TaylorStSox

I'm sure the desire to invest in the West Loop expands much further than sports teams. It's probably the most booming Chicago neighborhood in our lifetimes.

Bridgeport is nice and all, but from an investment perspective this makes infinitely more sense. The West Loop is a gold mine.

No private business is obligated to disclose their books to the public. That's silly. Being a White Sox fan is voluntary. Also, as you know, being an obsessed and scorned White Sox hater is voluntary and doesn't make you privy to their books. It's incredibly weird to even bring it up.

Why would a privately owned business need an independent accountant to examine and disclose their books?

Since we're on Soxtalk, I'm going to figure out a reason to be angry at this move. brb.

That's exactly what I did. Thanks. I thought the bb rate was absurdly high and didn't think about it.

Just go back and look at our first round draft history. It's insane that we've had so few picks in the top 10. In several drafts, we didn't even have a 1st round pick, let alone a top 10 pick. It's not the draft, it's everything else.

I'm not sure how to quantify this, but I would bet money that the Sox have drafted well relative to their draft position. Our problem isn't the draft, it's that we're so fucking conservative in how we develop.

I think there's enough uncertainty in the MLB draft that it's not necessarily results driven. It's about making the best picks available at the time. Nothing the Sox have done stands out as absolutely terrible with the exception of Madrigal. That was just a stupid pick that only the biggest Aaron Rowand fans would like. Fulmer made sense in the context of usage. The rest weren't egregious. Drafting baseball players is really fucking hard and the vast majority of teams fail at it.

The conversation is Vaughn, Burger and Collins. The only one of those picks I don't like is Burger, and it's only because of health. I still kind of have hope for Vaughn and Collins had such a good eye and natural power that I get the pick. Collins just didn't work out. It happens. Beyond that, the last position player we took was Anderson, and he was a star until his life destroyed his career.

Bonemer is the least of my concerns. Everything that kid does screams talent. Odds are that he won't make it, but I'll take my chances with an athletic kid that swings the bat like he's being attacked by demons.

I think it's fairly accurate. If you look at the history of our draft picks, most have been really positive with the exception of Madrigal and Fulmer. Some people were pissed about Gonzalez, but that's just because Keith Law didn't like him and Law has a cult.

We've drafted position players fairly well too. We just haven't developed them. Generally ,we've been conservative with position players, but it's not like our drafts have been backwards k's.

Maybe I'm just that delusional, but I think we draft pretty well and there has to be some kind of plan. Not everything can just be "jerry's a cheap pos."

Wolkow seemed to come out of nowhere.

Is there any chance we're in on a really high upside HS that everyone else sees as a won't ever sign?

MLB draft is such a crapshoot that if we hit on at least 2 picks, it's a win. Smith seems like a no brainer and Bonemar has such lightning tools that I'm really not worried about anything else. The only way for us to climb our way out of this hole is to trade well and fill it in with draft picks that hit. It seems like we've been fairly exceptional at developing pitching since the early 90's. At some point our luck with position players has to change.

Today's his 20th birthday. Has anybody actually been watching him that would have insight into why he's struggling? The k:bb ratio is still very good 71:60. He has a pretty interesting line as he's k'ing too much at 28%, but walking at an exceptional rate 23%. Is he just that overwhelmed? Is he hurt? It seems like he's been forgotten, but he's a $1.2M signing that's still very young for A+.

Don't the Sox always get really creative with this stuff? Last year it was for Wolkow, right? I'd wait until it's over before making any judgements. It seems like development has always been a bigger issue than drafting.

Crochet has been starting for 3 months and is still a massive injury concern. The Sox hit lightning in a bottle here and need to jump on the opportunity to trade him.

Like last year's 7th round pick?

Montgomery is still universally considered a top 25 prospect as he's held his own as among the youngest players in AAA.

You left out Anderson, Rodon, Crochet, Schultz and Montgomery. ?

You're calling BS that there's a correlation between high draft picks and a good farm? Good luck with that. The Sox top hitting prospect was the 22nd pick and among the youngest players in his league. Obviously the Sox are really lacking in development, but the Orioles have truly sucked in that regard for 45 years too. In the current Orioles situation, they were better at sucking.

It helps when you draft 1,2,5,1 in consecutive years. It's been 47 years since the Sox had the 1st pick.