Jake

The best solution will require leadership that isn't afraid to look weak and is pragmatic enough to allow some of our past statements about redlines, etc. to be contradicted. You will need to give NK things. By now, you will likely need to allow them to have some nuclear capability. The only thing they care about is their continued existence and in the absence of any other arrangements, they have spent the last 30 years trying to get nukes to ensure their continued existence because one does not typically invade nuclear powers. We had a chance in the 1990s when we stalled their nuclear program in exchange for some material goods, but we eventually pulled out of that deal as Congressional Rs complained about "bailouts" and such. A couple of good reads: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/north-...y-defense-21671 (by the guy whose children interrupted his live BBC interview) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-...th-north-korea/

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 05:04 PM) Burger is 21 years old and in the minors, Davidson is 26 with a track record of not walking or making enough contract. Currently Burger is a significantly better prospect, but the jury is still out on him. To be fair to Davidson, he does not have a track record of not walking other than this single season. He has always posted good walk rates in the minor leagues even at his worst. If he walked this year at the rate he walked in AAA last year, it would make my outlook for him much more optimistic.

I'm usually all for grabbing guys with some talent when there is little risk beyond the occupied roster spot, but uh...I'm not seeing a ton of talent with this guy. He wasn't really a physical tools guy out of the draft but instead a highly polished hitter, but the polish seems to have worn off.

I made a post couple weeks ago about how I struggled to put Kopech at that top-top level until I could see him just have good command for a single outing. I pointed out that he'd yet to have a single start with fewer than 2 walks and several other ugly walk-related numbers. Since then, in his 4 starts he's had 0, 2, 0, and 1 walks in 8, 6, 7, and 7 innings to go with 8, 12, 8, and 11 strikeouts.

He has one hell of an aggressive swing. Looks so odd on the few occasions where he's hit it on a line drive trajectory but only about 70 mph.

Only 2 more seasons of team control for Profar.

3 relief pitcher prospects makes me scratch my head. If you want a lottery ticket, how about somebody who has upside as a starter, even if not a front of the rotation one?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 30, 2017 -> 07:48 PM) Hansen striking out the world! Truly surprised he's not a higher ranked prospect QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jul 31, 2017 -> 03:32 PM) Not talking smack, just curious how someone values Dunning over Lopez. Lopez has been fantastic at Charlotte, which is the best hitters park in the league. He also has plus stuff and is only 23 years old. I feel like he's constantly overlooked in the system, even being a top 50 prospect. He's all of 9 months older than Hansen and 11 months older than Dunning. I think he will be a hell of a #2 to Kopech for years to come with the Sox. I would say... 1. Kopech(easy) 2. Lopez 3. Hansen (slight) 4. Giolito (debatable, I'm in the Coop will fix em camp) 5. Cease 6. Dunning 7. Guerrero 8. Adams ... 37. Ballpark Vendor 55. Pat Daneker 79. Carson Fulmer In all seriousness, it's an abundance of riches. Even Guerrero at #7 has a good shot as a #3/#4 rotation lefty. Excellent point PHF. We're in love with college pitchers over a year removed from the draft who are pitching in A ball. I like seeing Hansen pitching well, but I'm hesitant to fully buy in on the college guys until they get to AA. Meanwhile you have similarly-aged Lopez doing well in AAA who has better stuff than Dunning and similar or perhaps better stuff than Hansen. Some might quibble with that last bit, but for all the love of Hansen's great stuff, I don't know that there's sufficient appreciation of how talented Lopez is. We've seen the regression of pure stuff with Giolito and Fulmer, but not so with Lopez and that's exciting.

It was hard to dislike Melky, but he wasn't that good of a player and there was no reason to keep him around if you could get pieces as good as we just got.

I would have expected a guy like Davis to be the best we could do for Melky, but we got the fringey guy in Davis and a real prospect in Puckett. Bravo!

Funny thing about the tweet is judging from the replies, it may have gotten Tim what he needed, aka "the love"

QUOTE (beautox @ Jul 27, 2017 -> 03:30 PM) 2018: $4M 2019 Team Option: $4.6M ($1.2M buyout) 2020 Team Option: $5.2M ($1.2M buyout) 2021 Mutual Option: $6M there are worse ways to spend 5.2M if they choose to buyout in '19 FYI: I don't recall all details, but Jones getting elbow surgery reduced the value of his contract. I know for certain that his pay in one year goes to league minimum and I think his team option in another year is cut in half.

If the team has Lopez, Giolito, and Rodon all pitching to potential (a hypothetical posed by another poster), the team won't lose 100 games no matter how bad everyone else is. Kopech will be knocking on door next year if he starts well in AAA, too.

I'd try demoting our 2015 first rounder to an appropriate level before trading him

Melky has a fantastic arm. Maybe, MAYBE, it's a tick below elite velocity but that would be more than made up for with his throws' carry and accuracy.

If Jimenez really has that special level of talent, I wouldn't want to put a whole lot of money on him taking X amount of time to make it to the show. The great ones have a tendency to just start kicking ass and forcing their way to MLB.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 27, 2017 -> 11:35 AM) Remember how fast Fullmer collapsed...well Gillespie has kind of done the same thing, but from the hitting side. That said, certainly worth the flyer. Yeah but we also know that Fulmer could have 4 good starts and suddenly be looking like a real legit prospect again. A good couple months out of Gillaspie and the same is true.

Gillaspies numbers this year are a puzzle. Struggles have been remarkably consistent. Not much variance month to month. A little bit of a home/road split, but not overly dramatic. No difference facing righties vs. lefties. BB% and K% not much different from career norms. It's like he has simply just been hitting the ball worse without actually swinging and missing or failing to draw walks.

Holy christ is that selling low on Casey Gillaspie. Is there something we don't know about why he's struggling in AAA this year?

Courtney Hawkins made a change that cut his strikeout rate from about 50%, which was on the verge of getting him booted out of pro baseball, by half to below 25%. What does it mean? Well, it means he may have gotten things figured out enough to play minor league baseball until he's sick of doing it rather than until he gets released and exiled.

The question about demotion or not is solely about what's going to produce the best outcome for Tim. The 2017 White Sox can sustain s***ty shortstop play. So if the Sox believe a demotion would be very bad for an already negative state of mind, keep him up here. If they think they can sell a demotion to AAA to Tim as something that's good for him and not a reflection of the Sox believing he's a terrible player, then consider that instead. The right move will be hard to know from the outside. With that said, he should start getting more frequent rest in the near term and by next season, he should have a short leash regardless of what may be going on emotionally/mentally.

I don't think Tim has earned the "lazy" label based on his full body of work. I think what we've seen recently is a player who has gotten his head stuck up in his ass because he's struggling to deal with his bad play. When your head's up your ass, you sometimes find yourself walking out of the box, angry at yourself instead of running out a grounder.

Cordell seems to be surprisingly talented for a "low ceiling" guy. He hit 19 homers in 107 games last year and 18 HR in 125 games the year before. He has 10 this year in 68 games. He's a 20+ HR/year bat who doesn't have major strikeout problems, is a good runner, and a solid defender in all 3 OF spots. His production in AAA this year tells us there really isn't much risk in terms of whether he's going to be a MLB player, though obviously there's never a guarantee about whether he will be a regular...it's the hardest thing to know for any prospect, of course.

You get a guy who is 100% cinch to make the major leagues, has a very good chance to be at worst a nice bench piece, but has realistic upside as a good everyday player. What the hell is the problem? You just traded Anthony Swarzak! The skeptics of these reliever deals always seem to think about the what if's based on the reliever pitching that good indefinitely into the future. Swarzak was 2 or 3 s***ty outings from losing all of his value. You have to get something for him and we got a real piece back for him.

If you never looked at the statistics and only read this site you'd think Collins had a .500 OPS