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Not sure why I’m putting this here except it’s often the same crowd: but as I watch Juan Soto belt a HR in his first mlb at bat, I have to say that while it has its misses (usually with mid tier catcher obsessions), soxtalk is pretty damn good at identifying big prospects early. Soxtalkers were all over Acuna and Soto early, and like a year later they are in bigs.

Not really.

With all of our discussion on "will the sox pony up for players?", a huge boost to that will be if we could somehow build a dominant in-house bullpen. Bullpen has become incredibly expensive. Having that be cheap again would allow us to allocate more resources to a position player or rotation member. edit: And I'm not sure how likely it is, but I do think it's fair to say this actually has been part of the white sox strategy.

B-I-N-G-O You realize as a whole they are giving a lot of 0 innings, but that's also because they are giving a LOT of innings, and the ones where runs are given up can be painful for a struggling offense. Good recovery at this point. They also seemed to do well at identifying the ones in a slump vs ones that needed to just go

It's not expecting Madrigal to be Altuve, it's just that 4-5 years ago when you'd have Madrigal the question would be "okay great player, but he's 5'7, what are the chances that guy pans out"? Then, you'd have Pedroia. Now, you have Albies and Altuve lighting up the world, and Pedroia. You just happen to have 3 2b, all small, as some of the best hitters in the game (or were). So it's not he WILL be Altuve, it's that the ceiling is not where we think it is just because of size. He may very well just be a high contact versatile infielder, but the other reason I like him is that sort of hit tool is needed on this team. The astros cut a lot of high-k players and their offense exploded. Ks in and of themselves aren't bad, but if no one is ever putting ball in play you miss some opportunities over the year that add up.

Yep, you have to go to Hi-A for a CFer above .610 ops.

I also would hope that, while I know we are trying to develop a specialty for positions, the sox used years like this to work on positional versatility for anderson and moncada the way they have for yolmer.

Yeah only a team that could be weird with offers (like the rockies) I could see, I don't see the Dodgers getting desperate. They've avoided going for it for 5 years, don't see it happening this year.

I will admit I didn't think there was that much difference between a team 5-10 games under 500 like 2015-16 and one 25-30 games under. I was wrong about that, this is painful. Crazy to think they could recreate the indians 22 game win streak or whatever (including these games) and be only 3 games over .500. Like I think we'd all be happy if they went .500 the rest of the way, and they'd still finish 17 under.

It is one of those things where to have an opinion you kinda need to be able to peak at what cards are being offered. In theory, you probably could say you should shop him but in practice, I think it does more harm than good to sell this guy who means a lot in the clubhouse for some 45 prospects.

Especially when, at an organizational level, up the middle infielders are a big weakness. There is little in the pipeline for help. I get that this draft is weak on the prototype picks. No big athletic HS pitchers with great stuff, no super athletic hs short stops with power potential (that don't have horrendous hit tools). But this is what the draft is. And I'll take my chances that a player with great makeup, athleticism and great baseball IQ in an atypical package can maximize that profile than reach for someone who looks the part and has to find the tools just mentioned. Plus there should be really interesting guys for the second pick where we can go with very projectable, unpolished stuff. But with Madrigal angst it seems like knocking the pick because of a hypothetical draft logic. But this is the draft pool they have. He makes the most sense, and I think people will love him once he's in the system.

I mean sure but his actual Batting Average was 50 points higher than his Babip which requires more non in play outcomes like strikeouts and home runs.

This blew my mind until I looked up the game sample. Wasn’t sure how many HRs were required for that.

One reason to call them up not mentioned, and I’m not advocating just saying it may need to be a consideration, is showing off moncada, kopech, Jimenez, etc may help with this FA crop if they are noticeably ascending vs , you know, losing 8 out of 10 games consistently

This post from last night sure aged well

Jose certainly keeps coming up a lot nationally recently.

My head agrees with DA, but on the other hand who know what 7 years from now looks like let’s #callhimup

Exactly.

The front page of trib sports has a profile of Wilson Contreras with a big “TWTW” at top and headline of The Will To Win, and even though I hate that Hawkism it really pisses me off they just co opt it for the cubs.

With Soto called up, Albies and Acuna called up, I’m not really buying the “rush” train of thought with Jimenez. More like “challenge”

Yeah fry is something right now.

That was like the most normal, actual thorough win we've had in quite some time.

Mark Jackson is sooo boring.

Hey this rondon guy I think is ready for W-S after this one good game

To me the ability of a front office to sell a vision to their ownership is a part of being successful, but also they were failing at executing the ownerships own plan. Despite them being in a mindset that had limited chance to succeed, they were also just executing it poorly.