Dam8610

4 RBI of 6. If they win tonight, he's the reason.

He's singlehandedly keeping them in the CWS right now. 3-4 HR 2 2B 4 RBI.

It's great for ratings and TV drama, but if you want GMs to actually value a Wild Card spot, it's not the way to go. No GM in their right mind would value getting into that game enough to give up anything of value in pursuit of it. If you want the second wild card to matter, it has to come with a minimum guaranteed home playoff game.

He's done nothing but produce in the CWS. Hopefully that carries over to Team USA.

Sounds like next year is a good year to get a college bat. I know who I want right now, obviously subject to change over the next 11+ months.

Yes, so now Red Sox fans want to dump him for something valuable like Abreu. But, as has already been pointed out, no way the White Sox should make that deal.

You flatter yourself. Also, I'd rather be known as the guy who's just too overly optimistic about the team's future pitching outcomes than the guy who hates Jose Abreu for no reason other than Abreu has proven him wrong through his performance too many times to count.

He'd likely carry a better OBP if he's a .263 hitter. Something like .260/.360/.460 seems entirely reasonable to me as a projection. That's a good 1B or a great C if he can stick there.

Well according to you all it should take to get Abreu is a bag of balls. Value drag or not, there was no value in that trade. Makes sense.

So Whitley and Tucker for Abreu? (I don't know how to change font color on the new board on mobile.)

I would think signing 20-30 guys to $100-$300K deals would be a viable strategy, and you might actually end up with some names since no one can go completely crazy with the bonuses anymore. Given the highest bonus pool is a little over $6 million, I can't see more than a few players getting a bonus of more than $1 million, because anything higher would seriously eat up your pool.

I'm with you on everything but the elimination of the Wild Card, and everyone would be on that bandwagon the moment an 84 win team got in while a 95 win team sat at home. The NFL has the best playoff format, here's how it could be adopted to MLB: 8 divisions, 4 teams per division in 2 leagues with universal DH. Each division winner and 2 Wild Cards get into postseason from each league, for 12 total playoff teams. 3 Game Wild Card Series (Top 2 teams in each league advance to next round automatically) 5 Game Division Series 7 Game Championship Series 7 Game World Series To me, the reason the Wild Card expansion hasn't resulted in a reduction of tanking is that the 1 Game Wild Card round doesn't give enough incentive for fringe teams to get in. Most GMs don't want to mortgage a chunk of the future of their team for what amounts to a coin flip to see if they get into the real playoffs. At least at 3 games you have a series and a Wild Card team will get to see at least 2 games, with at least 1 home game. I think this would increase the interest in being a Wild Card team and thus reduce the number of teams who are outright telling their fans they aren't competing in any given year, which I think would ultimately be best for avoiding concentrations of talent accumulation and "Superteams" and increasing parity throughout the league.

I would think Stephens would get the call before he would.

So let's say your latter paragraph happens. You have "currency". How do you ensure that doesn't turn into a starter that beats you in the playoffs or that you regret trading because he develops into a better pitcher than all of the ones you keep?

I think maybe changing the title of the thread to something like "How will the White Sox get all their ML ready and near ML ready starting pitchers an opportunity in the next two years?" Might actually help facilitate the conversation I'm trying to have, but I'm pretty sure only a mod can do that. Also, that's basically the question I'm asking. Yes, I know injuries, failed development, etc. could and possibly will cull a lot of the depth I mentioned, but I see a fairly decent chance that before 2020 rolls around, the White Sox have 5 quality ML starters that are relatively healthy and at least 2-3 starters in AAA pounding down the door. That seems like a problem if it happens, even if it's a good problem to have. What would be the best way to resolve it while keeping the 5 best starters here?

Yes, I'd prefer above average for everything except speed. That's because speed isn't important for a C.

60 is plus. 55 is above average.

This. Thank you.

No they didn't. They had a few elite starting pitchers, four of them. If all of the White Sox pitchers get injured, they'll also fail. Thanks for pointing out the obvious, I acknowledge that. I'm wondering what happens if the logistics of getting everyone an opportunity to start becomes a problem. Any thoughts on that?

Yes, that's typically what you get with a Top 5 pick.

I've acknowledged that there's a chance for each of these pitchers to not work out, but I'm concerned that it will be difficult to work the logistics of this and determine who will be the best starters for this team. What would really suck would be trading away some of this pitching only to watch them flourish as a starter elsewhere, then the White Sox need to buy a starter on the market. In other words, I acknowledge there are many ways the White Sox could screw this up, what's the way they manage to not screw it up?

Basically, yes. You're going to have at least 5 guys, at least 3 of which have TOR potential, knocking at the door for one spot, and right now that spot is technically Giolito's. So the reality we could be looking at is 5 pitchers pitching well enough in MLB to keep their spots with 5 guys lighting up AAA or AA and showing themselves ready for the call to the show next year. Obviously negative outcomes (Rodon continuing to be injured, Covey or Lopez imploding, Giolito never regaining form, Stephens not panning out) could impact the MLB rotation, but I feel like Rodon, Covey, and Lopez have much better than a coin flip chance of sticking in the rotation. Stephens and Giolito are likely coin flip or worse, but that makes the probability that at least one will succeed very high, which would leave one rotation spot for potentially 5 guys knocking on the door of a MLB rotation. If that happens, how are the White Sox going to manage the logistics of getting everyone an opportunity without screwing anyone up and getting the five best starters out of the group?

I know the most likely answer I'm going to get is "Of course not, there's never enough pitching," but that's a boring answer and doesn't allow for much exploration of the question. To explore the question, the first key step is to identify the pitching that we can have a reasonable expectation that they might be ready to pitch on the MLB team by 2020. MLB 1) L Carlos Rodon 2) R Dylan Covey 3) R Reynaldo Lopez 4) R Lucas Giolito Other than Giolito, this group is very solid at the moment. There's still some SSS questions with Covey and some injury questions with Rodon, but it's not too difficult to see the top 3 guys on this list holding rotation spots in 2020. AAA 1) R Michael Kopech 2) R Jordan Stephens 3) R Spencer Adams 4) R Carson Fulmer Kopech obviously has immense potential and could be the ace of the staff in 2020, recent bad stretch notwithstanding. Stephens is an older guy, he'll be 26 very soon, but he's done nothing but produce at every level along the way. He's a guy I'd like to see get a crack at the MLB rotation this year to see what they have. Adams is young for level, which has been a theme for him throughout his minor league career. He just recently was promoted to AAA after a good run of starts at AA following a slow start to the season, so he'll likely be here the rest of the year. Fulmer to me is already in the "try to convert to high leverage reliever" category, but he's still starting at the moment, so it seems pertinent to include him here. AA 1) R Alec Hansen 2) R Dane Dunning 3) L Jordan Guerrero 4) L Ian Clarkin Remember Alec Hansen, that guy who was once in 1-1 consideration in the 2016 draft until control issues allowed the White Sox to pick him in Round 2 and he immediately put those issues to bed and showed the potential that had him in that 1-1 conversation for all of 2016 and 2017? He'll be back starting in Birmingham soon after he lost half of 2018 to injury. Meanwhile Dane Dunning has picked up where Hansen left off, doing nothing but consistently perform well against age appropriate competition as he has since being acquired from Washington. Jordan Guerrero and Ian Clarkin have had poor years, and may be best used as reliever converts. A+ 1) R Dylan Cease I included Cease here because I feel he will be in AA by the end of the month. He's been great at this level, and his stuff gives him ace level ceiling. Given the above information, I think promoting Stephens, Dunning, and Cease as soon as it is feasible. For Stephens, this season may be his only chance to prove himself worthy holding a rotation spot given his age and the ensuing logjam behind him. Dunning showed us a full season of A ball dominance in 2017 and has followed that up thus far with a half season of AA dominance. He doesn't seem to have much left to prove in AA and isn't very young for the level. Cease has also been dominant at A+ and appears to be ready for the test of AA. But what if Rodon, Covey, Lopez, and Stephens all stick as starters? That leaves 1 rotation spot for the likes of Kopech, Hansen, Dunning, Adams, and Cease, but more than 1 will be needed for this group. Do you trade one of the established starters to replace them with a guy that fits the timeline better? Do you trade some of the prospects for bats? I'm interested in hearing the board's thoughts on this.

SSS, but very impressive.

Harper was 60+ on everything.