Dam8610

All but one is a very strong consensus...

Over.

Not if the White Sox are winning games and championships and he's the leader of the team.

Yes, you need pitching, but Posey was their best position player, best bat, and one of their best defenders. I understand it takes a team to win a championship, but having the best C in baseball makes building the team around him a lot easier.

Covey has 0.7 fWAR in 22.1 IP. Lopez has 0.8 fWAR in 71.0 IP. SSS, but Covey is currently pitching better.

I feel like (and certainly hope) this is correct. I also feel like he's the type of player who will be a leader and keep problems out of the clubhouse.

Hopefully he's way less of an asshole.

I just disagree with the last part, especially in the juiced ball era. If he's making contact with the ball in about 80-85% of his plate appearances, he's bound to run into a few. 15 HR in 600 PA (which is easily achievable as a 1 or 2 hitter in a healthy season) works out to 1 per 40 AB. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, especially because I think he has more power than he showed this year because of the wrist injury and recovering from it.

From the article: 2. White Sox (20-40, .333): Adley Rutschman, C, Oregon State Oregon State had two hitters taken in the first round this year and it shouldn't take long for one to go early in 2019. Rutschman might be the best all-around backstop in the class. He's a plus defender with a gun for an arm and excellent receiving skills. He's a switch-hitter with bat speed and plenty of raw power to tap into. So: - Plus defense at the premium defensive position - Plus arm to throw out runners - Plus bat speed and power - Switch hitter - Proven production at the highest amateur levels to date Sounds good to me.

3 in 32 games projects to 15 in 160 games. Yay math.

Why wouldn't he use that swing in, say, a LIPS situation where no one is on and the team is down by 1, or a tie game? I just think the whole "won't hit for power" thing is overblown in the juiced ball era and for a guy whose tools suggest he'll have a well above average BABIP profile and will take extra bases on hits with his speed. It's not hard to project a .150+ ISO on him given his tools, and if he has that and develops the way his tools suggest he should, he'll be a force to be reckoned with for a long time.

How could you view that as a negative? To me, that shows incredible bat control and an ability to successfully make adjustments on the fly. That, to me, indicated a near ML ready hitting approach.

If the Sox end up with a mid rotation starter out of Covey, that will be a huge rebuild win.

One bit of good news on that: the Kannapolis team is made up primarily of 2017 draftees who played college ball, so those guys will likely have made it to the bigs or washed out before they gain Rule V eligibility.

Top 10 and Top 5 at the position are usually considered elite (see the post directly above the one quoted above debunking your false information), but you're right, it's all a conspiracy led by me, and I'm apparently the leader of the Cult of Jose Abreu. How did you put all the pieces together, Ron?

This is a weird spot in the rebuild for this. On one hand, you look at a list of names and how well they're performing and you think, "How could this possibly fail? Look at all the positive results we're seeing." Then you see guys like Moncada, Anderson, Giolito, and even Lopez struggling and it gets harder to see the success happening. I imagine this is how Astros fans felt in 2014. Hopefully it works out similarly for the White Sox.

I know, right? It's almost as bad as if he'd called out an elite hitter for a poor start three years in a row, only to have that elite hitter prove him wrong each time.

So with how Ron's reverse jinxes work, this means Abreu will be in consideration for the gold glove at 1B by the end of the year, right?

Sale might no hit the White Sox.

I agree. So saying anything before late 2019 (say mid 2019 or opening day 2019) seems foolish.

What are my other options in this scenario? There are teams who will be in playoff contention whose #5 starters are BAD. It might be worth it to one of their GMs to flip a lottery ticket to the Sox for a free starter who is better than any of their internal options.

Madrigal is likely on a fast track and projecting him for anything before late 2019 seems foolish.

The whole point of drafting a catcher that early is getting a guy who could give you good offense and defense from the position, thereby giving you an advantage over pretty much the whole league. The Giants got 3 championships in 6 years out of a team led by Buster Posey.

That's more like a 2022 lineup. No Machado or Arenado would be disappointing.

No, he doesn't. Santiago can have those innings if necessary. Also I'd like to see Stephens get a shot. Other than last night's start he's performed well all year, and he'll be 26 in September. If the White Sox are going to see if they have a backend to mid rotation starter here, they're going to need to give him that chance soon.