Chisoxfn

Nope, but there is a blog entry about it on TCNS, www.chisport.com

Okay, so if they want to go with the college bat and Smoak is off the board (I'm not going to even mention Posey/Alvarez as there is no way he'll be there at 8), than the debate would be between Alonso, Wallace & possibly Connor Gillespie. I personally think Alonso has more upside but Wallace is a pretty damn solid all around hitter. I don't buy into Wallace being a 3rd baseman, despite him playing a good chunk of this season over there. I personally think both are a decent size drop off from Smoak. I'd probably lean more to Alonso because he has more power potential, imo, and if we are talking about a 1B I want a guy that can hit for power (they should also be able to hit for average). Still, after Smoak & Beckham I think Castro is the next best collegiate position prospect (I put a premium on catching prospects though) and feel that the better value after Smoak is in the high school guys.

QUOTE (BearSox @ May 25, 2008 -> 03:54 PM) There's no doubt Wallace is as good as a pure hitter as anyone in this draft, but if Smoak is there at 8, you take him. A switch hitter with 40 homerun potential doesn't grow on trees. Skipworth ain't dropping below the Marlins though, so I'll just scratch him off the list, and there's a good chance Smoak will be gone by 8 as well. However, if Skipworth, Smoak, and Crow are gone by 8 (T-Beckham, Alvarez, Posey, Matusz are going to be long gone by 8 and we aren't going pay Hosmer who will probably be picked by the Royals anyway, so might as well leave them off the list), I have no problem with Wallace. I'm not high on Beckham like everyone else, but I'd be okay with such a pick. My main gripe about Beckham is the unlikely hood of him staying at SS, and inevitable move to 2B, a position where we already have quite of a few interesting guys (Richar, Getz, and perhaps Ramirez and Shelby). As for the 3rd round, it looks like there is a possibility Jordan Danks will be there, and I'd gladly take him in the 3rd. We'd likely have to pony up 1st round money to sign him though. The Sox made him a very lucractive offer when we last drafted him and I have no doubt they'd do what is necessary to sign him (I don't think his demands would be completely ridiculous). I still say that as long as other teams are going above slot money than the Sox should be doing exactly that (i'm not saying be ridiculous, but if top talent is there, take it and throw the money out there...this system blows and the best way to fix it quickly is to throw a lot more money into the draft in the mid rounds because it will enable you to get an extra few top 3 round talents and a couple years of following that will really change the state of the farm system (combined with good scouting/coaching/player development).

QUOTE (BearSox @ May 25, 2008 -> 03:54 PM) There's no doubt Wallace is as good as a pure hitter as anyone in this draft, but if Smoak is there at 8, you take him. A switch hitter with 40 homerun potential doesn't grow on trees. Skipworth ain't dropping below the Marlins though, so I'll just scratch him off the list, and there's a good chance Smoak will be gone by 8 as well. However, if Skipworth, Smoak, and Crow are gone by 8 (T-Beckham, Alvarez, Posey, Matusz are going to be long gone by 8 and we aren't going pay Hosmer who will probably be picked by the Royals anyway, so might as well leave them off the list), I have no problem with Wallace. I'm not high on Beckham like everyone else, but I'd be okay with such a pick. My main gripe about Beckham is the unlikely hood of him staying at SS, and inevitable move to 2B, a position where we already have quite of a few interesting guys (Richar, Getz, and perhaps Ramirez and Shelby). As for the 3rd round, it looks like there is a possibility Jordan Danks will be there, and I'd gladly take him in the 3rd. We'd likely have to pony up 1st round money to sign him though. Shelby projects more as a CF prospect or at least the Sox are hoping that is what happens. In addition, Getz/Richar are not guys you pass up on drafting a player for. Plus you should be talking about going best available anyway at 8 (Sox shouldn't be drafting on need unless a player grades out similarly). The Sox have an absolutely ridiculous need at the middle infield though and Beckham would fill that, plus he grades out a lot better than Wallace. Wallace isn't even close to being graded as a top 8 prospect while Beckham is widely considered such. Plus he's a far more complete baseball player with much better skills. I can list another 5 to 10 guys I'd take at 8 over Wallace (both pitching/offensive prospects). Now if you narrow the list to collegiate players that list would get a lot smaller, but I don't think the Sox should just shy away from taking a prepster. If the best guy on the board is a prep player (Hicks/Skipworth/Hosmer) than you take him (all of those guys are better prospects than Wallace). Again, this doesn't mean they turn into better players, you never know what is going to happen, but a scouts job is to indicate who the better prospects are and than you play the percentages at that point (hoping you always are drafting as many good prospects as possible and at that point the %'s play out and if you've scouted right you've taken more good guys than most teams and as such you get more good prospects and major leaguers). I will repeat this, I'd rather take Danks (who'd be a major reach at 8) than Wallace and I'm going to continue to say that this rumor tying the Sox to Wallace is BS. I can only hope that the reasoning behind such rumor is that Kenny tends to see a decent chunk of games in Arizona and because of that teams assume he's a big fan of Wallace (than again, he may have seen a lot of games and fallen in love with Wallace which leads to the club overdrafting here).

LSU is playing very very good right now.

I will clear things up in a short summation. While we are not 100% on the information posted, we did perform some follow-up confirmations (those follow-ups indicated that the information appeared to be legit). However, we are not in the business of ruining peoples careers and the material posted was such that could ruin someones career. As such, we pulled it from the site.

I will also say I'd rather take Castro (Stanford Catcher) than Brett Wallace. This would be a bit of a reach pick (most experts are having a tough time placing Castro) but his tools are worthy of going top 10. The problem is he is still considered very raw for a college player. Still, I'm not a major fan of Wallace, at least not at 8. Aaron Hicks is the prep guy I love (aside from Skipworth/Beckham). In fact I like him more than Hosmer for the simple reason that Hicks is a better all around athlete. We are talking about a legit 5 tool kid. As a prepster his development will take a bit longer but good god he's got the ability to develop into a superstar and those are the type of guys I'd like to get with the #8 pick. I look at Smoak and you could very well be talking about Texiera. In fact, I like Smoak more than Alvarez at this point, although Alvarez has better athletism and a bit more tools. Still, I could project Smoak to being a .300+ hitter, high OBP, massive slugging numbers, while playing very good defense at first. We are talking about the type of hitter that can carry your lineup. Alvarez can do the same thing but while playing tremendous defense at 3rd (still raw in the fielding aspect but he has good range for a 3B and a f***ing CANNON for an arm).

Brett Wallace is not near as good as some of the other 3rd/1B types. Smoak/Skipworth (if he falls you take him)/Hosmer all rank much higher. I figure Hosmer will not go to the Sox though given his agent and thats a shame because he's a better prospect than Wallace. We can stratch Tanner Scheppes of the list as he has an injury which will probably knock him out of the 1st round. That doesn't mean whomever drafts him won't have to pony up first round money, but it does mean that if he's there in the 3rd I'll be doing my ornary b****ing if the Sox don't pick him up and offer him that sort of money (getting a potential top 10 pick in the 3rd round would be something you can't pass up on, not when you are a system as devoid of talent as the Sox are). That said, I'm sure Scheppes goes in the 2nd (if not the supplemental round). One guy whose stock has slipped a lot is Kyle Gibson. He's a very lanky offensive prospect with a lot of good raw power. His body is still incredibly lean so as he fills out I wouldn't be surprised to see him add even more power. He has good bat speed but his stock has slipped with a poor season. The main flaw I see in his game is that his swing is a bit long, but he's got very good tools and may end up being there in the 3rd. Danks is another guy whose stock has slipped and in his case I don't know why. EVerytime I've seen him play I come off impressed. He has legit tools across the board and has the ability to be a .280+, 20 HR+, 20SB, good defense type of guy and to me those type of players don't grow on trees.

Motherf***er...Titans blew yesterdays game in the 8th (which would have clinched sole poession of the conference title) and are getting hammered today. LB State holds the tie-breaker and will get the auto bid. Not that its a major deal, Fullerton will still host a regional but I still hate losing and this loss (2 out of 3, albeit on the road to a top 25 LB State team) could impact there possibilities at hosting a Super Regional (of course they still have to win a regional and I have my doubts because I truly don't think Fullerton's pitching is even close to being good enough).

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 25, 2008 -> 12:11 PM) I agree, and I've watched so many episodes, hell I know the Apelio season is after the King Crab season. But how many crab pots have we watched come over the rail? How many tosses of the hook? But Texas is up 8-1 on KSU for the Big 12 Title, (I love the P i n g of college baseball), and there just isn't much else to watch. Texas ix killing em too. Danks is 3-3.

Watching Texas...Jordan Danks is good, love that stroke. Kyle Russel, not so much (long swing).

I don't think people quite grasp how little veteran hitters truly use the batting coach. I was listening to Chipper Jones the other day and he was saying that he'll have the hitting coach help him with video but when it comes down to it, he goes to his dad whenever his swing is in trouble. Walker is widely respected around baseball. I remember the last guy the Sox ran out of town as a hitting coach ended up fitting in quite nicely in Boston. The only reason I can really condone the firing of Walker is because it might just send a message to the vets to wake the f*** up. However, this season there is built in excuse for Paulie (a hurt hand is going to f*** your bat speed up and much much more) so really its Swisher/Thome that you can look at. Swisher got all screwed up from being at the top spot in the lineup and needs to come out of his funk. He hasn't shown much lately but I'll give Walker some time to really figure out Swish and for the two of them to work. In Thome's case, I really don't think it has anythign to do with Walk and much more to do with Thome just not being the same player he once was (slower bat speed makes him cheat and makes him even more suscepitble to the strikeout). OC is all f'd up but he's actually showing signs of coming out. Walker probably did little the first few weeks with him (usually vets try to figure out things on there own initially in a slump and after that I'm guessing Walk got more involved). Juan Uribe is just bad offensively so whether its Walker or Jesus Christ himself it wouldn't matter. Bottom line, instead of blaming the easy person people start blaming the guys putting on the uni's and making the outs. I've long said it could pay off to get more young blood in the lineup. Quentin has helped and maybe we'll see a little bit more of an infusion once Kenny/Ozzie finally realize that Thome is past his prime and that Uribe is just god awful (the Sox do need to find alternatives though so they can replace such players).

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 24, 2008 -> 02:27 PM) Is Masset's fastaball really reaching 93? Gameday must be messed up. I've never seen him throw that hard. I guess it doesn't matter when you're walking guys. He's easily throwing that hard.

They don't have much more.

Weavers been nasty

Rally Lock

He hits a s***load of groundouts to 3rd.

Interesting, Wise is pinch hitting. He looks a lot like Willie.

Or groundout to 3rd. I got a feeling Sox are gonna come back though.

That was a bulls*** strike call.

Anderson is gonna homer.

Nice DP. Solid play by OC touching the bag after the bad throw and still turning two.

Masset has so much movement on his FB and such a nasty curve.

QUOTE (daa84 @ May 24, 2008 -> 03:03 PM) i havent listened to many radio games at all this year....but holy christ i thought hawk slurped opposing pitchers...stone and farmer are just as bad Weaver has pitched stellar, but the Sox have had some opportunities to get one or two home. I can say the same about Saunders yesterday. Still, these guys deserve the love. That said it doesn't mean you can't also discuss the Sox offense as clearly there are still some issues there (ie, it is too power driven and the team really could use a few guys that are just pure average type hitters as opposed to pure power guys).

QUOTE (knightni @ May 24, 2008 -> 03:03 PM) NOTE TO THOME: HITTERS ACTUALLY SWING THE BAT SOMETIMES. I still say that they should check his vision. It wouldn't matter, when he swings he has the worse percentage of making contact than any everyday player in all of baseball. I heard about two days ago that he makes contact on ~30% of his swings. That is f***ing HORRID.