State of the System

[Misplaced_Sox]

Well what I gather from Flash's posts, and im not talking for him, is that we like arms in our system that have any kind of electric stuff.

 

Of course not every team has a Liriano, but they have prospects that have very good stuff, high end fastball or pwer arms. When we in our system have a bunch of control pitchers that rely on +/to average breaking pitches. And we all know when they do not have their "location" that they get rocked hard. Lummey was one guy that had some electric stuff despite the low K/BB ratio. And that is somethign we should value because we dahm well try our hardest to get it through trades/pick ups in our bullpen.

 

Why sell the Top end talent arms to get middling arms/talent and leave our system with a bunch of soft tossers that are no better than trade bait/A/AA/ stat fluffers.

 

No one is drooling over HEath Phillips, Haeger/ Broadway/ McCullouh with their pedestrian FB and stuff.

 

We used to draft power arms and got scared because of injuries. Drafting scared is not going to find you talent. Dont be scared of the Rauch's, Bere's, Fernandez's that come up with some arm problems.... draft the talent.

[Palehosefan]

Nice assesment Misplaced. We really haven't gone after power arms since the Dan Wright, Brian West, Jason Stumm, Wyatt Allen days. I'm not even convinced we would develop the power arms in our system even after being drafted. Most of our power arms seem to lose velocity in our system, and/or have serious injuries occuring. We seem to prefer the pitchers with low ceilings, but that can get the job done in the minors and be used as trade bait. It's hard to fault alot of the trades we have made, but it does get frustrating seeing the pitchers we keep get called up and shelled with their mediocre stuff. Drafting Lance Broadway over hometown guy Cesar Carillo was really the icing on the cake. Cesar had better numbers, better stuff, and was still passed over for "pitchable" Lance Broadway.

[danman31]

Drafting Lance Broadway over hometown guy Cesar Carillo was really the icing on the cake. Cesar had better numbers, better stuff, and was still passed over for "pitchable" Lance Broadway.

Ironically Carrillo had an elbow injury this year after posting nice numbers in AA. He even got promoted to AAA, but soon after got injured. I was passive about the Broadway pick, but I'm starting to like it more and more. He's going to have to prove himself more before I get really excited, but I'm not down on the pick like I was.

 

Also what about Sean Tracey? He has pretty good stuff even though his future in the bigs is as a reliever. I really think he will be solid for the team next year.

Edited July 26, 2006 by danman31

[CWSGuy406]

Quick question about Matt Garza. What was the knock on him going into the 2005 draft?

 

I'm not going to pretend and act like I know more than the Sox scouting staff. But why wasn't his name even in consideration? The three names I remember the Sox talking about were Bogusevic out of Tulane, Carrillo from Miami, and Broadway.

 

I remember reading about Garza prior to the draft, and really liking what I saw. Specifically, I remember Baseball America absolutely raving about his breaking ball, and you rarely see this in the MLB.com Player Scouting Reports, but the last sentence in Garza's said this:

 

Strong work ethic will help improvement.

 

(Link Here.)

 

He's also a relatively big guy, too, so putting on some MPH to his fastball wasn't out of the question either.

 

I'm not asking why we didn't take him. I'm just wondering why he wasn't talked about more in the 'White Sox circles', if that makes sense.

 

P.S. Defending Broadway for a second here: There were 13 (If I counted correctly) pitchers taken in the first round of 2005 draft. Out of those pitchers, you can really only say that two have clearly been more successful than Broadway (Pelfrey and Garza). You might be able to put Craig Hansen into that group, too, but he's a reliever, so he should be ahead of Broadway.

 

I'm of the mindset that Broadway will never throw a pitch in a White Sox uniform. However, if it brings us a player who is worth it, that, in my mind, will be just as good (key word being 'worth').

[DBAHO]

Here's what Aaron Gleeman posted about Garza when they took him;

 

Matt Garza | #25 | RHP | Fresno State University

YEAR ERA IP SO BB H

2003 9.55 43 21 31 63

2004 4.90 90 77 34 103

2005 3.07 108 120 37 110

For an organization that leans toward drafting high schoolers, the Twins certainly haven't shied away from using their first pick on college pitching. In fact, Matt Garza becomes the fifth college pitcher the Twins have taken with their first pick since 1995, following Mark Redman, Mills, Johnson, and Glen Perkins. After an ugly 2003 and mediocre 2004, Garza was the WAC Pitcher of the Year this season and led the conference in strikeouts.

 

Mike Radcliff: He has a lot of the stuff we emphasize to be a starting pitcher in the big leagues. He has command and control, which we think is important. He was a little skinny kid out of high school. He evolved the last couple of years and became the Friday night guy.

 

Baseball America: Garza had only a four-seam fastball and a slow, lazy curveball when he enrolled at Fresno State, but he now has plus stuff with a four-pitch repertoire. His fastball ranges from 90-94 mph and touches 95, and a hard 82-84 mph slider is an effective second pitch. A 72-78 mph curve has the makings of a solid third pitch, while his changeup has been slower to develop. He's projected to be a starter in pro ball but could move into relief if his curve and changeup don't progress or he lacks the stamina to be a starter.

[beautox]

Sometimes i don't understand you Flash. You say the sox should draft power arms, and while power arms are nice, they're very risky, but when the sox acquire a proven power arm for prospects your upset, you can't have it both ways. I happen to like the idea of going with the "safe pick" it adds value to your system and your organization as a whole. There are only 25 ml roster spots and only 11 for pitchers. Now that we've acquired the likes of MacDougal the back end of our BP(jenks/thornton/macdougal) throws gas and is under our control for a long time, and as another poster previously mentioned MacDougal can spell jenks from time to time and is a back up closer with "electric" stuff. So far Thornton(who also had a history of arm injury/s) has turned it around under Coop, its lead me to believe that MacDougal will sustain a level of success he hasn't had in his career yet. Our BP this year and for years to come is looking great.

 

Jenks

MacDougal

Thornton

Cotts

Riske(provided we resign him)

Tracey(so long as we don't trade him)

 

that is an incredibly solid bullpen.

 

As for the quandary that is our starting rotation, These are the constants: Jose Contreras, Brandon McCarthy, Mark Buehrle & Jon Garland, fill in the blank for next year, personally i feel its going to be Vazquez. I would like to see Freddy shipped out, for what, i don't know.

[Misplaced_Sox]

But we gave up our own truly almost only real power arm, from the left side even, in Lummey to get him.... for a reliever.

 

Finese guys do not usually have great K/BB rates so they normally have to put balls in play more which means for chances for mistake. A power am can strike people out and get of of a jam easier. Power pitchers sometimes have arm rtrouble but you still have to take a chance on some talent. Every other team does.

[hitlesswonder]

Drafting Lance Broadway over hometown guy Cesar Carillo was really the icing on the cake. Cesar had better numbers, better stuff, and was still passed over for "pitchable" Lance Broadway.

 

Carillo and Broadway pitched in the same league this year and Broadway arguably put up better numbers. Plus, as someone noted earlier, Carillo is now on the shelf with an injury. It's true that BHAM is a pitcher's park, but an objective assessment right now would be that Broadway has pitched at least as well as Carillo in the minors. It's not clear to me that Carillo would have been a better pick at this point.

 

I don't like "safe" picks like Broadway and Carillo either. Best case scenario looks like they turn out to be bottom rotation guys, posting ERAs close to 5 in the AL. I don't see a lot of value in that (especially for team willing to sport a 100M dollar payroll). A lot of "stuff" guys don't pan out, but you only need one to succeed to make a huge impact on a rotation and payroll.

 

As for Garza, so many teams passed him over that I think it would be wrong to simply rip the Sox for not drafting him. In fact, so far Broadway looks like a better pick than a lot of other first-rounders. And I say that thinking Broadway will not make it in big leagues (IMO the Sox should trade him now while his value is at a peak).

 

I think it's more accurate to say that the Twins are probably the best team in baseball at identifying young pitching talent and developing it. They are just amazing.

[Palehosefan]

Carillo and Broadway pitched in the same league this year and Broadway arguably put up better numbers. Plus, as someone noted earlier, Carillo is now on the shelf with an injury. It's true that BHAM is a pitcher's park, but an objective assessment right now would be that Broadway has pitched at least as well as Carillo in the minors. It's not clear to me that Carillo would have been a better pick at this point.

 

It's not so much the numbers they are putting up in the minors, as we have had tons of soft tossers put up great minor league seasons and not do much in the majors for us or other teams. Take Chad Billingsley vs. Yusmerio Petit or Brandon McCarthy. Both Brandon and Yusmerio put up better season in the minors than Chad, but in my opinion nobody in their right mind would take either Petit or Brandon over Billingsley. Brandon should develop into a nice #3 type start, possibly a #2, but we seem to have minors full of these type of pitchers. Gio was the last person in our system that I can remember that you could picture as a possible ace down the line, and I can't even name a handful of pitchers in our system since 2000 that had ace potential.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact we have traded alot of these guys for good peices on the MLB squad, and even some aces like Bartolo when dealing Biddle away. We almost had a chance at Daniel Bard this year, but Boston took him right before us, and we went with our usual style of pitcher being drafted, which was frustrating. But maybe we can turn him or Broadway into a big piece on the MLB squad, we will see.

[Chisoxfn]

I don't get it, Broadway is a pretty well though of pitching prospect and while I was one of the people panning for Carillo, I remember a lot of people having concerns about him and not many people really called him a pure "stuff" guy. The most risky pick of the bunch was Bogusevic because he was a pretty good overall athlete (good hitter and pitcher IIRC) but was much more of a work in progress and I am not sure how he's been doing with Houston.

 

Broadway has a good FB and some damn good secondary pitches. He throws in the low 90's....that is no the definition of a soft tosser. There are TONS of good pitchers that throw in the low 90's. Now if we were talking about the 80's that would be one thing.

 

I love guys like Verlander, but you aren't going to get that type of arm not picking really high on the most part. There are exceptions but those are Boras guys that JR/KW don't deal with on the draft. And obviously there are guys that are hard throwing and insanely wild that some teams will take later on and you can get international guys or always find a guy who projects well and really adds velocity as he grows/matures.

[maggsmaggs]

Also power arms are less likely to be in the big leagues a long time. When you draft a guy in the first couple of rounds, you expect that pitcher to be a big leaguer for 10+ years. Broadway is not a finesse pitcher, he is a damn good prospect. He is the type that will last for 10+ years as a 2-4 type starter. Power arms don't unless you have a top 15 pick, which I don't want to have. The power arms that get drafted in the top 15 are risky, but they are usually more complete and aren't just power pitchers, but guys who can locate their stuff.

[Chisoxfn]

Hell next year we may be talking about Verlander in the same tone as Prior since the Tigers are going to have him go a ridiculous ass increase in innings pitch and I don't think anyone at his age is ready to make that type of innings jump.

 

Its sad too cause this guy has the stuff to be one of the dominant forces in baseball for the next 10-15 years (his FB change combo is really sick right now and he can ocassionally flash other plus secondary stuff).

[dasox24]

The most risky pick of the bunch was Bogusevic because he was a pretty good overall athlete (good hitter and pitcher IIRC) but was much more of a work in progress and I am not sure how he's been doing with Houston.

He has really been struggling this year. He was 0-3 with a 7.39 ERA in 10 starts at low A ball until he was sent down to rookie league. Batters were also hitting .321 off him. Now, he's doing better, but not much: He's 0-0 with a 4.09 ERA in 3 starts.

Edited July 27, 2006 by dasox24

[Palehosefan]

Broadway pitches at 90-91, which is a soft tosser to me. I've seen him touch 93-94 a few times, but it's nothing consistent. Here's a couple of scouting reports from the 05 draft about Broadway and Carillo.

 

"Broadway succeeds more with polish than overwhelming stuff. His fastball is just average, but he has a plus curveball that he can locate in and out of the strike zone. His delivery and command are solid, and his makeup is a huge asset. He's developing a changeup and is gaining more confidence in the pitch. He has a strong, lean frame and there may be a little more velocity in him."

 

"Carrillo throws his fastball anywhere from 90-95 mph (touching 96-97), depending on the need, and he has shown scouts the ability to maintain his velocity deep into games. His fastball has excellent sink and life down in the zone from a three-quarters arm slot, and he went more than 80 innings between home runs allowed this spring. His curveball and changeup both can be plus pitches, though he pitches off his fastball so much that he tends to lose the feel for them at times. He’s athletic and quick-armed and should always have good command. Carrillo’s stuff won’t get much better, but it’s plenty good now, making him a candidate to move quickly through the minors. "

 

 

 

Also, it's not really about how hard a pitcher throws, it's the motion of which he's throwing. If you can find a guy with a smooth delivery, you can throw them out there for 200 innings a year, whether it's Mark or Jose Contreras.

 

Power pitchers can be had all up and down the 1st round of the draft, and not neccessarily wild ones either. Bard was taken at #28 this year and has a nice easy motion with a 96-98 mph fastball. Chad Billingsley was taken at #24 in 04 by the Dodgers, Adam Miller as a 1st supplemental in 04 to the Indians, Scott Kazmir in 2002 with the 15th pick in 02, Matt Cain at #25 in 02, etc etc.

 

You can't be afraid of drafting power pitchers because of injury concerns, if that's the case, develop a new system wide pitching approach.