Chicago White Sox

Is that six HR’s against and four against Duffy?

Especially since he has five years of control, which is shocking to me.

? Greg hates Davidson now that us “statniks” are finally intrigued.

How is Duffy’s pickoff move? Any chance they have Moncada run here?

What did they give up??

Is that why Sheets is out again or is he hurt? I 100% agree, this isn’t the Omar Vizquel show, play the fucking prospects regardless of matchup so they can actually develop.

Still not sure how we plan to address the pass rush. Happy with our first two picks, but EDGE was realistically our biggest need and it’s going to be nearly impossible to find a decent option by the time we make our next pick. I wouldn’t be surprised if we trade up to the 2nd or 3rd if there is an interesting EDGE that slips.

Finally got a prediction right!

That seems incredibly low to me, how are you defining “pan out”?

There are several interior linemen with 1st round grades still available. Seems like a good chance one of them makes it to #7. I think James Daniels could be the pick there if Pace doesn’t move down and try to recoup a 3rd.

If more than one starter comes from outside our organization it’s a massive fail. We’ve been through this but our rotation by mid season should be Rodon, Kopech, Lopez, Giolito, & Fulmer. That’s three guys who were considered top 20 prospects at some point in time, one guy who was a top 40, and another who was a top 100. Not all these guys will pan out or remain healthy, but that’s where the next wave comes in. Hansen & Dunning, another pair of top 100 prospects, will be knocking at the door next season. And by 2020 another insanely talented prospect in Cease should pushing for a shot. Even with normal bust rates we’ll have a ton of options. And we’ll want to give those promising young arms a chance to actually develop in the majors. CaliSox is right that in terms of timing we may need to add a veteran to the mix to provide some certainty, but that will depend on how the first wave develops. If three of that Rodon, Kopech, Lopez, & Giolito group can hold down the top three spots in our rotation by 2020, we may not need to anything. Too early to say, but to suggest we’ll need to add two or three rotation arms from the outside is suggesting more than 50% of our elite arms bust and that none of our secondary arms (Fulmer, Adams, Stephens, Clarkin, etc) end up making it. And quite frankly, that’s an “all has gone wrong” assumption.

You might get your wish, Rappaport just said the Bears are trying to trade up into the 1st round.

This post makes my brain hurt. Why for the love of god must you name drop to this level. You clearly know a ton about baseball, just get to the point and create more coherent posts.

Zavala is the real fucking deal with the bat. If he can stick at catcher, we may have something special here.

Yoan with a wRC+ of 152 now. Kid is an absolute fucking stud!

Thinking through this more, the Bills are probably the team we’d want to trade with if that 4th QB is available at #8. Based on our needs & overall talent, here are the guys that would seem like quality 1st round picks for us: 1. Chubb, EDGE 2. Barkley, RB 3. Nelson, OG 4. Smith, ILb 5. Edmunds, ILB 6. Ward, CB 7. James, S 8. Fitzpatrick, S 9. Davenport, EDGE Seems there’s a general drop-off after those eight or nine guys depending on how you view Davenport. But any of those guys make a ton of sense and we would be guaranteed our choice of two of them if we trade with the Bills and get the #12 pick. Plus the Bills have six picks in the first three rounds and we might be able to snag one of their 2nd rounders if we swap picks.

When I say if we fail with a draft pick. I don’t mean not developing them into quality major leaguers. You’re spot on with how many quality major leaguers we should be getting out of a draft. I’m speaking more in the sense of seeing general improvements with their flaws and remaining productive as they move up to more advanced levels. Again with Fisher, the odds were always against him becoming a quality major leaguer, but a guy with his hit tool shouldn’t flame out in high A. Now, if he could make it to AAA but a lack of power or defensive ability ultimately prevented him from getting to the pros then that’s still a win in my book. All I’m saying is if we are drafting guys more on baseball ability than pure tools, we should be able see more of them make their way up the system without significant holes in their games if we have a competent development staff in place.

Unless Chubb miraculously falls, I’m hoping three QBs go ahead of us and the Bears are able to trade the #8 pick to a team desperate for that 4th QB. Arizona & Buffalo seem to be the teams to watch. Miami is most definitely a threat to take a QB if one of the big four makes it to them at #11, so both of those teams should be looking to move up into the 5 to 8 range. But with Chubb, Barkley, & Nelson as highly attractive non QB options, the #8 pick could be one of the highest pick that is readily available. Will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

You really don’t seem to understand how a rebuild works.

The 2016, 2017, & 2018 draft classes should provide us with a better idea of our organization’s ability to identity & deveop talent. These are Hostetler’s first full drafts and represent a shift in strategy from taking toolsy athletes to selecting true baseball players on the positional side. Guys that fill that bill that were taken in the higher rounds are Collins, Call, Fisher, Burger, Sheets, & Gonzalez. To me, if the majority of those guys fail it will reflect poorly on Getz’s team’s ability to develop talent. So far, the results haven’t been great, although it’s super early and the sample size is minuscule. However, seeing a guy like Fisher whose one true above average tool was his hit tool struggle to make contact on a regular basis is a bit terrifying. And while I’m not ready to write-off Collins by any means, if he fails to hit enough to not even sniff the major leagues as a 1B/DH type at the very least that raises a lot of questions as well.

Albies is a hell of a player, but we’re seeing first-hand why Moncada was considered a generational talent by many evaluators. It’s obviously going to take some time for it all to come together (it’s already starting to), but no sane GM would take Albies over Yoan simply because of a slow start. And to think he’d potentially be out of the game of baseball because of a high K rate is simply ludicrous.

The challenge for us is timing. Jimenez should be up this year. The rest of our real OF talent is in A ball. I have a feeling Robert can move fast and Basabe should hopefully get half a season of playing time in AA this year if all goes well with those two you’re looking at early 2020 ETAs. Adolfo, Rutherford, & Gonzalez are probably a year behind those other two. Ultimately, we can’t wait on all these guys before we attempt to go for it. My expectation is for Robert to be an early 2020 call up and the Sox the trading for a cost-controlled RF prior to the 2020 season or signing a free agent to fill the hole for a couple of years this coming off-season.

Hopefully Zavala can keep this up for another month or two and then they push him to AAA to allow both him & Collins more time catching.

This is a way too pessimistic view of things. If the rebuild takes another three years on top of this one, then something went massively wrong.

We’re going to have to bump that Moncada thread a few months from now. I have a feeling a few won’t like what they see in there.