almagest

What’s funny about that is the MLB roster isn’t even all that different than last year. The only real departures of note are Cease and a couple bullpen pitchers. Moncada, Eloy, Robert, Benintendi, Sheets, Vaughn, Lee, Sosa, Kopech, Touki, Banks were all here. DeJong was much better than TA. Maldonado was worse than Grandal but honestly they were both awful, so if you’re saying the Sox are 20-something games worse because of Grandal I ain’t buying it. Zavala was Maldonado-esque. Nicky Lopez is doing about what we got out of Andrus last year. Pham and Sheets have been better than what we got out of Sheets last year. The starters have been BETTER this year. No 6.47 era Lance Lynn to deal with. 2023 Kopech and Flexen are roughly the same. Crochet and Fedde are better than any pitcher from last year. The bullpen is the biggest difference, because most of the turnover happened there, and a lot of it was bad. The bullpen isn’t the main reason why they’ve lost 20-something more games, though. Basically every returning position player has either been hurt most of the year or has been much worse than last year. Benintendi, Robert, Eloy (when he played), Vaughn - all worse. They barely average 3 runs per game, and all the new guys have either been better or are a wash. Like I said - this all started long before Getz took over. We’re just seeing it bottom out now.

…I’ve already said how, multiple times. You don’t meaningfully change an absolute dumpster inferno like this organization in one year. They basically need to turn THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION over. Getz is likely not the right choice to do this correctly, but it’s not because they’re on track to win 40-something games this year.

Playing on the margins is a terrible strategy for any team, because it rarely works out, even for the best front offices. There’s a reason these guys are on the margins in the first place. Even if the Sox hit on every single margin play they made they’d probably top out at 60 wins because of how utterly terrible the legacy roster has been. I think you (and others) are underestimating how poorly the Hahn players have performed, if they’re even able to play. This year is a complete wash, as far as I’m concerned. This offseason and next season is when we can really start to evaluate Getz.

Dude get OUTTA here. Profar was a bust before this year. NONE of you were beating down the door to sign him, and NO ONE expected him to put up the numbers he’s put up this year. He hasn’t even logged more than 100 innings at second base since 2020, but all of a sudden the Sox are stupid for not signing him instead of Lopez? WAR is a flawed stat, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than “an OPS above .750 in more than 60 games one other time in his career”. Profar is also a bad defender and guaranteed you’d be complaining about that if he was on the Sox. There are plenty of reasons to be rightfully pissed off at his team. Stop inventing bad ones.

No, we didn’t. Profar sucks on defense, only had one solid year before this, and only has 1.5 more WAR in like 5 more seasons than Lopez. Profar also barely plays second base now. He’s mostly a left fielder, where we’re already paying Benintendi 70 million to suck.

Profar is total hindsight, come on. No one expected he'd be this good. That's why he signed for a million, plus he signed where he was already playing. The Sox also brought in plenty of guys to try in RF. It's not like they stuck Sheets out there for every game this year. Also, if you look at Sportrac for the 2023-2024 offseason, you won't see anyone that was possible to sign that would've made anything but a marginal difference at best in RF: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/transactions/_/start/2023-11-01/end/2024-04-01/position/rf. Going up by 0.2 WAR isn't gonna make this team win 20 more games. Also, who on the recent transaction list is more interesting right now than giving Colas or Fletcher an extended shot? I'm not seeing anyone. Romy Gonzales has played in 49 games. It might have been a mistake to let him go (personally, I think he's not very good and has small sample size success), but he wouldn't change their record. Cronin should've been kept, I agree. The bullpen is ATROCIOUS, though. He would only help a little. Doesn't matter much if you get an inning or two more of solid relief every couple days when the rest of the 'pen can't get anyone out. You're right that it's near impossible to only win 40 games. That's how poorly the Sox have been run for the past 8+ years - the product on the field now is the result of the decisions made since the sell-off in 2016. Not just from this offseason.

Somehow they got Bannister, so that's SOMETHING. Which former Sox player has a kid who's a hitting mastermind? Anyone?

I think this organization is in such terrible overall shape with such bullshit restrictions from their ownership that it's gonna take a couple years to climb out of this. It doesn't matter who they hire. I'll be much more willing to judge Getz next year.

What I'm saying is - this organization was in such a deep pit of despair that 60 wins was gonna be really tough, no matter what. Looking back at last season and this offseason I struggle to see what they could have done to end up "normal bad" right now. Keep Cease? Starting pitching hasn't been their biggest issue for most of the year - it's the bullpen and scoring runs. Moving Crochet to start was the right call. Get McCarthy instead of Fletcher? This would definitely help some, but McCarthy would give them, what, 2 or 3 more wins right now? Keeping Mena wouldn't help right now, either. Moncada and Eloy weren't going anywhere this offseason for anything that would help this team, and we see what they look like with those guys being hurt most of the season. Robert also wasn't going anywhere for value near what he's potentially worth. Also, the existing MLB team Getz inherited is absolutely HORRENDOUS. Vaughn is their featured hitter in pregame marketing with a 91 OPS+ and -0.2 bWAR lol. You couldn't realistically dump most of these stiffs, either, because there's literally nothing behind them. I do think the push for bad veterans and guys like Sheets instead of giving the few spots of minor league talent (like Sosa and Colas) a chance was terrible. I hope that was more Grifol than Getz - we'll see now that Grifol is gone. Could they have a better bullpen? Sure, but there's some talent there - at least equivalent to other bad teams. I'm also happy they didn't blow half the payroll on the bullpen again. I'd like to see more moving guys in and out to catch a hot hand, and I think Katz sucks at managing bullpens and should go, but bullpens are volatile.

I don't think we should be hoisting Getz around on our shoulders as a savior, but I also don't think he has much of anything to work with right now and he's starting in such a hole that patience is useful, even if to just save yourself from how rough negativity in fandom can become. The real killer was the promise of how "easy" it would be to turn this team around in a year. We all knew that was bullshit, but if you say that stuff in public as the damn OWNER of the franchise you'd better make sure it will be backed up.

I'm of the same mind as Ptatc - I think this organization has been in absolutely DIRE straits for years, and we're finally seeing it all crash and burn this season. The minors have been barren, the coaching and player development are way behind everyone else, the managerial hires were horrible, no one could stay healthy, and the major league team terribly misallocated funds on marginal players. This season was inevitable, and I don't think there was much they could do (especially given Reinsdorf's operating restrictions) to avoid it. Also, I do think Getz is trying to fix it, I think he has some good ideas, and I think they've made some solid moves. Also some terrible ones. He's probably not qualified for this role (and I don't know if he was even qualified for his previous role), but he might be able to grow into it. That might be the best we can hope for until Reinsdorf no longer owns the team. It's a pretty bleak situation, but that's where we are.

Maybe Colas will actually get a real shot now that Grifol is gone.

Makes sense. Would cost about a trillion dollars to get this team to just mediocre.

Who are some options out there?

Time for a 21 game win streak baby! Get back to like 40 under!

I’m scared

I saw Norby this weekend in Jacksonville against the Phillies AAA team. He was 1-5 with a soft single and 2 strikeouts. Had trouble with spin - chased sliders outside the zone against a journeyman AAA pitcher with mediocre stuff. Super small sample size obviously, but I I wouldn't be surprised if he struggles with major league offspeed pitches based on what I saw. Honestly surprised the Sox didn't end up with him based on his aggression and trouble with spin. Hope to see Charlotte next time they're in town.

We're at the point where the positives are "hey, at least they scored THREE runs this game!".

Yes, and Thorpe has a top tier change up. He's 23 and was in High A last year. Let's give him some time to acclimate and improve before we write him off. There's enough to be miserable about this season without expecting a 23 year old rookie to dominate.

Kyle Hendricks put up like 20 WAR over 6 years doing this, except he throws even softer.

He's a rookie. Jesus.

This has to be the worst bullpen in baseball

Meh. Not bad value for a guy who won't get close to 1 WAR for the year. There's a possibility Rosado ends up in the Sox bullpen in a couple years.

Hahahahhahahha

I just can't buy that because the Sox were targeting Walker, who is similar to Vargas (former highly ranked prospect struggling in the majors with a good amount of control left).