1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Alexei Abreu Robert Tatis is still better than most intl. directors have done…but the last five a wasteland, Y.Cespedes, Norge Vera, “Yogurt” Sanchez, forgetting a couple.

When they were forgoing the 16 year olds for the Cubans, it made sense sort of.

7 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

When they were forgoing the 16 year olds for the Cubans, it made sense sort of.

Yeah, now they have to turn to the Pacific Rim.

Sugano would be a good no risk add as swing man with surprising Colorado stats...much less costly to acquire than Senzatela. Just take over contract.

Probably on track for 1.65-1.75 million attendance if not a bit more if they can stay near failing distance of first and also securely in WC race.

Edited yesterday at 02:06 AM1 day by caulfield12

25 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

There's nothing left, but other teams are trading prospects for the chance to spend... Makes sense to me.

Teams are just over-committed on pool usage. Need to acquire the right to spend more money to actually pay for already agreed upon players.

International signings be damned

Seems like a dude you could have got for straight cash anyway.

I don't know why the Sox need to help out Cleveland.

Perhaps use that money to get our hands on a comp pic (obviously we'd have to throw a decent prospect into the mix too).

2 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

I don't know why the Sox need to help out Cleveland.

Perhaps use that money to get our hands on a comp pic (obviously we'd have to throw a decent prospect into the mix too).

Good point. This guy is probably just filler trash. Why are we helping Cleveland get more international pool money? They are already way better than us at scouting and developing. Don't help them out.

3 hours ago, ron883 said:

Good point. This guy is probably just filler trash. Why are we helping Cleveland get more international pool money? They are already way better than us at scouting and developing. Don't help them out.

Yep, that’s what makes it worse. You are potentially assisting the future of your biggest division rival for a guy we hope doesn’t get called up.

Charlotte needs some OF bats. His advanced metrics in AAA actually aren't all that bad either.

This is a smart move. Unlike Hahn, Getz has prioritized depth in the upper minors and it’s paid off in spades with Tristan Peters. Jones was a top two prospect for the Guardians over a three year stretch and put up a 3.8 fWAR season back in 2023. Back issues have derailed his career as of late, but he appears to he healthy now. He is a strong side platoon, three true outcome type, but provides us with a competent offensive profile in the event we lose a corner OF or 1B.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer we had spent our bonus pool dollars on actual International prospects, but in lieu of that, it was wise to cash in something we couldn’t use at this point and help fortify the major league team.

1 hour ago, Chicago White Sox said:

This is a smart move. Unlike Hahn, Getz has prioritized depth in the upper minors and it’s paid off in spades with Tristan Peters. Jones was a top two prospect for the Guardians over a three year stretch and put up a 3.8 fWAR season back in 2023. Back issues have derailed his career as of late, but he appears to he healthy now. He is a strong side platoon, three true outcome type, but provides us with a competent offensive profile in the event we lose a corner OF or 1B.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer we had spent our bonus pool dollars on actual International prospects, but in lieu of that, it was wise to cash in something we couldn’t use at this point and help fortify the major league team.

I'm not sure the point your trying to make with Peters. Everyone knew Peters could defend and run the bases, none of that was a secret. He just couldn't hit.

This year he has an xwOBA of .293 (in the 18th percentile), but just as is the case every year in baseball, some players have some really nice batted ball luck. His xwoba is 55 points lower that his actual, which is near the biggest gap in baseball. I'll add, since this has been a hot topic of late, that I judge the player based on the actual outcomes (as Machado was speaking too) because that's fair and outcomes are what drive results. I judge management based on expected results, because those are what we're projecting and are better indicators of future performance.

Jones' one good year came in Colorado too. I actually used to like Nolan a good bit, but at 28 his defense and baserunning has degraded more and Cleveland's offense is a good bit worse than the Sox and they had no use or interest in using him. While the Hill move seemed like good process, this one seems less like good process.

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by Look at Ray Ray Run

40 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I'm not sure the point your trying to make with Peters. Everyone knew Peters could defend and run the bases, none of that was a secret. He just couldn't hit.

This year he has an xwOBA of .293 (in the 18th percentile), but just as is the case every year in baseball, some players have some really nice batted ball luck. His xwoba is 55 points lower that his actual, which is near the biggest gap in baseball. I'll add, since this has been a hot topic of late, that I judge the player based on the actual outcomes (as Machado was speaking too) because that's fair and outcomes are what drive results. I judge management based on expected results, because those are what we're projecting and are better indicators of future performance.

Jones' one good year came in Colorado too. I actually used to like Nolan a good bit, but at 28 his defense and baserunning has degraded more and Cleveland's offense is a good bit worse than the Sox and they had no use or interest in using him. While the Hill move seemed like good process, this one seems less like good process.

My point is pretty simple. Under Hahn, we routinely had zero depth in the upper minors. As such, when core players went down with injuries, we had no one to fill and even provide replacement level production. Getting negative value out of a position while trying to compete is a big fucking problem. This offseason, Getz went out and added depth where could. Tristan Peters was added to serve as insurance in the OF while Tanner Murray was added to serve IF as insurance. Both were viewed as AAAA types and came dirt cheap, but offered some floor and the ability to cover a variety of spots.

Sure enough, one of our main CF options in Brooks Baldwin went down in camp and was ruled out for the season. This opened up a slot on the Opening Day roster for Peters and he’s run away with it. As has been discussed in numerous threads, his offense is going to regress some, but when his defense is this good he’s still a positive value player. For comparison, Evan Carter & Jacob Young have provided similar defensive value and have wOBAs of .286 & .299, which has resulted in fWARs of 0.9 and 1.3 in CF respectively. If we assume just the midpoint of that for Peters, he’s a 2.5 win player even as a strict platoon guy.

One last thing, but your claim “that his speed & defense wasn’t a secret” is simply not true. He never once had the reputation of eventually being a 98th percentile range OF and top 5 to 10 defensive CF in the majors. If he did, he would not have gone for cash considerations and only started a 1/4 of his minor league games in CF. And this isn’t a guy who “couldn’t hit”. He was literally known as tweener OF with a plus hit tool and good eye, but questionable power. He had multiple seasons with above league average offensive production, including his final season in AAA. Your description is filled with revisionist thoughts and doesn’t actually align to reality.

5 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

My point is pretty simple. Under Hahn, we routinely had zero depth in the upper minors. As such, when core players went down with injuries, we had no one to fill and even provide replacement level production. Getting negative value out of a position while trying to compete is a big fucking problem. This offseason, Getz went out and added depth where could. Tristan Peters was added to serve as insurance in the OF while Tanner Murray was added to serve IF as insurance. Both were viewed as AAAA types and came dirt cheap, but offered some floor and the ability to cover a variety of spots.

Sure enough, one of our main CF options in Brooks Baldwin went down in camp and was ruled out for the season. This opened up a slot on the Opening Day roster for Peters and he’s run away with it. As has been discussed in numerous threads, his offense is going to regress some, but when his defense is this good he’s still a positive value player. For comparison, Evan Carter & Jacob Young have provided similar defensive value and have wOBAs of .286 & .299, which has resulted in fWARs of 0.9 and 1.3 in CF respectively. If we assume just the midpoint of that for Peters, he’s a 2.5 win player even as a strict platoon guy.

One last thing, but your claim “that his speed & defense wasn’t a secret” is simply not true. He never once had the reputation of eventually being a 98th percentile range OF and top 5 to 10 defensive CF in the majors. If he did, he would not have gone for cash considerations and only started a 1/4 of his minor league games in CF. And this isn’t a guy who “couldn’t hit”. He was literally known as tweener OF with a plus hit tool and good eye, but questionable power. He had multiple seasons with above league average offensive production, including his final season in AAA. Your description is filled with revisionist thoughts and doesn’t actually align to reality.

Peters wasn't upper minors depth (the Sox had basically no certified big league outfielders coming into the year), and he has supplied no more value on a rate basis than Adam Engel in 2021. Difference was Engel played much less. Again, we have this weird way of rewriting history. The 2021 team got 2.1 WAR from Leury Garcia and positive production from Engel as depth pieces.

Also, you're drawing far too many conclusions from 60 games of defensive metrics. Peters had a 50-55 grade with defense and his legs and he's played well, and like a 55 defender in CF. 55 defenders have stretches of great defensive production. Defensive metrics are volatile and move around quite a bit in samples as small as Peters.

Lastly, a 295 wOBA would have placed Peters 135 of 145 qualified hitters in baseball last year. Michael Harris had a wOBA of .289 last year and he is as good of a defender and baserunner (I'd argue better), and he had 1.4 fWAR over 160 games. A .295 wOBA is not in fact consistently playable, and guys typically aren't allowed to put up such production while maintaining consistent playing time. Saying that Peters offense is going to "regress" is putting it very lightly. Of 208 hitters with 180+ AB's in 2026, Tristan Peters has 2nd biggest variance between xwOBA and wOBA... and by A LOT. His difference .055, and the 3rd ranked player variance is .049. Sometimes you throw s%*# against the wall and you get lucky. Also, his field and speed have ALWAYS out ranked his offensive grades so not sure I agree with you at all on the questionable defender formidable offensive player narrative.

Peters is not a 2.5 WAR starter in the MLB on a consistent basis. He has had a nice stretch where things have gone his way and that's great and he deserves credit for it, but it by no means signifies that he is a league average starter. People simply don't let guys with that offensive production start for long duration's of time in the big league.

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Look at Ray Ray Run

This "depth is so much better than the last team" narrative isn't true either. The Sox certainly have more PROSPECTS waiting in the wings on the position player side, but this team doesn't have more depth... The Sox have 9 players who have played and generated negative value for them on offense this year. In 2021, the Sox had 6 guys with negative value for the year and two of those guys (Eaton and Vaughn) were and are obviously viable big league starters. Vaughn has become one in Milwaukee and Eaton obviously was one. Additionally, the 2021 team had ONE pitcher produce negative WAR and it was -.1 while this team has already had 7 pitchers generate negative WAR

In total, the 2021 team with "no depth" had 7 guys on their roster not put up positive WAR. So far this team has 16 of those guys.

Can we please stop rewriting history?

1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

This "depth is so much better than the last team" narrative isn't true either. The Sox certainly have more PROSPECTS waiting in the wings on the position player side, but this team doesn't have more depth... The Sox have 9 players who have played and generated negative value for them on offense this year. In 2021, the Sox had 6 guys with negative value for the year and two of those guys (Eaton and Vaughn) were and are obviously viable big league starters. Vaughn has become one in Milwaukee and Eaton obviously was one. Additionally, the 2021 team had ONE pitcher produce negative WAR and it was -.1 while this team has already had 7 pitchers generate negative WAR

In total, the 2021 team with "no depth" had 7 guys on their roster not put up positive WAR. So far this team has 16 of those guys.

Can we please stop rewriting history?

As usual Ray, you continue to cherry pick stats to sell your arguments. How many injuries did the 2021 Sox have vs. this team? How many of the guys who were negative contributors were the planned starters and not guys called up to replace them? All this context matters…I too can make up narratives by cherry picking which figures to use and what info to ignore.

I really miss old Ray who was thoughtful & detailed in his analysis, this new version who just lazily rushes for the most negative take possible “stinks”…

I think Getz targeting more well rounded ball players and hoping their bats play up has worked out better than Hahn recycling decent hitting retreads who couldn’t play positions and were worthless if they didn’t hit right away.

Seems to be paying off.

This is Daniel Palka and Brian Goodwin erasure.

Then just tons of dudes who didn't work out like Ryan Cordell or Charlie Tilson.

16 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

As usual Ray, you continue to cherry pick stats to sell your arguments. How many injuries did the 2021 Sox have vs. this team? How many of the guys who were negative contributors were the planned starters and not guys called up to replace them? All this context matters…I too can make up narratives by cherry picking which figures to use and what info to ignore.

I really miss old Ray who was thoughtful & detailed in his analysis, this new version who just lazily rushes for the most negative take possible “stinks”…

Injuries? The Sox have lost outfielders that were already not reliable starters in the first place. They've lost one big league starter this year (Murakami). I think Periera might be pretty solid but he's certainly not a guaranteed high level starter. The 2021 team lost Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert - two guys that were legit All-Stars in 2020. I love that I'm cherry picking stats by presenting you negative value players... which you implied were more prevalent on those teams because of the lack of depth. Which was 1000% factually wrong.

Youre comparing losing Brooks Baldwin and Everson Periera to losing Eloy and Robert at that time. It's hilarious.

Please spare me your "i miss" nonsense. My analysis is accurate and an actual representation of what happened and not a rewriting of history while pretending like you saw the bottom falling out in 2021.

By the way, ive had a ton of positive things on this team so please stop with the BS that im being negative. My posts are there for you to read pal.

Edit: Sorry, they lost 2 starters because of Teel but plenty were arguing that Quero was as good last year (obviously not me, as I'm team Teel!)

Edited 18 hours ago18 hr by Look at Ray Ray Run

1 hour ago, Quin said:

This is Daniel Palka and Brian Goodwin erasure.

Then just tons of dudes who didn't work out like Ryan Cordell or Charlie Tilson.

I unno, we traded for Cordell and Wilson. I was thinking of the waiver and depth guys Hahn hoarded, who tended to be plausible .720 ops guys that could only be hidden in the corners.

56 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

As usual Ray, you continue to cherry pick stats to sell your arguments. How many injuries did the 2021 Sox have vs. this team? How many of the guys who were negative contributors were the planned starters and not guys called up to replace them? All this context matters…I too can make up narratives by cherry picking which figures to use and what info to ignore.

I really miss old Ray who was thoughtful & detailed in his analysis, this new version who just lazily rushes for the most negative take possible “stinks”…

The problem , as I see it, is it's easy to be wrong when talking about production and using said production as your baseline for analyzing young players. It's the same thing the projection models do. Before Murakami was signed Meidroth was predicted by those models to have the best chance to have the most WAR on the Sox. It's a security blanket for every argument about future production and remaining cautious about making mistakes. The whole world has seen how even the pro's make mistakes, because you only look at the red flags and miss how players can evolve , that was the driving force with Murakami falling to the Sox. You feel the pressure to act like a machine and not a human being from your basement getting fat drinking beer and eating chips. You feel you are right because you have the backing of probabilities and pure math.

But baseball defies these things more than any other sport. Players adjust, they evolve. Or to feel safe in you cozy blanket , they got lucky. Stats are a huge part of today' s game but those stats are part of the evolving process also improving bat speed and using angles and how best to impact the ball with swing path or even the equipment you should use. Torpedo bat in Colson's case.

Anyone who looked at this as a rebuild and saw the promise of Teel or Montgomery or Vargas didn't see Meidroth as the most likely to produce the most WAR on the team. You were hoping players care enough about improving and the coaches hired to help them do that will succeed. That's what team building in a rebuild is all about.

If the Sox had held onto their best player for one year I doubt they'd be where they are right now. I'm not sure even what you call the old Ray Ray was any better than he is now. He hated trading Crochet. We would have had him for 2025 a year in which they didn't have much of anything to win with. He'd have been a waste of a spot and a continued risk to be injured and not reap the benefits of cashing in on his monster year, the same way we missed out on cashing in on Robert in 2023. Luckily the Crochet trade has been the key to the rebuild building some quality hitting along with Murakami and draft picks and Getz stressing OBP and LH hitting. And we also have the 1-1 pick ! This is exactly how a rebuild should work.

The 2021 team was interesting because it was a really good team that had an obvious flaw (defense). Looking back at the stats, while the position players were solid (finished 12th in fWAR) it was the SP that carried them and the staff overall. Sox led MLB in fWAR from pitching and K rate. Rodon, Cease, Lynn and Giolito combined for 22 fWAR.

The pitching then completely s%*# the bed giving up 32 (32!) runs in 4 games to the Astros. Now, maybe they were cheating again, I guess we'll never know. My memories of that series are basically getting blown in game 4 and feeling disgusted, not much more left.

Edited 17 hours ago17 hr by chitownsportsfan

5 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

The 2021 team was interesting because it was a really good team that had an obvious flaw (defense). Looking back at the stats, while the position players were solid (finished 12th in fWAR) it was the SP that carried them and the staff overall. Sox led MLB in fWAR from pitching and K rate. Rodon, Cease, Lynn and Giolito combined for 22 fWAR.

The pitching then completely s%*# the bed giving up 32 (32!) runs in 4 games to the Astros. Now, maybe they were cheating again, I guess we'll never know. My memories of that series are basically getting blown in game 4 and feeling disgusted, not much more left.

It was a really good team in the first half. They were only a little over .500 in the second half. They were flat-out bad in LF, RF, 2B and DH, especially once the Brian Goodwin magic wore off. They averaged .6 runs less per game in the second half. They only scored 6 total runs in the three games they lost in the ALDS.

31 minutes ago, almagest said:

It was a really good team in the first half. They were only a little over .500 in the second half. They were flat-out bad in LF, RF, 2B and DH, especially once the Brian Goodwin magic wore off. They averaged .6 runs less per game in the second half. They only scored 6 total runs in the three games they lost in the ALDS.

Yea I chalked it up to just running away with the division and we'd come out fired up for the Astros series. Got our asses kicked. In hindsight we also got career years out of pretty much the entire SP and that wasn't going to be sustainable. We figured we'd get Eloy and Robert back as stars and we never did. Just a complete collapse on so many levels and Hahn bears all the responsbility.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by chitownsportsfan

1 hour ago, chitownsportsfan said:

The 2021 team was interesting because it was a really good team that had an obvious flaw (defense). Looking back at the stats, while the position players were solid (finished 12th in fWAR) it was the SP that carried them and the staff overall. Sox led MLB in fWAR from pitching and K rate. Rodon, Cease, Lynn and Giolito combined for 22 fWAR.

The pitching then completely s%*# the bed giving up 32 (32!) runs in 4 games to the Astros. Now, maybe they were cheating again, I guess we'll never know. My memories of that series are basically getting blown in game 4 and feeling disgusted, not much more left.

Yup, the injuries also hurt the offense. No one has back up support for losing star players. It's easier to cover for a loss for a few weeks, but when they're out 2/3 a season it's an entirely different story.

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

The problem , as I see it, is it's easy to be wrong when talking about production and using said production as your baseline for analyzing young players. It's the same thing the projection models do. Before Murakami was signed Meidroth was predicted by those models to have the best chance to have the most WAR on the Sox. It's a security blanket for every argument about future production and remaining cautious about making mistakes. The whole world has seen how even the pro's make mistakes, because you only look at the red flags and miss how players can evolve , that was the driving force with Murakami falling to the Sox. You feel the pressure to act like a machine and not a human being from your basement getting fat drinking beer and eating chips. You feel you are right because you have the backing of probabilities and pure math.

But baseball defies these things more than any other sport. Players adjust, they evolve. Or to feel safe in you cozy blanket , they got lucky. Stats are a huge part of today' s game but those stats are part of the evolving process also improving bat speed and using angles and how best to impact the ball with swing path or even the equipment you should use. Torpedo bat in Colson's case.

Anyone who looked at this as a rebuild and saw the promise of Teel or Montgomery or Vargas didn't see Meidroth as the most likely to produce the most WAR on the team. You were hoping players care enough about improving and the coaches hired to help them do that will succeed. That's what team building in a rebuild is all about.

If the Sox had held onto their best player for one year I doubt they'd be where they are right now. I'm not sure even what you call the old Ray Ray was any better than he is now. He hated trading Crochet. We would have had him for 2025 a year in which they didn't have much of anything to win with. He'd have been a waste of a spot and a continued risk to be injured and not reap the benefits of cashing in on his monster year, the same way we missed out on cashing in on Robert in 2023. Luckily the Crochet trade has been the key to the rebuild building some quality hitting along with Murakami and draft picks and Getz stressing OBP and LH hitting. And we also have the 1-1 pick ! This is exactly how a rebuild should work.

Hopefully one day i can be as sharp and astute as you are Nostradamus