Chicago White Sox

I'd rate year one of the rebuild an 8. From a talent acquisition standpoint, I'd give us a 9 or 10. In the past 12 months, we've acquired five-end pitching prospects in Kopech, Giolito, Lopez, Dunning, & Cease and four high-end positional prospects in Moncada, Jimenez, Rutherford, & Robert. In addition, they acquired another half-dozen interesting prospects in Basabe, Puckett, Gillaspie, Cordell, Clarkin, & Polo. Overall, I think Hahn did an awesome job moving his assets for value, demonstrating incredible patience that helped ensure his price was met. I'll admit I was a little disappointed with the Yankees trade (like everyone else), but overall it's hard not to be happy with the amount talent brought in. And this does not include the potential impact of the 2017 draft, which is way too early to evaluate but will hopefully be a strong one. Having said that, from a development standpoint I can only give this year a 7. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely many pluses. At the major league level, several key young guys came up in Moncada, Giolito, & Lopez and showed signs of what they will hopefully become. Guys like Sanchez & Leury look like legit major leaguers, even if they ultimately end up in reserve roles. Delmonico was simply awesome in his 40 game audition and looks like he might be a legit piece going forward. And this doesn't even include Abreu & Avi who both had spectacular years and could be part of our next competitive or be used to add more talent to the system. However, there were also some negatives this year and those start with Anderson & Rodon, two of our most important building blocks. While Tim definitely turned things around the last couple months, his overall 2017 season is very ugly. Not the type of result you want to see from what should be a key young cog and a kid that just signed a long-term deal. Carlos' season is disappointment primarily due to injuries. At times he flashed that legit ace potential, but he was once again inconsistent. As for the farm, 2017 was definitely a mixed bag. Kopech, Hansen, & Dunning made huge strides on the pitching side, while Adams & Guerrero had nice rebound seasons. Eloy was insane after he came over, Adolfo made some serious strides despite his flaws, & Zavala put himself on the map as legit catching prospect. Unfortunately there was still quite a bit of bad. Fulmer was a disaster, Burdi got injured, and several important positional prospects regressed in Fisher, Call, & Basabe. Collins had a mixed season, showing an incredible mix of power & patience for a catcher, but real bat to ball concerns. And the LatAm program continues to struggle IMO, providing minimal impact to our full season ball teams. I apologize for the lengthy post, but despite how happy we should all be with where the rebuild is at, I think it's important to highlight the player development issues the organization is still battling.

Why?

I think he’d get slightly less than Robert if you include the penalties, so probably around $45M or so.

If Maitan was declared a free agent, would he count against international signing caps? I know that recent draft picks that were awarded free agency were completely unrestricted.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Oct 2, 2017 -> 11:58 AM) Continue to distract yourself with the how instead of the why. It's easier. Why can’t we try to fix the how and the why? They aren’t mutually exclusive...

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Sep 29, 2017 -> 05:03 PM) Easy to see how with all the talent on the farm but I think Adolfo's season has gone a bit under the radar. Despite the K's he made some nice progress this year. Might see Robert in CF and Adolfo in RF for Kanny next year. Should be a fun Kanny team next year. Why would Alolfo spend another season in Kannapolis? He'll most certaintly get moved up to A+ to start 2018. Here's how I see the OFs shaking out to start the year, although I think there will be a lot of early promotions. Birmingham LF - Fisher CF - Polo RF - Jimenez 4th - Hawkins Winston-Salem LF - Rutherford CF - Basabe RF - Adolfo 4th - Call Kannapolis LF - Gonzalez CF - Robert RF - Dedelow 4th - Mercedes

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 28, 2017 -> 12:18 PM) The DH/1B market is pretty dead. I think a 4/60 deal makes a lot more sense, especially when you consider you are getting two arb years in that math. Ercarnacion got 3/$60M coming off a similar season at age 33. Abreu is going to get an AAV of at least $17.5M and maybe even closer to $20M.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 27, 2017 -> 04:27 PM) If they're going to extend him they should do it now - pay more in the next 2 years and in return have to pay for fewer years at the end of his career. 100% agree. 4 years/$75M sounds about right to me. 2019 to 2021 should all be competitive years and I think he'll remain an elite bat during that period, even if he ends up at DH ultimately.

I could be wrong, but I thought this year's draft was deep at the top, but with few real standouts. If so, ending up at #4 might not be that big of a dropoff, especially since the top couple bonus pools have been greatly reduced vs. recent years.

Nelson is such a f***ing idiot. Dude really needs to cut back on the drinking. And Derrick of all people?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 24, 2017 -> 07:05 PM) Awesome Trump rant by George Clooney. Worth a read: That is seriously awesome!

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Sep 22, 2017 -> 03:51 PM) Dude. No one is saying that King said to loot or conduct violent actions. And no one is condoning that in this thread - at least not that I have seen. Greg is saying that King would not have protested illegally. In that, he includes protests in malls, protests that inconvenience anyone, etc. King's protests led to a lot of the protesters being beaten by police and arrested. They committed illegal acts. They also did those acts peacefully. King might condemn looting, but he also would have been very in favor of civil disobedience. Well Balta's post clearly says otherwise. And no offense, there are definitely multiple posters here condoning that type of behavior indirectly. I've seen multiple comments like "well if your people were being gunned down unjustly" as some sort of justification for violent & illegal behavior. Civil disobedience is very much different from the type of behavior we have seen in most of the more recent high profile protests. Unfortunately in this country people tend to give others who fall on the same side of the political spectrum or share a particular belief a free pass for their immoral actions if it's in support of that idea or identity. I'm a liberal and I am sickened by the frequent police injustices against minorities in this country, but under no circumstance is looting & violence an acceptable response. This has nothing to do with Greg, but solely with some of the rhetoric the hard core liberals on this board are spewing.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2017 -> 01:14 PM) I'm not even bothering with the rest of the text since you didn't read it and there's 5 paragraphs by Dr. King disagreeing with what you just said word for word. READ HIS WORDS. RIGHT HERE. READ THIS. HE ADDRESSES YOU DIRECTLY. IT COULD START WITH THE WORD "GREG". Maybe I'm missing something here, but where does he say to loot and conduct violent actions in there?

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Sep 22, 2017 -> 12:45 PM) Volstad showed us some good stuff last night. I am sure he gets another relief outing or two to show if he can be consistent and get a spot with the team in 2018 This can't be for real.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 22, 2017 -> 12:30 PM) 1) the civil rights movement was larger than just King 2) please educate yourself on what King actually did. he certainly did not take a view that protest shouldn't bother or inconvenience anyone. they were also often illegal. he even ended up in jail and wrote a famous letter admonishing the people who were tut-tutting him for his actions just as you're doing to protesters today! https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/L...Birmingham.html He also didn't advocate looting and violence.

This would be a real bad loss.

StrangeSox/GoSox, I'm not going to defend Trump here because he's in the wrong, but what actions would you take if you were the President and North Korea started launching nukes our way?

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 20, 2017 -> 11:46 AM) That .186 BABIP and 90% LOB isn't going to last and I'd like to see him get more Ks (though the swinging strike% seems fine) but obviously it's hard not to be encouraged by him so far. The lack of walks is nice to see, though when he misses his location he seems to miss by a lot. The curveball doesn't look that great but that might not matter because his changeup looks really good. Wasn't his curveball supposed to be his best pitch in the minors? I'm not disagreeing with you on how it's looked for us, but I swear that everything I've read listed it as plus plus.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Sep 20, 2017 -> 10:23 AM) And draws significantly less walks. Which means he's not Adam Dunn

So how many games back are we from the #1 & #2 picks now?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 13, 2017 -> 05:55 PM) Doom and wolfenstein 2 coming to the Switch. Did not see that coming. Very excited for Wolfenstein 2. Getting a AAA-caliber FPS title is absolutely huge for the system, although I'm sure if it keeps selling well next year's CoD will be on it.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 17, 2017 -> 08:45 AM) Well that's the thing. When peaceful protests don't change the illegal behavior, people shift tactics. Are you actually suggesting violent & unlawful protests are ok? You are really on a roll in this thread.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 17, 2017 -> 08:44 AM) I'm just a little surprised since I have a very strong base of friends who are extremely active in protests, some of them are also antifa. I myself have attended dozens of protests over the last few years. Not one of us has ever been handed a check or cash to go these protests. I guess I'll defer to you though. I didn't realize you're pretty big into the protesting scene. I can't believe this is actually a real post.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 12:41 PM) I am now anticipating that 0/43 slump that drops Garcia below .300. Would Joe get his much desired beef sandwich if that were to happen?

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 10:54 AM) The Abreu impact on the young new players like Moncada cannot be understated. He is one of the players I wouldn't trade at this point. I think his value to mentoring young players is more valuable than any possible return he could provide at this point. 100% agree. He's just too damn valuable to the organization. Would need an Eloy caliber prospect to move him and that's not happening. I'm very hopeful he'll be around and be the leader for our next good team.