caulfield12

Then there are the guys like a Ryan Sweeney or Rutherford who never really developed into their projected power…as far as the speed goes, a lot of our guys like Moncada don’t even run that much for fear of injuries. Surely it will be the same for Luis Robert upon his lineup return as well. In this era, speed is great, but it’s not as important as the 70’s or 80’s, especially in a park like GRF.

No, not even Anderson was close to getting any NBA consideration. “Depends on what he values. As a high upside projectable position player I’d say he should go to college, fill out that frame under a D1 strength and conditioning program. But if a mlb team comes in and offers him 7 figures to sign, we will see. I don’t see him as a top 2 round guy, but if he goes in the top 10 rounds, teams will feel pretty confident they can get him to sign.” https://indiana.forums.rivals.com/threads/who-is-the-recently-committed-short-stop.194586/ Found this at Hoosier.com where he was an Indiana baseball commit. This was from 18 months ago, btw. Lots of opinions out there, some had him going as high as tenth to the Mets.

There were a ton of high school SS’s in this draft. Lack of competition in IN. Not specialized in baseball…raw athlete, fewer reps. Didn’t put up overwhelming stats for his high school level.

The facts speak for themselves. 99%+ of the deaths in recent months are coming from the non vaccinated population. This is one of those areas like gun rights that apparently the only way to change hearts and minds is continued heartbreak…even then, it doesn’t seem to move the meter. UK is doing the exact same thing…charging headlong into herd immunity without actually having it…with cases running 10x higher per capita than the US. The variants are outrunning world immunization efforts badly, especially in the second and third world.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/detroit-tigers-fans-hate-took-002709022.html Tigers’ fans apparently wanted a SS like Mayer instead…some meathead takes that often look ridiculous on both side of the ledger five years down the line. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/detroit-tigers-jackson-jobe-no-232859859.html Tigers definitely going all in on the pitching front…but with only Candelario, Torkelson and Greene, they’re going to have to spend on hitting in FA.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chicago-cubs-white-sox-prospects-023300404.html Review of Cespedes in Futures Game

Considering about 3 weeks ago a trip to Charlotte seemed quite possible…he turned the corner at the perfect time, when we needed secondary contributors to take over more of the offensive load.

Define best hitter. For the last half-decade, it’s Abreu. Potential-wise, it’s either Moncada, Jimenez, Robert, Madrigal or Vaughn. And who knows, maybe Burger.

The problem is that there are limited opportunities to exploit this advantage. It not like the 2016 intl. cycle where the Padres were able to exploit the system and spend $70-80 million in one fell swoop, and added Tatis as well via trade. Maybe if we did a better job covering Japan and Korea…

Probably why your JR letters stopped getting replies.

Well, except McCann/Colome became Hendriks and Grandal/Collins and now the payroll is limiting what we can do for the time being.

Not to mention the Tigers are closing the gap fast…the biggest question is whether the son will spend like the father (or remain leery after watching the Cabrera contract painfully wind down.)

The only other alternative is trading some combination of Crochet, Burger, Moncada, Giolito and Tim Anderson over the next two or three seasons…the so-called reloading or rebuilding on the fly approach. Nobody likes that much, right? With the farm system bottoming out, they’re going to be stuck in the exact same position the Cubs are in right now during the 2025-27 seasons. Other than hoping we evaluated Cespedes or Colas better than everyone else or that one of the young pitchers like Vera breaks through…we’re left trying to hold onto one of Lynn or Rodon and maximize this earlier half of the window. Of all the big rebuilds, there hasn’t been a team yet to reverse the tide and come back again after peaking. Look at the Royals and Cubs. The only team that might pull it off is the Astros this year or next, although they’re likely to lose Correa to FA. With the Yankees down, Verlander out…we might look back and say this was the best shot to win it, especially with the Dodgers also struggling by their usual standards (but still on pace for 95-100 wins.)

Lost the win for Berrios…just like the Sox did for Cease earlier. Fantasy baseball wins for starters have been tough to come by this season, for the most part.

The Courtney Hawkins Era of White Sox baseball. Also have to give a lot of credit to Engel persevering the last couple of years…when he can actually stay on the field. And Yermin’s April.

If you look back to just a year ago, Fulmer, Burger, Rodon, Collins, Burdi, etc., all looked like failures. Sheets, as well. Yermin had 2-3 outspoken defenders who wanted to give him a shot at DH, and that was pretty much it, besides the big four guys graduating from rookie status this year. The crazy part to me in all this is that Madrigal was starting to look in many ways like the second best of all those draft picks after Anderson. He hardly gets mentioned anymore because of the Disney-ish Carlos and Burgatron storylines. That and the draft “miss” on Fulmer versus the less highly touted Vanderbilt teammate at the time Walker Buehler.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bill-madden-driving-white-sox-211700294.html NY Daily News story…looks at Sox success with scouting picking high character college players like Rodon, Burger and Collins We’ll get to that in a minute. In the meantime, to put the White Sox‘s unparalleled draft success in perspective, after failing to sign Gerrit Cole (their No. 1 pick in 2008), the Yankees have had 16 first-round draft picks, with only one — Aaron Judge in 2013 — even making it to the big leagues with them. On their present roster, there are only five players who were drafted by them — Judge, Brett Gardner, Kyle Higashioka, Jordan Montgomery and Nick Nelson. At the same time, there are the Houston Astros, who under analytics guru Jeff Luhnow, executed a tear-down back in 2012 with the idea of using all their analytics data to build the team up with high draft picks. When they won the World Series in 2017 (before it was compromised by their cheating scandal), Luhnow and the Astros were acclaimed throughout baseball for their analytics-first approach to building a ballclub — at the same time they were gutting their scouting department. But upon closer inspection, it’s hard to see how analytics had anything to do with the Astros’ rise. On that 2017 team, there were only four players — Carlos Correa, Lance McCullers Jr., George Springer and Dallas Keuchel — who were obtained through the draft and Springer was a No. 1 pick by Luhnow’s predecessor, Ed Wade, who also had signed Jose Altuve back in 2007. Moreover, Luhnow had three straight overall No. 1 picks in the draft from 2012-2014, came up empty on two of them (pitchers Mark Appel in 2013 and Brady Aiken in 2014 who never made the majors) and nearly blew it in 2012 when he had decided to take Appel over Correa, the universally acknowledged best player in the draft, only to back off when Appel’s rep Scott Boras wouldn’t give him a discount bonus. Also, in all fairness, Bregman was pretty important and Cameron was an integral aspect of the Verlander deal.

Let’s see how he does during the tough stretch coming up with much better RHP on .500+ teams. Hopefully the recent success is sustainable.

You really want to pick the Alex Rios hill to die on? Why not Javy Vazquez too?

Not to mention the likelihood of at least one affiliate being in post-season play, extending by at least a week the possible number of games for someone in rehab.

Health is the only question mark...and how long he continues to try to pitch and play a position.

We can send back Liriano. That damned guy had one of the best sliders ever in 2006.

Indians starting to come out of tailspin with two home walk off wins on homers (Reyes/Bradley). McKenzie looked good, but KC has now lost 11 consecutive on the road. Ouch.

Well, at least Ron is making himself more and more famous. Taking some of the heat off Ray Ray, just like the best big league managers take the focus away from their teams. Nevertheless, he might need to surrender the voluntary hall monitor position.

Seems their Sunday starter should be an easy one but not expecting a sweep with Cease and Giolito going.