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The Madrigal Mystery Tour

Almost assuredly part of Robert being at the top is the desire to get him as many at bats as possible since he's missed so much time.

Last year Moncada's future was being compared to Robinson Cano. Currently, his future is being compared to Javier Baez. At this time next year, will we be comping him to Starlin Castro?

Your trolling is leaving a lot to be desired. Go refine it elsewhere and get back to me once you've improved, champ.

As usual, we've released the back half of the Top 30 list first. Tomorrow will be the full list. For now, enjoy the 16-30 list, with capsules for each player. And discuss! Where were we higher or lower than you think we should have been?

Orrrrrr. Our front office can do their jobs and resign core guys while drafting and signing solid replacements for the defectors.

So tell us who you would've picked 4th, We'll see how it all shakes out. You have one shot don't say multiple names to increase your odds of picking someone who ends up better than Madrigal. The Sox had one shot at it so should you with a slight advantage of seeing how well any of them have done so far in their assignments.

This is 100% not the reason why.

No, you said go back to the chuck e cheese table. You should know better by now

It can be both. How have the big Septembers guys like Morel, and Fields, and Owens, and Giolito, and Trayce Thompson, and Moncada put up help them later? It's a nice theory, there just doesn't seem to be much evidence sitting out September kills careers. If it does, the Sox should probably trade Luis Robert right now for whatever they can get. With all he has missed, he evidently will have no chance.

He's leading off because the leadoff guy gets the most PA in a season. 2018 doesn't matter, so why not lead off Moncada and get him the most PA of anyone on the team?

Thats enough of your couched insults bullshit

It's so bizarre to me that in this MLB with all of the different makeups the star players have, people can still feel convinced that they know the ceilings of players. We really still doing little infielder = eckstein? Last year all I heard was Albies was basically Yolmer Sanchez. We have a super star that's a 6'8" (judge) monster bookended by a 5'9 centerfielder (betts). Smooth athletic powerhitting MI (baez) next to pudgy short corner infielders (Ramirez, and guess whose having the best season?. A 5'7 batting champion (altuve) And a prototypical golden child (Trout). Don't tell me you know what these guys are capable of. Madrigal wants every ounce from a baseball career. I'll bet on that guy.

FutureSox will have an interview with tons of Bush information in the week or so!

Moncada has a wRC+ of 91 according to fangraphs. That is below average no matter how you slice it and dice it. Also, a 34% strikeout percentage with a sub 700 OPS looks pretty overmatched to my eyes.

It takes a lot to put me into Ron's camp, but here I am firmly #TeamHotFiRe. +1.

He IS a league average second baseman, he just doesn't have a league average batting line, which is propped up by first baseman and corner outfielders. MLB league average 2B is 94 wRC+ this year. Moncada is 93. Regarding the second line: I never said it wasn't. The conversation I was having was about whether or not Moncada needed more time in AAA. Moncada has disappointed everyone by not being a star this year, but he has NOT been overmatched. He's 23. He's working out his struggles in the Majors, where most 23 year olds are working out their struggles in AA/AAA. This is good. He's on a good track.

Don't you think he needs to become a league average second baseman before we start declaring him a star? Also, the bolded is a lot easier said than done. Many a baseball career has been derailed by an inability to ever full recogonize and adjust to major league pitching.

Ya don't say? Haha No we've never given that much thought, but I'll put it in front of the writers and see what people think for the next one.

Then this rebuild is already a massive failure and the future is just as bleak as the last 10 years have been.

Moncada is in a free fall. wRC+ of 93. OPS barely above 700. People honestly think this kid is improving and having a good year?

The league has figured out how to pitch him and he hasn't adjusted. His hit took was always shaky and has been absolutely exposed by major league pitching. He needs to learn to make adjustments or he will never be anything special. Hahn should have stood firm on Benintendi but a bad gm is a bad gm.

Lmao. Weren't you just posting the other day about how Yoan Moncada has the potential to be the one of the best second baseman of all time? Rick Han should be fired on the spot if Moncada starts next year at Charlotte.

Just so I stick this somewhere, wanted to count this before going home. By my numbers, ignoring a partial game they have to complete, I see 27 games left on Charlotte's schedule. Kopech pitched yesterday, so if he pitches every 5th game, he'd have 5 starts remaining. If they had him go every 5th day, they might be able to pack a 6th in, but let's say he has 5 starts left. He's thrown 113.1 innings so far this year. If he went 7 IP in each of his remaining starts, which would be high for him but it's what he's done his last 2 outings, that would put him at 148.1 innings this year. Altogether last year he pitched 134 innings, so although it's at a higher level, I'd kinda like him to be able to get 12 or so innings more than that, to get closer to 160. So...if I was doing what was best for his development, I'd probably have him complete the season in Charlotte, try to stay in the groove he's in right now, and then give him a September callup with a plan that he's going to start 2 games down the stretch and then make a few final outings out of the bullpen to finish the year. That gives him a bit of MLB experience, game planning, and coaching, and it gets his innings where we'd want them this year, so that we can think about him going 180+ innings next year in the bigs. I would be a little disappointed if he wound up close to 140 innings this year and they didn't call him up to push his arm a little more, that might be the right thing financially but it's not the right thing to do with his arm. I also don't think he's an AFL candidate, especially with him looking good right now I don't want him to just take a month off and then start again, and with the number of injuries we've had there are probably a lot of other guys who should have priority for those 6 slots just to get more complete seasons in.

A couple of 1990s articles penned by Mike Pence claim the President needs to have more moral character than a typical citizen. Having affairs and lying about it is grounds for impeachment as long as that President has a D after their name. They are all phonies and hypocrites.

Lopez vs. Sabathia Lets see if we can have some positives tonight

Steverson will probably be fired to cover for the backslides of Anderson and Moncada offensively...and Davidson/Yolmer to a lesser extent.

It's really too bad Abreu can't hit a fastball anymore.

Sign that Jose Abreu to a long term contract

That may have been the most obvious home run in the history of baseball

Alright, the emotional teenagers are in. Have a good night fellas.

Unless you know you're managing a terrible team and your job is to try to teach, not win.

This might be the Yankees worst lineup of the year.

Jimenez is out again tonight with the flu, so hopefully it’s just bad timing. If he’a not up by the weekend, then wait until next year.

There is no good reason unless he is near his innings limit which he will be if he is down there much longer, and it's September. A few meaningless starts for a bad team makes no sense givng away a year of contro.l.

If Madrigal hits a 780 OPS he'd rank 8th as a 2b. Now let's do all of the other baseball stuff he looks to be excellent at.

if he hits around .333 or so I'm not that concerned about his home runs. He's the table setter....

And yet if you started out with this "spin" the day of the Sale trade...that he would be fighting just to be average, well...that wouldn't have been considered a win. But at least we have Kopech and Basabe, right? Or we can go with Javier Baez's 4.9 cumulative fWAR from 2014-2017, yes? That's even worse than Moncada (pace-wise) today...Baez debuted at 22, right around the same time as Moncada. Of course, there's no comparison in terms of the core of Cubs' players around Baez. Rizzo, Bryant, Contreras and the rest of their young position players picked up the slack and allowed Baez "not to have to be THE man" until he finally broke through this season. Right now, Moncada only has Jimenez to pick up the slack and take off the yoke of expectations and most of the spotlight away from him. And maybe Abreu/Avi, but who is writing their name/s in pen onto the 2020 roster? Now I'm a bit concerned Hahn will pull the trigger on moving up Jimenez and Kopech...to have the season with Moncada tailspinning below a .200 batting average over these last two months would be a PR disaster for the White Sox to deal with all offseason. Hahn will spend most of it defending himself and the rebuild, and promoting those two and Cease whenever he could go on the attack. At this point, it's highly unlikely he would choose to send Moncada down, for the same reason that Giolito has been up all season long.

If you are using the standard that 2.0 WAR is league average for a positional starter, he is almost exactly the definition of league average right now as we speak.

Mentioned this here before...but I live in Minneapolis, and obviously my buddies are Twins fans. I had the under on a bet with a bud on Buxton's fWAR at 3.5. It ended at 3.5. I ended up looking up the calculations and doing the math...it came out to like 3.4975. I had Eno Saris confirm my math via twitter DM, which he amazingly did. It was an incredible line we set. Was offered the same bet this year, which I declined, because I took an amazing amount of shit from my buddies the last several weeks of last season as Buxton's fWAR rose and rose and rose. Wasn't worth it...but man I wish I did this year. But instead I did Twins under 85 wins, so not all is bad. They've been awfully quiet....

I'm in favor of the countdown style 👍

Have you not been watching this team for the past decade and change? The coaching and development of young players, especially on the position player side, is not something this organization excels at. For better or worse, most of these young guys are on their own when it comes to learning how to play in the big leagues.

I was operating more on "when" he puts it all together, but with the fact that Moncada is regressing as the season goes on, 'if" is becoming more and more of a possibility for me. The question now is whether his career goes the way of Baez or Buxton.

But you just said Eloy isn’t that good, so Moncada, Fry, Rodon, Giolito and Anderson will be average and Eloy will be slightly better than Abreu. What other talent is going to make this rebuild great then?

Dreadful is the proper way to describe this season. Very few positives to take from this season. I don't know how you can say the contention target hasn't been pushed back at least a season or two. I've been trying to stay as positive as I can this season, being as patient as I can, but honestly you can't say that there is one player on the MLB roster that will be part of the next Sox playoff team. Not one. I'm letting my negative side out tonight. I'm disappointed.

That means nothing if you can't put the bat on the ball. Courtney Hawkins had incredible physical tools as well. He couldn't put the bat on the ball even in the minors. It means nothing if you can't hit.

I disagree. I think he's the most vital of them all. Moncada supposedly has game changing potential, Eloy Is going to be really solid but not a superstar. He'll put up .280/30/100 for a bunch of seasons but while those are good players, he can't move the needle as much as Moncada can. Eloy's plate discipline isn't that great either. It wouldn't surprise me if he never puts up an OBP over .350 in his career. with most seasons in the .325-340 range. Again, I think Eloy will be solid but not a superstar.

It would be nice if he would swing at strikes and take balls.

The Yankees aren’t like most of the teams the Sox play. I.e. the KC’s, Detroit’s, etc...notice that when the Sox play a playoff caliber team, they get smoked...See Houston, Cleveland, etc. though I can’t explain taking 2 of 3 in Boston.

You can mail it to the prison. He could probably use a pen pal