Chicago White Sox

Sometimes I ask myself why I’m wasting my Saturday watching James Shields pitch for the 17-37 White Sox.

Dam, you’re trying to be objective here and I can respect that, but most people aren’t going to care about recidivism rates and I think you’re making a bit of a leap assuming he was an abused child himself even if that’s what research & statistics would suggest. The fact is he abused a six year old girl multiple times when he was 16 years old. Whether you think he’s a changed man or not, the vast majority of his teammates and fans will think otherwise or simply will be unable to overlook what he did. I really think you’re asking for trouble adding someone like him and I this draft will be proof of that.

Who’s your top four right now fathom?

He deserves a chance to pursue a MLB career, but at the same time front offices deserve the right to not draft players they feel have character flaws or provide risk to their organization.

Because I think it’s a very bad idea to add someone with that type of baggage into a baseball clubhouse. I think many players would have issues with him and it’s simply not worth the trouble. Despite his value there is a reason most if not all teams are going to pass on him.

I want nothing to do with Heimlich, but he should have no baring on our draft strategy regardless. Draft Madrigal for the reasons you mentioned, not because someone comparable to Singer with significant baggage might be available later in the draft.

Agreed. If he hadn’t taken that liner off his head he probably wouldn’t need another minor league start, but that obviously was going to set him back.

I thought Hostetler said he had some high school guys in the 3rd round they were targeting but they all got scooped right before their pick and they ended up going with Gonzalez. Looking at the draft results, six high schoolers went in the first 11 picks of the 3rd round: Enlow, Hearherly, House, Tarnok, Allen, & Pearson. I honestly can’t recall if we were connected to any those guys.

Here’s a quote from Hostetler on Sheets shortly after the draft: “We were sweating a few picks. We weren’t sure he would get to us. Contact with the agent finally got him to us, and we were very happy about it.” Seems like they were targeting him all along (pretty sure they said they had a 1st round grade on him) and threw his agent an overslot offer to block some of the teams ahead of them from selecting him.

Aren’t we allowed to go over by like 5% or has that amount changed under the new CBA? I mean, I would be pretty disappointed if we didn’t at least use all our base bonus pool.

Burdi has three plus pitches including a legit 80 grade fastball. He has a chance to be the best reliever in baseball IMO. I’m a huge fan of Hamilton & Johnson, but they are simply not on the same level as Burdi.

Sounds like they kind of pushed him to their spot, but still seems odd to me.

It will be interesting to see how Abbott develops this year. Will obviously take some time with him given his water polo background, but the system desperately needs more wild cards like him. In fact, looking back at these three drafts, the biggest issue I have is not selecting enough high school guys. I really hope that changes with this year’s draft. Even just three legit high school picks would be a nice change of pace.

If he becomes a top 5 reliever he’ll be worth his weight in gold. I didn’t love the pick at the time, but actually kind of like it with hindsight (assuming he comes back healthy).

But that just underlies the riskiness of pitching prospects. Meanwhile, Madrigal’s package of a 70 grade hit tool, plus speed, & plus 2B defense are likely to lead to a solid major league player with game power being the one wild card that could radically change to that projection to something special.

It’s not just this board as Fangraphs has him as the 13th ranked prospect with a FV of 45+. I believe Law is down on him as well. Perhaps you guys are right and he is the victim of prospect fatigue. For me, I just like Madrigal & Bohm better and think college position players are generally the way to go this high in the draft unless there is a college arm with TOR potential. I’d be all over Mize at #4 if available, but I simply don’t feel Singer has the same kind of upside.

I thought it would be fun to do a quick review of the picks the Sox have made under Hostetler. For clarity, Nick took over the draft process in 2015, but according to FutureSox it was Doug Laumann who handled the first pick (Carson Fulmer). Therefore, I'm excluding that pick from his record. For this exercise, I'll be listing all picks in the top 10 rounds of each draft and any other of significance. 2015 Draft 4. Zack Erwin, LHP 5. Jordan Stephens, RHP 6. Corey Zangari, 1B* 7. Blake Hickman, RHP 8. Casey Schroeder, C 9. Ryan Hinchley, LHP# 10. Jackson Glines, OF# 12. Seby Zavala, C 15. Chris Comito, * 22. Danny Mendick, SS 27. Alex Katz, LHP Comments: Obviously not making the 1st round pick and not having 2nd or 3rd rounders is going to make the results look a little worse. However, there are a couple of decent picks here, in particular Stephens in the 5th & Zavala in the 12th. Mendick in the 22nd could also be considered a pretty good find. Couple other things to note. First, Erwin & Katz were used in trades, the former in the Brett Lawrie deal & the ladder in exchange for nearly $800k in slot money. Second, Nick only selected/signed two high-school players and both to over-slot deals. It remains to be seen what we have in Zangari, but the early results weren't overly promising prior to his injury. 2016 Draft 1. Zack Collins, C 1. Zack Burdi, RHP 2. Alec Hansen, RHP 3. Alex Call, OF 4. Jameson Fisher, OF 5. Jimmy Lambert, RHP 6. Luis Curbelo, SS* 7. Benardo Flores, LHP 8. Nate Nolan, C 9. Max Dutto, SS# 10. Zach Remillard, 3B# 11. Ian Hamilton, RHP 12. Mitch Roman, SS 20. Matt Foster, RHP 22. Joel Booker, OF Comments: Now this has the chance of being a special draft. Those first three picks all have the potential of being impact major leaguers. Collins is currently 3rd in the Southern League with a wRC+ of 167. Burdi struck out nearly 14 batters per 9 in AAA last year, has three plus pitches, and projects to be an elite back-end reliever. And Alec Hansen, who led the minors in 2017 with 191 Ks, has legit TOR potential. Getting three players of that caliber (still early I know) would be a huge win in any draft, but beyond on that there are several other players of note. Lambert & Flores are both having good to solid seasons in the Carolina League, with Jimmy sporting a 2.77 FIP so far. Ian Hamilton is dominating AA and looks like another future back-end option in the bullpen. Call has regained some prospect shine with a solid start to the 2018 season. However, the real wild card here is Curbelo. Luis was Hostetler's only high school pick and a well-above slot signing. Now playing 3B for Kannapolis, the kid has the tools to rapidly move up the organizational rankings. 2017 Draft 1. Jake Burger, 3B 2. Gavin Sheets, 1B 3. Luis Gonzalez, OF 4. Lincoln Henzman, RHP 5. Tyler Johnson, RHP 6. Kade McClure, RHP 7. Evan Skoug, C 8. Sam Abbott, 1B* 9. Craig Dedelow, OF# 10. JB Olsen, RHP# 11. Will Kincanon, RHP 12. Justin Yurchak, 3B 13. Tate Blackman, 2B 14. Alex Destino, OF 17. Blake Battenfield, RHP 21. John Parke, LHP 28. Laz Rivera, SS Comments: Still way too early to jump to any conclusions here. Losing Burger for the year hurts and his injury adds further skepticism of playing 3B long-term. Sheets has demonstrated excellent plate discipline in High A, but has yet to demonstrate his plus power potential. The vast majority of these picks are college guys now playing in Low A. While the numbers for these guys are generally good to insane (Luis Gonzalez's wRC+ of 168), everything must be taken with a grain of salt until they reach a more age appropriate challenge in High A. Regardless, there is a lot to be optimistic about including 28th pick Laz Rivera looking like he just may be a thing. Couple other comments. Once again, Hostetler only selected one high school player, but Abbott wasn't a huge over-slot signing. What's stranger is Hostetler signed multiple college picks to over-slot deals. These include Sheets +$600k, Gonzalez +$120k, Johnson +$50k, McClure +$70k, & Skoug +$100k, along with Kincanon, Yurchak, & Destino each counting $25k against the pool.

One thing that worries me about Hostetler is he’s super big into intangibles. If you listen to him in interviews, he mentions the great lengths his team goes to to better understand each player’s character, drive, etc. He specifically mentioned in I believe the Garfien podcast that there wasn’t much separating his top seven and it could come down to intangibles. And I’ve watched that Singer rain delay video a couple times now and I’m like “I bet Hostetler is all over this kid”. Just seems like the type of kid Hostetler would value above the traditional tools.

This x 1,000,000,000,000,000.

I agree. Cheers for the mods for (hopefully) not suspending me!!

And look where it fucking got us. Honestly, open your fucking eyes or shut the fuck up, because you can’t have it both ways. We were mired in mediocrity while going for it and had a bottom five farm system to boot. If we did not rebuild when we did, we’d probably be looking at a 5 to 10 year rebuild in the near future just to become decent again. If all goes right now, we should be a legit World Series contender within three years. So if you aren’t on your death bed, for the love of god stop your fucking whining and give this rebuild a chance to actually work. And shame on me for wasting two minutes of my life responding to your ignorant, attention seeking ass.

Zavala in the 12th is probably our best recent example IMO.

What reports are you referring to? The report from the one start where his velocity was down? He pitches in the low to mid 90’s and his fastball probably averages around 93 MPH with heavy sink. You’re seriously underestimating because one outlier scouting report.

Don’t the players still have a vote? If so, no way he doesn’t win at least the backup 1B spot in the AL.

The Indians have three picks in between us too.