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I'm super pumped. I'm now a part of a season ticket holder group. I only bought about 15 games from my brother, but still excited as hellllllllll

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 08:55 PM) Well let's start with this. Here is the latest Top 25 in the system, which was mid-season before recent trades (so no Ynoa or Garcia, but also you'll have to ignore Bassitt, Ravelo. 1. Carlos Rodon 2. Tim Anderson 3. Micah Johnson 4. Courtney Hawkins 5. Spencer Adams 6. Francellis Montas 7. Matt Davidson 8. Tyler Danish 9. Carlos Sanchez 10. Rangel Ravelo 11. Trey Michalczewski 12. Micker Adolfo 13. Chris Beck 14. Cleuluis Rondon 15. Jacob May 16. Jace Fry 17. Trayce Thompson 18. Kevan Smith 19. Andy Wilkins 20. Scott Snodgress 21. Keon Barnum 22. Adam Engel 23. Tyler Saladino 24. Jordan Guerrero 25. James Dykstra Others who got votes: Chris Bassitt, Mike Recchia, Brett Austin, Jefferson Olacio, Jason Coats, Antonio Rodriguez, Jake Jarvis, Luis Martinez, Taylor Thompson, Andrew Mitchell, Kyle Hansen, Omar Narvaez, JB Wendelken, Andre Wheeler Also bear in mind this list doesn't include guys outside Prospect status technically but that are younger guys who are likely to be a part of the future, i.e. Erik Johnson. I focused exclusively on positional prospects, as I see us being forced to trade away pitching talent if this near MLB crop flames out. I guess what I'm seeing is 2015 is a make or break year in that respect, as this is the talent we accrued when we identified a rebuild. This is wave 1, and wave 2 has a gap behind it.

I've been thinking a lot recently about this now that we have basically bought 2 years of competitiveness without sending out much in terms of our key prospects. For 2007-2011, the sox "retooled" instead of rebuild and bought years like this, and we hoped it would bide time for a wave of talent to come in. Unfortunately at that time they had only begun the steps of building a real scout system and emphasis on the draft. But Hahn spent the 2013 offseason sending out our established talent for MLB ready young talent. It's here where I'm worried that we still have a high margin of error and that we are not making up in volume. Below I'm identifying the prospects who in 2015 we can ill afford to fail, and which would provide the biggest benefit if they can turn it around. Here is our 2017 ceteris paribus make-up. Note, I'm pretty much exclusively talking about position players for reasons I get to later. Left blank if no C- 1B - 2B - Micah Johnson SS - Tim Anderson 3B - Matt Davidson RF - Avasail Garcia CF - Adam Eaton LF - Courtney Hawkins Of the acquired talent, we have 1 player in Eaton who we are fairly certain is at least a future starter. We have one other, in Tim Anderson, who is seen as a can't miss prospect with All-Star potential. Then we have the rest. Avisail, to this point, is young and talented. However, he's shown to be a bad defensive outfielder, which puts tremendous pressure on him to be an offensive force. I'm nervous. We have a full season's worth of ABs from him, and they are ... pretty average. He is essentially the next closest thing we have to a close to sure thing for a starter. The next level - Micah Johnson had an unspectacular 2014 but has huge support in our system. A disasterous 2015 from him really hurts the sox ability to provide cost-controlled talent in position players to afford latter year Sale contracts. Courtney Hawkins has bee terrible and then improved but still not good after a great 2013. He will have an age caveat for a few more seasons, however, I can think of no other positional prospect who would provide greater relief if they succeed than him. For me, I'm assuming he continues to flail but am continuing to hold out hope. Matt Davidson - Davidson at this point is pretty much written off. His resurgence would again provide Sox with huge slack for the years after our vets are gone. 3rd baseman are just too hard to find. I remain scared though, that even if his bat arrives, we learn he can't hang at 3b. We have a next level of prospects in May/Rondon/Thompson/Saladino that could explode this year, but have their flaws and are less likely to hit. Behind them are your Adolfo's, Trey's, Fish, etc that are far enough off that we would expect them closer to 2018/2019 and may be such sure thing's at that point these worries will be put to bed. But to me this seems like the crucial year. We thought our young talent would hit in 2016. That's a year away. This is crunch time here, this is where the talent either asserts itself or fizzles away. This year is going to be a ton of fun as sox fans to follow the majors and minors to see where this franchise can go.

I love that they fired a coach for not wanting Josh Smith.

Man if he completely busts that will be miserable to have 18 million on the books.

I'm interested in this "Robin gave Conor a bigger glove" thing. It seems ridiculous enough to work. I imagine Conor was still wearing his little league glove as self-punishment.

I really started to appreciate Kobe about 06, when he started crashing the boards like crazy. He had a comic book hero aspect to him. I can close my eyes and see him cross over and fadeaway, with his shorts whooshing out. Dude is an icon and an ironman.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 05:43 PM) Viciedo is a butcher but Melky is a below average defender, albeit a little better. None are what I would consider measurable upgrades. LaRoche is a bit of an upgrade but we are talking about the least valuable defensive position in all of baseball (1b) and Abreu improved as the season went on. When you look at corner OF D and 3B D, we were putrid and have not really fixed that. Fair to say Sanchez will be an upgrade, but obviously offensively brutal.

The main thing that bothers me in their projection are the SP WAR projections. If I were to peg one section "most likely to outperform" I'd be all over that.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 05:20 PM) The team should be somewhere between 85 and 90 if things go right. If things go better, meaning guys like Danks or some of the younger hitting (Garcia and 2B) hit better than expected, the team can maybe break 90. Of course, the opposite is also true; Sale usually spends some time on the DL; Quintana and Jeff S. both are expected to pitch like front-line starters. Even if they do, what about #4 and #5? Will Robertson solidify the bullpen? Lots of questions either way that can make the team better or worse than mid to upper 80 win team. I feel like we are an 83 win team if we have an average season, we need the danks/garcia/bullpen great years to get us to 88 wins.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 04:39 PM) one will not get or field a team that is going to be top 2 or 3 in the league. a team needs a comfortable mix of statical players that can get along and jells together. no matter what, this team needs to be healthy in all aspects. This. We can expect some to decline, and some to be better, but we really are going to struggle to overcome any injury obstacles.

Well, when you project every single player to regress, then yeah, 4th is likely.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 04:57 AM) My take on his attitude is that he's just very cerebral, competitive, young, and hard on himself. Yeah, I don't think his attitude bothers people. He's just a hilariously serious person.

Rob Mackowiak.

So on SSS they mentioned that Carl Crawford had TJS in August 2012 and was back by opening day 2013. Good news for Saladino, but gonna be tough to make roster if he's only recovering during ST.

That game was misery to watch.

Meh, has there been a Brian Cole surgery that we've ended up saying "Whoa, he healed so fast!"

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 11:48 PM) If I had to guess, Hahn probably hoped to really improve the catcher position. T-Flow modestly outperformed expectations last year, but it was just last offseason that he made a run at McCann. I'm sure he wishes he could have brought in somebody better. 2B and 3B are also up in the air a bit, but I think catcher is where we have the least upside. If Sanchez can play a remarkable 2B, I'm fine with crap production.

QUOTE (woods of ypres @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 12:05 AM) I've heard rumour that people from Chicago don't like Chicago style Pizza; and its mostly tourists, and out-of-towners (like ME!) that eat it. It's just not something you can have all the time. If I got a deep dish every time I ordered pizza I'd be 300 pounds. And the thin crust those joints like giordanos etc make are usually garbage. I usually go after Pete's on Western, and have Dante's across the street. Armitage Pizzeria is also great pizza.

Chicago pizza, blech. I did go to Pequods though, which, next to Pizanos, is the only one I actively look forward to.

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 11:54 PM) Agreed.... I think Melky is likely clean, now. The past is the past and I'm, personally, going to give him the benefit of the doubt. With me, if a player takes PEDs and goes on to just dominate, like a Bonds, Sosa, or Clemens, I'm more disgusted than I am when a guy like Cabrera, Ozuna, or a Jhonny Peralta gets caught....cheating is cheating but the PEDs didn't have a drastic impact on the game when looking at those lesser-known players, likely due to using PEDs for a different reason (faster recovery times vs. straight performance) I frankly just feel it's different now that a testing system is in place with punishments. Before, when those guys were destroying every record and winking at the camera they were the same as everyone else it sucked. I don't like them still. But after you have a system in place, the field is even. Some guys will use, some will get caught and they will be punished. But IMO he did it, lost half a years pay, fought his way back and whatever. I wish he hadn't roided. But it really is just not something I will hold against a player forever. Some will get caught actively trying to juice, others will probably get screwed by being lazy. But if they pay their time, whatever I'm fine with them being white sox.

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 11:39 PM) I read a lot of concern on here about Avisail....I don't get it. I'm a huge proponent of his and think he's going to be an excellent bat. With that said, we all have different ideas of what needs to go right for us to succeed or is making us doubt any chance of succeeding...What are your 3 keys to this season? Here's my 3: 1. Robin Ventura needs to show that he can manage an ML team with talent. He had an excuse last year with the roster being what it was but I think it was more than obvious that he was making many poor in-game decisions that had nothing to do with a lack of talent. He needs to step up this year or folks are going to be calling for his head early and it will disrupt the clubhouse. 2. Tyler Flowers showed flashes of the offense he achieved in the minors last season. Our stats gurus on here were quick to point out his absurd BABIP during his streaks, but from the eye test he was making more consistent contact and seeing the ball well during those stretches....no surprise that more contact leads to a better offensive contributor. We really need Tyler to feel comfortable most of the season if the Sox are going to make some noise. 3. Carlos Rodon and how management decides to manage his innings. The kid has the ability to be dominant and make an immediate impact on our club leading to easier victories out of the 4th spot in the rotation. I was a fan of bringing him along in the pen out of ST and ease him into a starting role....we know that isn't happening now. My next hope is that we milk those 130-140IP during the regular season being, outside of a possible BP role, we don't need him in the playoffs with our top 3 starters. We need every win we can get and I don't want to see him handled with kid gloves...give him a job and an innings limit and let him do his thing. I think those 3 are luxuries. I don't think Robin needs a particularly good year. Frankly, a great bullpen can make anyone a good manager, so if he gets career years in there he'll look so smart. For me, these are the real keys if sox are to jump from a realistic 8-9 win jump to a full 15 win jump to a possible wild card at 88 win: 1. Be remarkably healthy - this team has pretty much zero positions that an injury can occur and the team have an acceptable backup. On this end, and maybe this is greedy to include here, but one of the biggest things that could help this year is Erik Johnson and Beck making huge jumps in Triple A so that we can have that additional depth to bring up if we need burn from a long man in bullpen. 2. Stars need to be stars - Jose Abreu needs a year as big as last year. Sale needs a year as big as last year with more innings. Samardjiza/Q, again, need no dropoff here. We just do not have a deep team to overcome lack of starpower. 3. Bullpen - Robertson needs to be shutdown, Duke needs to be last year Zach Duke, and Putnam/Petricka need to be their June/July selves. Frankly, this I am hopeful for. We killed our bullpen with innings in april-may last year, and throughout the year, with some of our crap starters. Putnam/Petricka were overused, Belli was overused, and then they'd explode. But one thing I've been thinking about is how crucial this year is for our minor leagues. Will 2017 be another 2013? We need to see Anderson, Hawkins, Trey, May, Thompson, etc either be good or turn it around. If Davidson turns around, it would be crucial to future of sox moves. If they don't, we need a bunch of the arms to hit so that we can trade them off.

QUOTE (Andy the Clown @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 10:38 PM) For those of you who were around for it, did you criticize our signing of Albert Belle? Because he was basically a violent, homicidal maniac... Belle was most hated player in MLB when Sox signed him. No doubt a lot would have not liked it. I still loved his 98 season though.

Gillaspie keeps getting autocorrected, apologies to Conor. I don't want him moping at me.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Dec 14, 2014 -> 10:23 PM) As an aside,let me say that competitive balance picks are so bogus. Agreed.