Jack Parkman

It is currently a dumb question because Davidson is 27 and Moncada is 23.

I know. You're talking to probably the A#1 Moncada fan on the entire board. During the 1st half of the season, there were cold streaks, followed by hot streaks, and in a wave fashion. He was either really good or really bad. Since the ASB, he's been all bad and it is scary that it has gone this way. If you go read Fangraphs scouting report from midseason 2017 they gave him a 30 PV hit tool and they aren't wrong there. They did give him a 60 FV hit tool. All of his potential hinges on him reaching that 55-60 FV on his hit tool. He'll still be a good player if he gets to 45-50 FV hit tool, but if he gets to 55-60 he'll be special. If the guy doesn't improve his hit tool much he'll be a massive disappointment, and probably wash out completely. The variance of outcomes on him is so high. I'm the biggest fan the guy probably has, but even I can see that.

Currently, this is a dumb question. I hope it remains so for the foreseeable future.

I can't disagree. WTF is Steverson doing? Hence my signature.

Geez another Ofer for Moncada. It's getting really old. I maintain that he stlll has baseball breaking potential but I do agree that the evidence is mounting that he's less likely to reach it. I'm not inflexible on my player evaluations when evidence is mounting to the contrary of my intitial opinion. We can agree to disagree about Giolito.

Most think Minaya is AAAA fodder.

We'll see who is right, let us watch and enjoy over the next few seasons. I do admit I have been higher on Moncada/Giolito than most, and lower on Eloy/Kopech/Lopez than most. Kopech is answering a lot of questions that I have about him. I still believe that Giolito>Lopez because of the quality of the breaking stuff and that Lopez doesn't miss bats despite the high velocity. Sometimes when I watch Giolito's starts, especially over the last month, If other people and I are watching the same starts. In the game that Giolito got dinked to death vs the Angels, he still got 17 swings and misses in 5 innings. That is really good. I think the new straight change will do wonders for his fastball. Kluber doesn't throw 98, he throws in the same range that Giolito does and I think if he feels good next year you might see that 96-97 come back Gio has a good sinker too. (I'm by no means saying that he's as good as Kluber now, but that their stuff is similar)

The breaking stuff he showed last start is ace worthy, even with the fastball not being what it used to be. If I was pessimistic about Giolito at this point, I'd give him solid to high end #2 upside. The switch to the straight change is really big for him. He had 3 60 grade offspeed pitches on Friday. Everyone is putting too much weight on his April and May, and not enough on his July and August.

It makes zero sense to use an option this year, so I don't know what they could do other than give him a week off in September, or move Yolmer to 2B and start Davidson at 3rd for a week. Moncada needs a wake up call and a mental break it seems.

Badass. All 5 of those guys have ace potential. Hansen does as well if he gets his delivery back in sync and Dunning has a chance to be a #2.

I created a thread in Trade Winds about this idea.

The Sox have a glut of RHP and OF, the Reds have 3 third basemen. India can be traded after the WS. The Sox and Reds should talk about a 2-1 swap of a RHP and OF for either Suarez or Senzel, or a RHP for India. This makes almost too much sense not to happen, not unlike Quintana to the Cubs.

Lopez's change looks much better tonight.

I'd offer Lopez and Basabe and see if they bite. I'd trade Lopez for Suarez as well, but it would be a lesser OF than Basabe or Rutherford. Maybe Adolfo. India can be traded after the WS as well so I'd call up the GM of the Reds if I'm Hahn and see if they can make a deal on one of the three. This is one of those things, similar to Quintana to the Cubs that makes too much sense for both teams to not happen. The Sox have a glut of SP and OF, the Reds have 3 third basemen.

I think it would be more likely they trade Suarez, but I wouldn't say no to him either. If you could get Senzel would you part with Cease, Dunning or Lopez/Giolito?

Nick Senzel is blocked by Suarez in Cincinnati and they just drafted India. It wouldn't shock me if they traded two OFers in a 2 for 1 deal to make it fair value. It would have to be Basabe or Rutherford as the main piece, with someone like Walker or Call. They spent too much money on Robert to give him up.

Yeah really. Make sure there isn't any nose candy on it. lol. We should all refer to Loaiza by his new nickname, "Twenty Keys"

He's leading off because the leadoff guy gets the most PA in a season. 2018 doesn't matter, so why not lead off Moncada and get him the most PA of anyone on the team?

Eh, I disagree about the Trout comparisons. The reality is that there is no other good comparison for his potential other than Trout. He has all of the tools that Trout does, the difference is that Trout has done it consistently at the MLB level. The other comparison I'd use is Cano(on the juice) with 35+ SB potential. I fail to find a better comparison to Moncada's ceiling other than Trout because Moncada has incredibly rare physical talent, The kind only the best of the best in baseball history have had. The Trout stuff is if he reaches his ceiling. I have consistently said "a notch below Trout" is Moncada's ceiling mostly because he's never going to hit .340 like Trout has.(I could see Moncada in the .310-320 range for a season or two if he puts it all together) In all other aspects of the game, his potential is right there. If You asked me if there was a player other than Trout that you would bet to be the next 40-40 player I'd pick Moncada. He's that talented. I don't think there is a player in baseball who has that potential other than Trout and Moncada. There is only a handful of players that I could name off the top of my head that have/had the physical gifts that Moncada has. You wouldn't want me to name them, because the comparison would seem so ridiculous, but I will anyway: When it comes to tools, Moncada is up there with the following: Trout, Mantle, Mays, Ken Griffey Jr, Bonds(off the juice) I'm not kidding and it isn't crazy either. What is crazy is saying that we know if he'll reach that level of performance. He may not, but he is that talented. Moncada is also extremely raw for a 23 year old at the MLB level. I think there is a 5-10% chance that Moncada reaches his ceiling, which is way more than the odds of you winning the powerball. There is also a >40% chance that he's a 4-6 WAR guy each year, given that he's already put up a 2.5 WAR in 160 games with the White Sox. Moncada's ceiling is the best all around 2B to ever play baseball if he sticks there. How well the Sox coaching staff can tap into his talent is what will determine how good he gets. What makes Moncada so polarizing is that he oozes physical talent, the likes that have only been seen before in the best of the best baseball players of all time, but it is so incredibly unrefined for a player at his age and level. I don't think any of this is ridiculous or hyperbole. Moncada, if he reaches his ceiling, absolutely has a chance to be the starter at 2B in the "all time starting 9", and one of the 10 best position players to ever play the game. If it all goes south on him, he has the chance to be quite possibly the biggest bust in MLB history as well. It goes both ways. Because of the country Moncada came from, his variance on career outcomes is much higher than the players I listed earlier. If you don't think I acknowledge that, you haven't been listening. He got decent instruction later than most players. It seems that in Cuba they just let them go play baseball and let the talent take over. There seems to be very little, if any formal instruction on fundamentals.

I was operating more on "when" he puts it all together, but with the fact that Moncada is regressing as the season goes on, 'if" is becoming more and more of a possibility for me. The question now is whether his career goes the way of Baez or Buxton.

Honestly I think Abreu is a good comp for his floor. Eloy still has star potential, but I think it is just as unlikely that Eloy is Manny Ramirez as it is that Moncada is Mike Trout. However, the thing that makes a great team isn't only star power, but a lot of really good players and very few holes. That is what they are going for. Their pitching prospects have a higher ceiling as a group than their hitters. Out of all of their hitters, Moncada, Jimenez, and Robert are the only ones with star potential, unless some surprise. The White Sox have almost never been that lucky to get a surprise superstar from a B to C+ prospect. They have 4 potential ace-quality starters(I don't count Rodon because I don't think he'll be here when they're contending) in Kopech, Cease, Giolito, and Hansen, with a couple more with the upside of a #2-3(Lopez and Dunning,) Most of their high quality chips are in pitching. They have a ton of other players that should be average to above average MLB players, such as Madrgal, Rutherford, and others. They're more likely to contend with a dominant rotation than they are with a great offense unless both Moncada and Jimenez/Robert hit. Moncada and either Eloy or Robert MUST be superstars for this thing to have the greatest chance of success. Otherwise, they put all of the pressure on Kopech and Cease to both be ace quality pitchers, at the very least. They probably need one more as well. All being said, without Moncada this all falls apart very quickly. They are basically starting from scratch right now, and they have nothing to build around yet. Moncada and Jimenez are both incredibly important, and if either fails that failure puts incredible pressure on Robert. Without Moncada, they're going to have to add an IF superstar that reaches FA in order to get them from fringe WC contender to surefire playoff team.

No, it isn't. Most of the talent is still a season or two away. I was telling everyone that unless the first wave was a big hit(meaning 3 of those players mentioned in the previous post were locks by the end of 2019) the majority of the talent the Sox have won't even have their first full season in the majors until 2020. 2020 is and was an unrealistic goal, and 2021 or 2022 is more likely. If they only get one or two, then 2021 is possible. If they get zero then you're pushing it to 2022-23. As much as we'd like Machado, it makes zero sense for the Sox to spend money this offseason. They have to get a solid nucleus first. I'm not comfortable with anyone at the MLB level. I look at the waves as the following, with the years of their first full season in parentheses Wave 1: Moncada, Lopez, Giolito (2017-18) Wave 2: Jimenez, Kopech, (2019) Collins, Basabe, Cease (2019-20) Wave 3: Hansen, Dunning, Madrigal Robert, Rutherford (and others such as Gonzalez, Walker, Burger(hopefully) and many more) (2020) And the point is that most of the Sox talent that they have accumulated won't be here until mid 2019 and later. Unless the 1st wave all hits spectacularly 2020 is not a realistic goal for contention. 2021 or 2022 is much more likely. They're still 3-4 seasons away.

You can't say any of them for sure. Rodon might be gone or traded, Moncada, Giolito and Lopez have been wildly inconsistent. Anderson is meh. Fry is a reliever, so you don't know about them from year to year. Not one player is a lock. I was hoping to find one player that would be a lock. It would have had to be one of Moncada, Anderson, Lopez and Giolito. All of them have more questions about their ability to stick in the majors than answers. All I was asking out of the 2018 season is to have one lock for the 2021 (or whenever) contending roster. That low bar wasn't even reached.

Dreadful is the proper way to describe this season. Very few positives to take from this season. I don't know how you can say the contention target hasn't been pushed back at least a season or two. I've been trying to stay as positive as I can this season, being as patient as I can, but honestly you can't say that there is one player on the MLB roster that will be part of the next Sox playoff team. Not one. I'm letting my negative side out tonight. I'm disappointed.

I don't think Eloy is as good as people think he is. People want to put him in the Hall already. I hate that. I think he probably will average .280/.330/.820 in his prime years with 25-35 HR and 80-110 RBI. When I gush about Moncada, I'm talking about his talent level, not any actual performance. His performance is nowhere near his potential currently. I still have hope Moncada will figure it out, but evidence is mounting to the contrary. The fact that it has gone so far south on him this late in the season is a bad sign. He might have too many holes to overcome. There might be too many ways for pitchers to get him out. He's not even making loud outs anymore. It's all weak contact and Ks. which is really scary.