18 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Still not sure how they can play Vargas Sosa Baldwin and Meidroth with all those veteran outfielders rostered...with Josh Rojas returning as well.

And then Nick Maton is the current PT obsession of Venable's.

That would be Amaya

JAC CAGLIANONE 464 FEET MY GOODNESS

[image or embed]

— Codify Baseball (@codifybaseball.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 9:08 PM

He's gonna torment us for years, isn't he?

Quote

Baseball America Helium Pick Of The Day
Each day, we’ll pick a prospect that has our attention.

Christian Oppor, LHP, White Sox: The early part of the season is a great time to hone in on potential breakout prospects. After Wednesday night's 10-strikeout performance, White Sox LHP Christian Oppor could be a name with some buzz. The lefthander sat 94-97 mph touching 98 mph over the early portion of the start, mixing a sweeping slider and a changeup. Oppor allowed three walks while holding Lynchburg hitless over 4.2 innings, keeping the Hillcats off balance all night long. Oppor racked up 15 swinging strikes over 80 pitches, showing true swing-and-miss stuff. A lefthander with this type of velocity and bat-missing stuff is worth keeping an eye on.

https://baseball-america-prospect-report.beehiiv.com/p/7-standout-performances-from-wednesday

Edited April 10, 20251 yr by DirtySox

2 hours ago, DirtySox said:

https://baseball-america-prospect-report.beehiiv.com/p/7-standout-performances-from-wednesday

Anyone know what have to happened to the French guy we drafted that same year (LeCrombe?)?

Fangraphs updated their top 100.  
 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/post-spring-training-top-100-prospects-update/

From the Sun Times:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/white-sox/2025/04/11/white-sox-prospect-colson-montgomery-chase-meidroth-garrett-crochet-kyle-teel-edgar-quero-omar-narvaez-justin-ishbia-mat

does anyone know if Bryan Ramos is still alive? The terrible players we have playing

make his absence even worse.

1 hour ago, zisk said:

does anyone know if Bryan Ramos is still alive? The terrible players we have playing

make his absence even worse.

 

On 4/10/2025 at 7:30 AM, Quin said:

He's gonna torment us for years, isn't he?

Also had a 120.9 ev base hit this week.

Would be one of the 12 hardest baseballs hit at all levels last year.

O'Neil Cruz still has the record.

On 4/10/2025 at 1:26 PM, Chicago White Sox said:

Anyone know what have to happened to the French guy we drafted that same year (LeCrombe?)?

Can't embed today. This is all I found:

 

Oppor on the helium portion of the hot sheet.

Quote

Christian Oppor, LHP, White Sox
The White Sox drafted Oppor out of Gulf Coast State (Fla.) JC in the fifth round in 2023. The lefthander spent parts of two seasons on the complex before being assigned to Low-A Kannapolis to begin 2025. In his debut on Wednesday, Oppor tossed 4.2 innings, allowing no hits and no runs, walking three, striking out 10 and hitting a batter. While Oppor’s command bordered on effectively wild, he kept Lynchburg off balance throughout the start. His fastball sat 94-95 mph, touching 98 mph at peak, while also mixing a upper-70s sweeper and an upper-70s changeup with good vertical separation off his fastball. It was a loud full-season debut for Oppor. (GP) 

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/ranking-the-20-hottest-mlb-prospects-hot-sheet-4-14-25/

19 minutes ago, DirtySox said:

Oppor on the helium portion of the hot sheet.

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/ranking-the-20-hottest-mlb-prospects-hot-sheet-4-14-25/

No scarier words for a pitcher at the lower levels than effectively wild.  It would be amazing to have a few of these guys figure it out.  You can't teach the big arm.

What happened to 2024 draft pick Casey Sauke?

13 hours ago, oldsox said:

What happened to 2024 draft pick Casey Sauke?

He was assigned to Kanny, but he’s hurt. I do not know the exact nature of the injury.

Jac Caglianone, 1B, Northwest Arkansas (KC No. 1/MLB No. 20)
Mired in a 1-for-24 slump, Caglianone broke out in a big way, highlighted by the second grand slam of his pro career. The 22-year-old snapped an 0-for-17 skid with a single in the fourth and added another in the 11th before blasting his fourth long ball of the season to clear the bases in the next inning. Despite his recent rough stretch, Caglianone has 19 RBIs in 14 games for the Naturals. Gameday

So, am I supposed to be jealous of Caglianone for the slam, or grateful we passed cuz 1-24? Kinda spilt milk at this point. AA was an aggressive assignment for a guy with his approach issues. KC fell for AZ performance where breakers don’t break. He’s gonna be fascinating, but not really Sox issue.

1 hour ago, Timmy U said:

So, am I supposed to be jealous of Caglianone for the slam, or grateful we passed cuz 1-24? Kinda spilt milk at this point. AA was an aggressive assignment for a guy with his approach issues. KC fell for AZ performance where breakers don’t break. He’s gonna be fascinating, but not really Sox issue.

Neither.  Let him cook and see how he turns out.

Is Noah Schultz about to have TJS? He's been hit hard and can't find the strike zone. The

Sox have babied him for 3 years. Doesn't look like it worked. Boy I hope I'm wrong.

23 minutes ago, zisk said:

Is Noah Schultz about to have TJS? He's been hit hard and can't find the strike zone. The

Sox have babied him for 3 years. Doesn't look like it worked. Boy I hope I'm wrong.

Obviously, you would prefer him not to need it but we are in a time where it's a matter of not "if" but "when" when it comwa to TJ surgeries. Rather he have it while he is in the minors not on active/40-man roster.

8 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

Obviously, you would prefer him not to need it but we are in a time where it's a matter of not "if" but "when" when it comwa to TJ surgeries. Rather he have it while he is in the minors not on active/40-man roster.

Especially in this organization. 

29 minutes ago, zisk said:

Is Noah Schultz about to have TJS? He's been hit hard and can't find the strike zone. The

Sox have babied him for 3 years. Doesn't look like it worked. Boy I hope I'm wrong.

JFC

Quite the statcast piece on Tim Elko today over at BA.

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/tim-elko-nate-eaton-headline-10-statcast-standouts-april-21/

Quote

Tim Elko, 1B, White Sox
I’m seeing a trend emerging in baseball: players adding significant power later in their careers. We’ve seen a long stretch of time where pitchers have found ways to throw harder with sharper pitches. We may be witnessing a new wave in which certain batters are able to train themselves to hit the ball much harder, sometimes many years into their careers.

Yesterday, I marveled at how much power Corbin Carroll added, and he is a shining example of this trend. Today, I’ll highlight three Triple-A batters that have done just that, starting with Elko. I love writing about the next wave of baseball talent, but I have a special place in my heart for the players who most professional fans don’t know about.

Elko caught my eye this week with this two-homer game.

I can’t stress enough that the difference in talent between an average major league hitter and a very good Triple-A hitter is often very small. If you can hit Triple-A pitching, you’re one of the best 2,000 batters in the entire world. Ok, I’ll step down from my soap box and talk to you about the incredible year-to-year transformation Elko is showing in the early going.

Here he was 2024:

The 2024 version of Elko showed some promise with great damage on contact, mostly due to how hard he hits the ball. His chances of being a major league contributor were at risk, however, as he wasn’t making enough contact with a well below-average 74% zone contact rate (roughly 9-10% under the major league average).

And here’s the 2025 version of Elko so far:

Elko leads all Triple-A batters in an extremely important metric: average exit velocity on balls hit at a 20-degree launch angle or higher. He leads with a 102.4 mph average, about 2 mph ahead of Roman Anthony. With that kind of hard contact in the air, it’s no surprise he’s absolutely smoking balls when he connects.

There’s another nuance to Elko’s analytical profile that is rather important: He is hitting the ball much harder in the air than on the ground. When he hits it hard, his launch angles are considerably higher than when he miss-hits the ball. These two metrics go hand-in-hand and strongly suggest an approach that is optimized for flyball-oriented contact. This was true last season, but appears to be in sharper contrast this year.

Last season, Elko topped out in exit velocity at 112.7 mph. He’s now exceeded that twice so far in 2025, including an eye-opening 116.7 mph groundout and this 114 mph blast against a slider:

Last season, I probably would have described Elko as having 60 to 65 raw power that would play as 55 to 60. This year, he’s pushing 70 or higher in-game power given the flyball EV and raw exit velocity numbers.

Swinging harder usually comes at the cost of more swing-and-miss. Somehow, Elko has been able to make massive strides in his bat-to-ball, as well. If you scroll back up Elko’s 2024 card, you’ll see a lot of purple for his in-zone contact on sliders, breaking balls and offspeed pitches. He was also chasing those pitches out of the zone a lot. That meant pitchers could simply challenge him with non-fastballs, and he’d either chase or miss, or swing through it in the zone.

This year, he’s making a ton of contact against those same pitch types in-zone, absolutely crushing them when he puts them in play. Most importantly, he has dramatically reduced his chase rates on these pitch types. This strongly suggests a giant leap in ability against non-fastballs. All of these improvements add up to much better swing decision metrics and a zone contact rate that went from almost 10% below average to 4% above average.

It appears Elko is making “the leap,” and his early-season 1.078 OPS is fully supported by his Statcast metrics. I can’t wait to see what he’ll do against major league pitching.

 

Edited April 21, 2025Apr 21 by DirtySox

Man that would be something if Elko turns into a major leaguer.
Hope for a hot 2 months from Vaughn, move him along for a "piece" or 2 deep in the minors, and slide Elko in.