Jake

🤷 I would say part of the deal here is that the ceiling for these kids is high in part because we're not even as good at knowing their ceilings. I look at Jacob Thome and I see a kid. I don't know what the man version of him will be like. Might be worse at baseball than the kid version for all I know. And then to be ticky tack about this, I think this question should probably be about Cole Prosek even though we took him with the other pick. He got paid more and I wonder whether the Sox were thinking they might not have the pool money for him if they hadn't gotten Thome under slot at 34. And then you can look at the numerous other over-slot players who may have been chosen in part due to the financial flexibility afforded by the extra pick at #34.

I'm sure some of them do and for a subset of them, it basically works. I've heard numerous comments to the effect of most major leaguers are guess hitters. If you're gonna guess, you better know the scouting report inside out and backwards. I think the truth is probably a little more complicated, e.g. sometimes guessing, sometimes not, plus the guess isn't 100% selling out for one exact pitch in one exact spot.

One thought about the general philosophy around trading a young MLB-ready player for a draft pick/draft slot $. I think executives (rightly) see the ceiling for high schoolers taken in the first ~60 picks to be extremely high. Floor is most often extremely low and that's why they aren't just snatched 1-1. So if you look at Jacob Gonzalez and say even though his ceiling includes being a valuable player, it doesn't include being a star player, that informs your decision to get a pick instead. If you lose a deal like that 4 out of 5 times, but the 1 time you win it's by 10x, then it's a good gamble. Of course if I was a big fan of Gonzo I might want to say that he's a lefty shortstop flashing power so the ceiling might be rather high for him. I had a nice interaction with Jacob at spring training when he was signing autographs (notably, he was a minor leaguer who was often NOT asked for autographs because fans didn't know who he was or perhaps didn't care) so I basically root for him. At the same time, I also root for the White Sox to not make stupid decisions so it won't break my heart if he's an unexceptional player.

I don't like to argue with results, I'm just saying to the extent he is smart, I think he appears to be smart by having a very simple plan and relentlessly executing it. Some of the stuff he was saying was basically expressing that he had just come to realize that pitchers are throwing balls out of the zone on purpose to try to get him to swing and therefore he decided to combat that by not swinging at them so much. And then it occurred to him that he should apply that lesson as a catcher. I think he is showing a really impressive talent for recognizing pitch location...I've tried sort of stress-testing the data to see if there's an inner Lenyn Sosa waiting to come out with two strikes or something, but no. He pretty much makes great swing decisions. But I have a feeling it's because he isn't clouding his mind with a bunch of "this pitcher throws slider low and away 60% of the time on 1-2 counts" kind of stuff.

Fun fact: Hicks had a 2.33 ERA through his first 11 starts with the Giants in 2024. I remember the discourse about how smart SF was to take the chance at converting him to starter.

I may have already written this in this thread, but he didn't even call pitchers in that one year of primary catching in college. So he's having to learn that on the fly. When he was talking about pitch calling/sequencing in an interview I heard, he really gave the impression that he knew next to nothing about it. Almost gives an insight into his hitting that he's up there with an empty head just hacking at whatever looks right (might be more gift than curse, TBH)

The most significant development relating to the Sox playoff chances as of late is the Red Sox surge. Made it far less likely that the AL Central runner-up can back into the playoffs with ~.500 record. Right when the models would grudgingly accept the Sox are not going to lose 95 games, the Red Sox asserted themselves as another likely playoff team which means Our Sox have to actually have a good season to get in.

I want to say the Guardians aren't good so you don't have to worry about them...but not being good never stopped them before

FWIW, I find it interesting that Braden's zone contact rate went up with each promotion this season. He might be making some questionable tradeoffs to get that (like the ball getting deep on him), but I like the adaptability. And if we're asking him to take more aggressive hacks, it's a lot easier to do that starting from a point where he's making better than average contact.

IMO, they hit grounders for different reasons. Eloy was a true pull hitter and would catch the ball out front. But he had a flat swing that made him not get under balls even when he hit them fairly well. Braden's swing has a nice upward angle but he lets the ball get deep on him which tends to make you contact the top of the ball since your swing is still sort of in the downward phase when you hit it. There are some really good power hitters who let the ball get even deeper, like Kurtz, Soto, and Freeman. But every guy's swing is different and I think Braden's is one where when he's timing things up right, he hits it more out in front and won't hit so many choppers.

Would have preferred they had a plan for this inning that didn't result in either having to use Taylor or dry hump him

I think if you appeal that, he should be out. He overran second and didn't re-tag it.

8th inning now so you can't mess around and let Schweitzer get into a bunch of trouble.

Statcast projects the distance it would have had if it didn't hit anything (whether it's support beams, a fence, a seat, etc.)

Main thing for Colson is to crush the bullshit down the middle. The rest doesn't really matter if he does that

One problem for Wolkow is an emerging industry view that the skills he is weakest at — contact and swing decisions — are the ones that are hardest to teach. The flip side is that teams increasingly believe that they can squeeze more power out of most players, especially if they have a strong foundation of making good swing decisions. Then you look at Wolkow who has god-tier power but he can't get to it in games because he has to sacrifice everything in order to keep his K rate below 40%. He's a fun target for a team trying to get something for a player who isn't going to have much value. But I just don't see how he could be a major part of a deal for anything besides a depressed-value rental or low-end reliever type. Some important context for interpreting Winston-Salem statistics this year, by the way: there is an offensive explosion in that league this year. Has to be juiced baseballs or something. League average OPS has jumped from .663 to .767. The league hit 1049 homers last season; this season, there have been 1426 already with over a month to go. This happened to a lesser extent in Kannapolis's low-A league and Birmingham's AA league as well, more like 60 to 80 points of OPS for them. So the table stakes are the back-of-the-baseball-card stats should be up for everybody year over year (note: no change in offense in AAA, which happens to use MLB baseballs).

I don't think you can do qualifying offers to midseason acquisitions anymore.

Smith's production is incredible, but there's a lot of question marks under the hood. Serious swing and miss and he's getting by with a lot of passivity. He's not very big for a guy who is supposed to be a masher and he might be years away from having a defensive position (and the position might be LF). He's a fun prospect and you have to love this partial season of production but the same thing that is tantalizing (that he's done so much in so little time) is also part of the risk (there's no track record). In principle, I don't love risking much on a rental pitcher, of course. Wolkow is going to have near-zero trade value. I like him and he's so young, but I think most front offices don't have much faith that a guy can spin his wheels for that long and become anything.

Longenhangen says Bonemer dropped because he worries Bonemer won't even be able to cut it at 3B and due to worries about his whiff rate. Unfortunately I feel the same way. Since ignorance is bliss, I wish I hadn't watched Bonemer play and just looked at the stats. But I hope we're both wrong!

Nashville Sounds have a position player pitching the top of the 9th with the team only down by 1. What a joke to be charging admission and do that. At least the kid on the bump seems to be giving about 70% effort.

Sox 2026 leaders in fWAR: Vargas, 3.2 (463 PA) Meidroth, 2.5 (436 PA) Murakami, 2.5 (313 PA) Peters, 2.5 (321 PA) Colson, 2.4 (424 PA) Antonacci, 1.6 (350 PA) Braden, 1.1 (167 PA) Just listing position players here.

He didn't even call pitches in college. He's really green. And when I saw him talking about his thought process at the plate, it made me think he's barely ever thought about pitch sequencing and stuff. Not much more advanced than "sometimes pitchers throw pitches outside the zone and I realized they did it on purpose trying to make me swing"

I thought he had been scratched because he was going to replace or piggyback Noah. Now I wonder if it's something bad.

Nah, he's just a slow runner

I'm not totally confident about this, but I think you don't pay anyone but the contracts would advance by a year. Not sure though and would probably be subject to negotiation. I'm not even sure how the sides would look at it...teams might prefer to just advance everyone a year so they don't get stuck owing the players money at older ages.