Chicago White Sox

Wow, less than 24 hours after several of us predicted this. Kannapolis is going to be pretty fun to watch with him, Madrigal, Curbelo, & eventually Walker.

He also hasn’t been part of a professional organization that should hopefully be preaching selective aggressiveness. While he always be more aggressive than normal, he’s going to learn to take his free pitches when given to him or won’t be a successful major leaguer.

I think it’s premature to assume his approach at the plate won’t change. I fully expect him to take more walks as he continues to develop.

For better or worse, I think Kopech will be up before the end of the month.

Soria & Avalin for Jay Groome, who says no? Probably the Red Sox but coming off a TJ surgery maybe they’d be ok to it?

I think Zavala is injured, he hasn’t played in a few days.

No, I made that one up ?

We basically need one of Burger, Sheets, & Gonzalez to become an everyday contributor, Johnson to become a high-leverage reliever, and perhaps one of McClure, Henzman, or Battenfield to become a back-end starting option. That would be a pretty decent draft. Anything more than that would be a great draft and that's still possible at this point in time. My biggest issue with the 2017 draft was a complete lack of high school picks and/or high upside players. They seemed to play it safe a bit to help fill out the system with respectable college guys. Regardless, it's still got a chance of working out.

You could tell in the Futures Game that Callis loves himself Basabe. He definitely deserves a spot IMO.

Forbes to Cal Ripken Jr.

Sheets has been pretty solid outside of the lack of in-game power. If there's one thing that the last few years of baseball have taught me, guys can learn how to improve their launch angle, but you can't teach someone how to have 70 grade power. It's obviously a bit concerning, but no one should be at the point of panic yet. And I will say anytime you lose a top 10 overall pick to injury in their first full year that draft isn't going too hot. If Burger comes back and flashes a plus bat the draft will quickly look fine.

POTY.

Don't forget Hamilton, Bummer, & Vieira. It's really the positional side that is lacking.

He's also had two TJ surgies and hasn't exactly been the model of durability. I wouldn't be looking to move him, but I would certainly be open to it.

100% agree. There would definitely be teams willing to take him off our hands, we just wouldn't get a ton for him because of the slump.

I'm guilty of saying that, but I also remember when Judge, Servino, & Mateo weren't enough either.

Yurchak really hasn’t made much of his opportunity this year and I’d be willing to give Zangari the 1B job over him.

It’s scary that this kid is nearly a 3 WAR player right now despite the offensive flaws he came into the league with. He’s going to be fucking stud in a year or two no matter how impatient Tom Longo & the others may be.

Trying to figure out a way to make a Rodon for Andujar trade work but can’t figure it out.

Yeah I agree, I would a prospect with a better pedigree for Soria. I'm ok with guys like Forbes for Shields, Cedeno, etc.

Given the depth of their system, I'm assuming they will have 40 man roster problems in the near future. Might be not be a bad idea to cash in some of their more fringe guys for a chance at a post-season run. The money they'd get from playing in October could help them next year in free agency,

I gotta disagree with your take on Soria. His velocity is down a little bit, but nothing substantial. He's posted the second highest K/9 of his career (and since 2009) at 11.25 and the highest swinging strike % of his career at 14.7%. His BB rate & HR/9 are also below his career average. He's actually been one of the better relievers in baseball this year and I think there will be plenty of interest in him. To your point, he's not a Chapman/Miller stuff type guy and that's probably less valuable come October, but I think we should get a pretty solid prospect for him. Not top 100 type, but at least an org's top 10 guy and maybe more if we package him with something else. I really don't think Shields has nearly the value that Soria does either.

Fantastic news. No matter how you feel our rebuild is going, the division is going to be wide open in a few years and right around when our core in place. Spend some money on a few free agents and if all goes well we should be able to run with it.

Bush with his first HR of his professional career. Walker 2/2 so far on the night. Cordell back from the dead with two more K’s to add to his season tally.

Two more homers for Zangari. They may have to move him up to Kannapolis at some point if he keeps this up.