Jake

Something tells me that the Bulls will be more fun to watch in general, but possibly more frustrating to watch at the end of games where being able to play tough D really matters and you need somebody who can score even when everyone knows he's going to take a shot.

There's nothing wrong with saying that Moncada either... 1. Takes so many called third strikes because his eye is not as good as we would like to think — that is, his ability to take such close pitches isn't just because he has some amazing ability to make fine distinctions in pitch location but because he takes a lot of pitches and doesn't realize these pitches are close. or 2. Needs to use his superb batting eye to know that some pitches are balls but have 25-50% chance to be called a strike so with 2 strikes, have to be swung at even if defensively. In other words, he needs to adjust his mental approach with 2 strikes. What is interesting about his issue w/ called third strikes is it suggests that while has some trouble making contact, his K% could fairly easily fall into the typical range if he adjusts his mental approach a bit...even if his contact ability doesn't change.

Tangentially related: Have there been proposals to reforming the system governing control of minor league players that could potentially alleviate this problem? I know you could have everything timed from draft/signing date, or maybe age, but I've always been interested in whether there's a good way to do it that rewards teams for developing players without either incentivizing early or delayed call-ups.

FWIW the thing that pushes Schwarber's D into the positive is the arm component, which is the hardest part to keep afloat in the long haul as runners wise up. And IMO Statcast has the best method for grading outfielders on their ability to catch the ball. It does not make Schwarber look good at all. This is of course an apples to oranges comparison because we know Yoan Moncada would be a better LF than Kyle Schwarber. And is Yoan getting better or worse on defense? It's hard to say quantitatively. What I will say is he had a run of bad errors that coincided with the depths of his batting slump. I think those kinds of things are the most easily corrected class of fielding problems. His UZR range component has been consistently good and I believe that to be the hardest thing to improve for an infielder — it's kind of like trying to get a guy to run faster. His double play component of both UZR and DRS has improved. I see some upside for an above average defender in Yoan, perhaps even better than that. He so far has struggled with committing errors, so the downside is that he's below average. I tend to think he'll be about average when it all washes out as he probably doesn't have the hands to avoid some simple errors but has the athleticism and arm strength to make up for it with good plays. Last, the idea that Yoan is presently *bad* overall is nonsense. If this Yoan Moncada is all he'll ever be, he's a middle of the road MLB player and could play up in a platoon in the right roster configuration. He's already better than Gordon Beckham ever was at 2B. By Sox standards, that means he has 4-6 seasons ahead of him before we close the books.

One of the secrets to this process is that once you're pretty sure you have a few sure things produced by your system/early rebuild trades, you go out and buy some veterans to round things out.

As has been said, the extent to which folks are penciling Nick Madrigal into the lineup and beyond is the kind of thinking that will generally set the stage for disappointment. I don't take it as a given at all that he'll even be a MLB player. I'd like to see him hit the pitching in the low minors first, preferably. A lot of stuff can happen between now and whenever he finds his way to AAA.

Am I the only one not seeing the aforementioned article?

Lot of straw arguments going on in here. It's not that you expect a player to magically become worse while dominating AAA. The question is *when* will he be reaching his potential in MLB. A guy with an 1.100 OPS in AAA is probably not getting more prepared to hit MLB pitching while he's in AAA. So long as that is true, you're not just delaying the time when he becomes a free agent but also the time when he's a player that's going to carry your team. Maybe he's going to be great as soon as he is called up, but maybe he'll need a year or two or three. While some have written off Moncada already, it's very plausible that by this time next year he's setting the world on fire and we'll be glad that we have him ready to go in mid-2019 rather than being right in the middle of taking his lumps at that point. As for the specific situation with Eloy, the more the Sox bide their time the less sense it makes to call him up. That being said, I think with all else being equal he could benefit particularly by having a couple months of MLB experience and then an offseason to deal with whatever happens in those 2 months. He can get that experience and then has an extended time to see what adjustments he has to make, adjustments that may be hard to implement in the middle of his rookie season. Depending on what the Sox see, it can also help them in their planning with regard to player acquisition to see just how ready he is.

Kopech worked out of trouble fairly nicely there

Austin Meadows to me is more comparable to an advanced version of Blake Rutherford

The Sox managed to keep their only HOF in living memory around right up to the point they didn't want him anymore and decided instead to replace him with a younger HOF player. If Eloy is going to be Frank Thomas level of good, I think the Sox will have as good of a chance as anybody to keep him around.

I'd venture to guess that if he's willing to grind it out in AAA for the indefinite future, he might find himself in the right place at the right time to pick up those service days. The fact that he's at least a solid defensive CF who can run makes him a guy a team can rely on for a limited role when there's an injury.

I'll say this: I don't think it's remotely unreasonable to say that Eloy is better prepared to hit MLB pitching than Yoan was at this point a year ago.

I always thought it was next to impossible to keep the ratio both steady enough and low enough, but that might be something I heard from some gym dopers.

So the following is something different/less stringent than what you're talking about? from https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-introduces-random-unannounced-in-season-hgh-testing/

We also have taken a few college relievers and tried to make them into starters, which is a whole other unconventional way of doing things.

Anyone who knows me I don't take this lightly, but I'm officially pushing the panic button on Hansen

Hard to see this particular game as emblematic of some larger thing. Our ace got us into the 8th with a lead and our star rookie reliever got shelled in the 9th the day after closing one down like it was nothing.

Hard to know what to think of that Gurriel play because I've basically never seen a player do that.

Thinking back to when Kris Bryant was in AA and AAA, I just remembered looking at that >25% K% and wondering if it was going to cause him problems in MLB. He of course would strike out 30% of the time as a rookie which did hold him down to a mortal .850-ish OPS. Now we have another great bat in Eloy who is younger — and hasn't put up the incredible raw run production that Bryant did, to be fair — but with no problems at all making consistent contact at the plate.

Following up on this, I managed to get Baseball Savant to give me month by month splits for Yoan as RHH... April: .268 wOBA May: .110 wOBA June: .150 wOBA July: .334 wOBA (not including today)

I've been thinking that his ABs have been much more competitive against LHP as of late, even when he hasn't gotten the results.

It's getting really difficult to justify keeping him down there.

What in the world would Aaron Bummer have to do to get his spot back on the MLB club?