5 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

The one real failure of the rebuild was drafting a bunch corner college bats with reasonably high picks because they were “safe / advanced hitters” and then failing to develop them.  Hopefully, we are starting to rectify that a bit with Collins & Sheets as I previously mentioned, but there was a lot of potential impact talent at the HS level we passed on early in the rebuild and it never made much sense to me.

If Collins can be a legit power LH bat with good OBP that will be huge. Particularly since pretty soon there will be an automated strike zone and Grandal's contract is starting to look like a bit of an albatross. 

Collins has had a great spring and hopefully Narron can help develop him.

Edited March 27, 20214 yr by SoCalChiSox

They aren’t moving Vaughn to the outfield because they have no outfield depth. They’re moving him to get Collins in the lineup and see if it’s functional long-term because they have a Jose Abreu problem. 

The Sox did stockpile talent. That talent has now graduated to the majors and makes up the core of a team that has the baseball world buzzing. And, incidentally has allowed us to take slot one talent (Vaughn) into LF while moving another talent (Collins) to DH, possibly without even reaching outside the organization. Sorry 100% of our prospects didn't pan out (which would mark the first time in history)...they never promised you a rose garden. Just a good team.

42 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

The Sox did stockpile talent. That talent has now graduated to the majors and makes up the core of a team that has the baseball world buzzing. And, incidentally has allowed us to take slot one talent (Vaughn) into LF while moving another talent (Collins) to DH, possibly without even reaching outside the organization. Sorry 100% of our prospects didn't pan out (which would mark the first time in history)...they never promised you a rose garden. Just a good team.

OK.......we'll reassess again in October.  Of course 100% of our prospects aren't going to pan out. But right now only 2 of them in the outfield have, out of about 7 of them they were high on, and one of them pulled this stunt which has started this entire conversation. That's why I brought up the topic of what happened to the depth we were supposedly building.  You seem high on the idea of moving Vaughn to left and that everything will be OK.  I truly hope you're right.  So you say "they never promised you a rose garden. Just a good team." True enough. We'll talk in October about the results of that. 

Roster construction, by Rick Hahn

C, 1B, DH: (7) Abreu, Collins, Grandal, Jimenez, Lucroy, Mercedes, Vaughn.

2B, SS, 3B, RF, CF, LF: (8) Anderson, Eaton, Engel, Garcia, Madrigal, Mendick, Moncada, Robert.

Capable ML fielders/hitters in the entire organization after years of tanking and high draft picks.

Not including Hamilton beyond being a body to throw out there for emergencies until Garcia and Engel return. (.621 career OPS, .564 and .390 the past two seasons, or the equivalent of Nicky Delmonico level hitting).

If you’re including Mercedes and Lucroy in the first list, why not Williams, Beckham and Hamilton in the second?

10 hours ago, Soxsi75 said:

Oh........disappointments. So we "gave" all we did to NY for Rutherford who's been a "disappoinment." Well, forget anyone saying the Sosa/Bell trade was the worst trade in franchise history. At least we got a proven major league player in that one and could be explained. We "gave" NY 3 pieces to win for total complete garbage. 

Interesting take on bad trades in Sox lore. The Rutherford deal doesn't get talked about much. .... This isn't about trades but I'm intrigued by the guy I've blasted on here in the past, Jake Burger. I assume he's headed to Double A to start this season.

Edited March 27, 20214 yr by greg775

Did ya really think that, though?

2 minutes ago, greg775 said:

Interesting take on bad trades in Sox lore. The Rutherford deal doesn't get talked about much. .... This isn't about trades but I'm intrigued by the guy I've blasted on here in the past, Jake Burger. I assume he's headed to Double A to start this season.

More likely High A...he’s missed so much time they’re going to want him to rebuild his confidence with actual game results first.  Then again, if Collins were to fail at DH, Sheets and then Burger are the hitters with the most advanced skills remaining in the organization, since none of the outfielders have proven themselves.

2 hours ago, Vulture said:

If you’re including Mercedes and Lucroy in the first list, why not Williams, Beckham and Hamilton in the second?

I explained Hamilton.

Not sure I’d personally go with Mercedes (DH/C) or Lucroy (C) either, given Collins, but it appears the club is likely signing Lucroy to a Major League contract because he is a veteran Tony and Narron trust/like.

Collins is only a OD lock now because of the Eloy injury and the Vaughn/Wild Thing experiment. Many here were arguing to keep Vaughn in Schaumburg pre Eloy injury to save Jerry money in the mid 2020s (so much for “all in”).

Williams has shown nothing as an OFer (negative WAR each year primarily due to abysmal defense) since 2017. 

The club hasn’t played Beckham this Spring (3 at bats), and even if they thought of him as more than minor league depth, he has to complete his 80 game PED suspension, I’m not sure on how many games remain.

Edited March 28, 20214 yr by South Side Hit Men

On 3/27/2021 at 8:44 AM, Timmy U said:

I think Rutherford is probably a bust, which is too bad.  The pandemic did not help. Hard to say much about Sheets, Adolfo, Gonzalez, etc. when they didn’t play last year.  I think there’s a solid chance one of them steps up by the middle of the year to help out.  Maybe it’s Cespedes.  What is clear is that the trades brought in way better talent than the high draft picks during the rebuild, except for Rutherford.

pretty sure ruth is at least 2 years younger than gonzo. Bigger,faster,better hitter. if you blast FO for failure at least give them credit for Cuba connection

and rehab successes.