bmags

Fegan nicely gives the sox Madrigal in the Athletic mock draft: https://theathletic.com/370469/2018/05/29/the-athletics-first-mlb-mock-draft-twenty-four-beat-writers-and-a-former-gm-project-the-first-round/

On twitter yesterday, Kiley said he was getting fed a lot of nonsense and expected lunch to be the goods. They may be wrapping up everything they heard earlier. I did notice the board had reports go up of way more people which is nice. edit: https://www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx?draft=2018mlb&type=0&pos=all&team=all

I don't have a "beef" with him. I'm personally very skeptical on the "super credentialed" college pitcher types. But like any pitcher, Singer could take his pitchability, find some velo, find a 3rd or 4th pitch, and be great. After the success of the astros, I like that stewart and winn have good spin rates. I like the consistency and LH of Liberatore. I'd prefer hitters, and yeah, I'd probably take Kelenic over Singer though his old-for-his-year thing reminds me a bit too much of Rutherford.

My personal, not that informed rankings For 4: 1. Mize 2. Bart 3. Madrigal 4. Bohm 5. Carter Stewart 6. India 7. Liberatore 8. Swaggarty 9. Winn 10. Kelenic For 46 1. Xavier Edwards (though this is unlikely unless you are on BAs top 500) 2. Hankins 3. Grayson Rodriguez 4. Jeremiah Jackson 5. Alek Thomas 6. Lenny Torres 7. Schnelly

Fangraphs audio yesterday was very interesting. Less of a summary rundown.

I don't really agree with Law's super protype-driven pitching analysis, but I do when it agrees with my priors.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/daniel-palka-594953?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb He hits the ball hard. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_leaderboard?year=2018&abs=50&player_type=resp_batter_id His Average Exit Velo is eighth. Barrels per PA? Eighth. Sprint Speed? NOT EIGHTH (313). He's basically a slightly faster catcher. I'm in favor of letting him run this hot streak out as DH.

The thing to be excited about is if the sox actually turn Collins into a competent catcher that shows an incredible new talent eval + player development skill in the org, so I really hope they pull it off.

yes we have a wonderful see-saw of "competent MLB hitters/worst defenders of all time" or "competent mlb defenders/worse hitters of all time",

I endorse this. Yesterday at the game I was staring at a Tilson, Engel, Thompson outfield and I was just thinking "this...this is not good"

This is true but I can't help noticing a lot of the successful pitchers with avg 4 seamers below 91 are veterans that pitched a lot faster earlier in their career. It takes time to develop that know-how, and it seems far fewer guys came in at 90 and could make it work aide from Hendricks/Keuchel. Look at this board: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=17&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=4,a A lot more people can throw 90, so if it's not easy.

Yeah very disappointed.

Anyway, I'll try not to derail everything. I am very excited for our round 2 pick, and thankful we did not sign a cheapie Moustakas and miss out on it. You could throw like 15-20 names and I'd nod along to all of them.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean. What does an 88-90 mph, tops out at 92 SInger look like. It's why I get so tired of the "he's just the safest pick" stuff, college, developed pitching falls apart just like the rest.

But I'm often wrong, and the devil's advocate to this pick is Singer, according to the mlb mock draft, is in the top 3 for every top 5 pick. That should be reassuring but I'm not sure how I feel about any of these top 5 org's in terms of talent evals.

I can talk myself into most picks, but man I just don't like singer at all. He's going to be shut down after CWS. He'll come back next year and by June his velo will be down and we'll be like "oh but he just knows how to pitch" and then it will be the slow painful experience of watching a wasted draft pick get shelled.

Crazy that a guy whose two seamer has as good of a sink as his gave up 755 home runs last year.

Wish there was ranked preference. (Singer would be very low).

Yeah, true. Not sure I've read any issues on "character issues" or uh, steroids.

Me neither, comps are gonna suck up some of that intrigue. Maybe if they all had deals and didn’t think they’d fall that far but low low chance.

It’s mostly based off of scouting presence. Especially the Bohm thing to Phillies.

Yeah, Hankins, possibly Mclanahan.

Highly doubt he’d be stuck. Not an issue.

Eh, is Faedo doing that well? Puk was still top 3 I thought.

An interesting part of the article was they basically let him take some time off defense early in the season to get out of his slump, so he’s catching up now.