Chicago White Sox

I don’t anticipate Montgomery & McLain being at Low A very long…agree it’s just about allowing them to get their feet wet in a low stress environment before early season promotions to High A.

Oh f***!

Sorry, I just meant that 26 man roster is static during spring training and doesnt reflect any of the NRI’s likely to make it.

Is this thread title actually based on reality or a random White Sox page that isn’t updated in real time?

To be fair, he’s replaced a ton of the pro scouts over the course of the season last year. He also rebuilt our Analytics department. IMO, it’s just too early to evaluate him on player acquisition at this time. As I said before, the trades last offseason are trending in the wrong direction, but we got to see if the structural investments pay off moving forward or if Getz is just bad at evaluating talent.

It’s way too fucking early to grade Getz, but gun to head I’d give him a C. Too many posters are scoring based on his previous role and 2024 on-field results, but it’s the behind the scenes stuff that really matters. Unfortunately, it will take some time before we can confirm if those changes will right the ship, but at least we know he’s making structural investments and bringing in outside voices in hopes of bringing us out of the Stone Age. Also, the additions of Venable & McKinvin to the coaching staff are super exciting to me and a good sign that Getz has some sort of vision (or is able to sell people on one at least). On the roster side of things, the results have been mixed. I don’t get as worked up as others on the scrap heap signings. They serve a purpose if they aren’t blocking a major league ready prospect and so far Getz has had some hits & misses, but that should be expected when shopping in the bargain bin. The one obvious exception being Maldonado, who was a dumb signing from the get go. The only meaningful FA he signed in Fedde was an absolute home run. His pick up of Smith in the Rule 5 is looking super promising and he has done a decent job of grabbing talent off the waiver wire even if there haven’t been any huge hits yet. In a constrained environment, he done an ok job here. Unfortunately, his trades are trending the wrong way. Fletcher & DeLoach look like busts. Thorpe & Berrora are both injured. Zavala & Iriarte both regressed. S. Wilson demoted and unclaimed. The Vargas deal will look light until we see some actual production out of him. Not much left to be excited about with the Bummer trade. The Crochet trade looks good on paper, so we got to hope that Getz is getting better with experience and/or has better pro scouts in place to support his decision-making. Let’s definitely cross fingers there.

Wow, hopefully Baldwin is the primary SS then. As big of a Meidroth fan I am and how little I value spring training results, it’s really hard to say he forced the issue. And in a losing season, you might as well manipulate that service time.

I do agree with that…but I just think we should hold him responsible for his new job responsibilities as GM until Ishbia comes aboard and brings in his own guy.

Because he didn’t he create those messes as GM? Why I am penalizing his performance as GM because of his performance of his last role? It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

How much of the self destruction is on Getz vs. Grifol though? We don’t know if Getz was pushing to fire Grifol earlier in the season and Jerry simply told him no. Not sure what else Getz could have done? He tried picking up vets off the scrap heap to help out after the slow start and once the injuries started piling up but those opportunities were always going to be limited. And again, this isn’t giving him a free pass. He certainly contributed to building a historically bad team, but I’m not sure what another GM would have done substantially different last year with all the constraints with Jerry as owner.

Well that’s true, but that’s also a different debate than the one I having 😁

Show me where I said he was blameless. I have ripped him for shreds for all sorts of stuff. I just think more of the blame for our on-field results last year fall on Jerry, KW, & Hahn. And I don’t think the results would have been radically different with another GM if they had the same constraints Chris had.

I really don’t understand what you are getting at here. I have never once defended Getz’s track record as the head of our player development, but what does that have to do with his performance as our GM last year? In his previous role, he wasn’t in charge of resource allocation for the org. We have no idea what technology upgrades he was proposing to KW & Rick that were ultimately rejected. We do know that he’s made considerable investments in this area as GM this year. Whether those eventually change the trajectory of our player development function remains to be seen, but it was never going to be a flip a switch and suddenly everything is fixed. They still have to take the data from the physical technology and pair it with their new R&D function to create the actual insights that will drive player development. Hopefully we start seeing some real progress in this area next year and if not then flame away.

How was he supposed to overcome the lack of talent on the major league roster and in the upper minors in one offseason with no resources. He went out and added Fletcher & DeLoach, two guys you were excited about, to help address our OF depth. Are those misses on him or the Pro Scouting staff he gutted over the course of the season? That’s a perfect example of why it’s so hard to judge Getz at this point in time. So far, he’s had to rely on people he’s actively looking to replace to help guide his decision making. Hopefully that’s no longer the case and it will be much easier to assess Chris moving forward. What are the other landmines are you referring to?

He was part of the previous regime, but he also wasn’t the top decision maker. We as fans have no way to discern what his contributions were to the broader organization. We can obviously look at his resume as the head of our player development staff, say “this track record sucks”, and not have hired him. I 100% would have never given him this opportunity. But once he was named GM, his performance is not tied to his past roles, but rather what he’s doing as the top decision maker starting in 2024. If you guys can’t acknowledge that point, there isn’t really much to debate here.

Lol…I can’t even believe this an actual debate. Every single GM candidate would have assumed the same lack of talent level in the organization. It would have created a headwind that none of them could have overcomes if you evaluate performance strictly on a W-L basis. Why there is a lack of talent to start with is completely irrelevant to how the performed as the GM of the Chicago White in 2024. You clearly aren’t capable of separating Getz’s performance as Director of Player Development from his performance as GM. They are 100% two completely different things and must be evaluated separately.

I mean, I just outlined this team had 8 to 10 games of bad luck and also had their core five positional players underperform by 10 wins (with the depth in place unable to provide even replacement level production). I know we all want one person or thing to blame for everything, but I can’t blame Getz entirely for that. As I said, being historical bad requires a lack of talent and bad luck, and he inherited a ton of landmines when he took over that no GM could overcome. That doesn’t mean Getz did a good job (he failed in a lot of ways), but losing 121 games is more a reflection of Jerry and the previous regime than Chris IMO.

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.