bmags

you can definitely see how baseball america has really shifted how they rate prospects. Far more younger, rising hitters, far less pitchers than they used to rank, far less immediate ranking of top college players right out of draft.

Updated today

man gotta say I agree with caulfield. Every year, a player or players in your lineup will be below expectations. But teams like dodgers, rays, cards can bring up and mix and match their roster in season to find the group getting them wins day in and day out while the underperformers can work out the kinks. The dodgers have about the same amount of players as the sox throwing out some historically terrible seasons. Max Muncy, bellinger, Barnes. But they are 41 games over, have a top ten farm, and have the kind of scouting that when their outfield was struggling they saw that Trayce Thompson was playing at a level he could help. They literally traded for trayce thompson and he has been hitting an .868 OPS over 35 games since acquiring him. Nobody on the dodgers will suddenly believe he's a long-term fixture and sign him to a 3-year 16.5 mill deal this offseason. Who knows if the sox even found that in Adam Hasely, despite ample injuries in the outfield we have plugged in Leury garcia, gavin sheets and other struggling players without fail, night after night. And to my own hobby horse, we do need to acknowledge the elephant in the room that has defined the white sox awkward operation. The dodgers can sport a $300 million payroll and also one of the most expansive and expensive scouting and talent development operations in the game. The cardinals can sport a $200 million payroll, but don't unless something special becomes available, and don't need to because the league funnels the most premium assets to them - an additional top 50 draft pick every year, and an extra million to spend on INTL free agency. The sox don't get funneled extra picks because they are a major market team, like the dodgers. But the sox also act like an old school big market team, who believes they can buy their competitiveness through free agency. But the sox don't act like an old school big market team, because they routinely get outpriced by everyone. Except on DHs. Except on Relievers. When this reign mercifully comes to an end, the next owner and group need to realize that in order for the sox to be a permanent contender, they need to funnel more money into the scouting and player development to build something closer to the dodgers. Our major league payroll advantage will need to be slimmer, but unlike the Guardians, we should still be able to afford to re-sign our big players, while being more limited in free agency. That's a trade off I'd happily accept. Our scouting and development is not atrocious. But it HAS to be top 5 to make what Hahn wants to do work, and he seems completely disinterested in it, otherwise it wouldn't have taken 10 years to get to below average.

Time to get Howard back on track

Nice to see very little strikeouts from new/rehabbing players in ACL

Romy homer again. He’s good

does caulfield know what twitter is

funny you should say that

some fun ACL stuff as players get integrated: - Jacob Burke (11th round pick out of Miami) hit a homer last night - Jordan Sprinkle ended up 2-3 with a BB - UDFA Ben Beutel pitched 1.2 Innings of scoreless ball with 2 Ks And romy is looking good

2014 they were 19th though.

I think Vaughn definitely needs to work on a new approach to better produce power as a 1b/DH. Hard to look at this: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast?type=batter&year=2022&position=3&team=&min=q&sort=6&sortDir=desc This launch angle works for abreu because he barrels a lot, vaughn hasn't hit that as much. But he still hits the ball hard a lot. The cohort he's in with launch angle...i'd rather see him operate more like alonso/olson than what the others are doing aside from vlad (hits the ball way harder, way more raw power) and abreu (prodigious, can do whatever he wants)

when your team is the 2014-5 royals, and you have very speedy base runners who are excellent at fundamentals, an amazing defense and bullpen, it can work. We have some speedy runners who are asked to keep it in first gear, who are terrible at baserunning anyway, horrible defense, slightly above average bullpen and good starting pitching. Seems it's not great in that scenario.

Holy jobs report.

Still true

Romy - too good for ACL

Jordan Sprinkle, hitting 1.000

Very dalquistian start

wow 77 still didn't make it with 90 wins? Brutal year.

my bad, just cleaned up the pins.

This is where I wish they'd have a serious discussion on shutting down grandal. Is Severino/Sheets better than Grandal Sheets? Right now definitely. 2021 Grandal? No way. But what are we really looking at next two months.

Rodriguez continues to just be a fascinating prospect. He's always been fun because despite being young with no pedigree he'd produce when no one else was. Then finally this year he was the odd one out. Completely devoid of hits and power to start year, he starts with addressing contact, now it feels like he's re-adding in power. Like he just recalibrated everything.

I think this is a result of the new cba.

Just a 24 year old catcher, crushing AAA with a low k rate, after watching one with a 30% k rate succeed at age 26. Nothing to see here

He was insanely hot, I think this is just normal.