Y2Jimmy0

This is the correct take. This trade is absolutely disgusting. It's a very poor use of resources. The Rangers are paying Nate Jones so that they can spend $1 million of their own money on international amateurs. The White Sox are prioritizing saving $$ on Nate Jones. They could just eat Jones's contract and spend $1 million on 16-year-old prospects. Instead, they chose to do this because it's an organization still run like a mom and pop shop.

Lency Delgado has been really good too.

I don't know if I'd go that far. There's been some success stories so far in the AZL and Great Falls. Stiever and Sheets come to mind as guys who have improved a ton. Bush has been hurt a few times and had some eye issues. Sosa can play SS defensively. They are 19-year-olds in the South Atlantic League. It's a tough place to play. They have had disappointing years but they can repeat Low-A next year and still be much younger than league average. They'll both be on our FS top 30 still even though Bush moving to the OF this early drops him considerably IMO.

Thanks. I was unaware of this.

He's not being fired. He's moving to the pro side and the decision is mutual. Stop spouting nonsense.

The goal is to win championships. Not to land players on arbitrary top 100 lists. Drafting is hard. Go look around the league.

Glancing over this thread and there's some real nonsense in here. The jury is out on the 2016 and 2017 draft classes for sure but it's still too early to call them definitely bad. The White Sox employed a draft strategy heavily reliant on college talent to fill the system from the bottom up. It's very fair to question that strategy. They might still have 5-6 big leaguers from that draft though (Collins, Burdi, Hansen, Lambert, Flores, Hamilton). 2017 provided Burger, Sheets, Gonzalez, Johnson, McClure etc. I think the last two drafts have been very good. Nick Hostetler didn't get fired. They didn't promote him because they don't want him doing amateur scouting anymore. They've actually decided that he's more useful on the pro side of things at this juncture. This lets him focus on pro scouting and the title allows them to transition without actually firing anyone else. They didn't let Nick Hostetler oversee the two most important drafts of this rebuild only to immediately fire him afterwards. Thats crazy talk. I also think Hostetler will be fine finally having an off-season and letting someone else do the Director of Scouting job. The White Sox have issues on the pro scouting side which have been prevalent for yers. This is an attempt to remedy some of that. I think Nathan Durst would be the best internal choice to replace Hostetler but any of the names would be fine. This is a pretty significant move in my opinion and a step in the right direction for an organization entering a new phase.

I think the White Sox end up trading Alex Colome, Jace Fry, Leury Garcia and Jon Jay

He's in Great Falls. My guess is Vaughn starts next season AA with Zangari getting 1B at Winston-Salem and Abbott and Mendoza both in Kannapolis. I wouldn't be opposed to Mendoza getting a taste of Kanny to end the year though.

A few of our writers at FutureSox have seen him play quite a bit in person. We've also talked to team broadcasters and others who have spoken to scouts. He can't play catcher. Could he be a DH? Possibly. Those guys aren't really considered prospects though.

He's not a catcher though. He can't play the position in the majors. He's a 26 year old with a bad body destroying International League pitching. He might be able to hit but we don't typically rank 26 year old designated hitters

Yermin Mercedes? No. He's an org guy. I just did my top 40 list for FutureSox and I didn't include him.

This was good stuff here from Ben Magnuson (bmags on Soxtalk) from earlier this week. http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2019/07/desert-oasis-putting-the-young-performers-in-the-arizona-league-in-context/

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/chicago-white-sox-2019-top-30-mlb-prospects-midseason-update/ This is a really interesting list at Baseball America. 1. Luis Robert 2. Andrew Vaughn 3. Dylan Cease 4. Michael Kopech 5. Nick Madrigal 6. Matthew Thompson RHP Thompson has a high-end, if inconsistent, fastball that has touched the mid-90s. He couples it with a snappy slider and a projectable frame that could lead to a power profile. 7. Andrew Dalquist RHP Chicago’s third-rounder in the 2019 draft, Dalquist couples a three-pitch mix fronted by an above-average fastball with a projectable frame and easy delivery. He also earned a strong reputation as a strike-thrower. 8. Blake Rutherford OF Rutherford started the season slowly but has worked diligently to adopt a more all-fields approach. He’s been extremely impressive in the second half and has begun showing the power he’ll need in order to fit in a corner outfield spot. 9. Steele Walker OF 10. Luis Gonzalez OF The rest is littered with young guys. 11. Dane Dunning 12. Zack Collins 13. Micker Adolfo 14. Gavin Sheets 15. Jonathan Stiever 16. James Beard 17. Konnor Pilkington 18. Bryce Bush 19. Anderson Comas 20. Luis Mieses 21. Ian Hamilton 22. Alec Hansen 23. Luis Alexander Basabe 24. Lenyn Sosa 25. Caberea Weaver 26. Codi Heuer 27. DJ Gladney 28. Seby Zavala 29. Jake Burger 30. Kodi Medeiros

The team doesn't care about his triple slash line. They don't care at all about his batting average. Get on base and hit homers. That's what Collins is expected to do.

This is not true. People need to stop saying it. It makes you look unintelligent.

You and oldsox both said that Collins is only getting a shot over Mercedes because he was a 1st rounder. That's not true. It's because he's a significantly better pro prospect. Collins can play multiple positions (not at a great level), hits left handed, and is younger. Yermin Mercedes has no position. I can't believe this is even a thing.

Do you think he's similar to Yermin Mercedes because that's what you implied?

He doesn't include Dylan Cease on this list because he doesn't include guys in the majors on his midseason list. Kind of strange. He has Robert at #9, Vaughn at #12 and Kopech at #25. Robert is hitting .349/.401/.618 this season between high-A and Double-A -- he has been promoted to Triple-A Charlotte but hasn't played there yet -- but when I'm in the park, he has been 0-for-9 and has missed three other games with me there due to injury. I try not to take these things personally, but I do think Lou Bob might be telling me something. He was way too advanced for Class A -- he's really big, with explosive, fast-twitch actions and great bat speed -- and it seems like Double-A pitchers didn't fare much better against him. You could see in the Futures Game that he's vulnerable to velocity inside and tries to work his hands inside the ball to adjust. I think that's the gating factor between his becoming a star and becoming a solid regular who teases you into thinking he'll become more. 12. Andrew Vaughn, 1B, Chicago White Sox The best pure bat in the 2019 class, ranked second on my board and selected third overall, Vaughn is already in low-A Kannapolis and could finish the summer in Winston-Salem, the same model the White Sox used last year for first-round pick Nick Madrigal. Vaughn has a great, simple, quiet, right-handed approach with excellent plate discipline, projecting to hit for a high average and OBP with at least above-average power and probably a lot more. The knocks against him are that he's a right/right first baseman -- he has played a little third, but realistically he's going to be at first -- and he's only 5-foot-10. I'm not concerned until he shows us any reason, in performance or tools, to believe he won't hit. 25. Michael Kopech, RHP, Chicago White Sox Kopech had Tommy John surgery in September, so we probably won't see him in games again until next spring, but just before the injury, he appeared to have made the last big leap, going from erratic control to electric without any loss of stuff. He's a potential No. 1 starter if healthy.

The White Sox spent their entire bonus pool and a little extra to secure 37 of their 40 picks this year. I wrote about these new trends and the players that were added to the system here: http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2019/07/white-sox-add-8-prep-talents-due-to-estimable-spending-in-draft/

According to major league baseball though they're both still prospects.

I know that some people will never enjoy Collins' style but that doesn't mean we should say dumb shit. Collins was a #1 draft pick and deserved to be a #1 draft pick. He's a 24-year-old who has big raw power and plus plate discipline. He also doesn't really have anything left to prove in the minors. 151 wRC+ in 2016 in A+, 166 wRC+ in AA in 2017 after posting a 130 wRC+ in A+. 128 wRC+ with a .363 wOBA in 2018 playing his home games in Birmingham. He had a .364 wOBA and 115 wRC+ with 9 homers in Charlotte prior to his promotion to the big leagues. Collins has never had a walk rate lower than 18% in the minor leagues. I understand not thinking the profile will work in the majors. I understand not liking the appearance of what is a 3 true outcome performer. What I'll never understand is this Yermin Mercedes thing. He can hit. He's 26, has a terrible body and isn't a catcher as well. When Yermin Mercedes goes to sleep at night, he doesn't even reach Zack Collins' defensive capabilities in his very best dreams. Mercedes is a fun player to have in the system because he hits massive dingers and dingers are fun. He's a DH at the most though and almost definitely just an org guy for the White Sox.

I disagree with that. At FutureSox we use the standard thresholds of 130 at-bats and 50 innings pitched. It doesn't make any sense that Kopech is a prospect still but Cease isn't. They both are.

The White Sox spent about as much money as they could possibly spend on the draft. Their bonus pool was $11,565,500. They spent an additional $510,700 to take them up to $12,076,200. They will also spend an additional $383,035 for a total close to $12.5 million. I think this type of spending should be expected because it's peanuts to an organization but not every team does this. In looking at the totality of this draft class, it helped them add 8 prep talents. According to bonus amount, these would have been the White Sox's top 10 picks. 1. Andrew Vaughn 1B $7.2 million 2. Matthew Thompson RHP $2.1 million 3. Andrew Dalquist RHP $2 million 4. James Beard OF $350K 5. DJ Gladney 3B $225K 6. Chase Krogman OF $190K 7. Misael Gonzalez OF $185K 8. Victor Torres $175K 9. Logan Glass $170K 10. Caleb Freeman RHP $150K

I wrote about Reed for those interested: https://theloopsports.com/2019/07/09/white-sox-addition-of-a-j-reed-is-worthwhile-low-risk-gamble/