PolishPrince34

I'm extremely worried the Yankees will go all out this signing period. Reports are coming out they will spend up to $18 million or more and to try to go after every major player to rebuild their farm system. This is bad news for the rest of the league. Bad year to have only $5 milllion to spend. Also, worried some more teams might join in because talk of a 2016 International Draft and all the penalties would be thrown out the door with the spending overtures.

Keith Law just ranked White Sox 27th . Shocked by how low he had us. I thought we would be closer to 20.

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jan 27, 2014 -> 11:30 PM) What ever happened to Luis Castillo and the other players that we're signed by Marco Paddy when he first joined the team? They are 17 years old. Still long time away before we really start hearing about them. Hopefully in the next year or 2 they will make the transition over to America and start playing in Rookie Ball.

Good stuff

In the chat, John Manuel also mentioned how the White Sox aggressively push the prospects in the minors: DeMichele, Walker, Hawkins, and hopefully not Anderson. Sox need to reflect and realize this isn't working the aggressive push on such raw high ceiling players.

I was able to get to the Chat with John Manuel did on the White Sox for Baseball America the last 20 minutes. I wish I was there from the start because he answered a bunch of my questions on players we don't hear too much about. Tried to get more info on Jason Coats, Sammy Ayala, Cody Winiarski, Euclides Leyer, and Kyle Hansen but cut the chat short. Check out the chat on Baseball America some good info on some of our prospects.

My Final Top 25 Propsect list. Organizational has made some steady progress this past year. Now let's hope the White Sox start developing some hitters for the ball-club. 1. Abreu 2. Davidson 3. E. Johnson 4. T. Anderson 5. Hawkins 6. Semien 7. Beck 8. M. Johnson 9. Thompson 10. Zapata 11. Webb 12. C. Sanchez 13. Danish 14. Snodgress 15. May 16. Petricka 17. Olacio 18. Engel 19. Barnum 20. Michelczewski 21. Montas 22. Walker 23. DeMichele 24. Jaye 25. L. Garcia Others to keep an Eye On Andrew Mitchell Euclides Leyer Brad Goldberg Kevin Vance Cody Winiarski Sammy Ayala Kyle Hansen Chris Bassitt Kevan Smith Tyler Saldino Rangel Ravelo Jason Coats Cleuluis Rodon

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/sports/b...ncher.html?_r=0 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1837558...akas-abused-arm Hopefully this will scare people off. Injury waiting to happen.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Dec 26, 2013 -> 11:10 AM) Irabu and Dasiuke were huge costs that never worked out, Darvish is the only one that I think is really all that special. Nomo had a nice long career. Outside of Darvish I'd take Count over all of them, and El Duque was a masterful pitcher, one of the mose entertaining guys I've ever watched pitch. His cousin Livan wasn't too shabby either. And let's not discount all the position players either, nor arms like Chapmann. Cuba beats the dogs*** out of Japan from an athletic standpoint IMO, and some of their pitchers have been pretty good. I'm not against signing Tanaka for a reasonable rate. We're not getting one. Don't see the point in giving a guy 7 years guaranteed and huge money per who has never pitched in MLB, doesn't have Darvish's stuff apparently, and probably isn't going to do much for us in the first year or 2 given where we stand as a non-contender. I would definitely take the bet that the Sox can come up with a similar caliber pitcher through other means at an excellent price over the time they'd have to pay Tanaka. I really see absolutely no logic in trying to outbid anyone for this guy. It's a terrible move & one we'd regret. Outside (of course) from the fact that Darrin Jackson would be ALL OVER this & would entertain the s*** out of me during every one of his broadcasts which Tanaka would start. Another huge miss was the Yankees signing Pitcher Kei Igawa for huge money. That might have been the worst Japanesse signing of them all. Again I'm passing on Tanaka because it's going to take a 7-8 year deal to sign a pitcher. Never see Reinsdorf signing off on that decision. Way too many years for a pitcher. Plus a pitcher whose pitch counts were ridiculously high this past year in Japan.

Let the madness begin on this bidding war. Sox will stay on the sideline and that will be the smart thing to do. My prediction Tanaka will get a contract over $120-$135 million plus the $20 million posting fee. I believe it will go down to the Cubs and Yankees getting Tanaka in the end. For every Darvish their around 5 who don't even come close to fulfilling their expectations (Dice K, Irabu, Kaz Matsui, Fujikawa, the list goes on). This is when Theo gets way over his head and starts making decisions that isn't best for the organization. Before Theo left Boston, he signed the past 5-7 years and left them some of the worst contracts (Crawford, Beckett, Lugo, JD. Drew, Lackey, Dice K, Adrian Gonzalez, and Edgar Renteria) those are just off the top of my head. The common theme to all those deals is the ridiculous amount of years and dollars giving to these players. I do hope Cubs get Tanaka and again have another Soriano contract on their hands. Theo needs to learn and stick by what he's good at and that's player development. All of these long term deals that have been going out for the past 7 years have never panned out. Hahn has really impressed me this offseason and I'm sure he will continue his smarts by taking a seat on the sidelines to the crazy bidding war between the Yankees and Cubs.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 08:34 AM) I'm surprised how many people have Tim Anderson outside their top 5. Walker at 18 is interesting. I'd be curious what your thoughts are on him at this point. Definitely. I still think their is still a lot of potential in Walker. Last year was a wasted year in the off-season he had major shoulder surgery and knee surgery. The problem was Walker and Sox rushed him back and was never fully healthy at the start of the season. Sox should insisted and made Walker rehab those injuries a little longer and I believe we would saw better results. I think Walker probably has the best plate discipline in our entire system, defense is solid, potential lead-off type hitter, and has above average speed on the base-paths. This is a make or break year for Walker. Hopefully it was the injuries that made for a disappointing season in 2013. Hit tool is the key question in the equation.

1. Abreu 2. Davidson 3. E. Johnson 4. T. Anderson 5. Hawkins 6. Semien 7. Beck 8. M. Johnson 9. Thompson 10. Webb 11. C. Sanchez 12. Danish 13. Snodgress 14. May 15. Olacio 16. Engel 17. Barnum 18. Michelczewski 18. Walker 19. Montas 20. A. Mitchell

No thanks

Absolutely love this deal. Getting one the elite 3b prospects in the minors and controlled for the next 6 years.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Dec 10, 2013 -> 11:10 PM) Viciedo is absolutely part of the young core. He might flame out, but he has equally as good a chance of being a premier power hitter. He has some of the best hitting tools you'll ever see. LOL-Viciedo has some of the best hitting tools you'll ever see. You need to watch some more baseball after making that observation.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 11, 2013 -> 01:38 AM) I know exactly what you mean. The usefulness of that kind of thinking is determining whether you should have been able to pull off an even better deal, though. The Pods and Vizcaino deal is our example of a deal that works out for everyone, but I think you could still legitimately question that deal on the basis that maybe we could have done even better for a premier hitter like Lee. We also saved a lot of money in Pods/Vizcaino-Lee trade and used it to pick up AJ, El Duque, and Iguchi. 5 huge parts to winning in 2005

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 10, 2013 -> 12:42 PM) Only one of those was a position player. You expect pitchers to eventually need the surgery because their entire job is to throw. On the contrary, the MRI for Eaton suggested that it had healed up. Ok how about Xavier Nady and Freddy Sanchez

His elbow definitely is a scary situation. Many players have had this same issue and just a matter of time turns into Tommy John Surgery: Carl Crawford, Ardoylis Vizcanio, Colby Lewis, Brett Anderson, Casey Kelly. Those are players that come to my head just right now. I would stay away from Eaton, not a true CF. Reports tend to show he's more suited for LF. Davidson is a better fit. We have a huge hole at 3B.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 07:19 AM) He quite clearly stated he wanted to sign guys to 1 year deals. Forget that he said "something the Cubs did" and look at it like that if you have to. Thanks for following what I said about the 1 year deals. No way is Hahn giving up draft picks/money allocation in next year's draft to sign Ellsbury or McCann. 100% guaranteed Hahn doesn't go that route.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 08:27 PM) And sign an Edwin Jackson clone. I said 1 year deals. I believe Jackson was signed for 4 years and $52 million. Check your facts

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 04:29 PM) Or the genius that is AA> Please people we need to stop bringing up Ellsbury and McCann. There is no way Hahn is going to fork over $150 million contract for Ellsbury or $80-100 million for McCann. We are still rebuilding towards the future and neither of these players fall in that category. What makes Ellsbury 30 years of age a solid player is his elite speed. He might have 2 more years tops of that speed. He will get a minimum of at least 6 years. Hahn has no interest in having huge contract when he's playing during Years 30-38. Same thing with McCann who will turn 30 in the offseason and catchers start to see a huge drop off by Age 32. He's already had shoulder surgery and his best years are already behind him. Again it will take 5-6 years to sign him. I hope and believe Hahn will take a pass on the elite free agents this offseason. I hope we do something very similar to what Epstein/Hoyer did last offseason and that's sign players to 1 year deals and see how the team does. If the team is horrible again which I believe will happen again you then have the fallback plan to trade them off to continue building our farm system for the future. He's already done a great job getting Abreu signed for his prime years and without costing any draft picks/allocation money for the draft.

Supposedly 4 other teams made bids between $63-$66 million on Abreu according to Rosenthal

Any word on the health progress of Barnum and his concussion.

After reading the reports on Abreu I'm definitely all in on going after him. He's hitting his prime years. Power hitter that walks and gets on base I'm sold. The only negative I see on him is his body. Hopefully he doesn't go to crazy on the Fast Food in America. He definitely needs to get in better shape.