21 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

And the drafters haven't changed. And the old PD, which apparently was the bigger part of the problem, was headed by Getz.
All so weird.

Not entirely fair. Ryan Fuller has built a hitting program very different from the group who tried to help Kath.

https://247sports.com/college/ucla/article/ucla-baseball-2026-mlb-draft-ten-bruins-taken-including-cholowsky-no-1-288294674/

Levu is definitely the guy we should have picked for 1B/DH.

85-90% sure he will outproduce Landon Thome in terms of big league fWAR.

Marlins' Rintaro Sasaki has huge MLB, NPB decision to mak...

He's got a familiar last name, and some incredible fam.

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by caulfield12

2 hours ago, GreenSox said:

And the drafters haven't changed. And the old PD, which apparently was the bigger part of the problem, was headed by Getz.
All so weird.

Obsessively focusing on a single bad draft pick as a demographic problem is why this board cheered avoiding high school and “athletes” over ball players just because of Courtney Hawkins.

Instead we got a bunch of fat college corner players who sucked and nobody blamed it on college.

Moneyball!!!

Seth Brown.

6 hours ago, hi8is said:

I think just about everyone is happily eating Getz crow. That dude is proving to be a straight up G.

He may not know if he’s getting lefties or righties, but he knows people who know, and he knows the people that know are good people.

Seems all the players are crediting Venable for changing the vibe.

90% of that job is the vibes.

if the players are vouching for him, then thats about all she wrote. I’m in.

13 hours ago, Rounding_Third said:

Sorry for jumping ahead but this roster is in a really good place already for 2027 and for years beyond. If there's no stoppage and Roch is ready for the show, just how does the roster look? If Acuna keeps ascending, it's going to be really hard to not keep him around, esp with his PR ability. I imagine they let Grichuk & Hays go but also have Pereira, Baldwin, & Perez waiting in the OF/DH wings.

Time will tell, but what a sweet problem to have. So friggin exciting to be a Sox fan so soon after such an embarrassing horror show!

I can't even begin to apologize to Getz for my very bad take on his hiring! I haven't been this wrong about a sports decision ever!

If Roch does come up in 2027 the Sox infield would have tons of flexibility where Venable could play everyone. The new Murderers' Row.

1st Mune/Vargas

2nd Roch/Meidroth

SS Roch/Montgomery/Meidroth

3rd Vargas/Montgomery

C Teel/Quero

DH Mune/Vargas/Benny

UT Meidroth

Law graded the AL Central Draft Classes. White Sox assessment below.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7443823/2026/07/15/al-central-draft-grades-picks-mlb-2026/

Chicago White Sox: Cholowsky a win at 1; class as a whole stands out

The White Sox had the No. 1 pick, and after trading for the 34th pick on Friday night, they held the biggest draft pool of all 30 teams. They had a huge opportunity to add a ton of talent to the organization … and I think they nailed it.

They took UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky (1) with the first pick. The consensus top prospect pretty much since last summer, Cholowsky hit for average and power for the last two years for the Bruins while playing plus defense at short. He’s going to have to make some swing adjustments, especially to help him get to the kind of velocity he’s going to see every night in the upper minors, but the White Sox have also shown they can do that sort of thing, like with Colson Montgomery and Jacob Gonzalez, who they traded on Friday. I don’t think Cholowsky will be in the minors for too long.

The White Sox followed the Cholowsky selection with two high school hitters, Landon Thome (CBA) and Cole Prosek (2). Thome is Jim’s kid, a shortstop now who’s likely to move to third base, with at least plus power in his future but probably needing some swing help to get him to cover pitches that are up and in.

Prosek is more advanced as a hitter, with some swing and miss in his game because he swings so hard, showing strong contact quality and hitting well against good pitching at showcases.

Georgia right-hander Joey Volchko (3) has crazy stuff — crazy in a good sense, but also in that he gets a lot of movement on his pitches, and his pitch “shapes” grade out well. He transferred from Stanford to UGA this year and everything improved but his command and control, so there’s still some work to do there, though he has mid-rotation upside. He feels like the sort of pitcher the White Sox have always loved, except that he’s right-handed.

Oregon State right-hander Eric Segura (4) is a sinker/slider guy whose fastball is 93-96 and comes from a low three-quarters slot. He showed some platoon split this year due to that arm angle and a barely used changeup. He’s very online to the plate and throws enough strikes to see him as a back-end starter if he uses the changeup more or develops a better version.

Oregon right-hander Cal Scolari (5) has a fast arm and his fastball is 94-97 with arm-side run. He also has a variety of breaking pitches, but he walked 14.3 percent of batters faced this year and doesn’t have a clear pitch for lefties (although he had a reverse split this year). He’s a junior but 22, as he was a 19-year-old senior in high school when he blew out his elbow and missed 2024 while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. I don’t know if he’s bosom buddies with anyone else in the system.

Shortstop Alex Weingartner (6) from St. Augustine High School in New Jersey has some tools, with plus power and speed and a plus arm, but his swing needs a lot of work and I didn’t think he’d be ready to hit low-minors pitching next year. He’s committed to Penn State.

Third baseman Jayson Jones (8) was a senior at Wichita State, his third school in the last three years, but he’s more than a senior sign. He played a full season for the first time this year and did everything you could ask for, with a .355/.430/.583 line, strong exit velocities and solid or better swing decisions. He’s 22, so the clock is ticking, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him hit the moment he’s in the minors.

Chicago took right-hander Kyle Casteel (11), a West Virginia recruit from Butler Area High School near Pittsburgh. He has excellent feel to spin the ball already. The White Sox could try to sign him if they have some bonus pool money left or if something goes awry with their picks in the top 10 rounds. They also selected Oklahoma left-hander Cameron Johnson (15), who is massive, gets up to 99, and has a decent changeup, but walked 43 in 53 2/3 innings this year and needs an average breaking ball. Both are good gambles for that 11-20 round range, when failing to sign a player doesn’t affect your bonus pool.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by DirtySox

16 hours ago, GreenSox said:

And the drafters haven't changed. And the old PD, which apparently was the bigger part of the problem, was headed by Getz.
All so weird.

It's not the old PD group in the slightest, and obviously, as a broken record, Getz did not agree with how Hahn was handling it at all since he CHANGED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT.

2 hours ago, PaleAleSox said:

It's not the old PD group in the slightest, and obviously, as a broken record, Getz did not agree with how Hahn was handling it at all since he CHANGED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT.

Right , just about everyone he hired is a guy with experience in various areas of development and front office acumen.

They go with a certain kind of player that everyone is in tune with and they don't deviate. Everyone is on the same page and departments communicate. It's ensemble management.They want the hitters to be more LH than RH although BPA still applies, OBP/ good swing decisions and slug, good character from strong family. I'm missing more but that's the crux of it.

Pitching is harder to pin down and Sox have had a lot of pitching injuries in Getz's early tenure so I don't know if it's fair to say Bannister is on the hot seat. Pitchers just take longer and their throwing arm is their biggest asset. You don't really care much about the same tools as you do with hitters. Everything they do is tied to that 1 arm and your physical development. You need that man body like Crochet got before he broke out.

5 hours ago, Falstaff said:

If Roch does come up in 2027 the Sox infield would have tons of flexibility where Venable could play everyone. The new Murderers' Row.

1st Mune/Vargas

2nd Roch/Meidroth

SS Roch/Montgomery/Meidroth

3rd Vargas/Montgomery

C Teel/Quero

DH Mune/Vargas/Benny

UT Meidroth

The new murderers' row is a bit of an overstatement. I'm overjoyed with the way things are trending for the Sox much earlier than I expected, but almost anybody on this list could go poof. This reminds me of when we used to just list out the names Moncada, Eloy, Abreu, Robert, Anderson...and Andrew Vaughn will be coming up, too! And Madrigal! We're already winning the division with this young core, just imagine when they all mature a couple more years! When Kopech is our ace! We all know what happened with that, but honestly that "murderers' row" was more plausible at the time than the one making up a team a few games over .500. I'm not ready to declare the likes of Chase Meidroth or Kyle Teel to be mainstays for years to come just yet.

Wow, I sound like a real wet blanket! But I'm feeling a little whipsawed by the sudden turn to uncritical projections of a core that hasn't proven it can sustain success, and best-case projections for draft prospects who haven't proven anything yet. Am I on the right message board? I'm still a White Sox fan after all.

Current core doesn't have quite as many superstar ceilings...but overall possess the higher floors across the board. That said, Vargas/Colson/Mune all have been great at various points this year.

And right now it feels like the depth is tremendous everywhere but CF and across the pitching staff.

Biggest "worries" positionally are Antonacci vs. Meidroth and the catching spot...at least ATM. Not exactly team killing issues.

That said, Bonemer and Roch could be huge movers to push it over the top, and then there's always the Mune wild card, too.

1 hour ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

The new murderers' row is a bit of an overstatement. I'm overjoyed with the way things are trending for the Sox much earlier than I expected, but almost anybody on this list could go poof. This reminds me of when we used to just list out the names Moncada, Eloy, Abreu, Robert, Anderson...and Andrew Vaughn will be coming up, too! And Madrigal! We're already winning the division with this young core, just imagine when they all mature a couple more years! When Kopech is our ace! We all know what happened with that, but honestly that "murderers' row" was more plausible at the time than the one making up a team a few games over .500. I'm not ready to declare the likes of Chase Meidroth or Kyle Teel to be mainstays for years to come just yet.

Wow, I sound like a real wet blanket! But I'm feeling a little whipsawed by the sudden turn to uncritical projections of a core that hasn't proven it can sustain success, and best-case projections for draft prospects who haven't proven anything yet. Am I on the right message board? I'm still a White Sox fan after all.

They did all play pretty well together when they were all on the field at the same time for like....85 games.

20 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

The new murderers' row is a bit of an overstatement. I'm overjoyed with the way things are trending for the Sox much earlier than I expected, but almost anybody on this list could go poof. This reminds me of when we used to just list out the names Moncada, Eloy, Abreu, Robert, Anderson...and Andrew Vaughn will be coming up, too! And Madrigal! We're already winning the division with this young core, just imagine when they all mature a couple more years! When Kopech is our ace! We all know what happened with that, but honestly that "murderers' row" was more plausible at the time than the one making up a team a few games over .500. I'm not ready to declare the likes of Chase Meidroth or Kyle Teel to be mainstays for years to come just yet.

Wow, I sound like a real wet blanket! But I'm feeling a little whipsawed by the sudden turn to uncritical projections of a core that hasn't proven it can sustain success, and best-case projections for draft prospects who haven't proven anything yet. Am I on the right message board? I'm still a White Sox fan after all.

We over rated a lot of those guys and health obviously was a huge problem. Vargas is on pace to put up more WAR this season than Eloy has in his entire career. Moncada had one good season and 4 below avg ones. Robert was always hurt and when he was healthy played closer to a 2 WAR avg regular than a 6 WAR superstar. Those teams had a lot of prospect talent that never really panned out. This current Sox team just has a lot of solid players regardless of prospect status.