Chicago White Sox

And this is where I have to disagree. I think the Sox have been operating at a loss every year since 2020 or essentially our entire competitive window and into last year. Do I think they reinvested every single dollar from the previous rebuilding seasons back into the team? Probably not, but I don’t think it’s as egregious as you’re making it out to be. I’m guessing there are small dividends made out to the various owners on a semi regular basis, but I truly believe they put the vast majority of their earnings back into the team. And don’t get me wrong, I think they should have spent more. If Jerry would have invested more into the team at the front end of the competitive window, maybe we make deeper October runs and we get more playoff revenue that untimely pays for those investments. Unfortunately he doesn’t operate that way because he wants to avoid the risk of big losses in a given season. And no doubt, Covid gave Jerry another excuse to tread lightly with spending early on. Ultimately, I can say with certainty the bigger issue was how we allocated our dollars. $200M in payroll should be more than enough to be highly competitive in the AL Central on a yearly basis. But when so much of that money is going towards, role players, over the hill veterans, and Dallas fucking Keuchel instead of actual impact talent you aren’t going to get much bang for your buck. It was a poor allocation strategy partially driven by Jerry’s complete risk aversion and partly driven by Hahn’s failure to develop a second wave of cheap young talent.

I’m saying we’ve been royally fucked from both poor process and bad luck. Not all fanbases have to deal with both like us.

I literally ripped their selections when they had high picks. Not sure what you’re looking for here.

And the pick before was Teel. Talk about a disaster…lol.

What in the world are you talking about?

I’m still blown away that Witt put up 10 fWAR. I knew he had a great season, but didn’t realize it was that insane. Can’t wait for Walker Jenkins to make the show and give the Twins their own superstar. Just wild how badly the draft has worked in our favor since the first rebuild, both in terms of bad selections when we actually had high picks and general bad luck when it comes to the entire lottery process. Got to love being a fan of this god forsaken franchise.

We don’t have a DH at the moment, so both him and Rojas can play. Maybe it would allow Sosa to DH more, but I’d prefer him to get most of his reps in the field because the concerns with his glove.

$200M was an annual payroll figure, $250M was to be paid out over eight years. You are comparing apples to oranges.

True, but we’re coming off 41 wins. This isn’t normal bad, we’re talking epic bad and unfortunately we’re paying the price for that now. And like I said, adding expensive multiyear free agents becomes problematic when they are no longer living up to their contracts when we are finally good.

Who is Vaughn blocking?

Are you comparing the Cubs’ revenue profile to ours? We can’t spend what they spend…full stop.

Paying market value for wins isn’t progress though. If you try to build out a core in free agency, then it’s almost certainly going to fail. You have to have some semblance of our core and right now we have nothing. That’s why any talk of achieving 83 wins by 2026 is wild to me. We don’t have a single player we can say with a high degree of certainty will be a key contributor for 2026 outside of Robert and even then there are questions. We are basically starting from zero and that means it will take multiple years just to get to any level of respectability. I know that sucks, but it’s the unfortunate reality we face.

We practically spent $200M on payroll during the peak of our window. Money was spent…it was just allocated extremely poorly.

And what happens when these guys start regressing in 2027? Will that still be worth turning a 50 win team into a 60 win team?

Losing 90 games is not the same as losing 120 games though. Signing Kim and another B tier free agent isn’t vaulting us anywhere close to 83 wins. I get the desire to want more interesting baseball, but trying to take shortcuts won’t work where we’re currently at the process. I think if enough goes right this coming season, then we start to see some legitimate moves next offseason. Until then, just hope some of our fringier, but major league ready prospects turn into something useful because otherwise it’s going to be an ugly season.

Steamer 600 projections based on the lineup at Roster Resource post the addition of Rojas: Tauchman, RF* | 109 wRC+ | 1.8 fWAR Robert, CF | 103 wRC+ | 2.7 fWAR Benintendi, LF* | 104 wRC+ | 0.9 fWAR Vaughn, 1B | 110 wRC+ | 1.1 fWAR Rojas, 3B* | 95 wRC+ | 1.9 fWAR Sosa, 2B | 95 wRC+ | 1.7 fWAR Vargas, DH | 103 wRC+ | 1.8 fWAR Baldwin, SS# | 92 wRC+ | 1.9 fWAR Lee, CA | 73 wRC+ | 0.1 fWAR Obviously these would be very different with real playing time projections and Vargas is inflated if he’s a primary DH, but this level of output would be leagues better than we got last year. I will also note that both Quero & Teel project as 2+ win players, so our biggest black hole will have reinforcements pretty early into the season most likely.

What would you propose they do then?

Good point. And the cost to run a second DSL team has to be small once you have the infrastructure in place. Should be a no brainer.

I don’t get the Nagy comparison at all for Johnson. Ben is the visionary of the Lions offense, whereas Nagy who was a clear second in command who had play calling taken away from him one point because he wasn’t delivering. I get a good O-Line can make things look better, but what Johnson has put together in Detroit is incredible. He runs some gimmicky plays, but to pretend that’s his whole schtick is wild to me. The dude is an incredible play caller and knows how to run an offense that best utilizes all of his weapons. There are no guarantees with a first time HC, but he’s 100% the dude we need to hire IMO.

Man I really hope not. Unless you think he’s got a decent chance of finishing top two in the AL ROY vote, play the team control game and send him to Charlotte. A great AFL should not overide a tough season in AAA.

This is great stuff but a sad reminder of where things stand and how long it will take to right the ship. That being said, Paddy needed to go and someone had to convince Reinsdorf that signing teenage Dominicans isn’t evil and provide the highest ROI of all forms of talent acquisition. And despite all his flaws, it appears that Getz may have finally got Jerry over the ledge based on how David Keller has been talking.

$60M is clearly absurd, but so is making a bunch of B & C tier signings early into what will be a very painful rebuild.

The key issue with your idea is signing free agents a couple years ahead of being competitive means they will likely be on the downswing by the time you are actually good. Obviously there can be exceptions, but production is typically front loaded based on the age of most free agents. I don’t hate the idea of adding Kim, but I think he will cost more than you’re thinking and will likely demand an opt-out. And on top of that, I’d like to give Colson a real chance to stick at SS because it frees up 3B or 2B for other guys we already have in place at those spots worthy of opportunity. Ultimately, I think we’re a year away from making these type of moves.

Rojas would be a massively negative value player playing against RHP at 3B or 2B. No idea how you are making this comparison.

Romy did that hitting entirely against LHP and is unplayable against RHP. He is not an option for the Rojas role at all.