Nardiwashere

"The Bigger Unit" Didn't he get in trouble because he left a game early? Or am I confusing him with someone else. I remember him falling on the steps of the dugout in his debut and Hawk saying stuff like, "Big Jon's gonna be all right" when he'd give up runs.

I pretty much agree with everything you said. If we trade Robert, it does make it more difficult (obviously, depending on who we get). That's why I don't really think we should trade him yet. Saying reaching .500 in 2027 is completely reasonable. My problem is with the posters who act like it another 5-7 years away or impossible entirely. What they aren't acknowledging is that there is a wave of players that are coming up in the next 18 months. They are mostly on the pitching side but we have a couple bats coming up as well. Additionally, we will probably have some position player prospects arriving via trade at the deadline. We'll need to play them next year and a half. A lot will fail but some will succeed. I'm guessing after the trade deadline and this draft, we will have a top ten farm system with a majority of the better players in the higher levels. I don't think anyone in this thread has made any outlandish predictions regarding the hit rates for prospects. In fact, I said I would keep Crochet and sign a mid rotation type FA pitcher so we would need less of the pitching prospects to hit and I was called mocked, called a goofball, and told that the team would never be able to sign a FA pitcher that fit in the middle of a rotation. That's nonsense. Every team should be able to acquire players like that... I'm wasn't claiming they could sign Juan Soto. If the front office fails to identify the right players or if they don't convert on their targets, they should be criticized when that happens. Crying about Rick Hahn's failures in 2018-2022 in a conversation about 2025-2027 is just pouting.

Yes! Thank you!

So you agree with the other posters that the Chicago White Sox are incapable of signing a middle of the rotation pitcher in the next 2 years? How are rotations filled across the league? Does everyone have five $35 million dollar a year players?

Thanks for clarifying. It makes complete sense now. We need to get you hired in the front office so you can give a seminar to these clowns on the the importance of fielding a complete roster.

I think I have a pretty good idea which SoxTalk members spend a lot of time writing negative yelp reviews in their spare time.

THEY LITERALLY SIGNED A GUY WHO FITS THIS DESCRIPTION IN DECEMBER. But maybe you are all right. T R U brought up a fantastic point when he argued that if they make no trades, sign no players, promote no prospects, decline all options, fail to re-sign anyone, and do not field a full roster, they will continue to be bad. I never thought of it like that.

Nope. Been a fan for a while and I've seen them do it many times. Not sure why you are pretending a mundane occurrence is some unattainable feat.

They just signed one this past offseason. How low are your expectations?

I agree. I don't trade Crochet unless someone makes a crazy offer. So let's say you have Crochet and another FA SP in the middle of the rotation. I feel ok that they can get 3-4 guys out of the dozen guys in the minors and any other signings or trades that haven't happened yet. If you keep Robert, turn 2 position players from the minors into regulars, find 1 or 2 position players this deadline, you're looking at two offseasons to find another 3-4 guys. Maybe I'm nuts, but those numbers don't seem outlandish to me. Will the team have a shot at the world series? Probably not. But I'll be able to come home from work in the summer and put a baseball game on that doesn't feel like someone kicking me in the balls instead of a stupid netflix documentary about a tiktok cult.

This is a team that is 1 game above .500 right now. If it takes until 2030 to build an offense as good as this, you're all right about Getz.

Why are we assuming they make no trades, promotions, or free agent signings over a two year period? All you did was list out guys on a historically bad team and typed "no one" in bold letters in a bunch of places.

Yup. He was bad at being a GM.

In the fantasy land scenario where you have Luis Robert and 4 regulars making the minimum, I think we can find 4 other guys in free agency or via trade over the course of 2 years.

Narrowly edging out the Pluto Athletics in exciting fashion.

Luckily for Aly, according to her timeline, when the Sox are approaching .500 again, there will be no need to log on to fangraphs. She will be able to simply look up any stat projected from alien overload, Xeno-5587, into the government mandated chip all humans get transplanted in our brains after the war of 3052 AD.

Yeah that's the type of stuff I'm referencing. This is a dumb question but wouldn't that flaw be exposed in AA too? I always figured AA has hard throwers and AAA has guys like Touki Toussaint mixed in with guys from AA on their way to the MLB.

I didn't think you were... Didn't mean to imply that. I have noticed other posts being a little more negative about him in the last couple of weeks and your comment made me think of it.

That's awesome. How many pitchers are above Schultz? Feels like a portion of Soxtalk has almost written off Montgomery. I don't hear anything negative about him anywhere else. @Sleepy Harold@Y2Jimmy0, is it just the echo chamber here or are there serious concerns about him?

Playing the hits today! Now we've reached the part of the discussion where you claim they dumped a bunch of minor leaguers but can't come up with any names except for a guy who just got suspended a year for gambling and 4 more 28 year olds. I love this one. Are you taking requests? I haven't heard "He should play more kids instead of the vet placeholders even though I sometimes claim they are rushing prospects". That's a favorite of mine.

Lol, this is the problem. You argue he is the exact same as Hahn. I point to evidence showing that he is different and the response is "but we suck." On one hand you claim it will take 8 years to reach .500 and then in another post, you b**** that Getz didn't turn a horrible 100 loss team with big problems into a good team in a few months. I don't know if he's going to be any good. He's done some good things and some bad things. But to say we need to trade Crochet for 17 year olds because we'll never be good again is silly.

Sure I can. They turned over about half the roster in one offseason, which was the highest percentage in the majors this year https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-teams-with-most-roster-turnover-in-2024 The guy publicly said "I don't like our team" at the winter meetings. There's plenty of evidence he's different. He hired new people like Bannister and Barfield and Watson and Janish. Your argument is just a variation of "We were bad last year and we are still bad, therefore, its all the same."

He had to cut salary and took over a horseshit team. Him signing Martin Maldonado for a 1 year deal means nothing. You act like his core philosophy is signing lower tier FAs. He was a body. You and a couple others here keep saying prospects are being rushed. There is currently a logjam in the minors on the pitching side because he isn't rushing a guy like Thorpe. Who has been rushed? Ramos came up for a little bit and Fletcher has been up and down twice. Everyone is saying they are trying to keep the AA team together as long as possible. I don't see anyone being rushed. Who is currently on the team that should be in the minors? I don't understand your last point... he dumped bad players? Great.

Are you real young? He took over a shitty team with no payroll flexibility and now he has a slightly shittier team with payroll flexibility on the horizon. He didn't take any big swings due to the circumstance. If Samuel Zavala being bad for a couple months (while Thorpe and Iriarte look awesome, btw) is the biggest miss of the offseason, I'm cool with that.

I don't think anyone knows yet. He has been in the job for less than a year and spent the first part of his tenure just cleaning the roster out. He acquired placeholders in a lost season when he obviously needed to shed some salary and everyone knew they were just waiting for Moncada, Eloy, etc. to come off the books Guys like Dejong, Lopez, Maldanado, Pham, Julks, Mendick... Dejong has been fine for what he is. Pham looks fine. Lopez is what Lopez is. This group doesn't tell me anything about his ability to acquire position players. What position prospects has he acquired? Fletcher and DeLoach? Jury is still out on Fletcher. DeLoach was one of 3 pieces in a trade for an injured bullpen arm. Don't think anyone ever had high hopes for him. I think its reasonable to give the guy this offseason to see what he does and who he picks up.