Chicago White Sox

Oh f*** yeah…add some bulk to Chase and he’s Jose Ramirez

Fegan has a great article over at Sox Machine that talks through our big four pitching prospects with Brian Bannister. I’d highly recommend everyone give it a read. If you do, also check the comments as Fegan has some nuggets on Sean Burke that talk through how adding a sinker last year caused his slider to go backwards.

Feels like Thorpe will be moving to the 60 day DL at some point. He’s going to be at least three weeks behind Bush’s rehab and Ky just got moved to the 60 DL.

Losing weight is good news if his leg injuries have been affecting his defense. His glove is a far bigger problem than his bat right now. None of this probably makes a difference, but for spring training fluff I’ll take it over the alternative doing nothing different.

I saw that but wasn’t sure if he just meant the minors rather Charlotte

Sox beat reporters don’t ask tough questions

Both nuggets promising news.

I assume that Schultz, Sandlin, Cannon, & Davitt are locks for the AAA rotation to start the season (assuming Burke & Fedde grab the last two spots with Sox). After that, there are a lot of possibilities. I could see Smith and McDougal starting the season at either AAA or AA. Candidly, I don’t see a lot of value in rushing our top pitching prospects to Charlotte. Just feels like AAA is far less important for pitchers in general and Charlotte specifically is very tough obviously. I think McDougal probably deserves to be in AAA and maybe even Smith after his AFL stint, but I could see the Sox protecting them a bit and letting the lower tier prospects like Schweitzer, Murphy, & Riley get the first crack at the remaining starts in AAA.

I agree with you. It shouldn’t automatically be swept under the rug as a verbal miscue. And if it was and it happened four times, it makes you question why he was so desperate to hype up Acuna’s “versatility” (which might be even worse).

KW was ripped apart for Barry/Berry, he was ripped apart for the Durham/Adkins trade, and I believe even his comments on Nestor Molina after the Sergio Santos trade. I can understand an executive not knowing all the details on a throw-in, but it’s a very bad look to not the handedness of the centerpiece of a trade you just made and a guy who will be one of 26 players on your OD roster. Like every single person on here knew Acuna was RH just from casual rosterbating. It’s a bit more important when you are actually in charge of building a major league roster.

You can have the opinion it’s no big deal, but calling it a “verbal slip” seems like quite the stretch. I heard just one of the interviews live and had to do a double take because I was so confused by what he said. After hearing it all four times, I think the default assumption should be he actually thought Acuna was a switch hitter. Maybe that isn’t the case and he was just on auto pilot trying to hype up a player he recently acquired in a trade some view as a salary dump, but candidly that feels very unlikely. Regardless, I think this should be viewed as a red flag at minimum and I personally have lost a slight amount of faith in Getz.

He’d be crazy to address it. There is no good reason for being confused on this four times and trying to walk it back will come off even more ridiculous. If it were me, I’d avoid the media for a couple of days and bank on the Sox beat writers other than Fegan lacking any backbone.

I’d assume that “payroll flexibility” at this point means we have a few million in the budget for in-season additions (think Houser signing last year). Honestly, I think the roster is mostly locked in other than working through the zero option guys (Sosa vs. Mead | keep Lee or 2 catchers) and possibly adding another arm to the LH bullpen mix. IMO, Benintendi is here to stay until someone comes out and demands his playing time. Braden could be that guy later this year if Andrew’s defense remains a complete drag on his overall value.

?

Really embarrassing look for Getz.

Yes, which is why he cost $600k over the league minimum. This is a cheap roll of the dice that buys your young arms some time if needed.

Unfortunately, the only reporter worth a damn is Fegan and unsure if he’s even there when these comments were made.

I caught that in his interview and figured he must have confused him with Baldwin or something. Does he keep saying it? Seems like you should probably know the handedness of a player you just acquired.

Feels like he won’t be going on the 60 DL which is fantastic news. Will be interesting to see where Thorpe is at.

Candidly speaking, I can’t keep up with all your spin. What five players were league average hitters and when into their career? How do these data points conflict with what I literally just laid out in a simple to understand fashion? And development doesn’t end in the minors, which is sort of a massive point I’m making by listing off a bunch of rookies who produced in year 1 (and who got better as the season progressed). This current group of bats is far less talented than the previous one, but performed relatively the same (or technically better) in year 1. That latter point is a factual, math-based conclusion that can’t really be debated. And for the millionth time, I never commented on where this rebuild stands vs. the previous one. The previous had far more talent. Again, if you weren’t being a total snowflake about all things Chris Getz, you’d acknowledge the reason it failed is the elite guys never consistently reached their ceilings (before breaking down) and the next tier of hitters failed to develop at all with us. This revisionist theory that our player development function wasn’t absolute garbage under Hahn is some of the most insane s%*# I have seen in my years on this site.

Good lord man. Again, my posts have been entirely on hitting development and here you go rambling off about WAR and pitching. It’s amazing how clearly I could lay out a point about how wrong you were about the speed at which the big four hitters from the previous group developed and you just completely ignore it and keep trying to move the goalposts. This is just comical at this point.

JFC pal…now you are just making up talking points I never said. My quote was “Hahn couldn’t develop a prospect to save his life” and was a general statement implying we sucked at hitting development during his tenure. I’m not sure what there is to debate there…you have said as much during multiple rants against the org over the years and is a widely accepted truth. And that doesn’t literally mean zero prospects became useful major league hitters, but using the trio of Moncada/Eloy/Luis who were truly elite prospects when acquired and did not require much development isn’t the feather in the cap you think it is (especially when they all eventually crashed & burned out). Now, Tim Anderson is probably the best single example of a player development win under Hahn, but as I showed in my post above that actually took much longer you tried to let on. I also have no idea where this “the current group is better or more promising than previous group” claim came from. I never once said that and please show me the receipts of me saying anything like that. Now, I did factually prove that these four rookies in this group put up a higher aggregate wRC+ than your four guys in their first seasons with the Sox despite lesser pedigrees . That doesn’t mean I think they will end up better players or they are even more promising than your group. It just means they came up and were more productive right out the gate, even more so when you account for talent levels. And again, when you add in Vargas & Sosa who made big strides last year, there is a higher volume of young guys who can actually hit. The previous rebuild literally failed because no one beyond the four you mentioned could supplement the core despite big draft capital invested into Collins, Burger, Sheet, Vaughn, & Madrigal. It’s just wild to me how people get this triggered over the slightest compliment to Getz. I am no homer and have said time & time again that the jury is still out on Getz and he may end up being a bad GM. At the same time, it’s already apparent that he is a massive upgrade over Hahn because of investments he’s made to the infrastructure and bringing a bunch of outside voices. That’s a low bar to climb, but not necessarily an easy one when you inherited a completely incompetent org from top to bottom from your predecessor.

You just listed three consensus top 5 to 10 prospects that were all legit 60+ FV type guys (plus a 55 FV guy in Anderson). Beyond moving the goalposts by citing WAR when we are talking exclusively about hitting development, you are also taking a multiyear view to help your narrative in certain cases. That being said, let’s break this down objectively on a like for like basis so we can all see what reality is. Rebuild #1: Jimenez: Yr 1 = 115 wRC+ (504 PA) | Yr 2 = 138 wRC+ (226 PA) Moncada: Yr 1 = 105 wRC+ (231 PA) | 97 wRC+ (650 PA) Robert: Yr 1 = 99 wRC+ (227 PA) | Yr = 155 wRC+ (296 PA) Anderson: Yr 1 = 98 wRC+ (431 PA) | Yr 2 = 79 (606 PA) Weighted Avg: Yr 1 = 105 wRC+ | Yr 2 = 106 wRC+ Rebuild #2: Montgomery: Yr 1 = 129 wRC+ (284 PA) Teel: Yr 1 = 125 wRC+ (297 PA) Quero: Yr 1 = 95 wRC+ (403 PA) Baldwin: Yr 1 = 92 wRC+ (328 PA) Vargas: Yr 2 = 101 wRC+ (569 PA) Sosa: Yr 2 = 100 wRC+ (544 PA) Weighted Avg: Yr 1 = 108 wRC+ | Yr 2 = 101 wRC+ So right off the back, Montgomery & Teel were more productive in their rookie seasons than any of the four guys mentioned from the previous rebuild. The only one of the big four you named who was well above average was a highly advanced all bat prospect and even he wasn’t as good as Colson or Teel. Meanwhile, Robert & Anderson weren’t really that much better than Quero or Baldwin. Overall, the four rookies in my group provided a higher wRC+ than the four guys in your group during their first seasons despite being much less regarded prospects overall. When it came to year 2, Jimenez & Robert both performed extremely well in SSS’s that completely exceeded their career results thereafter (Jimenez 107 wRC+ and Robert 104 wRC+). Meanwhile, Moncada floundered a bit in year 2 and fell below league average while Tim experienced a significant drop off. This idea that both were awesome out of the gate is inherently false. As a comparison, Vargas & Sosa were better hitters last year than Yoan & Timmy were in their second seasons. So yeah, I stand by my comment. A group of lesser prospects (and more of them) hit just as good or better than the guys you referenced. Obviously we will need to see what happens in year for Colson, Teel, etc, but right now my statement is valid and your depiction of the truth is far from reality. As is becoming far too common, your lazy drive by posts are not holding up when scrutinized. I truly miss the old Look at Ray Ray Run who put time & energy into his posts and would normally win these type of debates. Alas that person appears to be long gone.

Would they have all failed under? No way to know. But I think it’s fair to assume a lot more of them would have failed with the lack of useful analytics data throughout the org, little to no access to important modern player development equipment, and support from a terrible pro scouting group under Hahn.

What is it that you are arguing here? Like pick a specific point I’ve made and tell me where you disagree.