deadline.

lmao, yes it was him.

Look at a team like the Angels, who just hang on to their superstar players or let them walk away getting nothing in return. Since 2012 the Angels have had the best player in baseball 38% of the time (5 MVP's in 13 seasons) and they have exactly 1 playoff appearance where as a 98 win team they were swept by the 89 win Royals. How entertained would you be if the Sox went 72-90 but Robert won the MVP? Like, yeah that's great, but that's a bad year to be a fan of the White Sox overall. 98-64: Trout MVP 74-88: Trout MVP 72-90: Trout MVP 77-85: Ohtani MVP 73-89: Ohtani MVP Outside of 1 year over a decade ago, the Angels had 4 MVP's on some pretty bad teams. They got nothing for Ohtani, they won't get anything for Trout. And 6 of those seasons they had BOTH Trout and Ohtani.. crazy.

I was speaking more in terms of a fully valuable Robert being traded last deadline or this past offseason for the 2025 and 2026 season. Honestly, he should have been traded after 2023 when they decided to rebuild everything. Getting several high end assets that not only line up with your next contention window but are controllable for 6 years once they arrive is just way more valuable to a rebuilding team than keeping them.

Aside from them playing in a domed stadium rending the weather pointless, I meant more why the flight across the country right off the bat.

Also, why the hell are we opening in Milwaukee and then have to turn around and fly to Miami.

Because it makes zero sense to pay a talented player $20M when you are going to be losing 100 games for those two years. Their value is greater being traded for assets than it is playing CF for the White Sox.

That's true, im sure they could still give him away if they wanted to if they pick up the option.

From purely a fan perspective, it would be ridiculous to not pick up the option but I am not sure its a slam dunk with all things considered. They were obviously ready to move on by trying to deal him at the deadline, he would probably need to finish the season scorching hot to change his value over the winter otherwise they probably are looking at the same type of offers.

Respectfully, back on July 31st you still believed he would be traded and said you had no faith they would pick up that option. I would say its a little more complicated than you are leading on. You really don't see any scenario at all where JR decides not to pick up the option?

You don’t need to try and convince me, all I asked for was to hear your opinion on it. I’ll think what I think regardless of what you say.

That's easy to say when its not your money. The issue will be convincing the owner to pay the $20M for a player that's not earning that salary. Especially when you consider they can just get out of it for $2M. The best financial decision is obviously to decline the option, you just have to hope that they can convince JR otherwise.

Yes, I said if everything goes perfect they could get to 70 wins. Everything is not going to go perfect, you know this, I know this. It's just how it works.

I have a hard time believing that this team is winning 70+ games. C - Teel/Quero 1B - Vargas/Mead 2B - Meidroth SS - Montgomery 3B - Vargas/Mead LF - Benintendi CF - Robert RF - Tauchman DH - Sosa Starting Pitching - Shane Smith, Davis Martin, Sean Burke, Jonathan Cannon, Insert 5th Guy Here Bullpen - 🤢 Can we at least get to 60 wins first? They will need to go 13-19 the rest of the way to hit 60, which means they need to start winning slightly more than they have been recently to do so. While possible, im not sure its likely.

I actually would love for you to show your work here, because this team probably doesn't even get to 60 wins this year so I am interested to hear the WestEddy plan that has them make a substantial jump next season with what will largely be the same roster. Ill go first. You can make the argument that the offense is completely returning. Benintendi isn't going anywhere, they love Tauchman apparently, and you would assume Robert will get his option picked up and at least start the year here. The rest of Teel/Quero, Vargas/Mead, Sosa/Meidroth, Montgomery, and Baldwin all return. We know they wont be signing a big fish, and there really isn't any room to add a Benintendi tier signing. So lets operate under the assumption that the whole lineup is back and only veteran bench depth gets added. Are you ready to assume every single young guy takes another step forward? Odds say probably not. Benintendi is worth 0. and Tauchman is likely to step back. These guys desperately need Robert to get back to where he was in 2023 to either cash in on his value or build around him. The pitching needs a lot of work. They have an entire rotation of back end pitchers. The bullpen is not good. There are some returning players who are interesting, however, they will all be coming off major injuries and pitching for the first time in a while. Here's my if. If Robert bounces back and is either traded for usable pcs or kept, if every one of Teel/Quero, Vargas, Sosa/Meidroth, Montgomery, Baldwin all take another step forward and Braden Montgomery arrives mid season and is as advertised, if Smith takes a step forward and is more of a front end starter and Martin, Burke, and Thorpe all improve while Schultz and Smith show up mid to late season and pitch like they think they will you can squint and see them winning somewhere in the 70's next season. That's a lot of ifs for an organization not well known for its development.

You're trying to set a baseline that this current roster is just bad instead of historically bad? That was the point of this thread, bad is getting passed as acceptable because at least its not historically bad anymore.

Getz has been here since 2017, was promoted to assistant GM in 2021, and was only promoted to GM because he was supposed to already be familiar with the entire organization and that would make this go much faster than hiring from outside. That strategy turned into the worst team in MLB history, so there's that. I will never understand how someone who was responsible for player development and then assistant GM didn't deserve to be fired for the disaster that happened here. And if he had all these different views and ideas that the old regime was doing wrong, that speaks volumes to just how dysfunctional this organization is if their own inner workings aren't even aligned.

Im tired of those posts HERE by fans, I can at least understand Garfein because its his job and he can't just tweet out "The Sox still suck, but at least they aren't historically bad anymore". I can't get behind some other fan trying to tell me "They've been playing .400 ball since June" like that's supposed to instill optimism, that flat out sucks. We all understand this is a 100 loss team, and probably will be a 100 loss team again next season without any meaningful additions. The young offensive players have shown very well this year, I would say I expect them all to improve next year as well but we've already seen one core all bottom out together so I don't want to get too ahead of myself.

It’s still a problem, let’s just say they love Quero and Teel and want to keep both. You either commit to carrying 3 catchers or they only play like 50% of the games. Both are suboptimal options to me. For the remainder of 2025 though, whatever.

Right, but as you alluded to that would just be ridiculous. But even then, if Jacob Gonzalez goes thermonuclear he’s probably way better than Sosa. Basically what I’m trying to say is I don’t like Lenyn Sosa lol.

I’m not suggesting to trade Quero because he’s not good, I’m suggesting trading him with Sosa to get an OF upgrade (with the potential loss of Robert and the inevitable Benintendi DFA) so you also don’t have to keep splitting time between the two of them. It’s a tough decision but that’s part of the job. 1B/3B is covered between Mead and Vargas, Colson at SS, Meidroth at 2B and you still have Baldwin to work in (Who I also prefer to Sosa) as well as guys like Bonemer and Carlson for the future. This was merely a what if scenario trying to improve the roster, I’m not trying to say to get rid of anyone who is slumping or whatever.

I said I don’t think he’s a valuable player, albeit based on WAR and his lapses in the field. I would imagine most other teams probably lean that way as well, that’s why I said package him. You also risk hampering development by having them play together sparingly while rotating them game to game at catcher. I think Teel has the higher ceiling, so hitch your wagon there and go. I’m not following the Gonzalez reference, he’s never been good or touted why would that scenario ever play out?

He has no position and I much prefer Meidroth's skillset as a 2B over Sosa. If you can package Quero and Sosa and get a good OFer I think that helps this team way more in the future. People keep saying Sosa is this teams best hitter, yet Meidroth has almost doubled him in bWAR already as a rookie with room to grow. I just don't think he's a valuable player.