danman31

I have the same thought, but what if he ends up being the White Sox version of an impact reliever? A guy who is put into high-leverage situations with overwhelming stuff when he's on. Yeah, we'd rather have him be successful as a starter (and the SP depth has taken some blows recently), but I'd take Hansen as a stud reliever right now. Sign me up

Getting a quick look at Kanny via Milb.tv... Man it's no secret why some of the younger guys are struggling. No cheap swings. Bush went for the fences on every swing in his first AB. He showed *some* patience, but was very aggressive when he swung.

I can't argue with any of this, but I think what you're saying has little to do with your original point. They signed five high school picks (Lency Delgado, Cabera Weaver, Kelvin Maldonado, Gabriel Ortiz, Bryce Bush) last year. Delgado was a fourth-rounder. Bush appears to be a notable late-rounder overslot signing. Is that the progress you're looking for? That's more to your point than what they've done with first-rounders the last several years, and I still say they've been fairly successful.

I don't think I got that out of the interview. I think the explanation as to why they were drafting a certain way is concerning, but it seems clear that he was saying they're going away from that. This predates Hostetler being in charge, but Courtney Hawkins was far from a sure thing. Tim Anderson the same. One of those was a colossal bust, the other is an emerging MLB player. Even looking at second rounders, Keenyn Walker and Keon Barnum were raw/upside players that didn't come from three years of college. People were complaining that the team was just drafting athletes and not baseball players. Then they draft Madrigal and you have a (hopefully different) crowd complaining that Madrigal is a low-upside guy. You can bash the organization for the first-round picks of Royce Ring, Lance Broadway, Kyle McCulloch and Aaron Poreda, but those picks are all over a decade ago. At some point, you have to separate that bias and look at what we've seen more recently. As far as first-rounders go, they've done fairly well since Anderson in 13. Anderson and Rodon are solid big leaguers. The book is still out on the rest, but the only one that looks unlikely to at least make it to the majors is Burger and that's just due to injury.

I'm not sure which part you hate, but it sounds like the philosophy is where it should be now. You can complain about the philosophy they had in 2016 (everyone noticed it and others have criticized it), but at least they're in the right direction now.

Ha, yeah, I wasn't saying it always works out that way. Hawkins was so different in so many ways. Besides, he's currently sporting a 1.389 OPS in AAA!

Chris Carter did similar back in the day. He had a strong rookie ball debut after getting drafted in the 15th round out of high school. They put him in Kanny for his first full season and sent him down after 13 games of .130/.231/.261. He mashed in Great Falls and then mashed in Kanny the following year. Carter ended up having some productive seasons in the majors so even if they send Bush to extended before Great Falls, it's not a big deal at all.

With Eloy up, Kopech rehabbing from TJS, Robert tearing it up and Cease picking up where he left off last year in AAA, the top prospect for the White Sox is an interesting debate right now. If you don't count Eloy, is Kopech still next in line? You could probably make an argument for all three. The rest of the pack behind them isn't doing a ton so far, but the system is crazy top heavy.

Didn't realize this thread had fallen so far down. Guess I'll do the honors then. The teaser doesn't really show anything considering it's 2 minutes, but the title has me floored.

He hit .324 with an .800 OPS in the Arizona Fall League (over 79 PA, which isn't that small of a sample). Sending him to Winston-Salem was comically conservative. That said, I'm fine with waiting until May to promote him. Any longer is starting to waste his time.

They drafted three of those guys and signed one as an amateur. I get your argument, but naming those guys isn't the best way to do it.

He was a little inconsistent with the curve early, but at least he was missing low. By the 5th inning he was really cruising. It was fun to watch. Ha, I get that you're kind of kidding, but Cease might be different from some of the other hard throwers in that he has good fastball command. There's not much need to have him slow it down, add movement and control it better. He might want some extra movement on the fastball, but the way he was commanding it today I don't think that's necessary.

I don't like the new desktop version of the website either. The box scores are harder to read and everything on the scoreboard page is unnecessarily big. At least they seem to have good gameday updates for more levels.

Was it just for home games? They're on the road tonight

Luis Robert first AB 2B. Dude is dominating. Night and day between last year and this year.

Robert and Collins getting everyone excited for the minor league season. Heck, even Madrigal with two walks is very encouraging to see. I don't really care if Madrigal never hits for any power, but he has to at least walk some to be a good on-base guy if that is gonna be the case. Hitting an empty .300 is still only so valuable.

Anybody get the early access on Anthem? I played the open demo a couple weeks ago and it was fun. Fun enough to keep me interested in the game. Now I'm hearing the load times are awful and there are other problems at launch. I wanted to play this one based on how cool it looks, but I might be waiting a bit to see how it sorts out through its initial launch. Besides, I am still chipping away at Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Man that game is long (way too long).

I believe they are factoring in getting him a spring training of sorts into that. It's been phrased as he will be out 4-6 weeks and will join an affiliate in 12 weeks. Still seems long though.

I agree regarding the Assassin's Creed games. They are fun, but way too big and not varied enough to make it worth it. I end up burning out multiple times before I finish the game. Days Gone is an open world I'm pretty sure.

Yep. 2019 is still on the old contract so things will be as it has been. WGN will not have games in 2020.

The article SI sourced for that rumor didn't really have any reporting. It was just a recap of things that have been reported mixed with some speculation and guess work.

Agree about Pinson. He was the least heralded of the freshmen and he looks to have good upside as well as Pickett and Watson. Definitely encouraged about the future. Got a couple 4 stars committed and can continue to develop these freshmen and Tilmon. Jontay's injury really hurts still. This was a tournament team with him and he was really fun to watch.

Glad they are fielding a team next year. I was really worried when they didn't have a quarterback. Now they have what should be a really good offense.

What about Barry Odom makes you think he is good enough? I still think he's kind of a bad coach. He might get better, but watching this team was painful in the first half of the season. Played below talent level and then appeared to fix it when they played bad teams (and a sort of bad Florida team).

I still think he's kind of a bad coach, but he has shown improvement in each of his 3 seasons so that's something. The first year and a half felt like rock bottom. The SEC East is so bad that you can win 8 games without being a top 25 team (at least in the rankings, Mizzou is probably a top 25 team talent wise). The forgiving conference schedule has helped a lot. Florida and Tennessee being trash (in addition to playing Vandy and Kentucky already every year) and Arkansas being the permanent crossover gives plenty of opportunity for wins. That said, this team should have won 10 games, no question. Losing Hall probably cost them that, but this was a mistake-prone, somewhat unorganized team for much of the season. Odom may get better, but he won with Pinkel's talent this year and probably should have won more. I am encouraged that there seems to be good talent in the underclassmen, but I definitely still have reservations about Odom. If someone wants to take him off our hands (I saw a Louisville rumor get reported), I wouldn't mind.