southsider2k5

When the database was rebuilt during the upgrade, any posts that had been deleted over the years were not counted anymore. Either that or we are just messing with you.

But even having Sale/Quintana/Eaton wasn't luck. The drafted and developed Sale. They targeted Quintana as a minor league free agent who hadn't pitched above A ball, and managed to turn him into a front line pitcher. Eaton the Sox scouted and identified to bring into the organization.

The Sox have pretty quietly redone their player development group in a pretty short period of time. They have a new person running the draft and scouting, along with a new development person while slowly pushing Buddy Bell out. The results early seem positive, but we will see five years down the road.

There are positive signs on the horizon. Tim Anderson and Yolmer Sanchez are White Sox from beginning to end. A guy like Nicky we took from out of baseball as a minor league free agent after forcing a release and moved all of the way up to the majors. While he has taken a crazy route, it was the White Sox that got Trayce Thompson from draft day to the majors.

Bravo.

Wat?

I doubt it. My guess is that he is giving up velocity for movement and control.

Are you returning money to all of those people who lost their house due to your recommendations?

You heard him folks, bet the farm too.

You could say the same thing for all of the position players, and we have a LOT less depth there. This is also the reason I have been way more conservative on how long this rebuild will take versus the people who thought we would be .500 this year and in the playoffs next year.

Realistically, this might be the best start to an Abreu season that we have seen. He is almost always terrible in April, and then gets rolling when it warms up.

Sure. We have 10 guys listed above in the top tier guys, along with another chunk of guys for the next tier. I absolutely know some of these guys will fail. But even if half fail, that is still a 5 man rotation left over before you get to the next tier of guys who aren't nearly as highly regarded as of today. The Cubs are a completely different beast as they didn't put hardly any resources into pitchers, and just bought them on the open market. The Sox did the opposite and pushed in hard on pitchers. I worry WAY more about the position player crop being too thin to withstand the inevitable failures that are going to happen.

More vaguely, both are defensively challenged power bats who won't hit for high averages at the major league level, but will crush the occasional baseball.

Realistically for the next few years we look to have a "next" starting pitcher on the horizon. 2018 Has Giolito and Lopez here barring something crazy happening. Fulmer is here, and probably has this season worth of rope to learn with, could be longer if he starts to show some consistency. This season we should see Kopech very soon, call it middle to end of June. 2019 could see some combination of Hansen and Dunning. 2020 should be when we have a chance at seeing Cease, Clakin, and a few others. This is JUST top guys, That isn't really accounting for a breakout season from a guy like Jordan Stephens, Spencer Adams, or someone else. It also isn't factoring in that there is a chance a Mize could fall to us at #4, or that we draft someone early this year who flies through the system. I don't see us needing to drop major money on a starter. Maybe a back end guy or a project guy to span a gap of months, but not a long term contributor.

Up there? Sure. But second place doesn't matter.

It was July 27 of last year, and they then expected him to ready for 2019. No mention of 2018.

Jerry is 82. There is a pretty fair chance he isn't here for the next playoff team.

Probably. I personally think the chances of us signing an absolute top guy are way over blown here.

That is exactly how I see Kaplan as well.

I think every single aspect about Bryce Harper has been framed around money. I have no doubt at all that he wants the biggest contract possible, period.