Chicago White Sox

Worst offense in baseball history isn’t a Santander away from being .500. I do hope they add some sort of veteran bat on a short-term deal, but I wouldn’t go 3+ years for someone like Santander at his likely cost.

I don’t believe Getz to be anti-analytics. He’s clearly trying to execute change in that department to a level that hasn’t been tried before. The bigger concern is does he know what success looks like and will he be capable of replicating it. And that’s why an outside hire would have made much more sense for us. The racial stuff is just silly. Last I checked Maldonado wasn’t white and he was the single biggest leader they brought it. And at the trade deadline, five of the six players acquired were of Hispanic descent. Obviously Jerry is an old school baseball guy, but the Sox have historically been a power oriented club since the mid 90’s and even this recent core was mostly built around power. A bunch of dumpster dives in a lost season doesn’t change that fact. And to be clear, I’m not suggesting Getz appropriately values power (the Fletcher trade still has me concerned in that regard), but I don’t think his goal is to build Jerry’s dream of a bunch of fundamentally sound slap hitters.

That is also true. Agents basically have free access to his Twitter account, so all should be skeptical this happens until it finally does. But would be much more exciting than a Nevin hire on paper at least.

To me, this is the most exciting hire out there. If Chris can bring him on then would be reason for a little optimism.

I feel bad for anyone who would pay money to specifically watch Andrew Vaughn play baseball.

And who else is left of known candidates?

Has he been ruled out?

Who has been bitching & moaning about the info Harold provides?

Andrew Vaughn being the best bat on the worst hitting team in baseball history is not some sort of accolade. The reality is he’s a roughly league average hitter who plays a bad 1B and is one of the slowest baserunners in baseball. That is a negative value baseball player and we now have +2,200 PAs to confirm it. Full stop, we should never settle for a below replacement level player just because there isn’t an obvious replacement. It’s the GM’s job to figure out a way to get better production than that and that’s exactly a tall ask.

Yup, we are even more fucked now.

I’m not sure how you can argue the brand is fine. There has been considerable damage done. That doesn’t mean we can’t recover, but we have a reached a new low point that hasn’t been topped since the strike.

Imagine if Fedde were on the Twins in 2025, we’d definitely have no shot a playoff spot then.

Vargas’ fast swing rate is 8.3% vs. a league average of 22.5%. That is not good bat speed.

Attaching Benintendi to Crochet would be the single dumbest decision in baseball history and only this shitshow of an org would even consider something so idiotic. If it happens, it should be very clear that Harold is Getz.

I’d rather bring in some AAAA bats who never got a real shot in the majors than give another +600 plate appearances to Vaughn. There is zero reason to believe at this point that he will ever figure things out.

$6M for Vaughn or $5M for Lopez would be a travesty.

I admittedly haven’t watched a lot of Sox baseball since the deadline, but two things stand out to me regarding Vargas. First, he is a highly disciplined hitter who isn’t going to chase much and will draw lots of walks. And that is valuable given the makeup of the rest of the team. Unfortunately, he also looks like a low quality hitter when he does make contact. Making I’m missing something, but I haven’t seen him square up all that much and when he does it feels like his power is lacking for any sort of corner-type position. For a dude who was once heralded for having a 65 grade hit tool and 50 grade power, I certainly expected to see more out of him than I have so far.

🤔

Maybe he’s the new Director of Analytics? 🤣🤣🤣

The highlight will likely be the buildup to a Crochet trade. Tons of speculation on all the young prospects we will get before Getz settles on a post hype guy with less than six years of control as the centerpiece.

100%.

You think everyone is suddenly a bad player.

And who had zero protection this year. Pitchers had zero reason to throw strikes to him and Robert tried to do too much because no one else could. It was a recipe for disaster and the results show that. If I were Getz, I’d try to get one decent veteran bat to slot behind Robert and see if that helps.

Where is Vaughn in this list?

My biggest two fears are they force Benintendi into a Crochet trade (given how much Harold has yearned for such an outcome) or they sell Robert for 25 cents on the dollar. Otherwise, I don’t expect much action. No doubt they will add a handful of cheap veterans similar to this past off-season, but it’s clear they are going with a legit youth movement in Y25 for better or worse.