BearSox

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 06:03 PM) his OBP alone makes this lineup better. Maybe if this team was riddled with guys who would take pitches and work a count so a starter doesn't last 7 innings and we run smack into the setup man and the closer, then I might tend to agree. He would make this lineup better. There's a difference between working the count and standing up there watching pitch after pitch go. I got no problem with players who can take pitches and work the count. It's players like Swisher who just stand up there letting good pitches go because they are looking for a walk instead of hitting the damn ball, no thanks. I haven't seen much of Swisher this year, so maybe he's out of that, but I doubt it.

Did Seastrunk get drafted? Who were some of the top or at least more well known guys who didn't get drafted so far?

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 05:42 PM) And to think you were right on the money with most of your post yesterday. What happened? I think the signings of Gilbert and Iglasius today from the Bears has gotten your head too "spinny" today. No, I'm perfectly fine. I didn't even know we signed them, good to hear. As for Mitchell though, he's got a ton of work to do. IMO, he's basically a HS player we drafted. However, apparently he's a real good base runner, and he might have some plate discipline. There's a ton of work to do, and lets hope our system can for once develop some one.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 05:37 PM) yeah, outside of his one year with the Sox, he's been a very good player and if the Sox had him this year they would be better, even with his 92 OPS+ of last year I don't consider someone that streaky, with a career average of .244 and guaranteed for 130+ K's good, I'm sorry. Unless he's hitting 35+ homers with 100+ runs driven in every year, no thanks. The only thing that might have been stupider than trading for him was trading him for crap.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 04:00 PM) Holy crap we took Goodwin? If we can sign this kid... Nice i really like some of the arms we picked up in the middle part of the day. Not a chance he signs. I guess he's just a "hey, why not" type of pick. He's a Boras client, a UNC commit, and unless we give him a 7 figure bonus, he ain't signing. We'll like offer him a courtesy offer, Boras will laugh, and Goodwin will go to UNC... However, I'd have no problem if we said f*** to Bud Selig and gave Goodwin a big bonus.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 01:06 PM) I don't understand how this is a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but that much of an increase in walks and the fact his K's haven't gone down could seem kind of like a fluke. I'm not saying he hasn't made improvements, but I question how much of an improvement. And Jason, you said a lot of his K's came from taking too many pitches, that's scary. I call that Nick Swisher syndrome. Hopefully we can get that out of him. We love walks, but don't be overly patient up there. If you see a good pitch, hit it! I also hope he really improves his swing. There isn't much weight shift going on, he's not really striding at all, and he's basically all arms in his swing. No doubt there's a lot of potential though, and he'll be quite a project. My biggest fear is can our team develop him? This is where we'll see how much of an impact Buddy Bell has.

There goes Blash.

QUOTE (Dizzy Sox @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 11:52 AM) He may be the hardest thrower we have selected yet. Looks like Morgado has the most velocity, but this guy isn't far behind. Looks like a solid pick.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 11:49 AM) I hope the Sox first three selections, which were atrocious, are a sign that they plan on giving Thompson the big bucks it'll take to sign. Don't count on it... We rarely ever pay over slot. The Danks situation last year was a special circumstance.

One thing that worries me is how his walk numbers didn't just increase, but they drastically increase. He went from having only 15 in 08 to 52 in 09, and that's a huge increase. I'm not saying he hasn't made improvements to his plate discipline, but thats a huge increase in one year and his strikeouts went up. I don't know...

I assume Shirek won't participate.

Any info on Justin Jones? Probably another soft tossing lefty... Our 4th round pick looks bad in that scouting video. Not much velocity at all.

Looks like Fathom was right and we're going cheap this year... oh well, hopefully some of these guys turn into ball players.

QUOTE (Cerbaho-WG @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 02:09 AM) No, he doesn't. He dips his head several inches when he swings, which opens up a ton of holes. I hate to be pessimistic, but you most likely just saw his scouting video today and know next to nothing about him, so being "extremely pissed" is pretty laughable. Yeah, he does have that flaw in his swing, but everything else is really pretty. He uses a combination of linear and rotational for his swing, has real good weight shift, gets into a good launch position, and has a quick bat. I'm no professional scout or anything, but I've been watching and studying baseball and mainly swings for most of my life, and he has a real good swing. And yeah, I don't know much about him. All I got are quick scouting videos and a few scouting reports, but that's the only thing we fans have to go off of. We don't have time or funds to go around the country scouting prospects. However, I'm not gonna hold back my displeasure because I don't know a ton about him. QUOTE (Cerbaho-WG @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 02:09 AM) Look, it's great that everyone here is following the draft, but let's be honest with ourselves, none of us are scouts. It's silly to be worked up about this because none of us has a goddamn clue about who is better than who because anyone can read BA and watch advanced scouting videos. It's simply asinine for anyone on this board to say such and such a team had a better draft than us because you simply have a limited knowledge of something that teams have put thousands of manhours in to. Save yourself the disappointment and wait a year to start handing out grades and complaining. Why? Why can't we hand out grades now? You want everyone to be like the guys on the MLBN show and say every pick is awesome? I'm gonna voice my opinion. Odds are they will be wrong because I don't know much about them, but hell, professional scouts are wrong all the time. I'll revisit in a year, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving out grades right away based on first impression. This way you can set expectations right away and adjust to how they do in their first go around in professional ball.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 9, 2009 -> 10:31 PM) I think part of the reason this draft disappointed me is that we spent no money at all last offseason, so I was hoping we'd spend more during this draft. It's funny, as I don't mind the Mitchell pick and love the Thompson pick. It's the Phegley pick of the top 3 that bugs me when reviewing things. I really like the Phegley pick. If he can stick behind the plate with his offensive potential, at the very least, you got someone with a lot of trade value. I really just hate the Holmberg pick. I'm not gonna let this one go, as I really wish we would have drafted Walla. It's not like he had an awful draft, but it's just not good. We got two guys who could easily bust in Mitchell and Thompson, not to mention Thompson is said to be a very tough sign. We got one guy who could wind up being a pretty bad pick if he can't stay behind the plate. We got Holmberg who is said to be a tough sign and provides little upside. And we got Morgado who could wind up being a wasted pick. If you take out Holmberg and replace him with Max Walla or Wil Myers and replace either Mitchell with Brothers or Arnett OR replace Thompson with Garrett Gould, I think this would have been a really good draft.

These are some of the guys I hope we target tomorrow: Luke Bailey, C, Georgia HS Kendal Volz, RHP, Baylor Jason Stoffel, RHP, Arizona Angelo Songco, OF, Loyala Marymount Josh Fellhauer, OF, Cal State Fullerton Ruben Sierra Jr., OF, Puerto Rico HS Diego Seastrunk, C, Rice Volz is very interesting, he could be a really good reliever. I also really Seastrunk and Fellhauer. Songco could be interesting, but he K's a ton.

Apparently Holmberg is gonna be a tough sign as well. The Holmberg pick is really making me scratch my head more and more.

QUOTE (Dizzy Sox @ Jun 9, 2009 -> 10:01 PM) Like whom? Carter? Hudson? Just because they haven't washed out of Kanny or W-S doesn't mean they were great picks. They may be in time, but unless past performance is no indicator of future success all of them are long shots..longer shots than your typical 1-10 round draft choice. You can't teach stuff. The rest though, it is possible to teach. I'd take Morgado over Holmberg 9 out of 10 times... although if you could somehow fuse Morgado and Holmberg together, you got a top 10 talent.

I really hope we take at least one risk with a high school player tomorrow, like Luke Bailey. We gotta get more talent in this system.

Should we make a new thread for tomorrow? It'll make day two easier to follow, IMO.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 9, 2009 -> 09:54 PM) Andy Seiler: White Sox pick Trayce Thompson from Santa Margarita HS (CA). He's going to take tons of money to sign, but he's got HUGE upside. I wouldn't be surprised if we made this pick just for f***s sake. We probably won't sign him, save money this year, get the pick back next year, and develop a relationship with the player in the future. So if Thompson's college career goes the path of Jordan Danks', we might be able to get him in a similar situation.

My grades: 23.) Jared Mitchel, C+ - Not terrible, but not great. Has a really high ceiling, his floor is extremely low. Boom or bust type of player. If he pans out though, he'll provide quite the offensive weapon at the top of the order we've been lacking. 38.) Josh Phegley, B- - I love this pick, but the only thing holding it back from an A is if he can stick behind the plate or not. Very developed and advanced bat and can really hit. Plus, the more I've read about him, the more I think he could stick behind the plate; supposedly really smart, calls a good game, and has a very strong arm. 61.) Trayce Thompson, C+ - Not a terrible pick, but there are some concerns. He's got a lot of upside and is very athletic, but is also very raw and looks to possibly be a tough sign. Would have really preferred Max Walla here if we wanted a HS OF. 71.) David Holmberg, D - Hate it. Looks like a repeat of the Justin Edwards pick from 2006. A lefty who lacks the stuff to be good, but is an advanced pitcher. Dream scenario for round 2 would have been Garret Gould at 61 and Max Walla at 71. 102.) Bryan Morgado, C - I like it. Seems to have really good stuff but is very raw and needs refinement. We've had success in the past with similar players, but this is still a high risk, high reward type of pick so early in the draft. Overall, C It's not terrible, but for a team that's on the verge of rebuilding, you would have like rather had seen a bit more talent and players who aren't so raw. Hopefully day 2 we snatch up some players like Luke Bailey and go over slot to sign them... however, that ain't happening. Hopefully though, we'll draft Diego Seastrunk and Jabari Blash... that'd make this draft an automatic A

QUOTE (Dizzy Sox @ Jun 9, 2009 -> 09:36 PM) Morgado in 2009: 52 IPs, 55 H, 36 BB 75 K 6.36 ERA. Beautiful. I would look at the stuff, rather than the numbers. Looks at the numbers Poreda, Hudson, and Carter had when we drafted them. I'm really critical of this organization at times, but we've done a great job of developing pitchers with very good stuff but were projects... well, at least in the past 2 years. Also, he'll likely sign for below slot money, so the White Sox love that.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Jun 9, 2009 -> 09:29 PM) i wont have as much info as dasox does...but i got a contact who used to work for the vandy team and now works for a tennessee based baseball agent that represents some decent names that just texted me "morgado is awful" Looks like he's got some good stuff... needs to work on his mechanics and command though. We've had success the prior two years with guys in similar situations: Poreda, Hudson, and Carter.

I'm extremely pissed right now that we didn't draft Max Walla. Just watching his scouting video, this guy has a great swing and just looks like a ball player... http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?topic_i...tent_id=4625661 This guy has just a really nice, natural swing.