caulfield12

We're at that point in the rebuild (finally) where it's much better to have a 1.5-2.5 fWAR outfielder under team control than finish 2-3 games worse because of all the garbage we've sent out there in order to get the 6th pick rather than the 7th. By that, I mean 2020...not the remainder of 2019. (Waits for someone to assert, "Well, at least we'd have Benintendi instead of Fulmer in that scenario.")

According to my highly-informed Colombian steed, RayRay's cool. He's sort of the current equivalent of Simon Cowell from a decade ago on American Idol, minus the smirks, which are undetectable online and eventually lead to conflict when you can't pick up on verbal/physical cues like you could in real life. That said, he almost elevates the discussion or keeps it on a higher plane. It's always good to have contrarians in either direction, as long as they are well-informed.

For Conforto? Or Mazara? That dude has a better arm than I thought...saw him playing CF this week, he can hold his own out there. In an ideal world, we'd have three outfielders that could play CF in a pinch, so obviously the other position's going to be key with Jimenez on the other side. The problem is that, other than our top three prospects, what would we possibly be able to give them? Lopez isn't going to be nearly enough...

This is reminiscent of the times somebody like Cordell will make a great defensive player or occasionally run into one and Benetti will gush about him being a five tool player. Well, you're not a five tool player if you can't apply those tools on a consistent basis. You don't get style points for "looking athletic" or whatever.

I don't. I just think it's funny how difficult it is to come up with RFer for next season (other than maybe Ozuna if he can handle the throws) who will do much more than a 1.5-2.0 fWAR RFer. That's basically where Avi is going to end up...if not a little better, and he should still be in the prime of his career the next 2-3 seasons. It would be one thing if all these guys like Palka, Delmonico, Tilson, Cordell and Engel had the talent to play everyday in the outfield, but that hasn't proven to be the case.

Puig is heading for 1.7-1.8 fWAR but has been on a tear the last 6 weeks or so...

The Rangers are in an interesting position. No way they can compete for the Wild Card realistically without adding a ton...but playing better than most expected. Their first priority is to decide on whether to sell high on Mike Minor (especially if other teams start pulling back their starters, like CLE) or sign him to a long/er term deal. They already dealt Profar before this season.

And leading the world in strikeouts...0.7 fWAR...I guess it's par for the course. The biggest warning sign is that if he does get traded, that would be his fourth organization over the course of just five seasons.

You can actually make a case for the fact that showing a White Sox Charities documentary or watching some of our young guys interacting with young kids out in the community or at Bulls/Sox camp would be much better advertising for the team (and attractive to younger fans) than these last two Marlins' games with almost nothing to cheer for in terms of game action.

Well, his SWING looks good. He has two of the longest homers in recent memory (of course, at least one off Sox pitching). He definitely carries himself like a player, ala Rios....but Alex had some REALLY good seasons early in his Blue Jays career, they're not even in the same category as far as players (not to mention the ability to play CF). As we all know, most of the time potential/projection doesn't match actual performance.

Watch, next we'll be linked to Domingo Santana and Corey Dickerson. If they want to add players like those three...then it's totally unclear why they didn't just give Avi a three year extension after 2017. If you project it out statistically, Avi's heading for an approximately 2 fWAR season. Even if you gave him 3 years and $45 million coming off his 4.2 fWAR 2017 season, it would have been a fair/decent contract. Now we're still scrambling around to find someone like Puig or Castellanos that will likely be in that same exact range...

Because the White Sox are 1/2 as productive at scouting as other organizations...so 1/2 + 1/2=1. I jest. Maybe they were already trying to lighten the load on Hostetler (forecasting this move in advance)...knew they were pretty much locked in on their first round targets (6-7 players) the last couple of seasons, and having two guys to concentrate on the Thompson’s and Dalquist’s of the draft spread out the legwork and travel time.

They have four left handed outfielders and only four spots for them, and they need to give Calhoun more playing time. Also, to make Lillian happy with another LH-hitting target. Gallo and Choo aren’t going anywhere...Mazara has only has a couple more years of control and still hasn’t progressed like they envisioned.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/maxage/26/sort/strikeouts/order/true/minpa/225 Tons of young players here with huge strikeout numbers but still highly valued or high OPS/bWAR.

Not with two TJ surgeries...

On the other hand, do you want this guy who has been with the White Sox seemingly his entire life as a scout to be in charge of drafting players that will be on the next Sox World Series winner? We really can’t do any better than that? At least Hostetler absorbed a lot from the Braves’ organization...a highly successful scouting operation, historically. Getz had one or two seasons with the Royals and Dayton Moore, etc. Just seems like settling, we don’t need a one year wonder team like 2012. Final point, many of the players he drafted are from the Midwest....stretching to KY. That’s one of the areas with the fewest major leaguers per capita, compared to Florida, Texas, California, etc.

At this point, I would almost be elated to see Jim Thome named but it’s way too much work for a family man who’s already set for life financially...somehow this Shirley dude who signed Chris Getz makes almost too much sense not to happen. The list of his other signings is like a wasteland of Sox mired in mediocrity for the past 15 years. When Clayton Richard and Nate Jones are your two biggest successes in life, well, why should it be surprising at all when he gets the nod?

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=guest-001den And Garrett Guest is a 37 year old from Providence Catholic who was drafted in the now non-existent 49th round as a scrappy 2B/3B and whose career topped out at Winston-Salem in 2006.

https://www.mlb.com/news/white-sox-moving-forward-with-mlb-draft-plans-c272308110 Mike Shirley is national cross checker and has been with the White Sox as a scout forever (lol). Most interestingly, he signed Getz. Outfielder Mike Shirley was selected by the Cleveland Indians in the 45th round of the 1989 amateur draft and played in the Indians' chain from 1990-1992. Shirley also spent 1995-1996 with the Anderson Lawmen. After his playing days, Shirley has been a Chicago White Sox scout. He was involved in the singings of Clayton Richard, John Shelby III, Chris Getz, Matthew Long, John Ely, Brian Omogrosso, Josh Phegley, Tyler Kuhn, Nate Jones, Charles Leesman and Jake Petricka among others.

“But it was after those two drafts drew sharp criticism from the outside that White Sox leadership strongly endorsed Hostetler and had him run their two most important drafts of the rebuild — where they picked fourth and third overall — and to more favorable reviews. Nick Madrigal and Andrew Vaughn both have lived up to the billing so far, have been widely evaluated as top-50 global prospects, and have clear paths to becoming franchise cornerstones at their respective positions. Despite both being polished college bats, the last two drafts have also found the Sox displaying newfound creativity and a willingness to go overslot to land higher-end high school talent. Going overslot to land Bryce Bush and Lency Delgado in 2018 proved to be just a prelude to centering a large chunk of the non-Vaughn draft budget on landing prep right-handers Matthew Thompson and Andrew Dalquist, to squeeze value out of a pool that was deemed to be light on college pitching.” From theathletic.com Mike Shirley and Garrett Guest are apparently the two names to watch inside the organization, the two assistant directors for this past year’s draft. Interesting that the spin so far is that it’s not a demotion 1) because trades and FA will figure in more the next two years, 2) the draft picks won’t be in the Top 10 much longer and 3) the last two paragraphs highlighted above. “The quickest and likeliest way to fill it would be internal promotion, which is how Hostetler initially got the job in 2015, when he was promoted from assistant scouting director to replace Doug Laumann, who similarly still holds a senior advisor role in the White Sox front office. Mike Shirley and Garrett Guest served as Hostetler’s assistant directors for this past draft.”

I would love to know exactly what Chris Getz is doing well...in their opinion...since he was hired.

Total Quality Management/Lifetime Tenure. That said, he can probably take Buddy Bell's old office. If Hostetler and Hahn are good at anything, it's giving positive/uplifting interviews (Hostetler) that get you charged up or giving interviews that need to be parsed by Constitutional law scholars because they don't really tell you much at all while seeming to be candor-filled. Except when he said "I'm a jackass" or whatever.

And, while Schwarber/Russell/Almora/Happ have struggled...they've all at least had significant impacts at the major league level, and even Jorge Soler's not a lost cause, having a nice bounceback season for the Royals while toiling in almost total obscurity.

~ THEO EPSTEIN (17 PLAYERS TOTAL ON 40-MAN ROSTER) THEO EPSTEIN DRAFT PICKS (13) Dustin Pedroia: 2004, second round, 65th overall Clay Buchholz: 2005, first round, 42nd overall (compensation pick for Pedro Martinez signing with Mets) Christian Vazquez: 2008, ninth round, 292nd overall Bryce Brentz: 2010, first round, 36th overall (compensation pick for Billy Wagner signing with Braves) Sean Coyle: 2010, third round, 110th overall Matt Barnes: 2011, first round, 19th overall Blake Swihart: 2011, first round, 26th overall (compensation pick for Adrian Beltre signing with Rangers) Henry Owens: 2011, first round, 36th overall (compensation pick for Victor Martinez signing with Tigers) Jackie Bradley Jr.: 2011, first round, 40th overall (compensation pick for Adrian Beltre signing with Rangers) Williams Jerez: 2011, second round, 81st overall Noe Ramirez: 2011, fourth round, 142nd overall Mookie Betts: 2011, fifth round, 172nd overall Travis Shaw: 2011, ninth round, 292nd overall

Would be more interested to see who we would have picked if we were bumped up one from Fulmer's spot (Benintendi), one or two from Burger's spot in 2017 (Hiura/Adell)....could have picked Kyle Lewis, Groome, Kirilloff or Whitley in 2016 instead of Collins at 10. Obviously, every team would have picked Walker Buehler if they had it to do over...but what did they miss? My question is were those the choices, (Benintendi, and either Hiura or especially Adell)...? If not, why? We all know that Hostetler has said that he would have taken Collins 1-1, but why?