Dominikk85

I think 8th place should be almost fixed now. The top4 are clearly too bad and the reds, padres and rockies are clearly more talented than the Sox while the jays just play in an extremely tough division. Maybe they could catch the Mariners or pirates but I don't think so.

Dunn was great in his prime but those high K 3 true outcome type of hitters don't tend to age well as their contact ability is already fringy and there is not much room to go down.

Yes. Grandal is a year older so 4/60 next year would be like having signed 5/75 last year which he probably would have taken.

Well minor league pitching dev wasn't that great the last years. Almost everyone got hurt and the guys who did well all were already in AA-AAA so mostly developed by other clubs except for cease. After sale and quintana the sox didn't really develope another good starting pitcher from within (I'm talking guys who were drafted, intentionally signed or traded for while still in A ball, not AAA pitchers traded for like giolito, kopech, lopez) So I would prefer an external solution, not just promoting a minor league guy based on tenure and good standing in the franchise.

Batting average is a bad stat to judge a player but it isn't really right that BA doesn't matter. Sure it is better to hit 270 with 40 bombs than 300 with 6 but it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. The very top hitters like trout, miggy, votto, jd Martinez, mookie Betts hit for average and power. BA isn't everything but if you look at mike trouts career his line is 306/419/582 with a 276 ISO and a 1001 ops. This means 306/419=73% of his obp are created by his BA while his slugging is about 50/50 power and average. The importance of power and walks have grown but still 60% of trouts value is from his ability to hit for average. Now there are a few guys like peak Adam Dunn who run astronomical walk and power to a good line despite below average hit tool but for the vast majority of hitters the hit tool is still the most important thing albeit you need power too of course in the modern game. But there are not many star players with a sub 50 hit tool albeit sub 50 power is rare too.

Little post about him and sox PD https://theathletic.com/1134546/2019/08/13/how-the-white-sox-implemented-a-new-data-driven-approach-in-the-low-minors/

Walker has a good year and this is nice to see but like Gonzalez last year he is a bit old for A ball so we need to wait and see how he does in AA. A ball often isn't a challenge for advanced college bats.

New farm system ranking is also out. Sox down from 4 to 9. They are high on robert, kopech, vaughn and cease but don't think the depth of the system behind them is good. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mlb.com/amp/news/mlb-farm-system-rankings-2019.html Don't quite get it. Now SD, TB, LA are clearly better than the sox but I don't buy Arizona, Detroit and Miami

Managers are Not having the same impact as 20 years ago. Front offices now not only make personnel decisions but also tactical decisions. The manager now basically executes what the analytics guys tell him to do, they tell him where to position fielders in a shift, who to play against a certain pitcher, how to use the pen, how to pitch opposing hitters and such stuff. Basically the manager now needs to be a good communicator and keep the players happy, motivated and disciplined but he isn't making many important decisions anymore. It used to be feel when to bring in which pitcher but now he has a spreadsheet which tells him how to decide. Managers used to be able to outmanage the opposing manager but now they all follow an exact plan of the analytics guys (" when x happens you do this...")

Btw I still think you can't really criticise the sox for this. Sure never was a great trade but tatis was seen as a prospect but he wasn't seen as a top30 in that July 2 group and he hadn't played a game. Mlb.com didn't rank him in the teams top20 either. Here is an article about 15 july2 and tatis isn't even mentioned. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/scouting-reports-for-2015s-top-30-international-prospects-for-july-2/ Sure you could say why give up a lottery ticket for a bum pitcher but this happens all the time and most lotto tickets never become anything. What happened was that tatis made an extreme improvement his first season, not just perfomance but tools too. Longenhagen said nobody saw this coming.

They rays had huge success on the international market. They didn't even draft all that well but had so many great international prospects. The international draft will hurt them a lot because the international market can be a huge difference maker becaue you scout them so early. Int. Draft will level the playing field.

I think it is both. Mostly predetermined but if had hit 100 with 36% Ks he wouldn't have been promoted.

I agree, that is terrible. They have the lineup and pen to challenge the dodgers and cubs but won't invest in SP. I don't think stearns is stupid, i think the owner just won't give him more money.

He seems to be done. Reed was an absolute monster in college. Posted a 1200 ops with 23 homers his last year while also pitching over 100 innings with a 2 era. His start until high A was promising but the higher he moved the more he started to strike out. He still has some pop (28 homers last year with astros AAA) and can take a walk but just not enough contact and it got even worse every time he was promoted. I think one of his issues is he has a long swing. He would need to shorten it up but of course this isn't easy to do without losing power. Maybe he just isn't a great batspeed guy and needs the swing length to generate pop. With his good eye that works at lower levels were he can wait out the pitcher for a dickshot but when pitchers start to locate with velo and spin he is toast.

Couldn't the sox have signed him to a one day contract and let him pitch one last inning in the majors? It is a tank year anyway and even if he is only able to throw it 85 who cares?

I wonder why he wasn 't traded. Wasn't a good offer on the table?

He hasn't sucked. He was probably ready for high A from day 1 but after a long college season they wanted to give him an easy start which they should, the first two months were not for developing him but to get comfortable with the pro ball life. They were probably calling him up anyway unless he had struggled a lot which he didn't.

Female baseball journalists beat the hell out of russell this winter. Outside of sports journalism most baseball players are not well known on a national stage so national media didn't care that much. At this point baseball is mostly a local sport except for yankees and red Sox so football players get a lot more attention nationally

No pitcher is really consistent due to the juiced ball. As long the ball is like this you have to accept that even the best aces have 3-4 starts per year were they give up 7 runs on 3 bombs, you can't avoid that. Just make sure it doesn't happen too often.

I like homers but I think this is a bit out of control. Homers are increasingly important but I feel they have too much influence right now. Almost every night one of my fantasy pitcher has a line like 10 Ks, 5 hits, 2 walks, 5 runs due to 2-3 bombs. The whole league is Adam Dunn right now.

Wouldn't be against a two year deal but it is not a priority. Definitely not more than 3 years as most first base type players don't age well. Overall I think there are bigger needs than him, especially a TOR starter and maybe a good OF

I would be fine with giolito being a number 2 or even strong 3 long term. If he can be a mid 3s era guy consistently that would be nice.

I don't agree. Diaz was just 25 years old and was coming off a 38% k-Bb rate so even with some babip and homer regression he would have been fantastic. In fact even this year his k-bb did regress a lot but still is a strong high 20s, what hurt him most was a 400 babip (bad luck) and a huge homer spike (probably partially luck but also some command regression by him, i.e throwing more down the pipe). If not for the cano money kelenic for diaz is a fantastic trade for the mets considering what other ace closers who were older and had less control like Chapman, miller and kimbrel have cost in trades. Those guys all commanded a higher top100 headliner and a pretty solid second piece too. The mariners wouldn't have done it hadn't the mets have eaten the cano money. Now of course there is risk in that trade but that is what an ace closer costs on the market.

I think partly it is also because with Bad fielders the CF assumes the corner guy will bail and let him catch it. When I still played and played in the OF (I was more of a DH/1b) it was pretty clear i only take balls toward the line or max 3-4 steps toward CF and anything more into the gap the CF tries to get and I get out of the way. So if a CF plays with a weaker fielder he often assumes the weaker fielder won't even try to get there when it is more than a couple steps away from it. Still this isn't good of course, you should still call as early as possible but I can understand a CF thinking "shit, ball into the gap, need to turn on the wheels because the big guy won't get there" so he will just put his head down and sprint to the ball as hard as possible while with a good corner guy like lets say adam Eaton you expect that he can get there and thus you pay more attention to the communication.

Kelenic isnt a better prospect than madrigal. Kelenic is rated a 55 and 37th overall on fg, madrigal is ranked a 55 and 29th so almost a wash. Kelenic got Edwin Diaz this off season (basically, as Cano was involved but his salary made him basically negative value), he won't land a real cheap young TOR either at least not without very strong second and third pieces. The recent history for controlled aces was a 70 or at least a 65 (I,e a top10 overall) prospect as a headliner for a real controlled young ace (moncada, eloy) and then another low ranked top100 as second piece. An exception to this was cole but he also can from two consecutive down seasons (3.9 and 4.2 era). Now you could of course do madrigal and Vaughn as a comparable package to a 70 (two 55 hitters have about the same value as one 70 hitter) but the sox would be absolutely stupid to do that, they don't want to ruin their future, they need those guys.