Chicago White Sox

There is absolutely, positively nothing absurd about it and if you feel otherwise then you have proven incapable of being rational on this matter. Any GM who came in had to deal with an organization completely devoid of talent at the upper levels and it would have impacted their on-field results in 2024. If you want to blame Getz for that issue, that’s an argument (and a good one) for why he shouldn’t have been named GM in the first place. It’s not an argument that he performed poorly in his first year as GM.

I fully agree that it’s hard to discuss, but the club was a ticking time bomb for whomever took over is my main point. By no means am I saying someone else wouldn’t have done a better job than Getz (I think they would have), but it was going to be ugly no matter what and Jerry would be insane to hire Chris into this role despite a lacking track record only to fire him one year later because the on-field results were worse than expected (and partly due to injuries to guys he inherited and general bad luck).

Your original post was that being historically bad one time should be career suicide, so yeah, citing the bad luck matters in that regard. I never once said that winning 49 to 51 games would be good or acceptable. We all knew the team was going to be bad last year and they somehow surpassed our wildest expectations. Getz definitely isn’t free from blame, but context does matter if you want have an objective debate on his performance in year 1. Regardless, we didn’t hire Getz to make us a mediocre team last year…he was brought in to structurally reform the entire organization from the bottom up. This idea that we should fire a GM who came into an impossible situation after one season because of the Win-Loss record is crazy to me. Unless you feel like he’s failing behind the scenes, then he should continue forward as GM. That being said, another historically bad season would be hard to ignore. At some point, the foundational improvements should start providing a higher floor in terms of the on-field product. If not, then some of the things viewed as being bad luck suddenly become the debate of bad process.

That doesn’t change the fact that those past shortcomings impacted the talent level he assumed as GM. You can argue that he should have never been named GM, but once he was put in the position those issues 100% created a headwind for him or any other GM. You don’t hold somebody’s past body of work against them when evaluating their effectiveness in a different role.

What does that have to do with his performance as GM?

They performed eight games worse than their Pythagorean record and about ten games worse than their total team fWAR would imply. If that doesn’t qualify as “bad luck”, then I think we have vastly different definitions. But let‘s ignore the luck for argument’s sake…you’re actually telling me that almost all the failures from last year fall on Getz and little to none on the regime before him? How is he responsible for Robert both getting injured and underperforming? How is he responsible for the extensions given out to soft ass, low drive players in Moncada & Eloy? How is he responsible for giving a very ordinary player in Benintendi a franchise setting contract? How is he responsible for Vaughn regressing last year? Despite general injury concerns, those five players were still projected to put up 10.3 fWAR last year per ZiPS and instead combined for -0.1 wins. If they would have performed half as expected, we don’t come close to setting the record. And again, Getz deserves plenty of blame for things like bringing in an over the hill Maldonado, giving significant playing time to Sheets, and missing on a lot of his depth trades. To his credit, Getz did acknowledge there was a talent gap in the upper minors and he went out and tried to add some positional guys to fill it, but ultimately failed in that regard. Fletcher & DeLoach both turned out to be big misses, but how much of that falls on Getz vs. a shitty pro scouting function? The same applies to a less extent to Julks & Shewmake. But those guys in the paragraph above getting hurt put a greater emphasis on our lack of depth and it cost us dearly. I will forever argue that Getz was never qualified to be GM. Whether you want to blame him for our player development shortfalls or suggest he was constrained in some capacity by those above him, his track record in that role was very poor to say the least and he simply did not deserve the opportunity to be our GM. But when evaluating his performance as our GM last year, none of that matters at all. He was dealt an absolute s%*# hand that any other GM would have struggled with. What are the obvious things Getz should have done differently last year that would have greatly improved our on-field results when he has a broken foundation, a terrible manager, and an owner who won’t spend?

Chris Getz should have never been named GM. But I got to disagree with this idea that lots of GMs have come into disasters similar what Chris did. We’re talking about an organization that was years & years pretty behind the rest of the competition in many key functional areas. He also assumed a roster that lacked talent, had to take on the most incompetent manager I have ever laid witness to, and had an owner unwilling to spend to help offset the previous regime’s shortfalls. No matter what Chris did, this team was going to be an absolute s%*#-show last year. To be historically bad requires both a complete lack of talent and incredibly bad luck. Again, I don’t think Getz should our GM and certainly warrants blame for what transpired last year, but the fact it was even a possible outcome falls on Jerry and the previous regime.

I won’t defend all his moves (I have ripped plenty of them), but he came into a complete disaster of an organization and there is nothing he could have done to prevent us from being extremely bad. The worst team in baseball history? Obviously that’s unacceptable, but I would argue that‘s more on Jerry and bad luck than Chris Getz. If it happens again, then Chris will run out of excuses.

Pitching is incredibly different than hitting. You can adjust a guy’s mechanics, arm slot, grip, repertoire, pitch mix, etc and quickly transform a pitcher. By no means am I saying that will happen here, but there is a chance to unlock a pitcher at the major league level. That is far more challenging with a hitter. And no, setting the all-time loss record in back to back seasons would be career suicide. I get that you are pretending you would be ok with it, but no sane GM would be.

?

You because of his other injury?

Really bad timing for Thorpe, Bush, & Berroa as they are going to accrue service time in the meantime.

Three kids who were likely a part of the rotation mix this year, our highest ceiling reliever, a solid upper minors SP prospect, and recently selected comp pick all getting TJS and we haven’t reached OD.

JFC…expected but dear god this is an insane amount of TJS’s

Vasil was the 9th ranked prospect per BA for the Mets last year before falling off. Below is his report from BA:

Rule 5 pick so he’s making the majors.

This is really bad news for Thorpe. Rotation spots are going to be super hard to come by come 2026 (hopefully at least) and he could be on the outside looking in if just a couple of the Burke, Smith, Martin, & Cannon group (or even the AAA arms) prove themselves this year. Obviously it’s a good problem for the team, but I was really hoping Thorpe would get an extended look free of injury this year.

Lineup: 1B: Vaughn 2B: Baldwin# SS: Meidroth 3B: Vargas LF: Benintendi* CF: Robert RF: Slater DH: Sosa CA: Lee Bench: BC: Thais IF: Amaya OF: Taylor Seems like you go with those 12 to start and have to add one of Ramos, Fletcher, or Colas or pickup someone up on waivers.

Oh I didnt catch the Tauchman news…how long is he out for?

Didn’t Drury get hurt in a random collision? Not sure age has anything to do with this.

It’s ruthless to cut a NRI who got injured and who would have required us to DFA another player to make room on the 40 man roster?

100% agree. Wolkow only has half a season in Low A, he should start the year in Kanny and work on his pitch recognition & swing decisions. If he does well, promote him around middle of the season whenever Braden likely get the bump to AA. Ending the season as a 19 year old in High A would be a hell of an accomplishment for him.

Bernstein deserved to be fired no doubt, but the guy he was fighting with on Twitter is also a little b****. He reached out to the FBI over a little fake tough guy talk? Lol…I fucking hate social media so much.