southsider2k5

His last two starts have also been better. The walks are down, and the groundballs are up. His velocity has also started coming back up in his last two starts, with more emphasis on the fastball (highest usage rates this year in his last two starts) along with a push toward the change and curve instead of the slider. We'll see if it carries through tonight, but the needle has been looking up.

Are you OK with your kids grabbing girls by the pussy?

Given that it the hit tool is Abreu's carrying tool, and he just happens to be really strong, I think he will carry a fair amount of power too as he ages. He doesn't generate power with an obnoxious long swing, or anything like that. If anything I think he is probably sacrificing 40+ homer power now, in a trade off for being a better contact hitter. It is just with his strength his contact swings can go a long way. I think he could also go the Frank Thomas (as he got into his mid 30's) route and if he wanted to sell out average and contact for power, it is there.

Yeah, then it gets interesting. For my two cents, I think it goes (assuming no other injuries)... Trayce goes out first. Tilson is next. Throwing a wild card out there, I think the Sox drop another pitcher and finally start carrying another position player and one less pitcher.

I think he can handle CF, but the White Sox have Engel above Tilson on the depth chart for sure.

Tilson in CF in Charlotte, unless Engel needs a DL trip. Especially when we get Avi and Delmonico back, along with Palka, you really do need a CF who has range and can catch a ball.

What is going to be interesting to me is to see if Palka's emergence, along with better play from Engel, convinces the Sox to take a smaller price on Avi, or to move him sooner, rather than wait and take another chance on him next year.

Nate Jones is an odd situation. Don't forget he has the odd clause in his contract where if he had elbow surgery, his 2019 option was actually for league minimum, plus a couple of more options. That could actually add to his worth on the open market.

I am just going to put a stab in the dark into his getting assigned here in the next week or so when all of the mass of moves happens.

If Jose Abreu came today and said he would sign a reasonable 4 year deal (say under $80 million) which took out his last arb year and his next three FA years, I would do it. I really think his superior hit tool is going to carry him into his mid to late 30's pretty well. Obvious if I could get an option for his last year, I would do it, but when you look at what JD Martinez (AAV $22m, front loaded and opt outs in years two and three), I think that is a pretty reasonable deal.

Typically it wouldn't be too early, but with the injury history and the questions about work ethic, that is what gets me wondering.

I'd feel pretty good about extending him at $18 to $20 million a year for those years.

Learning nothing from the past.

I think the interesting thing for me at this trade deadline will be to see how many players are dealt, and the depth of the players who are dealt. If we see another heavy year of players going out who aren't at the end of their deals, that means the Sox don't see themselves as competing very soon.

Davidson doesn't have any positional flexibility and they want to be able to use his bat without disrupting Abreu, and without losing Yolmer.

The Sox haven't missed on signing anyone in the top 15 rounds for a really long time. My guess is the "difficult" signings are the HS picks after the 15th round, with the deeper picks being exponentially tougher than the early ones.

If all of our OF's fail that badly, there is no need to sign free agents because this rebuild is screwed.

At this point, I don't know that I am willing to look at a close to market rate extension with Rodon with the information I know today. Unless we got a great deal with a lot of the free agent years falling into team options, I would probably pass.

He's also said he wants to play for the White Sox for the rest of his career.

I think a lot of people underestimate how important it is for players to not only have good coaching from the staff, but to have people off of the staff that also show leadership. The best organizations are self-taught and self-disciplined. Jose Abreu leading the way for the young players is going to have a much larger impact than anything the coaching staff has to say. Leading by example has a huge impact. Oh, and it also is really nice that Jose Abreu is a legitimate middle of the order bat who is extremely consistent from year to year.

Thanks for sharing. It bears repeating that we have had a couple of very similar pitchers to Lucas in Jon Garland and Gavin Floyd. I know a decent amount of people have quit on him already, but with what Washington did to him, and then trying to rebuild both his motion and his confidence, it isn't going to be an overnight thing.

I remember Quintero getting a mention out of spring training too. Was hoping to see him earlier, but it will be interesting to see what he does.

And I would still take that bet.

Bruce Rondon or Carlos Rodon?

You'd be wrong then. He has been playing the OF 100 games or more in only one of his minor league seasons. including his appearences this season, he has been in the OF in 311 games, and 1B for 188 defensively in the minors. Realistically he has been in the OF for about 60% of his games, and of those, he has been in RF 273, or a little over half of his games total. The only other really he played RF basically every day was 2016.