Dominikk85

I think Atlanta mostly wanted to make roster space with that trade. Atlanta gets several roster spots and a reliever and the sox can hope for soroka bouncing back and maybe shuster and shewmake becoming decent depth options for utility infielder/6th starter.

I think that was a great trade for both sides. Lynn collapsed this year but he was good the first year and solid the second year, can't expect much more from a 35 yo. Dunning isn't really great but a nice depth guy for the rangers who really need any pitching depth they can get.

Especially since abreu doesn't have the batspeed anymore to turn around 95+. Really all he can do at this point is shooting the fastball the other way or turning on a hanging breaking ball. I would throw him fastballs at the inner half all day (unless I threw less than 91 or so). I feel Texas got a little lucky in both games and escaped some jams. The rangers offense apart from that one first inning hasn't been all that good but Houston failed to capitalize on opportunities. I wouldn't write Houston off at all, the longer the series goes the more the rangers lack of pitching will show up. On the other hand of course that Texas offense is capable of putting on double digit runs if they break out and if it happens in one of the next 2 games Houston will be im trouble. At this point the odds are probably like 65-35 in favor of Texas but there is a chance for the astros. The other series I feel is over, I wouldn't give Arizona more than like a 5-10% chance to turn this around. Really Philly is better at everything except for defense and maybe baserunning, Philly has better hitting, better SP and better RP.

I think a big issue has been command of the pitching. White Sox starters are 5th in the AL in stuff+ but only 12th in location+ (stat created by eno Sarris). White Sox pitchers also lead the majors in pitches thrown either in the heart of the zone or way outside the zone (statcast attack zones "heart" and "waste". Stuff is good, "just throw strikes and pitch to contact" doesn't work anymore, especially with the shift ban (see cardinals) but I think the sox starters push it a bit too far regarding bad command.

I don't think getz is bad and he does know baseball but I'm sceptical that he has the power to really bring a lot of change. Change is not easy to create from people who are promoted from within because they have relationships with the people in the org and change sometimes does hurt. That's why companies who want big change bring in people from outside, it's not that they don't have smart people from within but a person from the outside often has a different perspective and is not so involved in the little politics and cliques within a company so they can bring change easier. BTW I'm not totally ruling out Getz can bring change, there have been long tenured people kinda breaking out when "unleashed" and surprise everyone with big change when everyone thought they would just continue but that does not happen super often.

Do you think that this was what got Williams and Hahn fired? Obviously is was a bad season but reinsdorf had endured bad seasons before without firing people? I wonder if that leak which kinda embarrassed the organisation by portraying it as a "no culture, everyone does what he wants" org was the final straw that lead to the firing. JR might be the type of guy who would have gladly helped covering that up and sweeping it under the rug acting like nothing happened but when it came out it really embarrassed his org which might be more important to Jerry than actually having a functional org.

They could hire a new manager. Maybe something in between a rookie and a geriatric is available:)

I think it is good that it came out. Doesn't help for this season of course but the season is lost anyway and this means that the sox leadership will be forced to do something about it instead of ignoring it. Maybe it means they can have a fresh start next year with less anarchy in the clubhouse.

BTW I think burger also is a good get for the marlins. The marlins took an effort to improve their contact rate and they did going from 5th highest in 2022 to 10th lowest in 2023 but they are still one of the worst slugging teams (only Cleveland is worse) so getting some power could help them, especially if they somehow speak into a wild card they could easily beat a top team in a 3 game series if soler and burger hit some timely bombs and the pitching does well too (especially if Alcantara bounce back).

I still do like the trade. Burger has tremendous power and if he is hot he can produce a lot but he is still defensively limited and has a very bad k to bb rate. It is a great story that burger has this kind of season after all those injuries but in the end he still "only" is a low OBP corner masher, those guys aren't super valuable even though they of course can have some 1.000+ ops weeks with 3 Homers and carry a team for a week because he has that much power. one week he can slug .800 and the next week go 1 for 20 with 8 Ks. As for the return Eder is risky, especially since he still isn't the same after TJ (although he did show some flashes) but he still has a very good upside. Control is a bit of an issue though, now it is important that sox pitching development doesn't mess him up (I know that is a big if).

Marlins too. With the As they actually had been decent until their owner decided to actively get bad so he can force a move to Vegas. In the 10 years from 2012 to 2021 the were above 500 7 times and over 90 5 times. They didn't win it all but they were a respectable franchise until their owner decided it was time to blow it up completely.

Batting gloves don't really project the hand apart from preventing scratches and skin tears. To project the hands you need to wrap them tightly with some kind of tape and then put them in padded gloves.

I think he did a good job. Ob course it was an ideal sellers market with so few teams selling but he still did a pretty good job, especially the Burger and the giolito trade. I feel selling trades are a strong point of Hahn, he did pretty well in the first rebuild too (unfortunately player dev, free agent signings, some injury bad luck and a Lack of good buying trades hurt the outcome).

The fangraphs board has a farm System ranking based on dollar value. https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/farm-system-rankings?sortcol=2&sortdir=desc I think it is based on this chart here https://blogs.fangraphs.com/an-update-to-prospect-valuation/ It has the sox 13th currently. That is not great but a big improvement considering they were like bottom 5 at the start of the year.

I like the deal. Burger has serious power and has a good season but a 4 to 1 k to bb rate probably means regression is coming. Burger is a great story that he came back at all after all the injuries but getting a top100 pitching prospect even with Still some command issues is a great return for that.

Some pretty big trades already happened. For example Rangers get Max scherzer and like 30 mil and trade away top 100 prospect luisangel acuna (ronald's brother). Rangers also get jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton from the cards. Guardians trade away pitcher Aaron civale and get top 100 prospect kyle manzardo who really raked last year but played a bit disappointing this year so far.

Player development has been an issue for them though, especially on the pitching side but also hitting. They won't mess up Crews but after him many of their guys took a step back and they haven't developed a home grown above average starter in years. They really need both gray and gore reaching their ceiling and staying healthy.

Interesting that the consensus best player Crews didn't go 1-1. Apparently boras who is his agent tried to move him down to the two spot to get him to the nationals. Might end up a smart move driving his bonus money up, will be interesting to see how much more he gets than skenes and if he maybe even gets over slot. Apart from that I think the rangers got quite lucky. Not only they "lotteried" up from 7 to 4 but they also got langford where many said he is the second best player in the draft. As they also develop hitting really well they might have a monster offense in a year but pitching remains an issue. Pirates definitely take a risk with a pitcher at one but on the other hand they do need pitching and they are never going to sign such a pitcher in free agency-that is if skenes works out and doesn't get injured.

Yes. Obviously some of the good guys have underperformed but the biggest issue has been that they don't have depth and have to bring up negative war players if someone gets hurt.

I think that is a trade that really could make sense and help the sox the next 4-5 years. Foscue is a second and third Baseman in the rangers org. He is a below average defender but offensively he has everything the sox are lacking at 2b, he walks a lot, doesn't strike out much and has power. Also he is pretty blocked in Texas who have semien, Jung and seager locked in for the next couple years. Foscue is a 2020 first round pick and at 24 he is mlb ready, his line in AAA so far is 277/405/488 with 8 homers, a 14% walk rate and an 11% K rate. As I said the defense is below average but he could give the sox a high OBP slugger for the next 5-6 years. I would give the rangers giolito plus a reliever for him unless the sox are really back in the race at the Deadline (which still could happen).

The Athletic is a great project but I have always thought that they must be losing money due to their huge staff of high profile writers. I think they were hoping they could drive up subscriptions enough to essentially monopolize the market and it paying off but maybe it wasn't quite working and the NYT needs to save money to make it work.

I do think that he probably should have owned more of his own responsibility but I do think that conflicting messages are a big problem too. That's not just the sox but also many other teams. For example a cardinals pitcher reported the same issue. The cardinals are generally not a bad player dev team but they kinda like the same "safe" type of player, i.e hitters with good strikeout to walk ratios and pitchers who throw strikes, avoid walks and pitch to contact. However the latter doesn't work as well anymore so the player had the issue that some coaches would teach him the old "cardinals way" while other more modern coaches would tell him, "no, Go for the swing and miss". I guess that is the same issue with the sox, some old school coaches and some more modern data driven guys and then players getting pulled in all kind of directions. Reports from the rays and dodgers are that they got a plan for you and speak with the same voice from rookie ball all the way to the majors. That can be bad too if it is outdated stuff (like telling a pitcher to establish the fastball down early in the count and only throw offspeed with 2 strikes) but it certainly makes it easier on the players. Not an easy thing to establish though, with dozens of coaches and levels and likely will lead to pushback but long term it probably is best.

Carson fulmer implied that white sox player development Ruined him

BTW I don't think the team is that bad. If anyone is healthy the could still compete for the division next year but the margin for error is very small due to the lack of depth, I.e when anyone is healthy and performing this still is a dangerous team and I also think TA will bounce back. But the lack of depth in combination with injury prone players is an issue. The opposite of that are the rays, they are also injured a lot but they can bring up a 1-2 war player for any roster spot while the sox have to bring up some -1 war guy if somebody gets hurt. Regarding Jerry not spending on player development: more and more owners get that investing a few millions in technology and coaches is a good investment but still many owners very much hate to spend money on stuff other than the roster. That is because an investment in player dev won't pay off until 4-5 years in the future (a new system usually takes 1-2 years before it is really running and helping the players and everyone is buying in) and also it is hard to quantify how much it actually helps. It still is smart to spend in player dev but Jerry probably doesn't want to do such an "experiment" anymore in his age especially since it also would mean to alienate some of the long tenured coaches and scouts that are in the org. Maybe in the post Jerry Era that will change, some of the younger businessmen are more into analytics and stuff like this.

I also felt the front office was not aggressive enough in trades. I can understand that Hahn wanted to keep the minor league depth but he kept many prospects until they basically had no value at all. Guys like Adolpho, basabe, Rutherford and before them Hansen, Fulmer or Collins all at one point where solidly ranked prospects and Hahn could have gotten back something for them even if it was only some relievers, a rental corner OF or a backend starter. But Hahn kept them until they were DFA material and most of them are out of baseball or close to it. I felt Hahn should have been more aggressive with those B level prospects. I think Hahn got too gun shy here and was too risk averse. Preller and dombrowski got hammered for raiding their farms and they did but so far most of the guys they traded away turned into nothing (except for the sale trade:))