witesoxfan

They may also see be trying to prop up Baez's value too.

Jonny Gomes doesn't even play for the Red Sox n00b

Davidson is playing in an entirely different league though, even if it's still AAA. There are reasons to be concerned, but he still needs more time.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 07:13 AM) The worst thing about Robin, IMO, is that he doesn't signal for the homerun nearly often enough. We all complain about the bullpen a lot, but how many games has the bullpen blown that couldn't have been salvaged if Robin just had his guys hit a few homeruns the next inning? It makes. No. SENSE! It's like he's not paying attention to the score. At the very minimum, he should talk to the other manager and ask if they'll take it easy on them. I mean, how hard is that? "Hey throw us a few meatballs and we'll do the same (crosses fingers)"

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 08:57 AM) His floor is not being able to hit his way out of A+, which is a real possibility since in 77 games in Kannapolis he posted a .233/.295/.262 line. His numbers thus far in Winston-Salem are very encouraging, but he has a long way to go with the bat to become a useful major leaguer like Ryan. His glove alone is going to get him to AAA and major league call ups. His bat will hold him back from being a starter or not, and that's only if he's putting up sub .600 OPS's. He has to hit like a pitcher to not make appearances in the majors.

QUOTE (LDF @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 05:46 PM) damn. the sCrub may get Cole Hamels form phi. I was hoping it was the sox that claimed him Unless something new has happened, all they've done is put a claim in on him. That means absolutely nothing.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 05:25 PM) BTW -- why do you re-sign Paul Konerko if you don't think he can help you compete in 2014? Paul Konerko is hitting .292/.319/.472/.791 against left handed pitching. That was why he was brought in. He's doing his job. He also pinch hits and plays occasionally to keep him fresh against right handed pitchers. He's not as good against them anymore and it's brought down his total line.

QUOTE (sin city sox fan @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 01:14 AM) Is Robin going to do anything about this bullpen situation? Or just allow the implosion to continue for the rest of the season? Bring in a hypnotist. Try accupuncture. How about a colon cleansing for the staff? These ideas may seem ridiculous, but doing nothing seems even more ridiculous to me. Heck, I'd even rather try and and have all the righties throw with their left hands. At least they'd have a valid reason for failure at that point and could maybe realize their potential when switching back to normal. Robin acts like this is no big deal and just continue to trot out a new arm every out or two. If we're going to have a POS for our manager, get rid of Ventura and give the job to Mr Hankey. He'd likely command more respect from the players in our dugout. Maybe the pitchers should just pitch better. Maybe he should have better pitchers. That would fall on Hahn though, and not Robin, so it doesn't fit your agenda.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 04:00 PM) He's holding his own in 125 PAs with a slash of .252/.320/.360/.680. I think you're a bit premature on this one. Definitely think Rondon is top 20 too. As a 20 year old who the organization has stated is extremely raw offensively. I'm really excited about him. I think the bat will continue to improve, but it's certainly possible that the bat doesn't play to the point where he can be an every day player. I do feel very confident though that he will make it as a starter in the majors, and a quite valuable one at that.

I just want to say that this has been a good discussion so far, so let's try and keep snark and venom out of the discussion. This one can get a bit heated at times, just want to make sure we all keep level head.

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 03:42 PM) Props to you Wite this is a solid list. I just think you are crazy for making Rondon a top ten prospect when his ceiling is Brendan Ryan. I think his ceiling is a lot higher than that. Brendan Ryan might be a projectable player, but Simmons/Escobar/Guillen, those are the kinds of ceilings I think of him having. He's holding his own as a 20 year old in A+ and if that bat keeps holding up, he's a very, very good player. I basically view his floor as a no bat, gold glove capable player, which is a guy that will always find a way to start. If he can find a bat, it sounds like he's a potential all star.

Not sure if anyone else will, but I have no problem posting my top 30 for others to see and rip apart. 1. Carlos Rodon 2. Tim Anderson 3. Courtney Hawkins 4. Spencer Adams 5. Micah Johnson 6. Francellis Montas 7. Tyler Danish 8. Cleuluis Rondon 9. Rangel Ravelo 10. Matt Davidson 11. Carlos Sanchez 12. Trey Michalzewski 13. Chris Beck 14. Kevan Smith 15. Jace Fry 16. Jacob May 17. Andy Wilkins 18. Micker Adolfo 19. Adam Engel 20. Brett Austin 21. Trayce Thompson 22. James Dykstra 23. Jordan Guerrero 24. Tyler Saladino 25. Scott Snodgress 26. Jefferson Olacio 27. Andrew Mitchell 28. Jason Coats 29. Keon Barnum 30. Mike Recchia

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 03:32 PM) You also had another great point on not having an entirely new middle infield and I think that is probably a very underrated reason why Alexei stays around (not to mention the fact that he's signed to a fair price and is one of the leagues top shortstops). I also don't see Semien, Johnson or Sanchez playing well enough defensively to fit in at SS. Rondon is the guy we have and he's still a ways a way (and again very raw; I'm probably the highest on him on this entire site and it is because I believe you have to have strong up the middle defense in this current era of baseball and that up the middle defense focuses more significantly on SS / CF / C. Pffft, you had him ranked 9th, which is clearly lower than my 8th ranking.

I also don't think De Aza will be back next year.

BABIP can fluctuate with position players a lot more. Good hitters will get more base hits on balls in play, while bad hitters will get fewer hits. There are other aspects of it as well, but my case in point regarding Semien is based on his power still being present while his BABIP is low. Beckham has not been hitting for power. That may not be the case in Semien's instance, but it's not a bad assumption. BTW, Gwynn's career BABIP of .341 was perfectly sustainable. We don't hit batted ball date from that far back, but it's safe to say that he primarily hit line drives.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 02:59 PM) That's fine, but every game thread, if Beckham makes an out it seems posters start foaming at the mouth. He's been bad. He's admitted that, but I don't see why it is necessary to bring Semien up now, and not wait a while. Anyone can say he's ready, but how can anyone really know that? It isn't like he's dominating. Let it go a few more weeks, maybe Beckham finds some luck, someone gets hurt and another team trades for him, and maybe Semien gets hot, he was good last night and comes up confident. It seems to me the reason people want Semien is based more on Beckham than Semien. I think the White Sox need to call him up based on him and not Beckham, he was on the roster because of Beckham's injury initially and was in a bit over his head, or they wind up having more problems down the road. To some extent, I agree, it's backup quarterback syndrome. I'd like to see Semien (or whoever the organization feels is going to be the 2B moving forward) get an even more extended look to see if there's something there, rather than a limited look in September against some less than capable talent, but it's not going to be the end of the world if they wait until September 1st.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 02:41 PM) Using the same criteria, Gordon Beckham has been extremely unlucky, yet all anyone says is he sucks. You mentioned his walk/k ration. Last year he had more walks than strikeouts, yet that translated to 16 walks and a league leading at the time 57 strikeouts when he was sent back to AAA. He still fans more than he walks in AAA. I don't see how that translates to instant success. We are about 3 weeks away from roster expansion. That would be a good time to call him up. There is no reason to rush. I do believe Beckham has been unlucky to some extent - he's normally a much better hitter than he's been this year, even if the normal hitter is a rather poor one. Normalizing his line based on his career BABIP, without using any actual fancy or complicated calculations, you would figure his line would be around his career average of .245/.308/.376, give or take here or there. It's not bad, but it's not good, and Beckham's about to get even more expensive. Given the very large sample size we have of Beckham and the lack of improvement over the duration of that time frame, I think it's time to get someone else a shot to see if they can stake their claim at the position. His line drive rate is down and his ground ball rate is up. Those are not things you want to see in a hitter. Beckham seems like a good guy, but I don't think he should be a full time starter any longer.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 09:16 PM) Players likely to be off 40-man next year: Nate Jones (60-day DL) Matt Lindstrom Felipe Paulino Adam Dunn Paul Konerko Gordon Beckham Players who reasonably could be removed from 40-man: Ronald Belisario Scott Carroll Maikel Cleto Frank De Los Santos Raul Fernandez Javy Guerra Charlie Leesman Nestor Molina Tyler Flowers Josh Phegley Jordan Danks Alejandro De Aza Jared Mitchell Moises Sierra Dayan Viciedo Bear in mind that Avisail will have to take somebody's place on the 40-man roster when he returns, too. Nate Jones has to remain in the 40-man throughout the offseason. Once baseball activities start, he can be transferred to the 60-day DL to open up a spot on the 40-man roster.

QUOTE (BaconOnAStick @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 06:38 PM) It's not that simple. I can't do this tiering because if Spencer Adams realizes his full potential (and avoids injury) he's a top of the rotation starter. But even if he falls a little short of that he's a fantastic arm to have in the rotation. Or maybe he's better suited for the pen. Or maybe his arm blows up. Who knows. It's one thing to rank them against each other, a whole new can of worms when you're projecting them against roles defined by the current state of Major League Baseball. I agree, and that's why it's difficult for me to tier them out like this. You have guys with fantastic arms like Joe Nathan who are absolute garbage in the rotation. You move him to the bullpen and suddenly that plus stuff becomes better and he can put more on it and you have one of the best relievers in the league. I appreciate the idea and it provides interesting discussion, but given the differences in learning curves, it's hard for me to come up with a list like this.

So remember when I was all "it doesn't matter if you have a rotation full of lefties, it's not like you ever want to face Chris Sale?" And the three pitches he offers are a 92-96 MPH fastball, a good slider, and a good changeup? And now the Sox have a lefty who throws 92-96 with a good slider and a (hopefully) good changeup? Yeah, get ready to face Sale/Rodon/Quintana b****es.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 02:11 PM) Good take. I hope the Sox brass realizes this and moves on in the offseason and dumps Viciedo for whatever they can get. There are certain things you can do to improve those aspects of a game though. Work on seeing the ball better, and there are some hand/eye exercises that can be done that, over a longer period of time - 4-8 months - that can see it improve exponentially. I wouldn't be upset if he's gone, but the baseball talent - power, swing plane, body, bat control - are all good aspects of Viciedo's game. He can hit any pitch in the strike zone. The devil is in the details - approach, seeing the ball, hand eye coordination. With repetition, those can all be improved, but I don't know if Viciedo has the work ethic to improve those things.

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 01:49 PM) If defense isn't such a huge factor why is Rondon on this list when he is a .224/.307/.291 career hitter? I'm being a smart ass of course, but I tend to agree there isn't that much difference between Johnson and Sanchez and actually personally value Sanchez more. Sanchez has been across the board better than Johnson this year in Charlotte. Comparing their 2014 in Charlotte Sanchez: .302/.358/.423, 16 of 19 on SB's Johnson: .291/.335/.388, 20 of 32 of SB's (counting Birmingham SB/CS #'s as well) This is a relatively small sample size, but I think people are unfairly judging Sanchez off his awful 2013 which was completely the Sox fault in rushing him up to Charlotte at age 21. As suggested, I don't believe Sanchez got himself into the best shape last year either. I'm making assumptions here, but my gut says that he took for granted his success and didn't work as hard heading into last season. Having seen AAA pitching previously and working a bit harder, you see the results you do.

Just from reading scouting reports and looking at numbers previously, Johnson seems to have a bit more power and much, much better speed, leading me to believe he is a more athletic overall individual. I've also seen reports (though none this season) that Sanchez has gained bad weight in the past and been slower and more lethargic - I think there's some reason to believe that was partially to blame for his lackluster year in 2013 on top of being overly challenged. That athleticism is what led me to putting Johnson over Sanchez. That said, it's not a stretch to say Sanchez is a better prospect than Johnson right now. It's all based upon what people feel.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 01:37 PM) Semien didn't exactly set the world on fire when he was up here earlier and hasn't done anything since going back to Charlotte to make you think that he needs to be on the ML roster right now. Nothing wrong with giving him more time to work through some things and keep his service time clock from ticking, its not like Beckham is the one thing standing between this team and the WS. Might as well play for draft position at this point. You mean other than hit for power, draw walks, reduce his strike out rate, and get killed by a poor BABIP. I'm not saying Semien is perfect, and perhaps there are still things they are in need of working out, but he has been a lot better than people think in AAA despite the .238 average.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 11:44 AM) On the shot he supposedly injured himself he showed absolutely no sign of pain in his facial expressions or in his bodily movements. Nor in the shots immediately subsequent. Some of the shots he was attempting to play were not those of someone with a suffering back. He's just lost his confidence, and he was hitting shots of the like of you and I, and figured that was his easiest explanation for it. I wasn't surprised at all when he was miraculously feeling well enough to play this morning. That was what I saw too. He didn't land awkwardly or anything on that jump down, and though I don't have back problems, I've dealt with minor back pain on occasion. If you are doing something as strenuous as that and you aren't grimacing and wincing and shouting, I won't believe you. It looked to me like he was making some hyper aggressive plays to try and get back into the tournament or try and win it, and they bit him in the ass, and he thought "oh I can just say it was a back thing, yeah that's it."