Chicago White Sox

Fuller > Bannister

Didn’t say 4 win player next year…Sox will find a way to get both Teel and Quero in the lineup more frequently. Benintendi & Tauchman are not long-term roadblocks.

Way too early to write off Meidroth as a future utility guy when he has two elite skills on top of being a strong or capable defender up the middle. Teel is flashing star catcher potential (his xwOBA is only .005 below Cal Raleigh). Montgomery has been very good this year (142 wRC+ across three levels) despite coming off injury. I still believe we end up with three everyday guys out of this group and I could see that being a +4 win Catcher, a +3 win RF, and a +2 win infielder. If that’s the case, it’s a huge win for the White Sox given the lack of positional talent at the time. In a perfect world you keep the true impact player and fill your holes in other ways, but unfortunately Rick Hahn made that a near impossibility with his incompetence.

I’ll take the under. If they can get Schultz & Smith fixed and if they actually start spending some money, I could see be us a playoff threat in two or three years.

It’s pathetic that Rick Hahn is responsible for the three best hitters in the lineup after being GM for the 11 years preceding two rebuilding ones? At these serious fucking posts?

To be fair, Rick Hahn had a lot more to do with that than Getz (not suggesting Getz is free from blame by any means)

This was all leaked before he left the org

How at-bats does he have?

Who is throwing roses at the Sox over Vaughn sucking? Me highlighting quality work from Fuller this year was to point out that other hitters are getting better in this very organization. That doesn’t make me some front office Stan, I have been very vocal in my disappointment with Bannister and the pitching this year. I may lean towards an optimistic take, but I will always call it like I see it. As for your example, we’re talking about young millionaires with massive ego’s. A person has to want to get better for an organization to make them better. I made many bad decisions in my youth from a professional perspective that would reflect poorly on my first employer and it took a change of scenery (or in my case, being let go) for me to recheck myself and reach my potential. As I mentioned earlier, there have been leaks for the past several years that Vaughn wasn’t open to instruction or analytics. Some people are unfortunately uncoachable until they take a L and it’s very apparent to me that’s the case with Andrew. People can blame the Sox because it’s easy and it fills the “Sox suck at everything” narrative, but sometimes you got hold the person or in this case the player accountable. The Sox gave this dude 2,400 PA’s and he put up -1.8 fWAR before being demoted and sucking even worse in AAA. I’m not trying to give the Sox a free pass, but in this case I am very confident that Andrew Vaughn was going to suck with us no matter we did because he was a stubborn, ignorant f*** unwilling to change.

Who sucked anywhere close to Andrew Vaughn who got this much runway?

Every fan base besides didn’t watch the dude suck for 2,400+ PA’s with us and is clinging to a high 1st pedigree that was really never warranted with hindsight. The reality is Fuller has done some nice work this year at the major league level. This is the first time in years I can see meaningful change in approaches across multiple players and where guys come up and actually have some semblance of a plan of attack. Andrew Vaughn was rumored to be stubborn and anti analytics. I don’t buy for a second that he’s suddenly Barry Bonds, but if he is, then maybe we should point the finger at the player himself. Dude was given endless opportunities and was pure garbage for most of his tenure. Honestly, dude can go f*** himself for not even finding a way to be respectable bad when he was here.

The Cease trade deserves criticism. People ripping the Sox or Getz over Vaughn being traded and then magically being good is revisionist history at its finest. The dude sucked for years with us, every single poster here wanted him gone, and it’s almost all but a certainty he wasn’t willing to change with us. People ripping Fuller when there is empirical evidence of Fuller driving meaningful change in getting guys to lift and pull is the cherry on top. Also, not sure what people expected to get for a bad, one-dimensional, RH 1B who could only put up a 78 wRC+ after being demoted to AAA. Civale isn’t good, but they got him to eat innings done the stretch which was a better use of salary than the s%*# production they were getting from Andrew.

Yeah, that and maybe they wanted a fast mover given the dearth of OF prospects in the upper minors.

Sirota was only $80k more than McLain, should have been a way to make that work one way or the other. For example, go with a cheap senior in the 7th instead of Phil Fox and you have plenty of room.

The complete lack of a contributing LatAm program has been killing us for years and it’s most apparent when you look at lists like this.

It’s still early and I remain somewhat hopeful, but taking Hagen Smith over the cohort of positional players that were available is fucking killing us right now. Konner Griffin is currently #1 at BA, JJ Wetherholt is #5, and Bryce Rainer is #25. Those guys were taken four, two, and six picks behind us respectfully and all got a $1M to $2M less than Smith. And then you have the two 1B sandwiched around our pick in Kurtz and Caglianone. The former is currently putting up 3.2 fWAR as a rookie 1B and the latter has already reach the majors (though struggling) after crushing the minors. Those guys got $1M and $500k less than Smith respectively. And just for transparency, those five guys got the five highest bonuses after Smith and were all considered top 10 prospects in that draft, so this isn’t cherry-picking a bunch of random hits and saying we blew it. And taking Nick McLain over Mike Sirota (BA’s #48 prospect) in the 3rd is also a dagger. BA had Sirota as the 70th overall prospect in the 2024 draft whereas McLain was in the 200’s. Both were available for us at our pick in the 3rd and we took the tweener OF with good bloodlines over the far more physically gifted player coming off a rough season all for about $80k in bonus pool savings. I was mad at the time about this and am even more pissed now that McLain has basically missed the entire season while Sirota has turned into a top 50 prospect.

Seems pretty ridiculous to have six top 100 prospects and not be in the top half of farm systems. I’d wager than BA and Fangraphs will have us higher.

Great post and 100% true.

Thanks James. Just an FYI, but your Jacob Gonzalez write-up is about Jeral Perez.

I have no idea how you came to this conclusion.

Not good

They just Meidroth on the DL? So his happened after playing the field other day?

Wilson coming in clutch!

Release Rojas the second after this game ends

Wild pitch offense FTW!