caulfield12

QUOTE (Dizzy Sox @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 08:35 PM) I disagree with keeping Micah Johnson out of the top 10 but OK, I get the concerns about his D and age. Ranking Sanchez (presumably) above him...you lost me there. Sanchez hit for a nice average last year and he is a solid fielder, but I just don't see the upside. He has no pop (2 HRs in over 1000 pro ABs), he isn't particularly speedy on the bases (CS rate of around 40%), he doesn't walk all that much and he has done exactly squat in Charlotte so far this season, with little to no signs of progress. At this point you have to say his profile tops out as a utility middle infielder, or at best a light-hitting, barely marginal nine hole SS. Not terrible necessarily, but certainly not the kind of player you'd expect to see starting on a playoff-caliber team. Everything falls into place and you've got a, what--.700, .725 OPS 2B/SS who doesn't kill you with the glove. Johnson on the other hand is having one of the most exciting seasons of any Sox minor league infielder in a long, long time. The pedigree is there--he was well regarded in college, slipping only due to injury. He hit .312 as a freshman with 11 HRs and then .335 as a sophomore--give him that same stat line as a junior and he's gone the first 5 rounds (ask yourself if your perception of his performance this year would be different if the Sox took him in the, say, 4th round). Despite missing most of his junior year he hit well after turning pro later that summer...IIRC he was over .300 most of the season at Great Falls until he ran out of gas the last few weeks (something we'll need to look out for as this season winds down incidentally). He has dominated the Sally league this year, improved each month, shown a good eye at the plate, displayed decent power, and he has been consistently over .300. Yes, his D has been shaky, but it is not uncommon for infielders to rack up the errors their first season or two in the lower minors. Examples abound: Derek Jeter had 56 in the same league, Juan Uribe 38, Joe Crede 33 and even Ozzie racked up 79 his first two years in full season leagues, and all went on to be considered plus fielders (though I admit Jeter's fielding has always been overrated.) That said, even if he can't stick at 2B he still would have value in CF--contrasted with Sanchez, who has zero value anywhere but as a middle infielder. The Reds moved Billy Hamilton from 2B to CF, and Micah hit just as well at Low A as he (yes, I understand Hamilton did it at 20 vs. Micah at 22. Still, the point is that he has shown the ability to hit for average, with speed, some power, etc. from either position) In fact, it is true Micah was slightly old for Low-A, but not excessively so, and through an admittedly small sample size at High A he is more than holding his own. Plus, chronologically he may be a bit old, but from an experience level he is right on track if you consider that he missed half a season of games last year due to his injury. Put another way...most of the prospects we have are just that--prospects, meaning they have potential but haven't necessarily shown they can deliver yet. Micah is one of the few that has actually excelled in real live games. All else being equal, I'd much rather take my chances with a player who has shown the ability to dominate even if they have a few question marks (within reason--age, D, etc.) than one who could possibly dominate at some point in the future. To recap...Sanchez's upside: singles hitting middle infielder who is solid if not spectacular with the glove. Worst case: utility infielder who lives around the Mendoza line. Johnson's upside: Top-of-the-order threat with decent power, an ability to get on base and score runs, average to slightly-below average glove at a premium position--think Ray Durham with more speed but less power. Worst case: fast CF/4th OF who can steal bases and is a lefty bat off the bench. Personally, I'd put Micah only behind Erik Johnson, Hawkins, T. Thompson, Anderson, Phegley and maybe, just maybe Barnum and/or Beck. If he does as well at W-S as he did Kanny I'd consider moving him to #3 or #4 on that list. Micah has played basically the equivalent of a full season of ball. Check out his stat line over that period: G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR BI SB CS BB K AVG OBP SLG OPS 152 695 600 129 187 28 17 10 70 82 27 83 145 .312 .398 .465 .863 Not too shabby. That paints the picture of an exciting player, the type of which we haven't had in our system in a long, long time... Last quick comment: I'd probably try to sneak Kevan Smith in the Top 25 somewhere--possibly booting Rodriguez, his control is shaky, and lord knows we don't need another Donny Veal out of the pen. No way Johnson is faster than Durham, not even close. Micah has developed a very efficient technique for stealing bases (at the Low A level), and he's quick, but he's not flat out 0-60 MPH fast. And I don't see his SB/CS numbers holding up in Winston-Salem and BIRM.

Jay-Z's Roc Nation Chasing Puig, Cespedes By Zach Links [July 10 at 6:16pm CST] Jay-Z made waves earlier this year when he entered the sports representation world with his Roc Nation Sports venture and lured Robinson Cano away from Scott Boras. Now, the company is wooing Dodgers star Yasiel Puig and also has an eye on Athletics slugger Yoenis Cespedes, sources tell Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. When the Yankees hosted the Dodgers in mid-June, Puig was invited to a party at a club owned by Jay-Z after a Dodgers teammate passed along the rapper's contact information, one source said, and Puig left the meeting intrigued. Puig has also talked with at least one other marketing agency in New York, but the prospect of joining Roc Nation remains a possibility. Jay-Z is also known to be interested in signing A's outfielder Cespedes, who will be in New York for the Home Run Derby. Puig could be in town as well if he wins the Final Vote for the last slot on the National League All-Star team. As the MLBTR Agency Database shows, Puig is currently represented by Jamie Torres and Cespedes is with Adam Katz of Wasserman Media Group. Puig is in the early portion of the seven-year, $42MM deal he signed in June 2012. Meanwhile, Cespedes' four-year, $36MM deal will take him through the 2015 season.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 08:07 PM) I was excited seeing this thread having four pages. Should have known there would have been a couple posts on Semien/Thompson and mostly Caulfield rants about Puig/Freeman equaling Hilary/Obama. Caulfield is seriously starting to run with his shtick. He never seizes to amaze me. Your astute minor league knowledge also amazes me. I've noticed that 90% of your posts are telling us what someone did on a particular night, yet you somehow think I should be precluded from mentioning someone's batting average on a daily basis, for example. Interesting. And I would LOVE to see all these supposed PM's supporting your position about Hawkins. Wonder who those came from...lol.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 04:57 PM) I mean, at what point are you weighing offers and at what point do you just basically say "you have to give me this, this, this, and this or no deal" ? Everyone has a price, but there's no way I'm openly shopping Chris Sale. As I said in here, if you trade Chris Sale, you are essentially committing towards a rebuild towards 2016 or 2017. You are throwing in the towel for the remaining 3-4 years, because Jose Quintana and Hector Santiago aren't leading you to the playoffs and there isn't enough offensively to get you there either, so by the time you are ready, those guys are either free agents or in their final year of arbitration eligibility. It becomes a very long process. Now, if you keep Sale, you keep Quintana and Santiago, bring in Erik Johnson, have one more starter (Danks, Peavy, Snodgress, Beck, Anna Kournikova, whoever), and you can patch an offense together and win a lot of games. At this juncture, you have to consider Chris Sale to be one of the most 3 most valuable players in the majors due to talent and contract. Given that, you need an offer similar to this to make the move (this was Red Sox offer for King Felix in 2009) RHP Clay Buchholz RHP Daniel Bard RHP Justin Masterson LHP Nick Hagadone RHP Michael Bowden LHP Felix Doubront OF Josh Reddick SS Yamaico Navarro (found here: http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...;#entry1974049) All good to very good prospects. Maybe 2 have really stuck and performed well. It's a risky game. Good mention, but I would go for Sharapova...

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 04:26 PM) That's how the media has been for a while now. They polarize and pick sides so you can read their articles. Nobody wants to read an article that says "Yasiel Puig? He's a good player, and he's had a big impact, but he hasn't but up long enough and shouldn't but in the all star game, though honestly I wouldn't care if he played either way." Chris Frazier · Works at Forever Resorts Does Jadeveon Clowney look 19..no he doesn't. Puig comes from a well educated family in Cuba. His parents are both engineers. He's 22 and has only been playing professional baseball in America for less than a year. Give the "kid" a break. It breaks his heart when he messes up, whether it be in the field or at the plate. And we call his excitement, joy and passion for the game arrogance. Bryce Harper just last year replied to a reporters question with a smug, "that's a clown questions bro", and we made a t-shirt out of it. And former D-back Justin Upton flipped his bats and walked slowly after homeruns when he first got to the league. Upton has grown up now, and Puig will soon as well. There's a reason he's getting so much attention. He plays the game the right way. HARD. Remember, he's played about 30 games at this level. Reply · 3 · Like · Follow Post · 2 hours ago Marwan Razouk · Top Commenter · San Diego, California Puig is from another country and is barely acclimating to his new surroundings. He's not about fraternizing with the opponent. An opponent that hit him in the face, by the way. After he got hit in the face, he took first base without incident. Does not sound like a punk to me. Oh, and you all wish he was on your team. Reply · 3 · Like · Follow Post · 4 hours ago Dan White Bitter fans that see there lead slipping away to the Dodgers, whom most of them were fans of prior to 1998. Reply · 2 · Like · Edited · 4 hours ago Amanda Reeks The bitterness on my part is true. It's harder to enjoy baseball when some teams have bottomless pits for payroll. The Dodgers payroll is about triple what the Dbacks can spend. I would say that the Dodgers are hardly three times better than the Dbacks even if they eventually overtake them. Reply · Like · 4 hours ago Gary Phelps · Top Commenter {yawn} the day I care what dodger trolls have to say is the day hell freezes over. Reply · 4 · Like · 4 hours ago View 8 more Eric G. Crocker · Death Penalty Lawyer at Phoenix, Arizona Just another foreigner being overpaid with a team that hasn't been relevant since 1988 in terms of the World Series. Add in the ownership problems, and... there ya have it. A loser on a losing team.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 04:19 PM) How's this for polarizing - I don't think he should go but I couldn't care less. The resulting media backlash has already started...articles like this, written solely with a TMZ style to try to tear Puig down. Now Mark McGwire is sort of a modern day King Solomon/peacemaker/baseball historian, lol. http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/d...cgwire/2504523/ This is like something out of the National Enquirer or Kardashian/Jersey Shore circus atmosphere.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:39 PM) I still think Pence makes more sense for us, but there's some chance SF pays handsomely to keep him there. He'd be a nice, marketable face to have around here and he may be overlooked by some of the other people vying for OFers Why? History shows Sox fans don't support anything less than playoff worthy teams. Let's say Puig, Harper, Trout or Machado (one of them, of course) were on the White Sox and the record was still the same, would there be a huge bump in attendance? Knowing Chicago fans, probably not. Did Beckham in 2009 bump up the attendance?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 04:09 PM) They weren't all BA number ones. Hamilton was. The rest weren't. I'll even give Hamilton a pass. Let's just imagine that the Sox traded for the #1 prospect in baseball and that was the year Wieters was #1. They got a solid starting catcher putting up similar OPS to AJ. Is that a good deal? Yeah sure there'd be some additional parts, but is that a good deal for the Sox? He's a solid player but he's not putting up 1.000+ OPS numbers. Then BJ Upton and his current situation is another example....although he was very good up until the end for the Rays, albeit frequently disappointing based on his physical ability and what he actually got out of it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 03:52 PM) For 2013, yes. Until this year, no. And I think from a historical point of view, your numbers are high by a factor of 10. I'll agree, if Buddy Bell was in charge of their development...somehow you know it would be a big fail for the White Sox, just like the 1999-2001 period of great farm systems MOSTLY worked out for the White Sox because of Jose Contreras and Freddy Garcia being married to Guillen's cousin or whatever, not because all those starting pitching prospects ever blossomed with us. Look at what happened with Borchard and Rauch, the two biggest prospects we've had between Beckham and the Thomas/Ventura/Fernandez/McDowell drafts.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 04:02 PM) I wouldn't feel nearly as strongly about him missing if it weren't for this forum. It's actually amusing, that so many people are actively rooting against him, because of a thread or two on a message board forum, haha. That's fine, it is making this baseball season easier for me to deal with.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 04:01 PM) I still say I will trade Sale if Mike Trout is on the market. I don't care if a team is trading me the #1 prospect in baseball, I don't. Those guys don't always turn into all-stars. Heyward's been struggling. Weiters has been good but not great (.708 OPS this year). Delmon Young was a #1. Matsuzaka was a #1. Don't forget Josh Hamilton, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Pujols, Greinke, etc. David Price, to a lesser extent. Strasburg isn't quite the same pitcher as before, either.

We have to cross our fingers and pray he doesn't go down to elbow surgery in 2014 or 2015 or we'll all be revisiting this thread and saying what an idiot Hahn was for holding onto him too long when each year going forward (riddled with non-competitive teams and sub-.500 records and apathy) the White Sox ended up blowing the opportunity of a decade to rebuild their franchise and breathe new life back into it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 03:48 PM) They aren't in his corner. They are in their own ratings corner. Big difference. So you would differentiate that from Obama 100%?...they (the so-called traditional as well as blogging/new age media) were all politically liberal and "left leaning," AND it was in their best interest because very few people had "in the middle of the road" thoughts and either loved or hated him, more or less? More page views = more advertising revenue, more revenue=higher profits and higher salaries for media. Puig is the perfect story in many respects, he represents the American Dream (the new version of it, as well as the anti-immigrant/backlash side of it), he's a minority, that brings a certain degree of controversy with it...he plays for the new Death Star L.A. Empire (since the Yankees are no longer so hate-worthy as 10-15 years ago, with the Red Sox also joining in)...there's always nobody saying they don't have an opinion or don't care. Then you have the Papelbon's and Bochy's and other players representing baseball tradition, that he hasn't earned his stripes yet, that he's taking a spot away from someone more deserving...and yet that wasn't said nearly as much last year when Trout and Harper made it. I'm exaggerating a bit to make a point, but the Puig argument is pretty polarizing, even for non-Dodgers fans. Everyone has a pretty strong viewpoint, one way or the other. It's not like ANYBODY cares who takes the last spot in the AL (the five relievers).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 03:46 PM) The discussion has become that having prospects is somehow better than having a major league team for a lot of people. f*** that s***. Given the choice, I choose the major league team every single time. Of course, for the White Sox we are in s***ty major league team, s***ty farm system/development, the worst case scenario. Not that I would trade teams, but, from a fan's point of view, they have more reasons for optimism...maybe there's only a 25-50% chance it actually works out, but they're following a concerted strategy and not just throwing darts at a board.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:38 PM) But he won't be here. How much is the option for? A team trading him could look at him as a guy that they also get next year. no way, he's paid almost like a closer, it would be a huge overpay just on salary alone, not to mention surrendering anything of value prospect-wise.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 03:04 PM) This only makes sense if: 1) The Sox want to do a long-term rebuild like the Cubs or Astros, and it is the precursor to dumping off literally everyone else worth anything 2) You get multiple ML ready position players and then decide to keep Peavy and Rios and compete next year And 2 just doesn't happen quite as much as it used to. Although the Haren for Skaggs/Corbin payoff would be a nice outcome...add in a position prospect at AA/AAA, done, steak dinner, boom.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:44 PM) I'm starting to hate Puig so much that I will actively avoid the innings he would play in the A-S game That sounds like the next yahoo contributor network article. You should just write an article bashing him, the hype, the media and Commissioner's office all campaigning for him actively, Don Mattingly, all the messageboard hooligans like me, it would be funny. But you have to be really over the top and act almost like you hate him on a visceral level. Like many people feel about Harper.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:31 PM) Worth noting is that the Boras guy is Ellsbury's agent. Yeah, he could get $18-20 million. And Viciedo's. And Kendrys Morales.

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 01:23 PM) When did Balta hit his head? I don't recall you being this slow back when I used to post here regularly. It's a fascinating development. Right around the time of the Cubs' series...the 3 games.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:27 PM) I'd tune into the game just to watch Barry Bonds if he were selected, but I wouldn't vote for him. That's an extremely flawed and weak argument. It doesn't matter. No way Selig will have the All-Star Game without Puig there now. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money they find a way, somehow.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:17 PM) I tweeted him and asked about that. Hayes responded to me that Thornton has an option for next year. I thought he was free at year's end. team option, i think he will get a 500K buyout....he's GONE

Fine, the simplest argument of all. Is there ANYONE besides Braves' fans and Greg Walker who are going to tune in specifically to watch Freddie Freeman get one AB and maybe 2-3 innings on the field?

QUOTE (flavum @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:12 PM) https://twitter.com/DanHayesCSN/status/355055545486544896 "price for Thornton is steep". Um, ok. Sets way back machine to 2006-2010 before Jim Thome at-bat.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 02:05 PM) I understand the reasoning, I just don't agree with it. I get that he has no stats to ooh and ahh over but there are people who have seen him. People who do this for a living and he was very highly regarded by many of them. Obviously, kids like him have an enormously high bust rate and likelihood of making the majors should be taken into account. However, pure potential, should also matter. Michael Ynoa, Miguel Sano, Gary Sanchez and Jurickson Profar were all ranked by BA in their respective organizations top prospects (3, 4, 7, 5) just months after their signings and without playing any games in any league yet as well (and all were several months younger than Zapata). If the people doing the ranking wanted to leave him out of their ranks that's fine, but if enough people included him and as a result he fell in the top 25, it should have been taken into account IMO. I mean, if we were trying to make a trade with another team and they had a choice between Zapata and Santos Rodriguez, it's fairly safe to assume what player they would choose to take. Right. Or even Daniel Webb vs. Zapata, there'd be an excellent debate, as the White Sox, more than anything else, need/lack young power bats at every position in the line-up besides Viciedo (he makes it).

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 10, 2013 -> 12:21 PM) We all know what the standard is in high school baseball, though the hay is really made in club ball. We see these kids at events like Area Code Games and elite club tournaments where they often match up against other draft talent. Even when not, scouts know how good a given American player's competition is. Look at Tim Anderson, who may be a high-high-first round talent but there was too much uncertainty about his competition to know for sure. Now imagine a 16-year-old who has only played against a bunch of exploited kids in a country where there are many fewer scouts and eyeballs in a bunch of simulated games. Disagree wholeheartedly....there's a reason why players like Albert Pujols, Logan Morrison, etc., weren't noticed playing JC ball in KC, or why Mark Buehrle slipped out of the entire draft almost. If anything, there are too many buscones and too many eyes on them, but don't kid yourself....there are a plethora of scouts there and in Venezuela.