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For the LG-heads CWS 2:10 With Basabe hurt, who's the Sox' OF prospect to watch after Ely and Robert? Eric A Longenhagen 2:10 Luis Gonzalez

It's a weak college SP draft and I'm not particularly big on HS pitching this high (better value to be in 11-20 range.)

Since I know asking for injury free from now on is too much, I will just ask for preference for health from our pitchers.

Maybe. But I've yet to see anyone in baseball say " we have found that investing in player development does not pay off". Per the bolded, not saying this will work with everyone, but I know that if you do it with everyone it can pay off more often than if you don't. And if it pays off once its incredibly valuable. Also we know that when asked around the league the sox are not mentioned often as advanced in player dev, we know the sox have not see great production in player development, and we haven't seen many examples of the white sox providing overwhelming resources like this through sox media. Fegan is good at this, he shows an org that provides analytics but I've never read a story like this before. What do we hear with the sox? "Stay Tall" "They gave me a cutter". That may align with their good pitcher health, but I've not seen anything on the position player front that has paid off or hit home like that.

Very excited to hear about fulmer.

Yeah, it's hard to understand what are just post hoc rationalizations. Obviously, the sox weren't supposed to be strong players for machado because their valuation model was correctly pointing to idea he was good, it was, in my interpretation, supposed to be that their financial flexibility should have allowed them to afford Manny on a price that exceeded others valuation models which meant they could get him. Obviously that was up to a point. But I thought the point was that we could afford machado at a level exceeding what we would normally target free agents.

I think a good point here is that while KW was able to get Jerry to buy off on higher major league budgets, it came at the cost of amateur and international scouting which came to haunt the sox and basically led to this lost decade.

In what amounts to be one of the more typical situations that Hahn keeps putting himself in: Zips projections came out. Chicago white Sox projected for .9 WAR Seattle Mariners projected for 1.1 WAR

Thank you to shack for providing clarification. I can't help but think when this is described that it sounds like Ned Stark going to king's landing. Sox have a lot of opinions on the way things ought to work. And by sox I think this ladders up to Jerry. And when other teams don't operate that way he gets mad, and years later it seems like it becomes an owner request in the next CBA so that the league behaves more like jerry should. But the way the sox ought to think it should work and the way it does work is often at odds and it puts them at a disadvantage when going for the big splashes like this.

I don't understand how this jives with being pissed off though. To me what you were saying earlier is they were mislead. But Lozano clearly told them higher numbers were needed and they balked. So sure, if KW is saying "I have never been so pissed off at misidentifying the market" then fine, but you seem to be implying it's not the sox fault, it's that they were mislead by Lozano,

Honestly guys what does this even mean, would any of us have valued home field advantage at $50 million? The sox should have known that manny wanted 1) Most money (if being generous, at least from teams not yankees) 2) a top contract that validated his place in the game. We know 300 was a big number for him, and vested options would not have been truly reported as part of what he signed for. It would have been sox sign manny for 8 for 250. Home field advantage is sox give manny a 10 year 300 mill contract, san diego gives manny a 10 year, 300 mill contract, and he signs with sox. It is not a 50 million difference.

Eh 1) it's kenny williams and when he has spoken to media last 5 years he's either been pissed or overly braggadocious 2) This aligns with my view of the owner and maybe org, that would be pissed at another org bidding against themselves and "overpaying" players and getting played by the agents, thus hurting the playing field for teams or however they view their fake constraints they've put on themselves for the last 2 decades.

Its interesting but I don't think so. The 300 mill really insures the player. Extra what, $6 million up front but missing out guaranteed 50 mill on back. I bet 8 for 275 with 5 year opt out would have done it despite lower money.

I don't know, I took from KW that he was kinda throwing shade at padres for being gullible and increasing their bidding based on lozano saying there was a team at 300 but I can't find a transcript anywhere.

He should have been forced out of being GM after his injury DB episode because quite honestly it seemed more egregious to me than what Atlanta's GM did (I think both should have been forced out).

I still think preller is a bottom 3rd gm, and specifically question the moves he will make when padres need to become a contender. Despite his knack for player dev and scouting young players, he seems like a traditionalist when it comes to team construction and play. That said, I'll take his knack for scouting over hahn's knack for contract extensions.

Ah, that's a good point.

He is probably going to have some swing and miss in his game but he may have some incredible power numbers when he hits his 25 year old body (may also not be a shortstop but I hate body projections because who cares you deal with it when you deal with it)

Have always thought your idea with this was the best.

He finished AA as a 20 year old with a .355 obp and .500 slugging. He had a 27% k rate but just finised dwl with a 21% k rate. That's not that bad especially for his age. That's the same k-rate that Kris Bryant had as a 22 year old.

Frankly, when I read this I can only be annoyed that when we entered our rebuild we did not find anyone as productive as Herrera with the additional playing time we could offer waiver pickups and AAAA players. These deals are usually impossible for me because I have no idea what the cost is. But I'd rather not shell out talent for a guy that I would say is almost certainly someone you'd want to upgrade from in a year or two.

Right, and he improved it a lot just as it was becoming a "thing" and the sox FO clearly has not prioritized framing (based on post-flowers acquisitions) so I feel like he just picked it up himself. The sox clearly *are* using analytics, as fegan has done a good job reporting on. In AA there are a lot of anecdotes of it being used. So it's not about "using analytics" or any specific tactic, it's about providing and coordinating overwhelming resources to make the best ballplayers possible. That's what I don't think is happening. Seems like they are also trying to start everything from scratch instead of just hiring someone who knows what they are doing.

I think as I look back, the reason this hurts so much is because I thought it would help overcome the cracks in the armor that I started to freak about in september. I was not that worried about pd and drafting, but when I looked through it at end of august, I started to notice the huge dropoff after our core set of prospects, and the attrition already setting them. This made it easier, and so when it was gone it really shines a spotlight on how the f.o. did far less to revamp their system than they assured fans they were doing.

It is remarkable that despite all of the insider information in the world, this message board accurately predicted the deal that machado would sign 2 years ago, while the sox own valuation system confused them that they were clear players for him while hamstringing themselves with a deal 50 mill less. 2 years to prepare and hemm and haww at how serious they were.

Very true, it's brutal, if anyone calls please be courteous.