Chicago White Sox

Is this even feasible at this time? Feels like you’d have to option him to build up innings in the minors.

Trade values skyrocketing!

Oh fully agree. The only thing I’ll say is if this was a .500 team and they just missed the playoffs then no doubt I believe they’d run it back depth be dammed. However, I honestly think they know this group is beyond saving and that a hard reset is needed. There is just isn’t path and the guys they’ve added are far more likely to help the 2025 than the 2024 one. I think that is signaling their true plans.

IMO, this is very likely KW negotiating through the media and trying to make the appearance that we’ll try to compete next year to help build up leverage in potential trades of controllable guys. Hahn was incredibly awkward yesterday when asked by Merkin what the direction of the club was. Clearly he did not want to say we’d be going for it next year. I really think bigger trades are coming in these next couple of days.

Same problem as this year, but where is the pitching depth? If you go into the season with only four legit starters (and a very questionable offense), you are pretty much dead on arrival. After this past draft and the last couple of trades, there is going to be a sizable wave of SP prospects that starting hitting the pros in late 2024. I think 2025 is the soonest you can realistically compete because we’ll finally have some real SP prospects in the upper minors who can backfill the major league rotation. Next year needs to be a transition year IMO. See what you have in Nastrini, Mena, Pallette, Cannon, Taylor, Keaner, Thompson, Bush, & Burke if he’s still alive and go from there. Those are the guys who could potentially play a role sometime in 2025, but none of them will be ready for Opening Day 2024.

Fangraphs shows Mena & Veras as being Rule 5 eligible this year.

Isn’t hasn’t, but this level of aggressiveness doesn’t feel like his style and he’s a super sad pout face in all his the interviews. I definitely think KW has been more hands-on at a minimum.

I would have given Graveman away for free just to rid ourselves of his salary for next year. This is a great return for a guy not living up to his contract.

Very satisfied with this trade. Glad they pushed Hahn to the side and let KW handle the wheeling & dealing.

I love you caulfield, but you really need an editor. Way too many thoughts and random names to make sense of what you’re saying.

Ok

This isn’t remotely true. There is talent on the roster, but the front office and coaching staff simply isn’t able to get it out of them.

I’m still blown away we have so many former top 10 to 20 prospects and the lineup is absolute garbage.

Poor KW & Hahn…they got stuck with all those lousy players and managers. If only they weren’t dealt such an unfortunate hand we might actually be good right now!

There is no Hahn without Reinsdorf.

Have you ever seen Yoan Moncada? Dude is basically built like a linebacker. Acting like eating a bunch of Twinkies means anything is ridiculous. The swing & miss was a concern, but was still able to be a +4 win player despite high K rates. His problems since COVID have been physical.

He’s on pace for 3.7 fWAR…nothing league average about that.

This is it right here. I won’t excuse Hahn‘s horrendous free agent track record, but working for Jerry has certainly created some restrictions at the top of the market. However, Hahn oversees the whole ship and failed massively in terms of amateur scouting and player development. He has no one to blame there but himself since he handpicked Hostetler and Getz to lead those functions.

Moncada legit looked special pre-COVID and back problems. I think we failed him some in terms of development, but there are other factors that have caused him to underperform vs. his potential.

Burning it down isn’t going to work, but somehow the current strategy of going for it with a flawed roster, no money, and no minor league reinforcements magically will now? Don’t get me wrong, if nothing else changes, nothing is going to work, but the status quo has proven to be a massive failure.

Truer words have never been spoken. I’m confident the Orioles would give up an absolute haul of players to add Cease to their core right now. I think people sometimes forgot that with potential trades like this involving a highly valuable, controllable asset is you need the right market conditions to get a really strong return. Ignore the pure injury risk, there is no guarantee that this off-season or next year that teams will still have both the prospect currency and desire to make a trade like this happen. Take advantage of an insane seller’s market right now and get multiple partially developed pieces that could help us by 2025.

And worrying 8 years down the road has cost us significantly. But that’s the problem when you have so much job security and you got plan out a full decade…lol.

You may have missed my many posts in the “Fire Rick Hahn” thread. I hate that dude, I hate KW (slightly less than Rick), and I hate Jerry. We are fucked forever with those guys at helm, but until they’re gone I still will hope we do smart things in isolation. Once the determination was made to not extend Lucas, the smart move was trading him. Rick actually got a solid return which isn’t all that surprising because Lucas was a Hahn proof asset in this market. These latter statements can all be true while also acknowledging Rick is the worst GM in baseball. Also, this “the Angels system sucks” commentary is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. We got two of their best prospects. Their entire farm system ranking is irrelevant. Imagine if we traded Montgomery & Schultz for a rental SP not named Ohtani - think any seller would be unhappy with that because our overall farm is garbage?