Getz is operating differently and that's at least interesting

[bmags]

Everyone knows the time to judge a new front office is a few months into its first offseason before you let real results influence the true reality - how it feels.

But nonetheless, as someone extremely skeptical this will work, I have to at least remark that it does feel a lot different. 

First - I think I can say somewhat accurately that this board would have said the worst thing Getz could have done is act like they were still just a, say, RFer away and tried to patch it up. This offseason was painful, because this upcoming season is horrifying, but at least it appears to not be putting off future pain. I'd need an ethicist to tell me if it's better to take more pain in the short term or have more time to adjust future pain.

Second - The trades do feel different. I would say in general Hahn got more leeway than deserved because my strong opinion is he sought out trades that got him prospects with higher "prospect handbook" grades specifically to get him a better set of reviews. The hype around the trades continued to meet an underwhelming reality, because often these rankings are outdated, and we were buying guys starting to fall off. He was like buying a car literally after it rolled off the lot for the full sale price, but still showing the sticker on the windshield to us.

Posters can check me (I encourage it), but I really can't pin trades that hahn did similar to what Getz has done this offseason. He has gone for volume of some bounce back candidates/dfa candidates, and players whose age/grades seem to have undervalued them. Or...accurately valued them. But it certainly has felt like the sox own grades on these players were what drove the acquisitions. Were they right? I have no idea, but it feels like what is happening.

Third - For seemingly his entire tenure, when Hahn is facing free agent position players in his "budget", he has opted for marginally more offensive upside over competency in literally every other area. If you saw a guy that had hit 95 wRC+ over the last 3 years who was slow and horrible defensively, and one who hit 90 wRC+ over the last 3 years and was good/great defensively, Hahn took the first guy 100% of the time.

Fourth - Hahn's analytics seemed to always boil down to "this one weird trick will fix all woes". It seemed like they were way, way too focused on contact rate and cutting down Ks after 2019, even if it was a guy with low walk rates or horrendous power, and it came with a bunch of players with horrible zone contact who just chased every pitch for a nubber. For pitching, K-rate became everything. 

Some of this made sense. When your defense is horrid, getting guys that just don't allow contact made sense. But then also loving sinker-relievers in front of horrid defense made no sense ever.

Fifth - he hired from the outside, albeit from the royals exclusively (jk). And even where he did not firesale his PD staff, I have to pay attention when Keith Law says this:
"They did extremely well in last summer’s trade binge, they’ve hit on a couple of recent high drafts, and we’ve seen guys develop in that system to a degree that we hadn’t seen in some time." SO - maybe there were was headway.

Now, what I'm not saying is different will equal success. You can make a lot of different versions of bad. But as a concern that he was promoted from within, he certainly has some different ideas.

But obviously, he needs to show he can find well-rounded, elite talent from the draft, from intl, from trades, from everywhere. 

Different though! Go Paul DeJong!

[Bob Sacamano]

6 minutes ago, bmags said:

Everyone knows the time to judge a new front office is a few months into its first offseason before you let real results influence the true reality - how it feels.

But nonetheless, as someone extremely skeptical this will work, I have to at least remark that it does feel a lot different. 

First - I think I can say somewhat accurately that this board would have said the worst thing Getz could have done is act like they were still just a, say, RFer away and tried to patch it up. This offseason was painful, because this upcoming season is horrifying, but at least it appears to not be putting off future pain. I'd need an ethicist to tell me if it's better to take more pain in the short term or have more time to adjust future pain.

Second - The trades do feel different. I would say in general Hahn got more leeway than deserved because my strong opinion is he sought out trades that got him prospects with higher "prospect handbook" grades specifically to get him a better set of reviews. The hype around the trades continued to meet an underwhelming reality, because often these rankings are outdated, and we were buying guys starting to fall off. He was like buying a car literally after it rolled off the lot for the full sale price, but still showing the sticker on the windshield to us.

Posters can check me (I encourage it), but I really can't pin trades that hahn did similar to what Getz has done this offseason. He has gone for volume of some bounce back candidates/dfa candidates, and players whose age/grades seem to have undervalued them. Or...accurately valued them. But it certainly has felt like the sox own grades on these players were what drove the acquisitions. Were they right? I have no idea, but it feels like what is happening.

Third - For seemingly his entire tenure, when Hahn is facing free agent position players in his "budget", he has opted for marginally more offensive upside over competency in literally every other area. If you saw a guy that had hit 95 wRC+ over the last 3 years who was slow and horrible defensively, and one who hit 90 wRC+ over the last 3 years and was good/great defensively, Hahn took the first guy 100% of the time.

Fourth - Hahn's analytics seemed to always boil down to "this one weird trick will fix all woes". It seemed like they were way, way too focused on contact rate and cutting down Ks after 2019, even if it was a guy with low walk rates or horrendous power, and it came with a bunch of players with horrible zone contact who just chased every pitch for a nubber. For pitching, K-rate became everything. 

Some of this made sense. When your defense is horrid, getting guys that just don't allow contact made sense. But then also loving sinker-relievers in front of horrid defense made no sense ever.

Fifth - he hired from the outside, albeit from the royals exclusively (jk). And even where he did not firesale his PD staff, I have to pay attention when Keith Law says this:
"They did extremely well in last summer’s trade binge, they’ve hit on a couple of recent high drafts, and we’ve seen guys develop in that system to a degree that we hadn’t seen in some time." SO - maybe there were was headway.

Now, what I'm not saying is different will equal success. You can make a lot of different versions of bad. But as a concern that he was promoted from within, he certainly has some different ideas.

But obviously, he needs to show he can find well-rounded, elite talent from the draft, from intl, from trades, from everywhere. 

Different though! Go Paul DeJong!

The abnormally tall Paul DeJong!

[South Side Hit Men]

Getz needs a 3-4 + years for a full assessment, including 1-2 + years with legitimate budget flexibility. A lot of the initial takes blaming his FA signings didn't have take into account the full extent of payroll cutting, believing net cuts would likely be $20M-$30M, not $50M-$60M.

The bleeding won't stop until the Sox can stabilize attendance, because it impacts their discretionary spending more than most teams in a Top 10 market. Getz purged embarrassing players and staff, and using a shotgun approach to get 3-4 hits with your dozen low cost FA shells made sense. 

Beyond continuing to improve organizational development and acquisition mentioned in your post and elsewhere, the key to whether this has a chance is whether Getz can put together a well rounded 26/40 man roster by 2026/2027. I believe Getz is capable if he continues to be patient and make savvy trades. Getz has displayed a lot more patience with FAs and trades than Hahn, who seemed to get trades or signings finalized ASAP, without being patient enough to avoid bad contracts.

Hahn struck out on most big moves, while winning a decent number of smaller type trades and signings. He was among the worst ever at roster construction. Getz has only had the opportunity at GM smallball. Hopefully he can improve Sox fortunes on the bigger moves over the next few seasons, with Cease and the draft being the opportunity to shine in 2024.

[Quin]

37 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

The abnormally tall Paul DeJong!

Paul DeLong

[Bob Sacamano]

4 minutes ago, Quin said:

Paul DeLong

Or....Tall DeJong

[Quin]

1 minute ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Or....Tall DeJong

Signing Tall DeLong is All DeWrong

[soulfly]

Rick Hahn was really really really really bad at his job.

[Tnetennba]

I can't say anything in your premise is flawed or wrong, it just feels a bit premature. 

[bmags]

Not the only person clearly who had internalized him as a very tall impressive man

[T R U]

This organization was left in such disarray that I cant really blame Getz for having to do quantity deals to try and at least get some competent baseball players into this system. The MLB team severely under-performed and the cupboard was bare in the minors.

The real eye test to me is going to be what he does with Dylan Cease. That's the first real value chip he has to play. I understand what he is doing with what he has to work with today, I care more about what its going to look like when the Hahn stench is rinsed off and now its Getz team.

[soulfly]

We've all seen Moneyball.  But are you all ready for Getzyball????  I am. 

[chitownsportsfan]

Yea I've gotten the same vibe. Good summary. It's fairly obvious that Getz' team building tactics are very different than Hahn's. Getz puts much more importance on the edges of the roster and looks to create value in building that depth on the squad at every level. A lot of the moves he's made so far are stuff that were if we ever do hit on some superstars again, winning with them will be much more sustainable as the 2 WAR 2B or RF or C will be somewhere around, and won't require an overpay in FA necessarily.

I've said it a few times, so far so good with his strategy. Importantly he took one look at this roster and said "rebuild". Hahn would have sold JR on "retool".

[Highland]

It appears that Getz does not want to rush young players to the big leagues. And I hope he prefers to have real outfielders play in the outfield. Another losing season is ahead but maybe it won't be as bad. Of course, anything would be an improvement over 2023. The 101 losses does not even begin to describe that nightmare.

[Stinky Stanky]

Methinks the honeymoon is still going on, from these posts. It does seem different.

I’ll argue with you all about Sheets. If he was a legit LH power bat, which he isn’t, his fielding has improved to where he’d be adequate. Says I anyhoo. 

[Chisoxfn]

2 hours ago, Stinky Stanky said:

Methinks the honeymoon is still going on, from these posts. It does seem different.

I’ll argue with you all about Sheets. If he was a legit LH power bat, which he isn’t, his fielding has improved to where he’d be adequate. Says I anyhoo. 

The problem is he is a shitty hitter and a less shitty fielder than he was but he still is really really bad out there. s%*# defense - s%*# bat and by the way it isn’t like he has a minor league track record that says he can crush the ball…which to me is the only reason you would play someone who is that bad in the outfield. 
 

Sheets has to be, on volume, the absolute worse player in baseball the past few years to get the amount of shots he has gotten. 
 

I get someone stinking like him getting a long leash if they were a top 50 prospect etc but he was none of those things and has sucked for forever. 

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, Stinky Stanky said:

Methinks the honeymoon is still going on, from these posts. It does seem different.

I’ll argue with you all about Sheets. If he was a legit LH power bat, which he isn’t, his fielding has improved to where he’d be adequate. Says I anyhoo. 

But is he part of their next playoff team?

Does he have any remaining trade value?

Compare to the number of at-bats Joe Borchard received with the White Sox as a Top 5-10 overall prospect in the game...

Edited February 13 by caulfield12

[CWSpalehoseCWS]

8 hours ago, soulfly said:

Rick Hahn was really really really really bad at his job.

I think this definitely becomes more and more apparent each day. Idk if Getz is going to be deemed “good” when it’s all said and done but the guy sticks to his guns and convictions and at least has a vision for what the team should be.

[Quin]

16 minutes ago, CWSpalehoseCWS said:

I think this definitely becomes more and more apparent each day. Idk if Getz is going to be deemed “good” when it’s all said and done but the guy sticks to his guns and convictions and at least has a vision for what the team should be.

It hasn't even been one offseason, but if his vision for the team is "all defense, no offense," then we are in for a rough Getz tenure.

Kenny was all about catching lightning in a bottle, getting his guy, and using the farm to supplement the MLB roster. Honestly, if they had expanded playoffs during Kenny's tenure, this might have worked.

Rick was all about trying to build a star offensive-focused core with power pitchers in the rotation, locking them up to team friendly deals, and supplement them with an expensive bullpen (where he could conceivably outbid teams) and other players he traded for (but he got starstruck by prospect rankings / could not develop). 

Getz, well, we know his hands are tied with the budget. But the Mena deal feels like a KW "use the farm to supplement the MLB roster" move where they sacrifice youth for an immediate fix. He talks about trying to make the team attractive for pitchers— with his 1-year signings of mediocre vets who are good defensively, but are aging.

There's also a part of me that feels insane because JR waxed poetic about Getz "teaching" players in the minors to field baseballs. But for some reason that hasn't been the case at all during Getz's tenure, so if he's going to be like KW and Rick Hahn where he relies on going outside of the system — like Mena for Fletcher — to build his vision, then that's a problem.

I've also been extreme blunt that I'm judging Getz on a curve because his hiring process was a joke.

[GreenSox]

Just a few thoughts on Maggs/ intriguing post.

No Getz didn't use serious to push the misery down the road, but he did do a patch job:  the entire Bummer trade return are patches (aren't they?); then DeJong, the catchers, Nicky Lopez.  I have no complaints:  complete scorched-earth isn't the answer either.  
 These bounce-backers are more interesting than the Hahn versions.  Hopefully that means more successful as well.  Now Hahn's absolute worst moves were trading for veterans at their peak value.  Getz hasn't made any of those moves; and doing so now would be wasting resources.  
As for prospect lists, the only trades that Hahn got heralded prospects in return were the trades of Eaton, Quentin, Sale, Peavy, Robertson/Frazier/Kahnle and perhaps a couple last summer.  Getz, to date, hasn't traded anyone at the  level of those players; nor has he received any heralded prospects.   And, really, can we really fault Hahn for the returns in those trades?  They weren't all A+s, and only real failure (R/F/K).  And none of the heralded prosects that we got were complete wipeouts.  

Getz' recent trades are more along the lines of Reed for Davidson and Santiago for Eaton.  Hahn went 1/2 in those deals, but the winner was a big winner.  

I like Law; long my favorite prospect ranker.  Getz was his White Sox source when Hahn was GM, fwiw.   Anyway, last summer's trades were consummated by Hahn.  The drafts were Hahn.  But Law's comments on improved player development is nice to hear going forward. 

Bottom line is that Hahn was clueless as to how to build a team.  Hopefully, Getz can build a team.

Edited February 13 by GreenSox

[soulfly]

34 minutes ago, Quin said:

It hasn't even been one offseason, but if his vision for the team is "all defense, no offense," then we are in for a rough Getz tenure.

 

I'll take all defense over whatever last year was.  If these guys can play solid defense and fundamentally sound baseball, it'll be 8000% more enjoyable than what we've seen recently.  Because clearly prioritizing guys who couldn't play defense worked so well during the Hahn years.

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, GreenSox said:

Just a few thoughts on Maggs/ intriguing post.

No Getz didn't use serious to push the misery down the road, but he did do a patch job:  the entire Bummer trade return are patches (aren't they?); then DeJong, the catchers, Nicky Lopez.  I have no complaints:  complete scorched-earth isn't the answer either.  
 These bounce-backers are more interesting than the Hahn versions.  Hopefully that means more successful as well.  Now Hahn's absolute worst moves were trading for veterans at their peak value.  Getz hasn't made any of those moves; and doing so now would be wasting resources.  
As for prospect lists, the only trades that Hahn got heralded prospects in return were the trades of Eaton, Quentin, Sale, Peavy, Robertson/Frazier/Kahnle and perhaps a couple last summer.  Getz, to date, hasn't traded anyone at the  level of those players; nor has he received any heralded prospects.   And, really, can we really fault Hahn for the returns in those trades?  They weren't all A+s, and only real failure (R/F/K).  And none of the heralded prosects that we got were complete wipeouts.  

Getz' recent trades are more along the lines of Reed for Davidson and Santiago for Eaton.  Hahn went 1/2 in those deals, but the winner was a big winner.  

I like Law; long my favorite prospect ranker.  Getz was his White Sox source when Hahn was GM, fwiw.   Anyway, last summer's trades were consummated by Hahn.  The drafts were Hahn.  But Law's comments on improved player development is nice to hear going forward. 

Bottom line is that Hahn was clueless as to how to build a team.  Hopefully, Getz can build a team.

We still don’t know exactly why JR chose to go with KW on the Burger trade…or what we were going to receive in Hahn’s reported Tim Anderson deal.  Maybe Reinsdorf still thought he was salvageable from a marketing/PR standpoint at that exact moment in time. 

That’s going to remain a mystery for years to come unless Eder somehow blows up and becomes a stud.

[Stinky Stanky]

Burger may have been the last straw. 

[GreenSox]

9 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

We still don’t know exactly why JR chose to go with KW on the Burger trade…or what we were going to receive in Hahn’s reported Tim Anderson deal.  Maybe Reinsdorf still thought he was salvageable from a marketing/PR standpoint at that exact moment in time. 

That’s going to remain a mystery for years to come unless Eder somehow blows up and becomes a stud.

I just got the feeling that the Burger trade (KW doing it sort of behind Hahn's back) just was "the last straw" for Reinsdorf and cemented in his mind that the front office dysfunction was irredeemable. 

Burger was such a strange player to trade (good attitude, lots of control).  I doubt the trade ever really haunts us (in the Semien/Tatis sense) but if it does, at least the culprit is gone.   And we got a young pitcher in return, so good things could still happen.

Edit:  I just read Law's report on the Sox' top 20, and he said that the Eder (#6) trade was a "buy low" opportunity.

Edited February 13 by GreenSox

[LittleHurtCG]

19 hours ago, soulfly said:

Rick Hahn was really really really really bad at his job.

Hahn and company never should have been allowed to do the first tank job. They were simply not capable of pulling off a total teardown and rebuild. They saw the success of the Cubs and Astros rebuilds and somehow convinced JR they could do the same. Only problem is they did not have the infrastucture nor anywhere close to the baseball smarts of those other organizations. 

Getz is also a major reason why the Sox are in such a bad place. Hiring him to reshape this organization seems like a pipedream. 

[caulfield12]

14 minutes ago, LittleHurtCG said:

Hahn and company never should have been allowed to do the first tank job. They were simply not capable of pulling off a total teardown and rebuild. They saw the success of the Cubs and Astros rebuilds and somehow convinced JR they could do the same. Only problem is they did not have the infrastucture nor anywhere close to the baseball smarts of those other organizations. 

Getz is also a major reason why the Sox are in such a bad place. Hiring him to reshape this organization seems like a pipedream. 

You left out the Royals, who had a two year run before they had to start tearing everything apart.

That was certainly not sustainable success because they had to move on from everyone but Gordon (who famously almost went to the Sox for $72 million, which would have been a disaster) and Sal Perez.

Hosmer and Moustakas got too expensive, Cain same thing (old and expensive), Shields/Cueto/Zobrist moved on, Yordano Ventura died and then the bullpen quickly got too old and expensive as well (Davis, Holland, Herrera).

 

But here’s why their run ended, at least 50% of it…Michael Paul Montgomery (born July 1, 1989) is an American professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the first round of the 2008 MLB draft, and made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut with the Seattle Mariners in 2015. The Mariners traded him to the Chicago Cubs in 2016. Montgomery recorded the final out in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, earning the save and sealing the Cubs' first World Series title since 1908.

2010	Christian Colon '15	Shortstop	California State University, Fullerton (Fullerton, California)	4	[54]
2011	Bubba Starling	Outfielder	Gardner Edgerton High School (Gardner, Kansas)	5	[55]
2012	Kyle Zimmer	Right-handed pitcher	University of San Francisco (San Francisco, California)	5	[56]
2013	Hunter Dozier	Shortstop	Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, Texas)	8	[57]
2013	Sean Manaea	Left-handed pitcher	Indiana State University (Terre Haute, Indiana)	34§[o]	[57]
2014	Brandon Finnegan	Left-handed pitcher	Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, TX)	17	[58]
2014	Foster Griffin	Left-handed pitcher	The First Academy (Orlando, Florida)	28§	[58]
2014	Chase Vallot	catcher	St. Thomas More High School (Lafayette, Louisiana)	40§	[58]
2015	Ashe Russell	Right-handed pitcher	Cathedral High School (Indianapolis, Indiana)	21	[59]
2015	Nolan Watson	Right-handed pitcher	Lawrence North High School (Indianapolis, Indiana)	33§	[59]
2016	no first-round pick[o]				N/A

Edited February 13 by caulfield12