Chisoxfn

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 30, 2013 -> 10:44 AM) I wonder how many people have bookmarked this post? Fitz is going to have a big year with Palmer. They'll be bad but Palmer will get him a lot of receptions.

QUOTE (soxfan49 @ Aug 31, 2013 -> 04:38 PM) Jeffery? Frey? They could make up for it. So could Shea but not good to have some of the misses they had in just 1 yr. Thankfully Frey took huge steps forward and I do think Jeffrey will be a beast.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Aug 30, 2013 -> 09:58 AM) Rodriguez had problems in college. They knew what they were getting into. Depending on what happens with McClellin, that 2012 draft class for the Bears looking a little rough. The 2012 draft class has a chance to be a really awful draft class.

Going to Coors next week for a game. Anyone been and if so any recommendations (must eats?).

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Aug 27, 2013 -> 01:33 PM) Replied to the one from Sunday. This is after the fact, but she might just be shy and it took her a couple days to work up the courage to say yes (or she was trying to cancel something else).

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 23, 2013 -> 10:00 PM) Yes, I'm kind of a homer even though he basically left in shame, but why isnt Pryor Oakland's starting QB? Their O Line is horrible and he is lethal in space. He will be the starter at some point. He looked good.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Aug 23, 2013 -> 09:49 PM) And yet, he probably could've been had in the 3rd round. No matter how good Long looks, you do not draft any guard in the 1st round of an NFL draft. From everything reported, that is a load of crap. He was going to go in the 1st round or at least that is what was reported following the draft.

QUOTE (Noonskadoodle @ Aug 23, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) Scioscia is signed through 2018, but Jon Morosi of FOXSPORTS is reporting that either Scioscia or Dipoto & possibly even BOTH may be out after this season. Scioscia is only 54 & we all know he is one heck of a manager. Now whether or not we can be contenders next season all determines on how/what we spend on in this off season. If RV doesn't want to continue should Scioscia be #1 on the Sox list or would you like to go a different route? Right now, I don't know if he is that great of a mgr. I used to love him but the Angels are fundementally awful and have been the past couple of years. Now it could just be that Mike needs a change of scenery but it could also be that part of his success was a result of some of the top notch assistants he had (who have since left).

QUOTE (beautox @ Aug 18, 2013 -> 12:23 PM) real solid AB for Phegley Pheg's has been having better at bats as late, which is good, as this would be the point in time where you'd start to see him make his adjustments and give the scouts early returns on what his potential might be.

Petrick has a chance to be a good one. Has a big time arm.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2013 -> 07:08 AM) Have any names started to leak yet? Nothing and my guess is we probably don't find out until the end of the year since the trade is so much based upon his appearances and/or performance.

Elysium got very mixed reviews. Of about the 7 or 8 people I know that have seen it, 4 said it was terrible, 4 said it was really good.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 03:39 PM) Please. You pseudo-prospect and stat guys slay me. For all the grief took for not liking Viciedo, looks like I was right. Its easy to look smart when you don't like any prospects. The majority of prospects fail so statistically you'll be right more often then not.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 02:19 PM) The sox are or have trotted out many of these types this year-Gillaspie; Flowers; Phegley; Takotte; Casper Wells; Jordan Danks. Along with a slew of pitchers. People are getting chances. It's up to them if they do anything with them. Going into next year with these same guys getting chances [if they haven't done much with the extended play] isn't a way to build a winning team. No...doing that is a way to be the laughing stock of baseball. And De Aza came up, played his ass of at camp, played well in Charlotte, earned a call-up, played well, and earned a starting job. He was never given a year of sucking ass, he produced, grabbed more at bats, and earned that s***. The White Sox weren't going to give him a year of ab's just because. They gave him more at bats because he played well and showed that he was a pretty good player and that there was a reason the Marlins were going to make them their starter prior to breaking his leg.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 02:06 PM) How many guys are ranked in the top 50 prospects in all of baseball when they're on the DL having their spleen removed? Come on man. I don't mean to sound harsh but it wasn't as if he hasn't been playing the past 2 years (his spleen was removed in December 2010). You can't compare Carlos Quentin to Josh Phegley. You seriously can't. Jesus, you act like I'm calling him a bum. I'm just saying your approach of giving everyone 2 years is completely asinine and tiresome. At this point, your, just give them 2 years argument makes you no better then Marty and you are much smarter then that. How much of Casper Wells or Blake Tekotte do you have to watch to realize they suck and shouldn't be given starters at bats? Good organizations give the most of their major league at bats to either good players or players who have the ability to develop into good players. That doesn't mean all of them pan out but loser organizations are giving excessive amount of at bats to players the quality of Blake Tekotte. Having to give at bats to those type of players is an indication on the type of offensive prospects and talent you have (or more specifically the lack of talent you have...or at least talent which is near major league ready). By the way, if Trayce Thompson came up and hit .150 for the entire rest of the year, I wouldn't call him s***. I wouldn't hand him a starting job next year either but I certainly wouldn't write him up. Why, because I know he's a raw prospect who still has a lot of strides to make at the plate and being patient could really turn out to be valuable. Note, I don't actually endorse calling him up either at this point because he has a lot to learn still at the minor league level. But if this team had a bad rotation and was in a full complete rebuild, then I might have a different opinion on the matter and might say let him learn at the big league level.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 02:04 PM) I really wish you were here when people were furious in May that Phegley wasn't up yet and declaring him the next big thing. People declaring him the next big thing were foolish. Look at any write-up I ever did on Phegley or any post I ever made. And what is foolish about giving the guy the chance. Look at what people said even when he was drafted. People make a lot of stupid statements, don't judge my statement based upon other peoples stupid opinions. Not that it matters but I wasn't offered a job as a professional scout because I know nothing about talent and tools. When you have a starting catcher who has a career avg under .200 and a guy like Phegley tearing it up why the hell not give him the chance. And I haven't finalized my evaluation...you act like I'm sold on him after 22 games. I still think he has the ability to be at best a league average to slightly below league average starter (which is pretty consistent with my thoughts from the moment he was drafted). By the end of the year, I'd think we'd have a better idea of whether he has that upside or not. This off-season the club has a potential chance at a difference maker and if you are going to contend you have to decide who deserves ab's from within the system and who probably doesn't (and can we get other guys that could give us better production, etc). And by the end of the year, the Sox should be able to put %'s, etc on what Phegley will be and decide from a cost/benefit perspective what the right decision is.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 02:01 PM) The same way we ended up with Quentin, along with injury/HBP concerns. Let me know when Phegley was rated as one of the 50 best prospects in all of baseball. Quentin was rated as BA's #22 and #20 prospect in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Phegley isn't (even after his AAA season) a top 200 prospect...probably not a top 250 prospect.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) If you're not paying any attention to the circumstances that caused Josh Phegley to be a 25 year old repeating Charlotte then you're totally missing the boat. In a normal progression he'd have been 24 this year but he totally lost a year, and they still continued to promote him rather than having him repeat the level he would have been at before his serious medical issues started. The better organizations in baseball realize when a guy with talent had a setback that he overcame. They don't cast them aside based on the number. That's literally why we have De Aza, for example. The Marlins cast him aside for other guys and we got a very solid MLB player out of it. Come on...I've forgotten more about the White Sox system then most people ever knew about our minor leagues. I know damn well about Phegley and you are just being a pompous ass. You are just uttering a bunch of nonsense. No baseball team or organization would ever run themselves the way you are claiming. Maybe the Padres or some loser organization that has a 30M payroll but let me know when the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Braves start handing at bats to middling prospects just because they had one great year in AAA. They hand their at bats to good prospects and the medicore ones get a little shot and then are gone. And the medciore prospects in some of those systems would be good prospects in our system. The solution to player development isn't just giving guys that aren't very good more at bats. That doesn't prove anything.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:49 PM) Countdown until declarations that he's finished underway. Might as well call you the anti marty. Everyone sucks in a game if they are marty and no one sucks until they get 1000 at bats if they are balta. I can't even fathom the fact that you can't grasp the concept that different prospects get treated different. In the NFL should a 7th round pick get as much slack / rope as a 1st rounder? Going under your generalizations, they certainly would.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:53 PM) If the White Sox's scouts reported that Phegley was only putting up good numbers in charlotte because of the weaker pitching and he'd never translate to the big leagues, the calling him up was literally nuts. Leave him in Charlotte, let him pile up the numbers and then use him as trade-bait for teams that have different reports on him. They called him up and gave him the starting job. They would not have done so if their reports and knowledge didn't believe he could turn into an above average player. They wouldn't have done so had they thought he wasn't worthy of the development time. Teams aren't knocking on the door to get a guy that wasn't one of our 7 best prospects in what is largely viewed as a weak system. I don't know what the heck value you think he had but given Flowers performance and Josh's performance there is zero reason you don't take a chance on the guy. Thats exactly what you do with fringe prospects. You say what the hell and give it a whirl..if they pan out great, if not oh well.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:43 PM) Seriously, giving guys who destroy your AAA affiliate a 3 month shot to learn the entire major leagues is exactly how you make sure a franchise never develops anyone. If you need more proof that he's ready then don't call him up in June (which is what I was saying anyway). If you're only going to give a guy a 3 month stint to prove he's capable then you better be the most patient organization in the world with your callups because the guy better darn well be ready to hit the second he's called up, because a couple months is a useless measure for how a guy will develop long term. Brian, there is a major difference in expectations of a 24/25 year old coming up who basically had played 1.5 years in AAA, had time in AA then there is for the AA kid coming up early when you are out of contention who you know still has a ways to go. If someone like Mike Trout at 19 comes up and struggles, I'm not calling him s***. When a 25 year old comes up and if he finishes the year hitting .210 showing no progress (given his past history and non-elite toolset, not top prospect, etc), I'm not giving him much time. Most of an organizations mediocre prospects could be so lucky to get 60 games to prove themselves. The better organizations in baseball are giving their developmental bats to far more worthy prospects then some of the people the Sox are giving at bats too and it would be ignorant to think 60 games (+ a long minor league career) isn't a valid sample size to make long-term talent evaluations and expectations.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:48 PM) Unless you count Napoli as a "real catcher." Offensively, he was completely legit. Good point. Naps could definitely hit.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:43 PM) If you'd have written any of this in late June people would have scoffed at you. Phegley was tearing up Charlotte and people were furious that he was being denied the chance he had earned. If he'd finished up his age 25 season in Charlotte the way he was the whole year, hitting .300+ with a nearly 1.000 OPS, then "He's done nothing to indicate he's going to be an above average catcher" would be just wrong because he'd have done exactly what you wanted him to do. Yes he hadn't done that beforehand, but he basically lost an entire season and the team pushed him upwards anyway. People were predicting how great he'd be when he came up based on how he was raking in Charlotte and I was the one being ignored when I said "expect him to struggle because that's the norm" and "expect people to declare in 3 weeks that he's a failure, that he never should have been given this chance, that his approach is terrible, that he'll never even be an average catcher" when people were basically ready to declare him the successor to McCann. Except I would have said the same thing when he was hitting .300. When everyone was down on Josh for years, I always said he had the chance and tools to be a potential league average starting catcher and to be patient. You act like I'm writing him off, I'm not, but he doesn't have the pedigree or skill-set to get handed a starting job if he is completely awful in 60 major league games. I've always felt that was Pheg's potential upside and I've stopped what I'm doing to watch most of his at bats when I'm at home to see how he progresses. I'm more concerned with his approach and swing then I am with the results. And the good scouts (and I hope the Sox talent evaluators) will be making their plans for next year based upon that (vs. results). Results certainly help but hell look at Beckham last year. He took off and I remember people declaring he was back...I was out there saying there is nothing that looks back at Beckham at the time. This year..I think Becks has safely turned the corner to the good. He's legitimately hitting the ball hard at all times and is just much more comfortable hitting the ball to all fields (swing is smoother and more consistent and should be a lot less maintenance, thus allowing him to be consistent). I'm wrong all the time but your argument of everyone needs 2 years at the major league level to put up or shut up is complete nonsense and takes all the brains out of running and organization and having talent evaluators and drastically reduces the odds of turning good players. You need to make bets based upon your reports and use those reports and your knowledge to make educated guesses so that the guys you do give opportunities have higher rates of succeeding and turning into above average players. This way you give developmental time to those players worthy (and add veteran bats or bring in other young players to get the other at bats).

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:42 PM) Agreed, and I asked yesterday, which teams out there will be in the market for a catcher? If the Angels hadn't pissed away half a billion dollars (or what seems like half a billion dollars) they could definitely use a catcher. Their last good catcher was the original Molina brother (Bengie!).

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 10, 2013 -> 01:41 PM) With Gattis emerging as a threat I'd be surprised if ATL resigns McCann. Gattis is blocked at 1B by Freeman, and when all healthy he's blocked by the Uptons and Heyward in the OF. Gattis is just fun to watch at the plate. Dude is a f***ing lumberjack...plus I love the fact that he doesn't wear batting gloves.