Chicago White Sox

Nothing wrong with signing placeholders and not over-spending on C tier free agents to multi year deals. I think people here who are frustrated are just worried we’re making the move based on name value and not acknowledging the decline last year in his defensive performance (primarily framing). The Sox under Hahn weren’t very effective playing in this space and more or less just lit cash on fire to “fill” holes. Hopefully Getz does better in this tier of free agency.

And for the record, Maldonado’s blocking and throwing was still above average last year (at least per Statcast). It was his framing that fell off a cliff and killed his defensive value. Be curious what happened there since he basically went from bad to worst in baseball at it.

Which is fine, but just another reason to launch Pedro to the sun.

I’m not sure Kendall Graveman had that much of a market to be overly picky on the return. And regarding the 40 man, it’s hard to imagine we’ll be pushing the limit on spots this year. I think it’s simply a minor trade that likely won’t end up providing us with any value but was worth a roll of the dice at the time.

Oh no doubt having two good game-callers can help everyone, but I think the marginal value starts to erode some when you’re talking about completely sacrificing any offense out of the catcher spot while they’re handling more experienced pitchers. I’m not losing sleep over this…just theorizing this move may be foreshadowing a Cease for pitching prospects trade.

Because where are all these young pitchers that we need two veteran SPs to handle? I think it’s very clear that this focus on defense is to help a young pitching staff, but right now it’s not like the projected Opening Day roster is overflowing with a bunch of promising young arms. That tells me that when Cease goes out, near major league ready pitching is coming back. Obviously this is all me speculating, but it’s the only way the broader set of moves make any sense.

So AJSS would be on the table but not Waldrep?

They should be DFAing Zach Remillard. He serves zero purpose on this roster with the additions of DeJong, Lopez, & Shewmake.

To be fair, we acquired him for Kendall Graveman and at the time our near term catching situation was atrocious. I think it was a perfectly fine move all things considered even if we don’t hand him a major league role next year.

So Cease to Atlanta is basically happening then?

At least we have confirmed Harold is in fact Getz…one Soxtalk mystery solved

No, but you said we could pay him $8M and it wouldn’t impact other things, which is what I’m calling out.

You do realize that we had 1st, 2nd, & 3rd round picks most years right? How did all those guys do under Getz’s watch?

Gun to head…I think a Cease to the Braves trade is probably close. If not, then I think they have their doubts on Stassi for some reason now.

The Twins’ run differential was only 10 worse than the Orioles last year

Easily Benintendi IMO

What’s your beef with Statcast out of curiosity? Their catching metrics seem to be pretty objective.

Other than we could spending the money on better flip candidates?

I don’t disagree, but check out Stassi’s 2022 season and Korey Lee in general…our catching situation is somewhere in between a complete wild card and a hot mess. I wouldn’t put much faith in Maldonado, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he were more productive than Stassi & Lee next year. I’m very curious about the money here. Anything above like $2M seems like really stupid spending.

Yeah, Stassi at the league minimum is worth a gamble even if you end up cutting him. Having said that, it does feel like #2 is playing some role here. And while I’m not against the right pitching heavy Cease trade, I hope it’s because we are getting legit stud arms and not settling for prospects with MOR ceilings.

I think this one of two things: Stassi is more of a wild card than many of us think and they won’t to rely on him heading into the season Dylan Cease is going to be traded for young, major league ready arms and there is no bandwidth for a developing game caller

Hopefully there is more activity this week than we’d otherwise expect. Boras in particular might have to make up for lost time with his pitchers. Unfortunately Getz will probably wait until after the Rose Bowl to get back into the swing of things.

Oh 100%. And guys are starting to get older. Joey Ortiz turns 26 in July! They don’t have to move him for Cease, but if Westburg is the guy they have pegged for 2B then trade Ortiz for something that can help you win now and use other guys as infield depth.

I’ve been discussing a potential Cease trade at Orioles Hangout for some time now. I think most over there, including Frobby, want to trade for a high-end starter and have the appetite from a prospect cost standpoint. There are a few posters there that truly overvalue their prospects through and one or two of them are very active posters, so it does skew the perception a bit. Ultimately this all comes down to Elias though. Beyond just Cease, I truly believe it’s critical they add another TOR type starter. Pitching is so volatile and the rotation thins out quickly after Bradish & Rodriguez. And while they did win 101 games last year, they greatly outproduced their run expectancy and that could be hard to replicate without Bautista. No doubt their younger guys could get better and offset that headwind, but I wouldn’t sit around passively if I were Elias and assume I’m guaranteed a playoff spot. If you aren’t adding to what you have, you are more likely getting worse. We saw that first hand here when Hahn continually refused to augment the core with actual impact talent.

@Kyyle23 - Not sure who best to go to on this, but I was over at Orioles Hangout earlier today and a couple posters mentioned trying to join Soxtalk but being unsuccessful. Anything special they need to do to join that I can share with them?