NorthSideSox72

Tesla seems to have done really well on the quality of their cars, but Musk has habitually underestimated what it takes to industrialize production of anything he's designed. Every single time, not just cars, and usually by a lot. As soon as the Tesla 3 was announced and they said they got 300,000 orders with deposits in like the first 24 hours, my first thought was, it will take at least 5 years before he can produce enough cars to even come close to demand. Which means another 2-3 years beyond that to actually catch up because of the back log.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 8, 2018 -> 10:27 AM) KATOH is WAY too stat heavy. In fact it is 100% statistical. This is why I have never given it much consideration, as using stats alone to evaluate minor leagues just does not get you anything of value. As part of the picture, sure, stats can be used. But to lean totally on them is asking to be very wrong, very often.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 7, 2018 -> 05:22 PM) Just make sure not to kiss your 7 year old on the lips. I... assume this is a joke about Trump or something? I think I missed the reference. QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 8, 2018 -> 07:38 AM) Ah, a public school still doing it, nice. I think they've pretty much "sock hopped" all of those at ours. This school, while overall very good, is still kinda living in this weird North Shore bubble (though we are technically too far west to be North Shore). They also have all their systems set up so that if both parents put in email addresses as contacts, by default they will only reach out to the "Mother" one for a lot of things. And they schedule things that are clearly still working on the assumption that the Moms stay at home while the Dads work, ignoring the fact that most families there now have two working parents. It can be frustrating, and I've made that clear to the Principal.

I'm taking my two daughters to one of these, at my public elementary school, in a couple weeks or so. They call it a "Sweetheart Dance", for female students and whatever parent they want to bring. From last year, its 95% fathers, but there were a few mothers/women too. No one around here seems offended.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 6, 2018 -> 05:20 PM) Do you at least agree with my premise that it's going to be VERY HARD or at least much harder for players to put up Hall of Fame numbers in the future with a changing mindset regarding age? If a player is putting up HOF-level numbers at 29, as long as he's healthy, he will be able to get contracts and play for probably another decade. Your premise is ridiculous.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 6, 2018 -> 03:12 PM) The fact Moustakas can't get a good contract at 29. He's not a superstar but he's above average player. The fact that I sense a general vibe that Abreu is "too old" to get excited about and won't produce through the length of even our next WS window. Opinions like that. Because Mike Moustakas isn't getting the 5 year contract he's been seeking, that means all players are done at 29? Come on. Abreu is 31 and still doing very well. In fact he proves you wrong pretty directly. It's just the reality that in a couple years at 33, history says most players begin to fade by then. Some do, some don't. There are plenty of 33-year-olds still playing though, and much older. Why am I doing this to myself?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 6, 2018 -> 02:18 PM) Bear with me please. Jake Burger is 21 not projected to be a big leaguer til he's 24. The new line of thought is you are washed up after your age 29 season. So Burger has five seasons to do something in baseball. Interesting. The way this is going nowadays, not many ballplayers are ever going to compile Hall of Fame-ish numbers. Players aren't going to be getting started til 24 or 25 minimum and will be considered expendable at 30, 31. How did we get to this point there's such a small window for baseball players? Every ballplayer should be furious at the age of analytics. Killing their checkbooks. Where are you getting this idea they are done when they are 29? There is no foundation in fact here.

Well, we've got Winston-Salem and PHX/Glendale set up for 2018. Still looking for correspondents for Great Falls, Kanny, BHAM or Charlotte! Birmingham especially, that's our top priority for the moment.

Said it before, I have a sinking feeling that Blake Rutherford is actually Ryan Sweeney. Who didn't have a terrible career or anything, but the power never developed and he wasn't a true CF so he was just kind of a lower tier starter a couple or three years, then a 4OF for a few more.

Get caught up on the last month's worth of news and key items around the White Sox minor league system. This will be the last truly "offseason" news and notes before we start the weekly versions, around the end of February (and after ST starts).

QUOTE (oldsox @ Feb 2, 2018 -> 09:30 AM) You really think Engel starts season as the CF? I do. If he hits a little, I think he can hold it down for a while too. If he doesn't, then he gets replaced after a couple months. Tilson has been away for so, so long, and listening to the Sox talk, I think he starts in AAA. QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 2, 2018 -> 09:35 AM) Well the Kanny defense should have some range. I do just hate being forced to lose reps for fringe CFers like Rutherford already at low levels. I hate it too, but what choices are there? Good news is, there will inevitably be movement, probably pretty quickly. QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 2, 2018 -> 09:40 AM) I don't know if Rob feels similar but after listening to people talk at SoxFest and just observing things, I feel like Rutherford is going to Winston-Salem. I think they want him in that ballpark rather than Kanny. A 20-year-old who hit like .225 with Kanny last year? I think it's highly unlikely they push him up a level, but I've been wrong before. I don't see them rolling the dice on his development by over-assigning him just so he can hit 50% of his games in a band box to feel better about his power.

On my Big Board as of today, this is how I have the outfields: MLB: Cordell/Engel/AGarcia, 4OF: Delmonico/Leury AAA: May/Tilson/WGarcia, DH/OF Palka, 4OF Robbins AA: Fisher/Polo/Jimenez, DH/OF Hawkins, 4OF Gelalich A+: 4-rota of Call/Basabe/Booker/Adolfo with DH, 4OF: Schnurbusch A: 4-rota of Robert/Rutherford/Gonzalez/Dedelow with DH, 4OF: Taylor ***Rk/EXT: Destino, Frost, Garcia, Coronado, Brown, Staudinger, etc. Worth noting that Destino and Frost both saw some infield work time at the hitters' camp, so they may be working to get them into A-ball somehow.

Time to link this again - how I think the OF's in A-ball will fall out.

There is plenty of coverage out there of SoxFest, but FutureSox has something a little extra. Rob managed to harangue Scouting Director Nick Hostetler, and Player Development Director Chris Getz, for interviews to discuss the farm system. This article has many of those quotes, spliced with quotes from the main events from Hahn et al. This is our SoxFest coverage, with an emphasis on the farm.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 30, 2018 -> 11:35 AM) I don't think the story was making the argument that they have to fix it. In his story, the people who "should have been offended" were not offended hence, making it not offensive. Yes, I'm sure people in the race are offended but if for example they all aren't offended, then why does it need to be fixed if it isn't offending the race? There are many groups and individuals out there representing native peoples who have expressed problems with both the Redskins name and the Chief Wahoo. And it's about them, not me or you, so I don't really see the argument there. It's insulting, people are offended, so do the right thing. Seems pretty simple to me. Just because you can find some individuals who aren't offended isn't particularly meaningful. Many are. Like with the Redskins thing. They hired some guy who I think was a Navajo, to represent them as being OK with it, how it wasn't offensive, etc. That guy made claims his tribe was fine with the name. As it turns out that was a lie, his own tribe's council said the opposite.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jan 29, 2018 -> 10:11 PM) get real there's no "slippery slope" argument here. This is a disgusting caricature, little better than a hook nose jew or slant eyed chinese and so on. just get rid of the damn thing. Exactly. And as for those complaining about "PC", it makes me sad that there are people who have somehow been twisted into a point where they think a private business doing away with a clearly offensive symbol - aka, doing the right thing - is some sort of weakness in society. Quite the opposite, it shows strength. Names like Indians and Blackhawks are another matter as they are proper names, so I can see various angles there. But Chief Wahoo? Redskins? They are, as the quoted post above states, clear as day insults.

Rob from FutureSox managed to get interviews with Getz and Hostetler, and chat with others, and he will have an article up likely tomorrow.

There has already been some content out there from that Hitters' mini camp a week or two ago James Fegan in particular, who does very good work). But this article probably takes the cake in terms of sheer detail, not to mention Kim got video of 25 dfferent players, quotes from Hahn and a bunch of coaches and more. Enjoy!

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 04:11 PM) Isn’t Cooper the guy that took an unexplained leave of absence for a month or two in the middle of the season last year? He left the team in June and did not return.

QUOTE (TheTruth05 @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 01:10 PM) Can you share the org's reasoning as to why exclude a site like FS? QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 01:13 PM) And share the proper Sox email to send a complaint OK, I opened this can of worms I suppose. For the record, our relationship with the Sox has, overall, been very good. We've been able to interview Rick Hahn, Jeremy Faber (Asst GM), Nick Hostetler (Scouting Director), Marco Paddy (Intl Director), Chris Getz (Dir of Player Dev) and others with the big club. We'd previously been one of just two blogs credentialed to SoxFest (the other was SSS). They've let us into the secure area of the back fields at Camelback. We have been credentialed at every affiliate (though that's more them than the Sox). But in this case, what Scott explained was that it was a problem of time and demand. The number of requests was such that they were afraid that outlets would not get to spend the time they wanted with the players, prospects and coaches during the 45 minute scrum if there were too many press there. So they had to find a way to limit it, and non-traditional media is lowest on the priority list. I don't necessarily agree with the way they did this, just reporting what the Sox told us. And I do get the logic, even if it isn't great. Scott did have effusive praise for FutureSox, FWIW.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 09:00 AM) Kinda a joke that the Sox would not credential FutureSox. It's by far the best White Sox minor league resource. And since the Sox are trying to showcase their minor league players, illogical that you would not want FutureSox there. The thought is appreciated. I spoke via phone with Scott Reifort about it. Not going to splash all the details here in the open, but he did offer some help other ways that we will take advantage of.

QUOTE (GenericUserName @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 08:27 AM) I saw that on his page, but I literally can't find anything else on him. I was thinking if this is the Cuban guy, the city in the DR could just be where he established residency to qualify for free agency. The Sox sign a bunch of young Latin player into the DSL every year - most of the DSL rosters are filled with players you didn't hear about signing because they didn't get notable bonuses. This is probably one of those guys.

FutureSox will have a writer there, but not credentialed this time (which is a whole other discussion). Rob will be there for everything but the media scrum session this afternoon. You can follow @FutureSox for live updates and bits. Plus of course all the beat writers etc.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Jan 26, 2018 -> 08:53 AM) I really like the fact that these guys are giving us glimpses of their lives by writing articles for us. That being said there is something not answered here that I’m not understanding: why can’t he be both a good father and persue his baseball career? It sounds like he had to make a choice. I realize that minor leaguers don’t make a ton of money, unless you’re a high round draft pick, and the life can be strenuous, but didn’t this guy have a real shot at the majors. At that point he would of provided for his family much better than most other occupations. Lots of others major league players started a family prior to reaching the big league, some before their minor league career. Maybe I missed something. You aren't missing anything. He did have a real shot at the majors. The life is hard with being a parent, but yes some players make it work. Apparently Matt and his wife felt otherwise. I personally have a hard time with that decision, because he was pretty close to making it. Take a shot! But the truth is, I don't know his exact situation, and maybe there are things that make it impossible.

SoxFest opens this afternoon. Open discussion here!