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If you are so married to must play position best suited, how come you aren't all for Adam Engel being a bat boy?

You don't draft for need in the MLB draft.

Playing for a tie when you're 13-30, have just won 3/4 (after not winning two games in a row for AGES) and playing one of the 3-4 worst teams in MLB is just asinine. Shows zero confidence in your hitters to get the job done. In front of a home crowd who just witnessed the 2nd/3rd no outs debacle and a player getting pulled for apathy/indifference. (And yeah, Fathom's point about pulling Thompson for Palka there defensively was dead-on as well...it wasn't a tie game or 1-2 run lead)

So LH have a .900 OPS against this guy and Ricky has him bunt to go down 0-2. I think I have seen enough. When it is time to win, he cannot be making the decisions.

I. Love. Yoan. Moncada.

Sorry but Castillo better get benched

I still think it is beneficial to learn how to get hitters out at the MLB level. He obviously can get AAA hitters out with his current approach. That approach won't change until he is challenged. At the beginning of the year, RH said he was going to the minors to work on his self control on the mound and to work on the change up. Kopech has already stated he thinks the change up has improved. Will he stagnate at AAA or will he find more challenges? He may be like rodon where his style just lends itself to control issues, although Rodons is mechanics based and Kopech's is philosophy based.

It's not expecting Madrigal to be Altuve, it's just that 4-5 years ago when you'd have Madrigal the question would be "okay great player, but he's 5'7, what are the chances that guy pans out"? Then, you'd have Pedroia. Now, you have Albies and Altuve lighting up the world, and Pedroia. You just happen to have 3 2b, all small, as some of the best hitters in the game (or were). So it's not he WILL be Altuve, it's that the ceiling is not where we think it is just because of size. He may very well just be a high contact versatile infielder, but the other reason I like him is that sort of hit tool is needed on this team. The astros cut a lot of high-k players and their offense exploded. Ks in and of themselves aren't bad, but if no one is ever putting ball in play you miss some opportunities over the year that add up.

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall, in the room, where the scouts and Hostetler are discussing this stuff? Thank you all for an interesting and spirited discussion. It will be fun to see what happens, on Draft Night, and then going forward with the various players' development.

Especially when, at an organizational level, up the middle infielders are a big weakness. There is little in the pipeline for help. I get that this draft is weak on the prototype picks. No big athletic HS pitchers with great stuff, no super athletic hs short stops with power potential (that don't have horrendous hit tools). But this is what the draft is. And I'll take my chances that a player with great makeup, athleticism and great baseball IQ in an atypical package can maximize that profile than reach for someone who looks the part and has to find the tools just mentioned. Plus there should be really interesting guys for the second pick where we can go with very projectable, unpolished stuff. But with Madrigal angst it seems like knocking the pick because of a hypothetical draft logic. But this is the draft pool they have. He makes the most sense, and I think people will love him once he's in the system.

I disagree that there is no development in the MLB. The goals is to win games, of course. However, young players need to learn how to hit MLB pitching as it is better than the minors and young pitchers need to learn to get out MLB hitters. There was a learning point in the Sox win today with Lopez staying out there for that last hitter. I have only been in one MLB team's dugout and it was a veteran team and the players and coaches were constantly discussing these different things with young players. this is especially true in today's game where players are coming up younger. Chris Sale talked about how much he learned from Buerhle. They can't get that learning in the minors.

We're totally going to make a run bros.

There was a lot of hand-wringing the first month of the season, but the bullpen has quietly cemented itself as the strength of the Sox team. They currently rank 12th overall according to FG with plenty of reasons for optimism moving forward. Some stat lines so far this season: Jones 3.50 ERA, 3.86 FIP, 4.12 xFIP, 10 K/9, 3.5 BB/9 Soria 5.65 ERA, 3.21 FIP, 3.76 xFIP, 10.67 K/9, 1.88 BB/9 Avilan 5.25 ERA, 3.47 FIP, 4.14 xFIP, 11.25 K/9, 5.25 BB/9 Bummer 3.68 ERA, 2.39 FIP, 3.38 xFIP, 9.82 K/9, 3.68 BB/9 Rondon 3.86 ERA, 2.28 FIP, 3.55 xFIP, 11.57 K/9, 4.50 BB/9 Fry 0.00 ERA, 0.98 FIP, 2.14 xFIP, 12.96 K/9, 2.16 BB/9 You'd like to see some improvement with Avilan and Rondon's BB%, but they are both striking out a ton of people so they can get by with the elevated BB totals. In addition, Avilan and Soria are both battling BABIPs above .400 right now, so we should hopefully be seeing some positive regression on both accounts. The emergence of the last 3 is what has really surprised though. The Sox can effectively move all of their veteran talent in the bullpen this deadline, get some pieces for the system, and still have a solid core next year that they can supplement with Burdi, Hamilton, and maybe a free agent or two. Optimism!

Final question that needs to be asked...can Manny bunt?

POTY. Ricky’s boys don’t quit, but the skipper sure doesn’t want them to come back with his in-game tactics.

Can we fire Renteria yet? Unreal

Moncada is such an exciting player

God I love me some Leury!

I think if they do their own network, they're going to be very disappointed in the results.

Jesus.

Yup, and we have almost no long-term financial commitments. Now is not the time to be risk adverse. The fact that Reinsdorf is like 88 years old and agreed to a rebuild tells me he is going to do everything in his power to get one last World Series before his card is punched.

Machado and Kimbrel or bust. No sense in having a payroll in the shitter if you don't pay up when you need to. 26 year old perennial All-stars are the only ones you should overpay for. If Sox arent ready to do that than this rebuild's chances of flopping grow substantially higher.

Someone tell Machado the plan is for Engel not to be on the roster next year..lol

I don’t follow the Cubs. Beats me ?

Yep. Was on my way to post this.

Micker gets hit a lot, doesn't he?

the official auto correct of "Engel" should be changed to

Beat you to it.

You're looking at his BA. His OBP is .364. Oh, and he's slugging .600. I'm not going to say he's completely finished but give the man some credit.

Let’s strive mightily to win this game for Heads22

Kopech is the easier call to keep down. Last year he pitched 134 innings. If he stays in AAA and pitches the entire season, that is roughly 30 starts. That puts him on pace for about 150 or so ip. I cant really see the Sox pushing him that much past 160 this year, so it doesnt make a lot of sense to call him up for 1-2 starts to burn an entire year of control. That being said, at this point everyone is just rehashing the same arguments over and over.

Blues fans? Leafs fans are probably gonna riot.

Greg just learned about Anthony Rizzo today

While I agree with this for the most part, 1B/DH guys his age, making his money, aren't valued like we would like. If you could get some quality back for him, do it, but if it will basically look like a salary dump with crap coming back, I think his value to the team is too high for that.

Yet he had Engel bat leadoff at Wrigley while he was hitting .169. It's a lost season. Put Moncada in the 1 spot and leave him.

That's the other thing -- the trade market hasn't been kind to first basemen past 30. I've said it before, but I think he's more valuable to the White Sox than any other team.

It’s gotten embarrassingly bad.

I don't think the problem is Renteria--it's the fact that Moncada hasn't gotten his RH at bats figured out yet this year. He's a completely different hitter RHed--one that plays as a 6th guy in the lineup. He's hitting .154 vs LHP so it makes sense to bury that number into the lineup rather than to lead off with it. As soon as he starts putting up numbers RHed--I think you'll see him slot differently--maybe not leadoff but def a more important spot than 6th.

Sorry Wanne your clip reminded me of this pretty much the CHW only chance

Can we all just let the mega superstar outfielder be a mega superstar outfielder for us for the next 6+ years? He’s not Kyle Schwarber out there.

If you are keeping around assets then you aren't rebuilding you are just sort of existing. The O's are a prime example of why this strategy is stupid. Now they are stuck trading Machado for pennies on the dollar and because they held onto their other assets too long they are worthless. No thanks. I think the rebuild could have been done a little better this offseason by bringing in some veterans instead of for example playing Engel and starting James Shields We did that to some extent with our bullpen but I would have liked us to bring in some veteran starters on minor league deals. Guys like Hellickson was there for the taking.

What evidence is there that he is older than is reported? And the comments on Jose being larger or whatever...I think he’s actually much thinner than he’s been in previous years. Jose and Shields are two guys that are adding value well-beyond their on-field contributions to the organization. Moving Jose, absent just an absolute pillaging of another team would not be wise, IMHO. I wouldn’t mind extending him to something that makes sense for both parties. The guy has earned it, and the young kids would benefit.

This is what bothers greg so much. Put together a .500 team during the rebuild (all it woulda cost was a few bucks; still coulda made the key trades involved) and we'd be having fun right now. The rebuild didn't have to be exclusive of .500.

Well, he was the last person seen with the victim, and she was found dead in his basement. There's quite a bit of circumstantial evidence. Did he rape her? Probably not. Was he there when the assault happened? Doesn't seem impossible. I don't disagree with you on the Chicago Police's sordid history, but, for me, this is not a feel good story of a wrongly convicted man's sentence being overturned. I don't feel like he's entirely innocent in this case. That said, he was exonerated, so I don't have a huge problem with him getting the financial settlement that is sure to come. I wouldn't mind if he wasn't working for the Sox though. They had no obligation to rehire him.

This post from last night sure aged well

I would think that they are doing thier clubs a great disservice then. If you truly put tge contract over the development of the player, you will cost your team a number of good players. Im not saying they should ignore the contract status. If they have determined that the players are ready now, there is nothing wrong with waiting until the next contract mikestone. I believe that is jjn July. However if they wait until next April evrnthough they are ready now, they are doing the team a disservice. I think at least some GMs agree. Look at Soto in Washington and Albies in Atlanta played almost half a season last year. They didnt wait until the next year.

So if Tony's version is right and this guy accepts a 2nd degree murder plea bargain in October or he's convicted afterwards, do you admit you were defending a white supremacist murderer and change your behavior based on the fact that you spent a year defending a murderer on behalf of a white supremacist using conspiracy theories?

No and what I'm saying can't be proved. But suppose the majority of Gordon's homers were about 15 feet past the fence. If he loses 20 feet on average with the switch to the new bats, then he loses a huge chunk of the homers. The guy who squares it up less often but clears the fence by 40-50 feet when he does, the new bats don't hurt as much. That's the logic — not everyone's game is as effected by the change in the bats.

Nah, also mass shootings happen in more places than just schools. That's a great way of trying to shift the blame back onto the victims though. Check out the real story behind Columbine. Far from being some social outcasts bullied by their victims, Eric Harris was himself a bully.