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When you only take 1 high ceiling position player in a decade there is a good chance it will fail. But regardless, drafting a high school with big power but high likelihood of being a corner outfielder isn't the greatest upside play in the world.

I kinda hope they fall in love with two top 15 guys and try to get both at 16 and 26 but use up most of the budget for their comp picks.

I felt like he was a guy a bunch of udfas could beat out but oh well. Just would like Pace to bring in competition every year regardless of results. And to think his rookie year tress way was better but they had used a 6th round pick on him so they cut way.

I am not a scout and will not scout or know how swings or anything work but I do still really like the profile of CJ Abrams and if he is graded closely I'd be attracted to cutting a deal. Starting to sound like he may start to slide into the back half of the top ten though.

I'm dreading when sox pay $180 for an age 29 player that turns into a crap contract but will "prove" they sign stars.

One thing that's going to be tough with getting a high schooler in 2nd round is AZ has all of those comp picks. Worried we are going to pick a college 1b again.

Wow I thought initially this 12 year 420 deal was added to the remaining two years, not including them. What a steal for LA.

I feel like 90% certain sox will draft Tommy Henry and then they will all joke about being michigan alums for weeks.

I have nothing more to add other than this is good for baseball and this thread had many hilarious comments, good job everyone.

Regardless of anything, good for baseball when a team can keep a player like this and the team ponies up for a wonderful player. Sucks he's west coast!

Boylen should be replaced at seasons end. The defense has been a tire fire the last week, he keeps going under screens even when it burns him. He opened up the offense, but he should have never closed up the offense. And now he keeps getting in unnecessary shots against other coaches (See phx last night, and doc rivers last friday). Seems like a nice guy but hasn't done anything to deserve more than be an interim coach.

From today's grab bag: "Purely my own opinion, but Lenyn Sosa, who just turned 19 in January and hit .293/.317/.406 in Great Falls last year against a league full of recent college draftees, has smooth actions from shortstop during infield practice."

Well so much for that.

people think this may mean something

Sad I missed a game where he played. I have no idea what he looks like (pictures don't provide much scale).

all the prospect guys call someone that when they are looking good. I'm not sure you should take anything away more than that Sosa clearly looks better than his peers on the backfields. However, we heard similar things about Curbelo. Nicer to hear than "Sosa has had nice stats but looks underwhelming in backfields"

Leury's army growing bigger and bigger, welcome to the club.

He is the true "power comes last" guy to watch for me. He incrementally improved while increasing competition. Low A is a big jump that has swallowed our younger guys before, but I just really like him and can't wait to see how he does this year.

This is small but I thought some would find this interesting too. Fegan had a Q&A and I asked about international signings coming up. Here is the exchange and I highlighted the sosa part: (I'm sorry if this formats poorly)

Yeah it's an interesting question. I think given sox preference for college players under Hostetler your baseline assumption should be sox will still go college. If I were to go just based on profile and said there was a player in the premier baseball conference and team with plus plus power and more walks than strikeouts, but is a corner outfielder, that seems like a sox pick (this applies to Bleday or Misner), you'd have to say that's the sox pick right? But, I think the college picks aren't as prescriptive as we think. I believe, in my charitable, sweet kind heart, that Hostetler actually is trying to be innovative. That he values the trackman data and has been so college heavy because they have (likely OVER) valued that data set and it consistently made the college players with it more valued on their "boards" than high schoolers. And with that I say if it does appear that Witt is a tier above, talent wise, the next group. That he doesn't sink at all, gets more positive reports in whatever good competition he sees, that the white sox will draft witt. But if witt gets injured or some negative reports come out and it blurs, I think sox go college. That's my psychoanalysis of the chicago white sox. Basically, if the draft was today, the sox would take Witt. But who knows if things blend. I don't really have a grasp on Stott so I'd leave that up to some better draftheads than me.

Great article. Looking forward to draft coverage this year more than ever since...you know. Write-ups were great.

Well, looks like even driveline can't solve Fulmer.

I agree, but I do think it's important to keep in mind his caveat that he's not really able to gauge player dev of other orgs. He's seen sox modernize in last two years, but pretty much every team has when it comes to technology from what I understand. Even the marlins are doing so under new ownership and they were the one I usually heard as being a very old school org. Ben Lindbergh (one of the co-hosts) has a new book on player development coming out soon which I'm excited for. I don't expect sox to be in it. But I don't disagree with premise of your post. The sox totally seem like an org that chases the pack rather than sets it (understatement). So when others have success with rapsodo or trackman, yeah they'll take a look. But are they going to push it beyond that? For the sox to succeed at their self-limited payroll, they need to squeeze every ounce of value out of their personnel. They need everyone to be that 5% better, so they can either avoid paying for that on market, get 5% more return on the market, or have a team overperform its baseline. Instead they seem to think they are similar to the astros type org, in that they will spend more when they win and it makes sense, without learning any of the other lessons.

and phoenix is quietly putting together a nice run recently, if they beat the bulls tonight (which big men have been destroying bulls since blake griffin did a week or so ago), the bulls are only 1 game back of them in tankathon. Edit: and with exception of 2 games vs knicks and 2 games vs wizards, there are very few winnable games left on schedule. 76ers, raptors, blazers, jazz...bulls may be in good shape to get in top 3. I hate losing while markannen looks so poor suddenly, but we have 11 games left and Zion looks like that once in a long while type prospect. Worth the margins for a 1.5% increase at this point.

Did that get anymore legs after that note last friday night?