ptatc

How about Randy Johnson another hard thrower. He had 6.5 BB/9 in 91 games in the minors. Once he got to the MLB he lowered it to 3.3 over time. Or pedro martinez who had 3.7 BB/9 in the minors for 71 games and an MLB of 2.4. My point being that in this style of pitcher it usnt uncommon to have a higher walk rate yet they can be successful and they may not wait until he is the total finished product to promote him, if they feel he is ready. Especially if his only weakness seems to be a high walk rate.

Correct. There is no way the Sox will be able to bring in an FA on a team friendly deal. It will be like the Heyward deal for the club. They just need to hope that the player will produce when the Sox are ready to compete and have to deal with toward the end of the contract.

If this is your criterion for bringing him to the MLB, I don't think you will ever see him promoted. With his style of pitching (throwing as hard as he can) he is going to walk a lot of hitters. he is right about at his average for his career. It might go down a little but he is never going to be a control/command pitcher. His K/BB is almost 3/1. Chris Sale had a 5.2 BB/9 in the minors. Since being in the MLB he has lowered it to 2 BB/9.

The sox should call him up then to give Narvaez a break until Smith is activated from the DL. It will only be a game or two and will most likely be his only time in the MLB. The Sox arent going anywhere so why waste money on an FA when Smith will be back soon. Hes adequate.

Quotes from Jeff Passan: Yahoo baseball columnist Jeff Passan, interviewed Tuesday on the McNeil & Parkins show on WSCR-AM 670, predicted Jimenez would be up by the middle of June. “He’s ready,” Passan said. “He’s crushing (it) at Double A and yeah, you could put him at Triple A to face the junkballers and 4-A type pitchers, the borderline major-league guys. But he’s not going to learn anything at Triple A that he hasn’t already. We’re a couple weeks out from the Eloy era and it’s going to be pretty cool.”

They arent against the law if you have a prescription from a physician. However the are against the rules of baseball in all circumstances.

Very true. I wonder if they plan on him skipping AAA.

No doubt

Hes not a joke. Hes just a guy looking to cause controversy for attention and ratings. Everyone of those articles generates attention for him as we are talking about them. He knows exactly what he is doing and how to get the fans riled up and get attention.

Yeau, as i recall they were the highest bidder for him. It doesnt matter if the team sucked. He went with the money.

i don't see why most people don't understand this. There are a few cases where a player may take a slightly smaller offer to be near home or something like that. however. nearly all fall into the situation you describe.

Mike Trout is learning at the MLB level against MLB competition. He couldnt learn these things against minor league competition. This is what every player needs to do once they've progressed enough in the minors. If these two have hit that point, they should bring them up. There comes apoint when need to learn at the MLB just as you are saying Trout is. Look at how the Angels handled Trout. Brought him up at the end of a season. Played him most of the next season. Then the third season he played the full season. This is similar to the timeline I have been suggesting. And he continues to learn at the MLBlevel. He was not a finished product even with the cautious timeline.

I dint necessarily think this is true. The MLB is obviously the final step. No one has any idea how they will handle it mentally. I would err on the side of caution and give them the extra time, if they are currently ready.

They should all wear the shirts that Davidson had in the one picture someone posted. How to bunt 1. Don't 2. Hit a dinger I'm not as opposed to bunting as much as some poster but this is getting ridiculous. I know they are getting 8 hits and no runs but this needs to stop.

Now you are taking the discussion to an absurd extreme. No one ever said nor implied that the minors are a waste of time. They are all necessary steps in the development of players. There just becomes a time when the next challenge needs to be placed upon the player. I believe in one of my posts I said that Jimenez should spend time at AAA. I believe I am the one who posted his walk rate while you only wanted to discuss his ERA. The walk rate is high on the season but has been better recently and he is showing good progress. By this one criteria judging method, you must think that Mocada should still be in the minors due to his high K rate. Somethings are just not going tochange for a player's style. I have a feeling the way Kopech likes to throw all out, he will always walk batters. That won't change against AAA hitters because overall he isn't having much difficulty with them. There comes a time when thy need to be challenged and for these two it might be this year. If their progress dictates they stay down they should. However, that should be determined by development not strictly contractual status with the reason stated ad nauseam before.

This was in reference to how many he would get next year for learning purposes. Unless I read the comment wrong then disregard this.

I disagree. They can come up discover they need to approach MLB talent differently, then go back down and work on that aspect. This is how they learn. Kopech is getting people out especially in K's at AAA. He has developed an idea how to get AAA hitters out. This may or may not work in the MLB. Learning is not linear. They need to learn how to fail and bounce back from it. If they don't have that challenge in the MiLB they may need to come to the MLB to find it.

Because his learning to get out MLB hitters is different than getting out AAA hitters. The hitters are better and may require a different approach. Again, it makes no difference how good the Sox are or are not. It's not about seeing him ASAP. It is about making sure he develops properly within what makes service time sense. They should wait for the next deadline in July.

I would disagree that a 4.02 ERA means he has more to learn. As my last post stated a 4.02 ERA means little without context. His 1.19 WHIP, .200 BAA, 11.9 K/9, 4.2 BB/ 9 tell a slightly different story. He's doing very well there. If the outfield defense in the MLB is indicative of the outfield defense at AAA the AAA ERA may be meaningless (sorry had to take a shot at the MLB team). He won't get 150 games he'll get around 25 starts based on when he would be promoted and other factors. I agree that if Eloy isn't promoted to AAA within the next month or so that he will not have enough time there. Although with it being the hitters paradise, if he is an elite prospect he probably won't be there long. He would probably be better off staying at AA in a pitcher's park for an extended period of time and less time at AAA although he does need time there as well. I also think you are discounting the fact that they may need to go back down after their promotion and the time between promotion and legitimately winning maybe longer than you think. I hope they pick it up quickly with no setbacks but I don't think you should count onit.

How do you know he wouldn't have struggled even more if he didn't have those experiences? A guy having a 4.02 ERA at Charlotte. First of all if you basing a promotion based strictly on ERA, you are looking at the wrong things. It's more about how he handles the failures and set backs. Did most of that ERA come from the one really bad game he had and then he came back strong the next start? Ids the ERA more a product of the park being a hitters paradise than his performance. While the numbers are nice there is much more to look at when deciding when a player is ready. It's not true that they shouldn't be up here even if they need more than next season to learn the MLB game. In fact the opposite is true. Do you think Mocada learned anything from being up with the MLB last year even though he struggled? He looks better now than even earlier this year. Some player will even need to be sent down again to work on the weaknesses that they learned they had while at the MLB. They need to learn the MLB game and it may take some longer than others. If they are ready for the challenge of the next level of competition, you bring them to that level to see if they can handle it and what they may need to work on. It's all based on when the team thinks they are ready. If the team doesn't think they are ready they wait. However, if they think they are ready they shouldn't wait until next year just to save the service time.

In the middle of July would be closer to 3 months as most people would advocate keeping them down until the next deadline which is close to May (at least close) to save more time on their clock (which at that point I would agree with). I know you won't agree but I think that if they are ready that extra learning/break in time at the end of the season is more valuable than adding the extra year on the end of their time.

Where they are ranked doesn't matter. What matters is the development. When are they ready for the next challenge. I've said multiple times, that I have no issue with waiting until the next "control" deadline comes. Right now it's the super 2 deadline. Waiting a few weeks isn't an issue. Waiting 4-5 months would be a detriment may be to their development. The other factor is having them ready for when you want to contend. You can't expect them to be ready to produce for a team expecting to compete for a WS title with no experience. They need to have that learning time in the MLB. Now they may be able to play at the highest level, some can. However I think it's unrealistic to expect it. Get them comfortable with the MLB this year and see how they do. Depending on their performance this year, they either spend some time in the minors at the begininng of next year or stay in the MLB and get ready to compete for a title in 2020. IMHO this is the cautious, safest way to develop them.

Outfield. Dont put him at DH as 21 year old unless his legs are broken or if the team has 3 outstanding defensive OF who are producing. Neither of which is true.

Kopech was quoted in the off season that he wanted that record. It was during one of those videos showing his workouts.

Dang. You're right. I missed it.