Michael A. Taylor Signed

[bmags]

Here is my silver lining take: I like that the Sox appear to want to use this tool to improve bat speed. Ideally, we can see if they were successful. If so, did it come at cost of anything else? If not successful, do they drop mentioning it at all or keep going?

Problem with upgrades under Hahn was they seemed run by idiots who appeared to want to be modern but without any plan on what it was supposed to do.

These tools, like anything, aren’t the solution in and of themselves.

[Tony]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

Here is my silver lining take: I like that the Sox appear to want to use this tool to improve bat speed. Ideally, we can see if they were successful. If so, did it come at cost of anything else? If not successful, do they drop mentioning it at all or keep going?

Problem with upgrades under Hahn was they seemed run by idiots who appeared to want to be modern but without any plan on what it was supposed to do.

These tools, like anything, aren’t the solution in and of themselves.

I didn’t read the article as it was behind a paywall and I’m not giving any money, even a few dollars towards anything related to the Sox…but did the article get into the actual budget? Because you mention something important. 
 

The Sox may be operating with the same budget for “resources” but Getz simply invested that budget to other areas. Put more money into tech, but the scouting budget was gutted, as an example. Not saying 1. That’s the case or 2. The investment Getz is making isn’t the smart move, but I’d like to understand the picture better, because all these quotes came directly from the Sox, and you can say “We invested in ABC..” but not mention it came at the cost of XYZ. 

[caulfield12]

58 minutes ago, Tony said:

I didn’t read the article as it was behind a paywall and I’m not giving any money, even a few dollars towards anything related to the Sox…but did the article get into the actual budget? Because you mention something important. 
 

The Sox may be operating with the same budget for “resources” but Getz simply invested that budget to other areas. Put more money into tech, but the scouting budget was gutted, as an example. Not saying 1. That’s the case or 2. The investment Getz is making isn’t the smart move, but I’d like to understand the picture better, because all these quotes came directly from the Sox, and you can say “We invested in ABC..” but not mention it came at the cost of XYZ. 

This.

The Padres have recently invested in something like 5-6 additional players for less than $10 million, including Pivetta on this year's payroll.

One was a KBO signing over half of baseball was tracking.

If Getz had waited until the last couple of weeks before spring training both offseasons...he wouldn't have had to waste nearly so much money that could have been invested into scouting or "Sox infrastructure" building out.

You're not going to get a Rodon or Profar for pennies every year...but the smarter/more competitive teams are just better with these $1-3 million signing than the Sox on the margins.

Edited February 19 by caulfield12

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

On 2/17/2025 at 4:50 PM, Snopek said:

Three things are true:

1) They are introducing new ideas to an organization that has notoriously been stubborn and behind the times. This is objectively a good thing.

2) Unless it yields tangible positive results, it’s just another organizational failure.

3) Time needs to pass before any of us know how this all shakes out.

 

That’s all there is to it. Why is this even an argument?

For some reason misinformed, ignorant fans who don't watch or read enough about the ongoing changes in many articles and podcasts now require that we prove it to them that these things have happened because they are having a hard time finding it on Google without us actually knowing how they are wording their search.Maybe it's just a difficult thing to word properly. You can find all the new hires pretty easily and probably find White Sox and Trajeckt Machine ( if I even spelled it right) in a few articles. Plenty of articles about the new academy in the DR. We did get one of the Dodgers Int'l.signings when the Dodgers spent on Sasaki instead.

Saw some tweets in ultra slomo so I reckon we got at least one of them thar contraptions.

I hope this helps those less fortunate.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

On 2/18/2025 at 5:10 PM, caulfield12 said:

This.

The Padres have recently invested in something like 5-6 additional players for less than $10 million, including Pivetta on this year's payroll.

One was a KBO signing over half of baseball was tracking.

If Getz had waited until the last couple of weeks before spring training both offseasons...he wouldn't have had to waste nearly so much money that could have been invested into scouting or "Sox infrastructure" building out.

You're not going to get a Rodon or Profar for pennies every year...but the smarter/more competitive teams are just better with these $1-3 million signing than the Sox on the margins.

That last paragraph is pure opinion posing as fact. How do you plan on proving it? Rodon might have been the best $3M ever spent on a scrap heap purchase  and the Sox did it. You torpedoed your own lie.

[Snopek]

12 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

For some reason misinformed, ignorant fans who don't watch or read enough about the ongoing changes in many articles and podcasts now require that we prove it to them that these things have happened because they are having a hard time finding it on Google without us actually knowing how they are wording their search.Maybe it's just a difficult thing to word properly. You can find all the new hires pretty easily and probably find White Sox and Trajeckt Machine ( if I even spelled it right) in a few articles. Plenty of articles about the new academy in the DR. We did get one of the Dodgers Int'l.signings when the Dodgers spent on Sasaki instead.

Saw some tweets in ultra slomo so I reckon we got at least one of them thar contraptions.

I hope this helps those less fortunate.

While there are a few that seem to doubt that changes are even taking place, I think the majority are just skeptical as to whether the changes will yield anything positive which, yeah, that's what we're all waiting to see.

[caulfield12]

26 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

That last paragraph is pure opinion posing as fact. How do you plan on proving it? Rodon might have been the best $3M ever spent on a scrap heap purchase  and the Sox did it. You torpedoed your own lie.

And how often have they successfully done that?

With multiple players from one cycle that weren't already on their own team to start with?

It can't be something that happens by freak occurence every five to ten years.

And what did they get back when they lost Rodon?  A future favor from Boras lol?

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

33 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

And how often have they successfully done that?

With multiple players from one cycle that weren't already on their own team to start with?

It can't be something that happens by freak occurence every five to ten years.

And what did they get back when they lost Rodon?  A future favor from Boras lol?

How often does any team do it ? You're the one who said others teams are better at picking shiny garbage than the Sox. The burden of proof is on the one making that claim.

Edited February 21 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[caulfield12]

8 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

How often does any team do it ? You're the one who said others teams are better at picking shiny garbage than the Sox. The burden of proof is on the one making that claim.

Fine, Profar, Solano, David (not Wandy) Peralta, Estrada and Martin Perez were all signed very cheaply last year or were claimed on waivers for SD and were quite effective.

Matsui was more expensive, but part of that was about pursuing Sasaki as a FA.

They made one mistake on a Korean reliever.

 

This year, they've signed another combination of players (including Pivetta's 2025 salary) that will cost them well under $10 million combined.  Heyward, Connor Joe, their KBO LHP, Pivetta (obviously there's cost/risk on the backside), Gavin Sheets, Yuli Gurriel.

We'll see if Preller can pull a rabbit out of a hat two consecutive years.  Probably will end up with JD Martinez if the price comes down low enough, Mark Canha, someone like that...Rizzo, etc.

(2023, it didn't work nearly as well with guys like Matt Carpenter and Nelson Cruz, who was cooked by then.)

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

51 minutes ago, Snopek said:

While there are a few that seem to doubt that changes are even taking place, I think the majority are just skeptical as to whether the changes will yield anything positive which, yeah, that's what we're all waiting to see.

As I've said before, just because Hahn and Kenny talked up certain things that failed or never happened and the whole front office seemed contemptuous to one another does not mean Getz doesn't deserve his shot to do it better .

The proof is always in the pudding but it'll take years to know especially with JR running interference with the budget.

People here are just ashamed of themselves for trusting JR all these years when there always should have been a healthy amount of skepticism.

Thinking someone is giving a good effort does not mean anyone should trust a successful outcome due to that effort. It's going to take a lot of different people making a lot of right decisions.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

8 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Fine, Profar, Solano, David (not Wandy) Peralta, Estrada and Martin Perez were all signed very cheaply last year or were claimed on waivers for SD and were quite effective.

Matsui was more expensive, but part of that was about pursuing Sasaki as a FA.

They made one mistake on a Korean reliever.

 

This year, they've signed another combination of players (including Pivetta's 2025 salary) that will cost them well under $10 million combined.  Heyward, Connor Joe, their KBO LHP, Pivetta (obviously there's cost/risk on the backside), Gavin Sheets, Yuli Gurriel.

We'll see if Preller can pull a rabbit out of a hat two consecutive years.  Probably will end up with JD Martinez if the price comes down low enough, Mark Canha, someone like that...Rizzo, etc.

(2023, it didn't work nearly as well with guys like Matt Carpenter and Nelson Cruz, who was cooked by then.)

You said $1-3M. I didn't see you list every team who signed players to those amounts for any number of years during the off seasons. Basically it's a task you can't accomplish without quite a few hrs of research. Most in that pay range turn out to be as they were thought to be. Mostly it's luck or whenever a team has a shortage due to circumstances. Or just bad team doing it more often.

[caulfield12]

36 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

You said $1-3M. I didn't see you list every team who signed players to those amounts for any number of years during the off seasons. Basically it's a task you can't accomplish without quite a few hrs of research. Most in that pay range turn out to be as they were thought to be. Mostly it's luck or whenever a team has a shortage due to circumstances. Or just bad team doing it more often.

With SD...it's clearly a team overextended financially due to an abundance of $100+ million contracts attempting to fill in roster spots 16-25 with the cheapest players possible to make the number crunchers satisfied.