35thstreetswarm

Actually, you haven’t gone far enough. He’s been a really good player overall for the Chicago White Sox over the entire course of his career; a team that’s never in contention. That’s proof he performs in low pressure situations. In fact, if he were worse he’d be better.

Well, the definition of “picking and choosing” is saying things like “beating Detroit and Kc and Baltimore, while nice...doesn’t put a team ahead in a rebuild.” You could have “picked” beating Minnesota or “chosen” beating New York for example, but that would not fit your narrative. Instead you picked a few bad teams to imply our wins all came against bad teams and we got beaten up by the good teams we played, which is not true.

No, and I don’t think that’s the FO plan. It is an interesting reminder, though, that there’s a lot of ways to win ballgames. Kind of amazing what the Brew Crew has done with that suspect starting 5.

Precisely this. Nothing about the rebuild has changed. This has been a brutal stretch to watch, but the improvement to our draft position is probably the best thing for us at this point.

I don't think we'll win the Cole sweepstakes and I won't be crushed if we don't. Give me Bumgarner or Strasburg - not convinced they won't turn out to be better signings anyway. Sign one of these solid SP options plus Grandal and I'd be ecstatic.

He's always been a ridiculous, self-important red-ass. Easily one of my least favorite players, even when he's not playing for the Cubs.

Crazy that Eloy essentially beat them twice in four games. He’s going to torture that fan base for years to come.

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.