almagest

I don't have that much anger left for this team. I just don't. I barely even watch them. I'm trying to find something to be positive about, or at least ambivalent.

Yes there absolutely is. Plenty of teams have a director of hitting. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2020/03/12/directors-of-hitting-pitching-becoming-more-common/111417370/

I wasn't the one to call you a zombie, though I'll admit its frustrating getting dog-piled by a bunch of people who take it personally that I don't share their opinion on Getz, so maybe I went too far. FWIW you've been good to interact with on this topic, and I can understand why people want to fire Getz. I just don't share that opinion.

You got an actual point to make, or are you just here to be insulting?

It's not shouting. It's zombie speak. Also, you get to poke fun at people who have a similar opinion to me, so I get to do the same in return. It's all in good fun from my perspective. Up to you if you want to take it as an insult.

Ha, fair enough - how's "ROMY GONZALEZ HUNDRED AT BAT SAMPLE SIZE ENOUGH TO DECLARE HIM BIG LOSS TO SOX", or "4 POINTS OF ERA+ BIG FAILURE", or "BENINTENDI AND VAUGHN SUCK BECAUSE OF GETZ"?

"RRRRRRRR.... GETZ BAD. ZAVALA COMPETENT DEFENSIVELY. RRRRRRRRR"

What are you defining as the mistakes that caused this roster to be 20+ games worse than last year, given the similar or better production provided by the position players brought in by Getz? The starting pitching is better overall. The bullpen is worse, but not by as much as I thought (91 ERA+ in 2023 vs 87 in 2024). It couldn't possibly be that every single position player regular left over from 2023 has been worse, could it?

This is interesting - wasn't the story until now that Hahn wanted Renteria gone?

You know this board is full of optimists.

Tell me what he could have done to make this team be on pace to win 20 more games. I provided a detailed breakdown of each player on the roster in a previous post, and I also covered how there wasn't much of anything out there in free agency that the Sox could've signed. All I've gotten from you is deflection, excuses and hand-wavey BS like "KW/Hahn would have somehow gotten 20 more wins out of the players they brought onboard!" and "Seby Zavala, the player I absolutely hated a few months ago, is now a defensive stud catcher who would be a difference maker even though he's not even in the majors anymore and wouldn't play over Korey Lee!"

No, you don't, because they are getting the exact same production (or better) at every position Getz filled this year. I posted about this already, in detail. The main difference has been Benintendi, Vaughn, Eloy, Robert and Moncada have all been substantially worse than last year, even factoring in their injuries. We've also been over how zero top 100 position prospects were traded at the deadline. We've also discussed how Getz recognized the need for a hitting guru like Bannister to help the minors. @ptatc is absolutely right - even a soft differing opinion like "give the GM one more year because a lot of what's happening this year isn't his fault, it's the fault of the previous regime" is met with people who need to paint me as some blind Getz apologist and make a bunch of assumptions about what I'm saying without actually reading what I say.

He may have questionable assessment skills, sure. I'm not going to say he does for sure yet. I'll give him another year. That is literally all I have been saying this whole time.

Yes, it was. Maldonado over Zavala is not why this team is historically bad. It's barely a blip.

Firing Pedro and his boys, even though Reinsdorf blocked him for most of the season Bringing Bannister onboard, which has shown immediate benefit both in the minors and majors Mentioned changing international scouting in the offseason Mentioned bringing a "hitting guru" onboard, like he did with Bannister Getz has responsibility for the product on the field. Once again, I'm saying there's still a ton of cruft to get rid of from the previous regime and it's going to take more than a year to turn that around.

Oh no, I get your point - Maldonado is so bad even Zavala would be an upgrade. I'm just saying it's completely irrelevant.

I have to admit, I'm cracking up each time Zavala's name comes up as the savior to the 2024 White Sox season.

He wouldn't be. Zavala isn't in the majors anymore, same as Maldonado.

So all of these guys would be better under KW/Hahn? Moncada and Eloy wouldn't have gotten hurt? How exactly does a change in SVP and GM accomplish that?

Benintendi, Eloy and Vaughn alone are half of that negative fWAR. Moncada hasn't played in months, and probably won't play again this year. Robert isn't even at 1 fWAR yet. Those are the guys you counted on to be the "good" players. They were on the roster already and were going to play. They had to at least be decent for this team to be normal bad, no matter what. Romy barely plays in the outfield. He's not an OF. Also, again, Romy also only has 100 AB, and would likely be exposed with the Sox because they would be forced to play him way more than the Red Sox. There was no one else available in free agency or on the trade market (except McCarthy) that would get this team like 20 more wins then they have right now. McCarthy is much better than Fletcher this year. That looks like a miss, and doesn't bode well for Barfield if he was that bad at evaluating players in his org. Getz isn't the only reason they are so barren in the minors. KW/Hahn did a terrible job drafting, signing and trading players. Being unhappy and skeptical is fine. I am unhappy and skeptical. I am not wallowing in negativity and pinning all the blame on a guy who has only been doing this job for a year, in what is most certainly the worst organization in MLB. He's got another year to prove himself in my mind - he probably won't be fired even if he's awful because Reinsdorf, but if they don't start showing improvement then Getz needs to go too.

Sounds like a KW/Hahn apologist to me

You're right. No one expected all of Benintendi, Vaughn, Eloy, Moncada and Robert to be practically useless this year. And it's not revisionist history to realize how absolutely screwed this team is after what we've seen this year and the tons of insider feedback we've gotten about what an utter disaster this organization was under Rick and Kenny - so bad that even Reinsdorf had to fire KW, who he considered a son and who brought him a WS in 2005. A guy who Jerry blocked from interviewing for other roles. A guy who likely had a job for life, and yet still managed to screw it up somehow.

If people read what I actually said, and not what they thought I said or wanted me to say, then it would be easy to see I'm not a Getz apologist. I'm just trying to be realistic about what's possible in one season with an organization this bad and not whip myself into a pointless frenzy of negativity.

"I don't like him, but give him a year because this entire org is fucked and there's no way to tell if what he's doing is working yet" is an apologist to you?

No, he didn't. Once again, you don't get to this level of historic incompetency without a full, multi-year, thorough organizational failure. None of you have even come CLOSE to showing how this could be a 60 win pace team through any set of realistic signings or trades. It's not possible with how utterly terrible they've been, and that's 100% due to the decisions made by Reinsdorf, Hahn and Williams over the last 8 years. And again, grading him on player moves this year is IRRELEVANT. We're not going to truly start seeing the effects of the changes that are happening and need to happen until next year. Plenty of people around the team, including people on this board, have been commenting on what a bad state this org is in, and how much is changing and needs to change.