Chicago White Sox

His time to sink or swim was last year. We had massive holes across the OF and he completely drowned as 26 year old. He failed spectacularly with all elements of offense. And beyond his pure production, go look at some of his Statcast metrics. We’re talking about a 5’ 6” tweener OF with below average speed and bat speed that would rank in the bottom 5% of major leaguers. He lacks the speed to be a legitimate CF and lacks the power to be a corner OF. I don’t know what anyone saw in him last year to say this dude deserves to be handed an opportunity. He looked horrible with the bat and totally incapable of impacting a baseball despite squaring up on the ball at a near elite level. Again, you want to look at Reno stats without any sort of context to say this guy deserves another opportunity, but go look at how other have performed there. I pointed this out when we first acquired him so not going to track down those figures again, but his numbers were very ordinary given Reno is the most offensive friendly park in all of minor baseball. Playing in that type of environment can make all the difference in skewing power numbers for a little guy who is actually good at squaring up on the ball. Personally, if it came down to it, I’d rather cut bait on him altogether than hand him a starting spot. Unlike many here, I was a huge critic of Fletcher’s from day 1 and how he performed last year in both Chicago & Charlotte only reaffirmed my opinion. The reality is the kid is going to be 27 on Opening Day and turn 28 by the end of the season. He lacks both ceiling and an extended runway. I’m just not sure what the end goal Is here. A solid 4th OF for a couple years if it all clicks? Not sure how that actually moves the needle for us. However, given the complete lack of OF talent in the upper minors, we might as well send him to AAA this season and see if he shows anything there. If performs at all, even in just April, then I’d be willing to call up him…but dude needs to earn his way.

More than last year

Fletcher needs to prove something in AAA before I give him another major league opportunity. He hit well in the minors but has always been on the older side and his numbers in Reno weren’t that good when you consider what actual productive major leaguers have done there (see Eaton). Unfortunately he’s a 27 year old tweener OF who was a questionable addition from the get go and who has since regressed. I wouldn’t 100% write him off, but he blew a golden opportunity and now must earn his way IMO. We can always cut Taylor or even Slater if Fletcher proves himself worthy in Charlotte to start the year.

I don’t ever see enough offensive ceiling from Sosa to be a good 1B. We need to strive higher than that from a power position.

I was joking…Pizza Man was a good owner

Free Hot N Ready’s for the players?

I agree that the best chance of accelerating this rebuild is finding some SP that can be flipped for positional players. This first wave of arms cementing themselves as major league starters before Schultz, Smith, Taylor, etc force their way into the rotation would be a huge help.

Free agency works much differently today than it did back then. The B & C tier guys simply don’t last as long and the premium guys go for prices that Jerry will never pay. We have to be much closer to competing before we start spending on the former or those additions will ultimately prove counterproductive when the rest of the team is finally in place.

We should 100% gamble on him having a good 1H rather than dump him for 50 cents on the dollar, but it seems that Getz and team feel differently.

Under no circumstance can I justify a roster for what will likely be a 105 to 110 loss team having five veteran OFs. If there was a good chance we were going to keep Robert and Benintendi but also wanted a legitimate backup CF, then we should have prioritized Taylor over Slater at the time. It’s simply bad roster design to have this many veterans without positional flexibility and any trade upside. Again, I am pretty confident they will trade Robert this spring and as such this move makes more sense as a CF placeholder.

I mostly agree, but I think Getz has done a poor job with trades so far, at least prior to the Crochet. I will applaud him for bringing in outside voices into the org, that will help no matter what. But to truly transform the org he has to make the right hires. I will 100% question the Gene Watson hire as being a good one and so far many of our trades leave a lot to be desired. Hopefully that has more to do with the pro scouts he inherited rather than Watson himself, but at some point we need to start winning some trades to feel good about where the organization is heading.

This only makes sense if you feel there is a 90% or better chance of Robert being moved by the end of camp. Carrying five guys who can only play the OF just doesn’t make sense from a roster design standpoint.

Updated with Steamer 600 wRC+ and fWAR projections: Lineup: 1B: Vaughn (111 | 1.2) 2B: Sosa (95 | 1.8) SS: Baldwin# (91 | 1.9) 3B: Rojas* (95 | 1.9) LF: Benintendi* (105 | 0.9) CF: Taylor (74 | 0.7) RF: Tauchman* (109 | 1.8) DH: Vargas (104 | 1.6) CA: Lee (74 | 0.1) Bench / NRIs / Reinforcements: IF: Meidroth (107 | 2.9) CA: Quero (97 | 2.3) CA: Teel (94 | 2.1) IF: C. Montgomery (80 | 1.3) OF: Slater (97 | 1.2) IF: Amaya (77 | 1.0) CA: Thais (92 | 0.8) IF: Ramos (92 | 0.8) IF: Drury (93 | 0.5) OF: Colas (88 | 0.1) OF: Fletcher (82 | 0.0) OF: Gallo (87 | -0.1) OF: DeLoach (84 | -0.8) IF: Dalbec (79 | -1.0)

Iriarte’s K rate dropped over 30% in 2024. Fegan has pointed out that some mechanical issues caused his 4 seamer to be more sinker like. If they can get his fastball shape to return to form, then he’s a guy who could certainly factor into the rotation at some point this year.

Let me clear here. Jerry is a cheap, risk adverse owner. Being one of two MLB franchises to never have signed a $100M+ is a joke…full stop. I’m just sick of this era of fake news where people feel they can just straight up lie to embellish their talking points. Saying Jerry doesn’t believe any player is worth $100M is a factually untrue statement. That was the entire point of the post. No doubt he should be slammed for being a cheap and generally shitty owner. As for Wheeler, it’s the only free agent miss that I will give them a tiny amount of credit for. We 100% know we were the highest offer on paper. Balta arguing otherwise for years has always bothered me because it’s widely known across baseball. It would still would have been higher than what the Phillies offered if you really want to go down the tax rabbit hole. Also, people always say the Sox should have offered more, but these type of negotiations are never that simple. Regardless, the Sox didn’t land Wheeler and just being willing to offer the most money to one single free agent doesn’t negate the fact that under Jerry the Sox have failed in this area so many times before for so many reasons.

But Hahn has blackmail on Wheeler and forced him to say this!

More the shape of his fastball

I hope a lot of this lineup stuff doesn’t happen.

Fucking sad news…Jenks was an all time favorite for me.

Which is an absolute embarrassment.

How does this conflict with the notion Jerry believes there are players worth $100M?

It’s widely accepted that the Sox beat out the Phillies. They don’t deserve a medal for trying and their failure to have signed a major free agent to this point is a total joke, but let’s not make comments like “Jerry doesn’t believe any player is worth $100M”. Plenty to rip Jerry for without creating false narratives.

Wheeler signed a 5/$118M deal, one that we topped.

I will say no just because you have to find the right player who warrants such a contract and won’t be in demand enough so we can actually land. I definitely think it’s possible and would be more likely if we had three full off-seasons of trying to compete but not sure we’ll be competent soon enough for that to happen.

He has literally made multiple $100M offers, so this is entirely untrue. And him wanted a salary cap makes sense…90% of MLB owners should want one.