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Calling it right now, he goes on the IL and comes back and immediately goes on a tear. Book it. Dude signed a huge contract, realized his dream and lost his Grandma in a short period of time. He will be back stronger than ever before.

What’s the rush? The clock is ticking on Eloy, Moncada, and Anderson and the young pitchers. The sooner Robert, Cease, and Madrigal could learn from playing at the highest level the better. It is the same reason Padres promote Tatis at ripe age of 20. Do you really think Moncada would have made a drastic change to his approach if he didn’t fall flat on his face last year? Prospect development isn’t linear and prospects aren’t called up without flaws, get it through your head. (If I do come across as condescending it’s because I think your Robert K posts are becoming troll posts at this point.)

There are so many trolls her now it's unreal. Why this post gets idiots laughing at it is ridiculous. A guy loses a family member and they think it's funny. Insensitive louts. I hope if in the near future if you lose someone dear to you that no one laughs about it. Orlando I gave you some love because the idiots cannot win. As a matter of fact . I am calling to arms for all to call out the trolls every chance you get within the boundaries of the rules of the board.

Last I checked, he was the 3rd worst defensive player in baseball. He looks like he’s never tracked a fly ball in his life. Worst of all, he looks like an injury waiting to happen.

No. Lopez’s stuff was good enough to strike out anyone from any team. Let’s not diminish his accomplishment.

No, it's an easy question and the answer to it is no. If all you care about is one stat, and being below average in that one stat does not necessarily prevent one from being a productive player, then maybe you should rethink your method of analysis. You're telling me you wouldn't want Joey Gallo on your team because of his k-rate, despite his status as one of the best hitters in the sport since 2017?

Change your username already damnit

How do we get more of this Reynaldo?

Stop b****ing about the lack of game threads and just make one. Damn

The annual IL trip for Jones. Time to cut bait with him and move on.

Anyone calling Eloy a bust is trolling but suggesting he be moved to 1B or DH is not. Have you been watching the games? Have you seen Eloy in LF? Has he looked good to you there? He has gotten hurt twice already and botched numerous plays. He wasn’t known to be a good defender in the minors and his major league appearances are proving it out. People who want to move him to 1B or DH want to do so to minimize injury to Eloy and keep his bat in the lineup. This is not trolling whatsoever. This is doing what is best for the team going forward.

Why do the OBP/K rate posts never take into account that Robert doesn't need to try and draw walks in WS? He is destroying the fucking baseball. He is way too advanced for the pitching he is seeing.

Can we quit with the trade/flip Abreu stuff? We had one all-star last year: Abreu. In the preseason, MLB.com listed the 100 best players in the Majors; Abreu was the only White Sox player on the list. Can we stop with dumping, arguably, our best player for some prospect we won't see for three years or so. Hopefully, the window to winning starts next year or 2021. Really, we're gonna roll the dice on Collins and dump Abreu?

Vlady is someone who has naturally advanced swings so comparing anyone to him is fruitless exercise because you could spend your entire career playing and not be able to hit like him. But look at Acuna, he was k’ing at 31% at A ball before they promoted him to AA where his k rate improved to 23%. Tatis Jr spent 12 games at A- where he k’d 27% at before promoting to A+ and his k% is consistent at every stop. There are many other examples I’m not going to pull up. Prospect development isn’t linear, but holding the prospect at a level for as long as possible HOPING his k rate would improve is just an asinine approach.

Only 3 of the near 70 fastballs that Lopez threw being put in play is really amazing

Ruiz. And that's who they're going with

No offense, but this is just ridiculous. There is zero reason for him to spend his entire 2018 season in Winston Salem. If you took out his last two games which were clearly impacted by his return from injury, his K rate would be ~18% which is insane for a guy putting up a .400+ ISO.

Sounds a bit pornographic

Many scouts thought he was MLB ready when we signed him in 2017 and you want him to stay in the minors until late 2021? Who cares about k-rate when the guy hits lasers every time he makes contact? What does he have to gain from that?

Keep making game threads and keep making negative posts about players that do not deserve it. Key to our success.

I’m with you, time to call out these trolls for what they are.

GET A DOG

Time to rack up some hits Sox . Don't wait til the BP gives up some runs to come alive.

Robert bomb!

He's just attacking them in the zone and they have nothing for it

I have no idea what's happened to the board over the last year, but it's borderline unreadable these days. Too many Tom Longo's.

Satire

I have been surprised by the harsh critique of Eloy's defense. Before 1973 when the DH came into being, the left fielder on every team was the worst defensive player. Many of those players made every catch an adventure. I was expecting Eloy to be one of those guys. I've been pleasantly surprised that he was as good a he's been. He's not going to make newsreel plays, but for the most part he has played adequately. We want every player to play All Star defense but just about all teams who prioritize offense will bury those hitters at DH, 1st. base & LF.

It was Tim's fault not Abreu's and here are 3 reasons why. You have to know the situation 1st, Tim on 1st , Moncada on 3rd 1 out. Reason 1: If the ball is caught and you attempt to tag up you risk a double play if you get tagged out at 2nd before the runner on 3rd touches home plate. Then you get no runs at all. Considering the runner on 3rd will usually just jog home on a long fly ball that is caught. I have seen this happen before. Reason 2: If you go back to first to tag up and the ball is not caught but stays in the park you more than likely won't make it to 3rd base because you are starting from 1st base instead of being at least halfway to 2nd. If the fielder recovers the ball quickly you more than likely only make it to 2nd base . If you go halfway you likely make it to third base. If the ball bounces away from the fielder you might make it to 3rd base when you could've scored if you go at least halfway. Reason 3: We saw reason 3. You run the risk of being passed by the runner and that also happens more than we think. I gave 2 examples from 2016 and 2018 and a link to more. Lip also provided a few more examples. So you see in that particular situation Tim needs to go at least halfway to 2nd base and all those reason are avoided. Learn baseball and think.

I, as much as anyone, love to pile on the Sox for being "dumb". As of late, though, they have generally been taking players that the scouting community as a whole agree on with their pick. Witt is as hyped up as Adley and Vaughn, and if he falls to three I think the Sox will take him. Remember, Rick Hahn's goal is "sustained success" and for that to happen you need waves of prospects. Witt would be an excellent pick for that reason. Honestly, I'd be super happy with any of the top three. It sounds like Vaughn could have MVP ceiling in that bat. I know many would prefer Witt or Adley, but Vaughn could be a real damn good consolation prize.

Yeah, that’s definitely the problem. But maybe come June it’s easier to find a home for Abreu or Alonso.

I 100% agree with this and would love to see them commit to Collins at 1B in the bigs. I just have a hard time seeing it happen right now with Abreu and Alonso on the roster.

The 2nd part is key. He's so bad out there he's already gotten himself injured twice in 4 weeks, both attempting to rob a fly ball that was a no doubt HR.

Thanks Cali and everyone for your excellent comments and historical perspective. I forgot about or did not know about the other examples and the rules changes.

I believe there used to be a rule when you hit a HR with runner or runners on base that won the game only the winning run counted and you lost the HR. They changed that rule though I don't know what year . When Barry Bonds was chasing the all time HR record. I think MLB restored about 50 Hank Aaron HR's that were wiped out by rules like that. Robin Ventura in the 1999 NLCS with the Mets hit a walk off grand slam in a 3-3 game but was only credited with a game winning single when his team mates mobbed him before he could reach 2nd base and he never completed the HR trot around the bases. Instead of the final score being 7-3 it became 4-3.

So sad, so true. I'm still hoping Hostetler keeps on with his word about lack of high school talent in our org and convinces the masses this is the way to go.

Not Witt. Because White Sox. They will take one of the next tier of college bats. Bleday/Bishop.

Agree, it’s a stupid rule. If the ball is over the fence, all the runs should count.

The key thing is that the guy be able to be competitive. About August 1st last year, you could have called Eloy up and he'd be over a lot of the stuff he's dealing with right now. On the flip side, we moved Carson Fulmer up way too fast and he had to just struggle to survive at higher levels. It is to be determined whether Carson will ever recover (and we'll never know what he would have done with a slower pace through the minors). Gordon Beckham is another example of a guy who got up here too quick and was at too high of a level to deal with the big picture problems he had. Dylan Cease I presume would be okay getting up here and pitching because he's done so well at the higher levels he's pitched at. He maybe hasn't gotten every last ounce of development out of AAA just yet but nowadays if a pitcher can hang in MLB there's no use letting him use up whatever's left of his ligaments in the minors.

White Sox aside. How many starting pitchers in the majors skipped AAA. How many position players went to the Majors right from A ball. I think Robert needs to at least play 1 year in AA/AAA and Cease needs to spend 2-3 months in AAA.

I wonder what the sentiment would be if we were talking about 20 year old Tatis Jr. SD ownership certainly didn't have a problem bringing him up. We tend to see baseball and basketball operations strictly through Reinsdorfian lenses which is a terrible perspective for a lover of sports and athletic competition. However, to a cold-blooded bean counter, Reinsdorf is a first ballot HOF inductee. If I owned the Sox, at least Robert and Cease would be on the parent club.

Regardless of how Eloy’s career plays out I just can’t imagine giving less of a fuck about the Sox being on the hook for a bit of guaranteed money.

If Eloy has to go to DL, fuck it, give me Tilson. So done with Engel.

Eloy also has a 658 OPS. He has been terrible all around so far.

We should have. Becoming more and more clear with each passing game. -0.7 War lol.

Cease is 23 fricking years old. He should be in the big leagues ... case closed. It's not that difficult, folks. Why does he have to be 24 before he gets the call? Think of all those wasted pitches with the same wear and tear on the arm as if he were in the bigs. First of all, 23 isn't that young. If he comes up and is miserable it's not because of his age. Somebody should take an anonymous poll of front office types around baseball and see if they think Cease should be in the bigs. He's never thrown more than 124 innings in a season, so I guess we have to keep him in the minors all year to gradually increase his workload or something. I don't like it.

We get it that the trade makes you mad. We all know. Time to move past it and stop dragging down conversation

How many times a day do you think you bring this up?

There used to be a limit where if you won 5 games in a row you retired and only could come back in the Tournament of Champions. Once they got rid of that limit, you had guys like Jennings appear who became legit famous for winning weeks to months in a row.