35thstreetswarm

Yes, I am a sucker for Cub killers! Probably more efficient uses of 9 million but the merits of raising the payroll from nothing to slightly more than nothing in a year we’re not even trying to contend is not worth worrying about too much.

And hopefully he doesn’t get leprosy. I’m stoked.

I remember that!

I was heartened to hear some pretty spirited heckling after the rain delay at last night's game, even if the quality was mixed. ("Hey Minnesota, all you have is a mall" was kind of funny). Good heckling is one of my favorite parts of baseball and I've heard some great ones over the years ("Hey Moises, your mom just called, she wanted me to tell you....BOOOOOO!"), some brutal ones ("you have a better slugging percentage at home than at the ballpark") and some inexplicably bad ones (to Dustin Pedroia: "Hey Dustin, you look like you're made of dust." "Hey Pede-y, go smoke some weed-y"). On this off-day I wanted to poll the site for peoples' best (and worst) heckling stories. Any good ones?

Fair enough. But most of those depth prospects fall into the same category as our second and third-tier guys: players with flaws, injuries, and/or on a non-linear development path that you could still pencil into an MLB lineup one day if you squint your eyes. Some become bench players, most are forgotten a few years after they are traded away. I think we're doing all right in that respect. It would be great if we could produce five more Eloy-caliber players to trade away but it's not necessary.

I guess I look at the minor league development story differently. The goal of the rebuild is to build a core for a major league contender - see Correa/Altuve/Springer/Bregman; Bryant/Baez/Contreras/[insert marginal Cubs core member here]. We appear to have several pieces of that core that have already graduated to the MLB level and are excelling this season (Moncada, Eloy, Anderson, Giolito, etc.) We have several other pieces either coming back from injury or looking like they're on track to arrive on schedule (Kopech, Robert, Madrigal, Cease). We just drafted a guy in Vaughn who seems likely to be a fast riser through the system. There are other potential "wildcards" on the outskirts of this group that could still have big impact (Rutherford, Collins, Dunning, Basabe, Burger, Adolfo, Bush, Burdi, etc.). Looks to me like we're on track to build our core which, supplemented with free agency, could give us a good team to root for, which is the name of the game here. Most prospects don't pan out, either because of injury or underperformance. If you're hoping for a large success rate from *any* list of thirty prospects you're bound to be disappointed. The Sox don't need dozens of prospects to "hit" for the rebuild to be a success. Just a few important ones.

First time I've heard this take: most believe all is forgiven in the Chapman deal because he helped them win a world series. They have little to show for the Q deal.

Well, the Sox have given up 4, 6, 5, 1, 4, 10, 2, and 1 runs in their last 8 games Nova has started, so you'd have been wrong in 7 of those. Let's hope tonight makes 8!

It will be fascinating to observe how the reflexive negativity displayed in this thread, and on this board generally, will try to hold up if this core takes shape and the evidence of the rebuild's success becomes undeniable. I wonder if there will still be a soldier firing "....but Tatis!" bullets out of his cave while the rest of the board discusses pitching matchups for the ALCS.

I'll be there in a mixed group. I would like a win tonight, please.

I just know that when Vaughn is anchoring our lineup in playoff series two years from now I will want to stand up and cheer every bomb...but every time I do I’ll remember “but he only plays first base” and I’ll slump back in my chair dejectedly.

If he does it in 2020 he can be called Badly Rushed'em

I like the idea of a hitter so good that the analytical models cannot find a comp for him. But as a Cal-Berkeley grad, I'm admittedly biased

Interesting writeup on Vaughn that echoes the arguments about him on this board: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2019/5/30/18645138/mlb-draft-andrew-vaughn-first-baseman-cal

Yep, it's become the new "confused guy" emoji of a year ago or so, being similarly utilized by whatever handle tommyfootlongo is using these days

We just won two games in one day -- we're 2021 contenders again!

I think you're in the minority in leaving Eloy Jimenez off a list of "potential stars" of the White Sox (regardless of his tools) but whatever -- my point is that I agree with your sentiment that the Sox org has more star potential than many on this board admit.

I would add Jimenez and Robert to that list, with Giolito starting to look like a maybe. Some might call that a potential core of a good baseball team. But there seems to be a belief among some on this board that we need our farm system to produce 5 all-stars a year for the next five years to have a shot at contending.

Fair enough—replace “majority” with “large part.” The point stands, though—it would be odd to have an opinion of Hahn so rigid it would not be changed by the success of a rebuild that will define his career.

But to be fair the majority of his tenure has been defined by a strip-down rebuild (after a couple years trying to contend on the fly against his apparent wishes). The rebuild was designed to produce godawful, losing seasons. The ultimate success or failure of that project can’t be measured yet. If the Sox win the pennant in 2021 I think any reasonable fan would say “good job Rick Hahn.”

I defined it (for me) in my first paragraph. They start making playoff runs (plural) in 2020-2021; a genuine contending team starting next season. But you are kind of missing my point. Define it however you want: my point is that some here seem to have formed an opinion of Hahn’s efforts before their success (however you define it) can realistically be measured in the field, which seems backwards to me.

^^^case in point. So if Hahn engineers a successful rebuild and the White Sox become a good, contending team on his watch, you’d cheer if he left for another team? Why?

Serious question: if the rebuild “works,” i.e. Moncada, Anderson, Gio and Lopez continue to improve, Eloy mashes, some handful of prospects (probably Robert and Cease, maybe Kopech) comes up and contributes, we add a couple free agents and start making playoff runs in 2020-2021, will those of you who are down on Hahn change your minds? Or have past moves made him irredeemable in your eyes? I ask because for me Hahn’s grade is “incomplete,” as my ultimate impression of the job Hahn is doing is 100% tied to the rebuild. If it works on a reasonable timetable I’ll give him credit, regardless of how frustrated I may be with this off-season/the Tatis trade, etc. if it doesn’t, he’s got to go. But it feels like some of you have formed opinions that are so strong they’ll never be changed, and that may be divorced from the success of the team on the field.

You’re only a “devil’s advocate” in the alternate universe of a thread explicitly dedicated to negativity. We are not supposed to be competitive this year. Stop looking at the standings, and the performances of veteran stopgaps. This year is about the development of Moncada, Anderson, Lopez, Giolito and Eloy, and the prospects—headlined by Robert and Cease. Look around you: things are going quite well with this group on the whole, and Eloy hasn’t even really “arrived” yet given the injury. I don’t get the doom and gloom.

Summarizing what the Cubs did in 2015, 2016, etc. is irrelevant to the question I posed, which is: are they an undeniably "great" team in 2019? Here's another question for you - were they a "great" team in their most recent full season, when they missed the playoffs? (And please let me stop you before you argue that losing a game to the Rockies is "making the playoffs.") They are playing well this week, and time will tell whether they return to their heyday and you all get that dynasty you were promised. But it's been a pretty obvious downward trend since 2016, and it's just no longer self-evident that the Cubs are a great team. Sorry.