Chicago White Sox

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.

If they’re going for it and want to add a veteran pitcher, I hope they plan on adding someone significantly better than 37 year old James Shields.

I’m going to be pretty pissed if Avilan let’s the inherited runner score and Covey ends up with a loss.

Nice hit Alfredo! Hopefully it’s your last with the Sox for quite some time!

Hostetler did say in that Garfein podcast that he had not finalized his rankings yet as there were still games to be played. Maybe, just maybe last night’s start bumped Singer down a notch.

Covey has some serious balls. So many Sox pitchers would have crumbled after that Yolmer error and Covey just mans the fuck up.

Covey would have been out of the inning if not for that error. At least Covey is doing his job.

Fucking A Yolmer.

Covey in a bit of a jam here, let’s see if he can get out of this.

I never noticed plus stuff last year, so I’m pretty shocked by what I’m seeing with him this season. Kid looks real good.

I have no idea, but I really don’t see the reason to add a veteran starter next year. Rodon & Lopez are locks. Kopech will be up after two weeks or so. That leaves two spots for Giolito, Stephens, Covey, etc. Why would we want to block one of those kids when we’re not going to be truly going for it next year?

I’m actually excited about a potential second half rotation of Rodon, Lopez, Covey, Stephens, & Giolito/Kopeh.

Gotta to see if he can keep this up, but I’m actually shocked that Covey’s stuff looks leagues better than Giolito’s.