Timmy U

Imagine pitching Soroka AND Civale in a playoff game. They are this close to a position player pitching.

Don’t forget that his fastball tops out over 100.

I think 5% chance if he just destroys the Fall League. Otherwise, I think he gets half a season in the minors at least. I actually don’t think any of their top prospects are gonna make the team out of Spring. Schultz, Smith, and McDougal will probably get AAA time. Montgomery and Antonacci may start in AA. Oppor and Bonemer are unlikely to make the majors this year. Carlson and Fauske will be in A ball. Everybody else is either a utility ceiling, a project, or a reliever. So, guys who have a shot at making the team are lower ranked guys like Franklin, Pallette, and Shane Murphy, IMHO.

Actually, the Sox have something more powerful than TWTW: TWTS. The will to suck.

Shortstops can generally move to other positions, look at Jackson Merrill. If Carlson works out, Bonemer is going to move, and I bet he could handle an OF position, possibly even center. As far as the new Top 100, all 5 Sox sport a 55 FV, so there’s no clear cut number 1. Personally, I have Bonemer > B. Montgomery just cuz there’s more upside there. I also have McDougal and Oppor in essentially the same tier as the Top 5 guys. Would not be surprised to see one or both of them sneak onto top 100s soon. After the top 9 guys, though, I think the system falls off a cliff. They really need to do better in LatAm to get depth.

I don't know if that's fair, especially for pitchers. I mean, Oppor and McDougal are both 5th rounders and they should be fringe Top 100 guys right now just based on stuff. The good news is that, like McDougal, even with TJS they have a lot of time to develop Larson. I would be surprised if he saw full season ball next year, but he doesn't turn 21 until 2027.

Happy for Crochet. I always believed he should be starting. I wonder who is going to end up paying Smith, Smith, Schultz, McDougal, and Oppor.

I am surprised Wise wasn’t canned cuz the bullpen has been historically bad for the last two years.

Jose Valentin

Nice to see the Sox are gonna carry over actual legitimate major leaguers into next year. Smith, Teel, Vargas, Montgomery, Meidroth, Sosa, Baldwin, Quero, Taylor, Vasil, Leasure all seem like legit players. That’s a lot better than where they were at last year.

And I would argue KW was in charge from 2000-2023 so he had a huge hand in not just the smoking wreckage but also a putrid record of drafting and developing talent. In 23 years, what are the successes? Abreu, Sale, Crochet. Then a few guys acquired in trade like Eaton which lead to Giolito. Otherwise, high draft picks were mostly bad and occasionally horrible. Getz might suck, but please don’t pretend that KW was even average let alone plus when it came to talent acquisition.

Counterpoint: Kenny Williams took over a team that already had Ordonez, Thomas, Konerko, Carlos Lee with Joe Crede on the way. That’s a Hall of Famer, two franchise players, an All Star and an above average regular. Getz inherited the smoking wreckage of a failed rebuild in Anderson, Moncada, Jimenez, and Robert. Kind of a big difference.

One last crazy stat: Sox used a franchise record 63 players in 2024, then 62 in 2025. By my calculations, due to injuries and churn only 19 guys appeared in both years. That means Sox fans watched 106 different players play for the team in the last 2 years.

I was wrong. It’s 62. Also forgot Palisch. Number of pitchers is not crazy, but 33 hitters is insane.

Made my first foray into naming everyone who played for the Sox this year. I think it’s 61 and I got 48 just off the top of my head and a few more came to me after banging my head against a nearby wall. Tough ones for me were Jankowski, Greg Jones, Gage Workman, Justin Dunn, Elvis Peguero, and surprisingly Nastrini. Sox went through 28 pitchers and an amazing 33 position players. That statistic alone tells you they sucked.

I hope Venable studies his bullpen usage from this season and learns to do better. I realize Getz didn’t give him any talent, but he still pulls some real head scratchers. Especially how he has deployed Vasil.

Why does Wilson pitch when they have the lead and Vasil pitches when they’re trailing? It should be the other way around. I certainly hope we have seen the last of Wilson in a Sox uniform.

Eisert, Alexander, Gilbert, Booser, Ellard… are any of those guys in the majors next year?

Nice to see the Astros struggle. Tigers and AL Central really came back to Earth this year. Imagine these teams records if they didn’t get to hammer the Sox. Cleveland is like 20 games over .500 against bad teams. I suspect their postseason will be brief.

I think half the threads on the board eventually fit this description.

Is Dylan Crews any good? I think the jury is very much out on him. He has been pretty bad so far. Next year will be huge for him. Also, who knows about Willits? He may be the next Bobby Witt Jr. He may be the next first round bust. Gotta give that time. To the main point of the thread: Yeah, probably. The Sox are trying to be a low payroll team without extra draft picks that somehow puts together a winning team. The sport is loaded with perennial losers who do that like the Pirates and Marlins. The Sox are in danger of falling into that bucket. Kinda early to tell since the complete implosion of their entire roster is so recent. Branch Rickey would be losing 110 games a year with what was left after that. Personally, I don’t put too much stock in farm system rankings since outcomes are uncertain. Cleveland’s farm system didn’t get much credit for Jose Ramirez, but he turned into a borderline Hall of Famer. The Cardinals were given a lot of publicity for Jordan Walker, and that has not worked out. The Sox have like 9 guys who are pretty highly touted. If half of them work out, they will be competitive. If someone exceeds their perceived ceiling, maybe they’ll be good. The whole thing is a crapshoot.

Name one lefty in the bullpen the Sox should not immediately release at the end of the season. Maybe Ellard?

I think the Sox have a bunch of guys all around the 55 FV tier, but for my money, Bonemer is currently their Top Prospect.

His season is not 100% over as he is headed to the AFL.

Hagen 1-2-3 in the first with 2K. 11 pitches, 9 for strikes. I hope he keeps it up.