Chicago White Sox

Oh boy...Hector looks nervous.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 25, 2014 -> 07:38 PM) At his age, I think the ceiling is going to be a Top 75-100 and some flyers. He's a good player, but people know what he is. No one was fooled into thinking he can sustain the performance he started the season with. Oh I agree, but Peavy landed your exact package a year ago. IMO, Ramirez should get you a little more than that simply due to positional scarcity. Again, I'm not expecting a Mark Texeria type return here, but a prospect with a little more polish than Asivail Garcia (not significantly more) should be required to move Alexei at the deadline.

If we move Alexei, I want a SP, OF, or C that is near major league ready as the centerpiece. As much as Alexei's offense has slipped this past month, he's still an incredibly valuable player and SS is a difficult position to fill. Under no circumstance do you trade him for anything less than a top 50/75 prospect plus some lottery tickets. He's our best trade chip by far and if we can't get a solid return for him then we should simply hold onto him for another season. Also, I've said it before, but Nick Franklin makes no sense for us. Unless he's basically a throw-in, acquiring him would be a horrible use of resources. Give Semien or Sanchez a chance before attempting to replace them.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 08:17 PM) Bad AB by Abreu there. Yup, ugly ass strikeout right there.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 08:04 PM) No offence, but lighten up I'd lighten up, but when you constantly wage war against all the De Aza "haters", don't follow that up with a blatant bait job hoping to egg everyone on. Again, you have every right to express your opinion, but trolling ain't cool.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 08:03 PM) your guys' sarcasm detector out of batteries? No, you clearly haven't seen any of his previous posts on De Aza.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 07:56 PM) Alejandro does nothing but get on base No offense, but this is straight up trolling.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 07:15 PM) As bad as some say Beckham has been, there are only 2 players taken after him in the first 112 picks of that draft with a higher career WAR, Lawrie and Kimbrel, and only one picked before him, Posey. Who was taken at 113?

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 03:49 PM) He's not really struggling at AAA, he's only hitting .208 but his BABIP is .203. He's walking as much as he's striking out and he's hitting for decent power. Wish I would have seen this before I made my post. Oh well.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 03:31 PM) That was only out of those 2, Sanchez and Johnson. Semien, he may have shown those things but so far this year, it looks like Semien is the one who isn't translating to higher levels. Lol...Semien was the Southern League MVP last year and currently has a .700 OPS & 93 wRC+ in AAA despite a .200 BABIP, which is more than 100 points below his career average. Given his identical 13.8% BB & K rates, I think he is transitioning just fine, unfortunately luck has not been on his side so far this year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 09:01 PM) Beckham sucks... except for when his trade value is talked about. Beckham hasn't been very good in his career, but he was a highly regarded prospect. Given that he's been fairly productive this year, all it takes is one GM desperate for a 2B that thinks Beckham might be finally reaching his potential and perhaps we get a halfway decent prospect. More likely, look for a A/A+ pitching prospect with a high ceiling but limited results like Montas and hope for the best. Either way, Gordon Beckham won't be on our roster come August 1st.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 09:18 PM) Who was saying we don't need to try anymore reclamation projects in the bullpen? We're seven games under .500, I don't want win an extra game or two because of J.J. Putz or someone else who won't be part of the long-term core or won't be tradable this year.

What a little b****, guy has no balls.

That could have been out of the park.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 07:29 PM) Ehh. There's really not though. He will end up signing around the deadline for the same money that he could take today. It's not the old system. They can only offer so much and I bet it's been offered. This is simply a game of chicken right now. Boras is likely asking for every possible dollar above slot that doesn't require the loss of a draft pick, while the Sox are probably offering slot exactly. At some point, Boras will blink and Rodon will end up with slot or just above because they really don't have any leverage here, as going back to school would be an incredibly stupid decision. Like Wite said, the odds are 99.9% he signs.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 08:44 PM) May has his average up to 240 now. Yeah, he's playing better but where has the power gone? He hit 8 HRs last year in like 200 ABs.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 07:57 PM) Ben Badler ‏@BenBadler 9m Two more years until MLB teams can sign players born in the year 2000, in case you were wondering when I plan to retire. Reply 9 Retweet 4 Favorite James Fox ‏@JamesFox917 6m @BenBadler How is it that White Sox have so much $$ to spend, but aren't linked to any of the big names on INTl Market? Reply Retweet Favorite Delete Ben Badler ‏@BenBadler 4m @JamesFox917 I've tied them to multiple guys already. James Fox ‏@JamesFox917 3m @BenBadler I saw Ynoa as possible, a SS, and Alfaro. Just not the supposed top 10-15 types. So they should do a decent job, then? This was my convo with Badler. Have Sox been linked to anyone other than those 3 guys? Those are the names I've seen. Let us know if he responds to that last question.

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 07:50 PM) An international draft is a terrible idea. I love how success is determined in the INTL by who can scout talent better, I believe that Starlin Castro was signed for $ 50,000. He was an under the radar prospect that the Cubs found and developed into a superstar. An international draft would completely kill that competitive nature in my opinon. I'm not sure how it will kill that nature. The draft is all about scouting now under the new CBA, an international draft will just be an extension of that. The only difference will be that big market teams can't use their excess revenues to simply outspend the competition like the Yankees are currently doing.

It's going to be interesting to see who gets the call if Beckham or Ramirez is traded.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 07:03 PM) They have to rework the rules, it's ridiculous how a team can just blow their budget one year and then take the next year off, ad finitum. Presume a fix will be in the next CBA. There will be an international draft in the not too distant future, but until then we'll have to suffer through high revenue teams like the Yankees playing the system unfortunately. It completely makes sense why the Yankees are doing this, just sucks that they're doing it for the first time when we have a huge bonus allotment.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 05:28 PM) I mean there is nothing the Sox can do about the Yankees. The overage tax on the Yankees does not nearly deter them like it does most other teams because of relative revenues. $10 million in overage penalties affects the Sox WAY MORE than it does the Yankees. Rick Hahn is among the smartest guys in the games, if he thinks it would be worth it to go over the bonus caps by at most 5%, I have no doubt he has the freedom to do so as long as the money + tax for going over the cap is taken out somewhere else (most likely the ML team). Let me rephrase, if you think there is only so much budget to go around and only so many prospects to spend it on, the Sox (or any team with a large allotment) could in theory wait for other teams/players to pair up and then grab the best remaining prospects at discounted prices. However, if teams like Yankees completely ignore their budgets and grab more players than they should have been able to grab in the first place then that strategy won't work. I have no idea if this was their plan or not, but the fact we have one of the largest budgets and don't have direct links to any significant prospects right before the signing date suggests something may have gone wrong with their plan.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 10:29 AM) Interesting. I still put him at 3 or 4 right now, behind Rodon, Anderson, possibly Hawkins. I think people are forgetting about Johnson's defensive woes. I have literally heard nothing about Johnson's defense this season, while Caulfield has been able to provide daily updates on Tim Anderson's defense from China. Maybe he's starting to make some strides? I know his errors are down a little versus last year, but that obviously doesn't tell the whole story.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 11:59 AM) If Micah is #2, I think it's reasonable to see 4 Top 100 prospects in the system then as I think Hawkins is worthy of being in there. Hawkins is in the top 7 in OPS in the Carolina League and is one of the younger players in that group. Like you said, I think all four of those guys deserve top 100 status, and quite frankly, if Montas keeps up his performance (obviously that remains to be seen), he'd have a great shot at making the list as well IMO.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 09:46 AM) I have to be honest, and this is going to sound odd, but... I am not sure there is much value in trying to land 1 or 2 $1M+ guys anyway, and it might be better to get 5 or 6 guys in the 250k-500k range. These are 16 year olds we are talking about here, and this is a HUGE gamble, much more so than the draft. Spreading your bets seems like the smart move to me. Spending more overall is good, but I am not going to be upset if they don't get any of the top 5 guys. Don't the Sox have $4.6M to work with? With that budget, I think it's a huge fail if you don't get one of the top guys, because you'd still have plenty of money to toss around on half a dozen of guys in the $250 to $500k range. I'm starting to get a little worried that the Sox did not plan for teams like the Yankees to go way over their allotments and have failed to adjust their strategy before it was too late. I guess we'll see soon enough.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 22, 2014 -> 11:26 AM) I think when valuing prospects, you truly need a holistic approach that balances proximity to the Majors, likelihood of reaching their ceiling, the ceiling of that player and mental make-up. I think Rodon is No. 1 in our system by a large degree. He is close to the Majors probably a year or 1.5 years away, has very strong make-up (according to the reports), has a huge ceiling and still has a solid chance to reach it. At worst, he probably is a useful mid-rotation arm ala John Danks before his injury. At his best, you have another Chris Sale in your rotation. I like Johnson and Semien, but neither overwhelm you with tools (save for Johnson's speed which I think it a little overrated) and neither has a concrete position. I agreed with everything you said until the Johnson's speed is overrated comment. All scouting reports I have read have put it in the 70 to 80 range, meaning it's plus plus.