Leaderboard

This is pointless and stupid. Please post something relevant.

It's hard for me to critique since I add nothing to the board, but it's quickly reaching unreadable status.

Man this board has really taken a dive in quality since we entered the rebuild.

Only the Sox could employ a god awful pitch framer when they're trying to rebuild with 4 "young" pitchers. Whenever Hahn wants to start putting any emphasis on defense, that would be nice.

I think it's been had and will be had enough times in other threads. This is a game thread. I also just think it's a weird thing to bring up tonight. As if this is the first time Sale has done this. Sale pitched great... yeah, he's great. What else is new? We have always known that, the White Sox have always known that... the entire MLB knows that. My dog knows that.

Micker Adolfo has been such a pleasant surprise this year. Walk rate up, strikeout rate down. Showing improvement in those 2 areas as you move up the ladder is nothing to sneeze at. I know Law is a believer. Has often remarked how raw he was when he came over, and that he might take a bit but could be really worth the wait.

Davidson looked VERY sharp on the mound today. He looks like he may have what it takes to an a relief pitcher. The breaking balls were filth. Do the sox use him as a 1b/3b/dh/relief pitcher? The guy would be super valuable if he could pull that off

You really need to give all of this more time before you jump to any conclusions. The league hasn’t adjusted to Torres & Andujar yet, whereas they have for Moncada. Two years from now Moncada could be the stud and the other two could be just good players. I get you and many others have a need for instant gratification, but Moncada is going to require some time for him to work through his issues. If you can’t endure that growing process, do us all a favor and take some time off from White Sox baseball.

I mean, I think we're all a little frustrated with Moncada. But the talent is there, and we just need to give it time. He'll come around.

There's been a lot of doom and gloom lately around here. Sadly I think it is a select few usual suspects, so I know the majority isn't as pessimistic. What have you been happy with/pleasantly surprised with/optimistic about? Lenyn Sosa dominating great falls as as infielder has been an awesome surprise, dating to his success last year. Lambert adding velocity and holding his own at every level has been a great surprise. I'm also excited about the fireball relief prospects we have down there. The future is bright ?

I can confidently say those are the three worst consecutive posts from a single poster in Soxtalk history. Can’t tell if the poster is high on meth or just really struggling to be funny. Either way, this type of garbage is ruining the overall quality of the board.

There's another 5 weeks.

Haha, nice defense by everyone. Look like a bunch of little leaguers the last two games.

Great thread idea Ron! Huge props to you dude!!! I'll comment later on the minors but for the big league club... Yolmer has been fantastic! TA continues to progress defensively, hitting for more power and is walking a lot more. Matt Davidson has been a nice surprise when he's healthy. Daniel Hulk Palka has been a nice surprise as well. When he makes contact he destroys the baseball. Jose Abreu, nuff said. Jace Fry has been spectacular. Despite his occasional struggles I really like what is be seen from Lopez and kudos to him for having the balls to call himself and his teammates out for shitty baseball. Avilan and Cedeno have been solid and fun to watch pitch. Shields has gone from dumpster fire to respectability. Giolito appears to be coming around along with his velocity. Not sure what to make of Covey now that he's come back to earth but he's gone from "why is he on the team?" to " let's see what he can do". Sick movement and velocity on his sinker, yikes. Yoan has shown glimpses of what he's capable of. That's it for now.

Oh yay, another infield pop up where Sox guy doesn't bother running. Yoan begging to get benched tonight (even though it would be ridiculous but Renteria has done it for far less)

Think you are going to see more rotational fun with Forbes, Laz, Madrigal, and Yrizarri. We will also see the accompanying wondering if one of them is injured whenever they don't play a game.

Rick Hahn is in over his head as a gm and has no idea on how to evaluate the catching position. The guy let Flowers walk and signed Dioner Navarro.

They are just killing Rodon's fastball. These guys are swinging too well to not use more offspeed pitches. Rodon completely lost his composure tonight.

how in the hell does Joe West miss that? Omar has got to frame that better also, but what else is new.

Omar tried his best to get it called a ball

Awful command for Kopech tonight. 4 walks, HBP, 9 outs recorded. Most of the balls far enough off the plate even Avi wouldn't swing at. If he had this type of command in majors, probably wouldn't make it out of the 3rd. Eloy looks great at the plate against MLB caliber starter.

Agreed. He will s still learning and at the highest level. Pitchers have made adjustments in their approach to him and now he's learning that he needs to adjust to their adjustments. Pitchers know he's a patient hitter and prone to swinging at breaking balls low or off the outside part of the plate when he has two strikes on him. So pitchers have been pounding first and even second pitch strikes with fastballs to get ahead. I believe this is why Abreu told Yoan to swing earlier in the count, which he has been doing more of. He's already come a long way since his debut with Boston. He was seriously over matched and not ready at that time but now he's at least holding his own. He is really is progressing, just not at the clip we had hoped but like I said the tools are there and they are loud.

LMFAO. You mad brah? Might want to direct your questions to the Sox front office since it was them that decided to bring Moncada up. I do agree that IMHO it was a bit soon but he's here and there's no other choice but to be patient with him. All the b****ing whining and complaining won't make any difference whatsoever. His tools and the flashes of brilliance are more than enough for me to know he'll eventually get it figured out.

Has any updated his strike out looking total? Once this gets fixed, Yo is poised to explode. The kids average exit velocity is 4 full mph over the league average. He needs to swing the bat and everything will fix itself. The coaches have been preaching this to him, he just needs to realize it.

Those saying he's a total bust are being ridiculous. Those saying he's fine and he's a former number 1 prospect are being a tiny bit simplistic. Let's not forget his prospect ranking was beginning to fade in some circles due to exactly the struggles we're seeing now. He has two drastic holes in his game that need to be fixed (strikeouts and hitting LHP). The concerning thing is the defensive blunders have seemingly come out of nowhere, and the organization seems to be questioning his focus on the field.

If the bolded is/was true, then why not give him enough reps in AAA, so that when he arrives in Chicago, he's less "raw?" What purpose did it serve to bring up a guy who clearly was not done developing, and clearly had things to learn in MiLB, as evidenced by his numbers [particularly his splits in MiLB]? Insofar as "expectations," excuse me if I hate thinking to myself "Boy, I'd rather see Adam Engel as a RHH than Yoan Moncada." [And yes, I caught myself thinking that the other day as I watched Moncada utterly fail as a RHH.] Excuse us if we as fans can't even expect the Number-Fucking-One Prospect to become better than a 20 WRC+ as a RHH. [Honestly, look @ his splits and vomit sometime, when you have a need to vomit.] If this Org can't take The Number-Fucking-One Prospect, and make him into a well-above-average player, what's the point? In other words, how can we expect them to turn lesser prospects into actual MLB players?

I’m all for objective & harsh criticism when warranted, but there is way too much whining & panic over pretty much everything. And unfortunately it comes from the same few posters repeating themselves ad nauseam.

We cannot have both sides of the argument -- either Moncada is a player with trememdous potential who (for whatever reason) is inexplicably falling apart; or practically everyone aside from Boston overvalued him. Which is it? We can never forget he was the centerpiece of the Chris Sale trade. No matter how we try to make excuses, he was not expected to be performing this poorly 570 abs into his career. Is it just too much to expect immediate success? It'd be a huge morale boost for the entire rebuild to atleast point to ONE example. I honestly fear what these forums become if Kopech and Jimenez struggle immediately. At some point, of all the pieces need to begin fitting together. No more Giolito projects or acceptance of our highly touted players floundering around.

It was the same way with the cubs rebuild. The dumb meatball fans who thoroughly oppose the rebuild will keep whining during the rebuild and then jump in the bandwagon when the team is good.

Lol, then you haven't followed Tim Anderson's progression since he was drafted. With the exception of last year when Tim's close friend passed away, he's made improvements in every season since being drafted. With all do respect to TA, he was an absolute error machine when he was first drafted and that was at the minor league level.

Also interesting that the Cubs might not be able to form their own network.

If the players he mentioned were on our team, all he'd do is complain about how bad they are defensively. If people think Moncada is bad at second, I recommend you watch a Yankees game.

How about Moncada for Tatis Junior? We can push the rebuild back a couple years and stockpile some more top 5 draft picks.

What a terrible post, but par for the course I guess.

I agree. I think the problem was being rated the #1 prospect. I think being a Red Sox prospect also raised his value in the eyes of "prospect raters". If we believe the "rumors" he wasn't even the Red Sox top prospect since they supposedly made him available but not Benintendi. Anderson was also raw and we see how he has developed. Streaky with good skills but erratic also. I think Moncada will be about the same and become an above average 2nd baseman. Anything beyond that is gravy.

Is Greg his favorite uncle?

He's just trolling from his favorite uncle's basement.

This. Why was he brought up in such a rush last season, again? Does anyone else like seeing this? And this. The bumbling, incompetent front office's running joke of position player development has certainly gotten my attention. Them turning the consensus #1 prospect into a middling .702 OPS hitter inspires exactly ZERO confidence in the bozos in the player development department. What'll happen next, Jimenez is called up & he becomes Viciedo, part 2?

I remember an interview Matt did from a week or 2 ago and he said he used to be a decent pitcher. From a Tribune article early March : As a kid, the White Sox third baseman/designated hitter lived life on the mound and to this day Davidson calls pitching “a passion of mine.” Found his pitching stats from his HS days in Yucaipa, Ca. link for anyone who wants to see it less jumbled together http://www.maxpreps.com/athlete/matt-davidson/n-7wKPTmEeKZ5AAmVebBJg/gendersport/baseball-stats.htm Pitching Year Grade Team ERA W L W% APP GS CG SO SV NH PG Varsity Totals 1.06 27 5 .844 18 33 8 4 6 08-09 Senior Varsity 1.60 4 1.000 13 2 1 1 5 07-08 Junior Varsity 0.88 4 2 .667 5 8 06-07 Sophomore Varsity 1.21 9 2 .818 12 1 1 05-06 Freshman Varsity 0.76 10 1 .909 11 6 2 1 Year Grade Team IP H R ER BB K 2B 3B HR BF AB Varsity Totals 205 147 64 31 60 230 19 3 838 758 08-09 Senior Varsity 30.2 19 11 7 9 40 4 1 123 112 07-08 Junior Varsity 40 28 15 5 12 48 3 164 146 06-07 Sophomore Varsity 69.2 54 21 12 21 82 9 1 288 261 05-06 Freshman Varsity 64.2 46 17 7 18 60 3 1 263 239 Year Grade Team OBA OBP WP HBP SF SH/B #P BK PO SB Varsity Totals .194 .271 11 20 185 08-09 Senior Varsity .170 .244 1 2 185 07-08 Junior Varsity .192 .280 1 6 06-07 Sophomore Varsity .207 .281 5 6 05-06 Freshman Varsity .192 .266 4 6

I understand where you're coming from. I just think there should be a lot of room for patience given that he's a switch hitter (as they usually develop slower) and Cuban (I'm sure he's still acclimating to American life and MLB). I'm confident that he'll be a great player in a couple years Yeah he's gotten a little worse but has still been good defensively overall. The easy plays need to be made, I agree, and I think he'll figure those out. He has all the defensive tools to do so

This may be true but the strikeouts are very alarming and with this pitching staff those errors especially on "easy" plays are causing them trouble because often they can't pitch around them. No one is arguing about his potential but also keep in mind this was the #1 prospect in all of baseball, consensus across the board, to see him struggling like this gets your attention. This wasn't a 17th round draft pick or a minor league free agent. This was supposedly the top guy. Now add in the Sox issues with developing everyday players (non-pitchers) for the last 15 years and fair or not fans start to think, "they're screwing up another kid...again."

Why are we stuck in 1954, thinking that his fielding is bad because of a completely subjective stat that doesn't take into account any sort of play made that the average fielder wouldn't make. We've made progress with fans finally accepting that batting average has little meaning in modern baseball, so why do people choose to ignore the vast array of new defensive statistics and base opinions off of one outdated, extremely flawed stat? I care as much about a player's error count as I do how many sandwiches they eat. It is really so subjective and a limited indicator of defensive skill that I'd argue it's even less relevant than batting average. If you watch the games, it's obvious that he sometimes botches an easy play, but he'll iron those out and he makes up for it with his incredible range. He's a top 5 defensive 2B in baseball per Fangraphs. Even if you disagree with that, I think it's very clear that he's an above average fielder at this point in time.

If his fielding continues to suck, wouldn't shock me at all if they demote him to send a message.

I think it's time to move Yolmer back to 2b. It's either that or send his ass back to Charlotte. Some one has got to get his attention and let him know he is no longer the chosen one.

I apologize, it's true we do have too much pitching

A loaded Oregon State team to a loaded Winston-Salem team. He’s not going to be used to losing when he makes it to Chicago.

Winston-Salem 23 hits.

Do we really have to bring up KW picks?

Or maybe you can just give him some time to figure out the strike zone first. My God. We've become such a culture of instant gratification.