Chicago White Sox

? If that happens, then wow is all I can say. And in all honestly, this would be a good thing for White Sox fans. Mize is a guy I really don’t to face multiple times a year for the next half decade plus.

I’m always skeptical of these draft snippets. I get some of these prospect gurus have sources within front offices and in the scouting community, but a lot of time the information is purposely misdirection and/or being leaked to drive down prices. I believe Mize & Bart will go 1-2 because of how strong those specific rumors were. And while Bohm has been connected to the Phillies, I have yet to here they are enamored with him by any means like the other two teams I mentioned and their targets. At the end of the day, mock drafts are simply speculation with a pinch of industry gossip mixed in. I would not be surprised at all to see the Phillies pass on Bohm tonight.

Not that it really matters, but Phillies fans don’t seem too enamored with Madrigal at #3. They do seem to like Singer though, maybe just maybe they’ll do the hard work for us tonight.

Apparently it’s MLB Tonight Live.

What could MLB Network be showing tomorrow that’s more interesting than the second round of the draft?

That’s the dream right there. Out of the rumored top three picks, I do feel like Bohm to the Phillies has the least amount of certainty to it.

Just to nip the idea that KW doesn’t want to take Madrigal because of Anderson & Moncada: “Doesn’t play into it at all,” White Sox scouting director Nick Hostetler told Chuck Garfien and Ryan McGuffey on a recent White Sox Talk Podcast. “We don’t talk about it. It’s not an issue for us. It’s not anything we’ve even discussed. “It really, truly has not come up one time in discussing anything with Rick (Hahn) or Jeremy (Haber) or Kenny (Williams) or (Chris Getz) about who we have in the big leagues, who we have in the minor leagues. It means absolutely nothing when we’re drafting in the first round with that first pick because we’ve got to get it right, we’ve got to take the best player.”

I thought it was very interesting and makes some sense, but it obviously isn’t going to speed up the process with him as the development of his defense is what will dictate how quickly he reaches the majors.

What was said?

Well hopefully Ricky Renteria has some say on the first pick, because he’ll be all-in on Madrigal after that beautiful bunt he just laid down.

I think you take your time with Collins as he’s got superstar upside if he can be a passable catcher. Zavala is also older and sounds a bit more advanced defensively.

I’m against wasting our financial resources on moderate upgrades when we’re not ready to win. I fully supported the Castillo signing because we had a massive gap at catcher in our organization. Signing Moustakas to block Yolmer or picking Shields’ option to block Jordan Stephens would be very stupid at this stage of the rebuild IMO. When the time is right, hopefully by 2020, I fully expect $120M+ payrolls. And yes, I’d rather spend my money on young, impact free agents rather than the next Melky Cabrera & Adam LaRoche. But I’m not against rolling the dice on certain 30+ year old free agents and have been one of the loudest advocates for extending Abreu despite his age.

The Athletic had an article on this recently and the minor league catching coordinator didn’t give exactly the most glowing review. Said he was still a work in process but had made some strides as of late. Specifically mentioned game calling and receiving balls low in the zone as areas of opportunity. He did say Zavala’s defensive game had progressed nicely. I think post draft they’ll bump up Zavala to AAA so each kid can get more work behind the plate.

Dunning & Cease have been fantastic and have seen their stock rise. I have zero concerns about Kopech despite a few rough outings. Hansen is a bit of a wild card just because of his injury. The only real setback has been Giolito. We shouldn’t be making draft decisions based on these factors anyways, at least not at 4th overall.

It could be Jerry, but if that happens then god help us all. At least KW has a scouting background and overall a good eye for talent (still obviously bad to override the process). Ownership shouldn’t be meddling in the baseball draft IMO.

I’m not sure we have any reason to believe KW would actually overrule Hostetler & Hahn though. Nick specially said that everyone provides an opinion on the 1st pick and it could simply be that KW sees it differently from the rest. I think these Fangraphs guys are playing up the drama a little bit.

I don’t believe for a minute that KW would block a pick because of major league fit in the second year of a rebuild. If he does, it’s because he simply likes Singer a hell of lot more than Madrigal.

I wouldn’t put him ahead of any those guys. Kopech is arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball. Hansen led the minors in strikeouts last year. Dunning is shooting up the prospect lists and has better stuff than Singer IMO. And Cease looks he has a chance to be a top 50 prospect by the end of the season if he can stay healthy. To me, Singer would below all four guys.

I view it as Singer being a bulldog and KW eating that up. Plus I could see KW being less enthused about taking a 5’7 2B with the 4th overall pick. It would be a bit of unorthodox of a pick and I could see why some of the more old-school types would be apprehensive.

I’m really hoping all the Bohm talk to Philadelphia is misdirection and they end up taking Singer. If they take Madrigal, that’s really going to suck as I could definitely see Singer being above Bohm in our internal rankings.

I could definitely see us taking Roberts in the second round. He does fit the profile of pitching prospects Hostetler has taken in the past.

While I find this a bit terrifying, I really hope that KW wouldn’t use his power to overrule the organization’s consensus opinion. Got to give the people you pay to do this stuff full-time the autonomy to make their own decisions or else there can be no accountability.

Less than 24 hours to go. Might as well make some predictions on who we think the Sox take tomorrow. I’m feeling optimistic and going with the following: #4: Nick Madrigal, SS (Oregon St) #46: Adam Kloffenstein, RHP (Magnolia HS) So the biggest single takeaway I’ve gotten from interviews with Hostetler is he seems to think there is serious depth in this draft with HS pitching. I know we all agree that you should take BPA and hopefully that’s Madrigal. However, if the front office is truly split between him & Singer as FG mentioned then perhaps the better overall draft strategy is to take the 70 grade hit tool in the 1st and then load up on HS arms in rounds 2 to 5 (as BPA dictates). Whether that guy ends up being Kloffenstien in the 2nd, I have no idea, but he’s one of a few HS arms ranked in the general area that doesn’t appear to be connected to any of the multi-pick teams.

Did not realize Destino got promoted to Kannapolis too. Seems like it’s only a matter time before a lot of OF moves are made throughout the system.

I assume you’re referring to the 2018 season and the not the option talk your quote is referring to. But if you’re doing service time games with second tier prospects like Stephens then you’re doing the rebuild wrong. Now is the time to see what you have in guys like him & Covey. If you don’t want to call up Kopech that’s fine, but a second half rotation of Rodon, Lopez, Covey, Stephens & Giolito is already full. And if you need to send Lucas down, just give his spot to Santiago. Shields isn’t really needed for any particular reason.