Chicago White Sox

I’d think that’s enough for Escobar, but probably not enough for Story.

Also, weren’t people speculating that that Dayton guy was Not Steve Cishek? If so, that means Maloney has to be the Portillo’s and we finally solved foodies mystery.

Wow, I can’t believe Orlando was pretending to be an insider. I really liked that dude too and was wondering why he didn’t post here anymore. Pretty damn crazy.

Imagine adding Conforto to this lineup. Like holy fuck it’s hands-down the best lineup in baseball. Tim Anderson, SS Yoan Moncada, 3B# Eloy Jimenez, DH/LF Michael Conforto, RF* Jose Abreu, 1B Andrew Vaughn, LF/DH Luis Robert, CF Yasmani Grandal, C# Nick Madrigal, 2B Please don’t go cheap Jerry!

It’s going to be interesting to see where Jerry will be willing to take this payroll. If we’re 100% healthy, the biggest needs heading into the offseason will pitching and RF. Resigning one of Lynn or Rodon is an absolute must and adding a high leverage reliever would also be ideal (plus maybe a lesser one as well). I think it’s pretty clear that the bulk of the offense looks to be in place, but adding a left-handed power bat for RF is what a serious contender would do. The challenge is we may be looking at a roster cost of nearly $125M before we even consider these three last holes. I think Jerry will definitely go up to at least $150M or so, but that’s not going to be enough to resign Lynn/Rodon and add a high-end reliever. Now, if he’s willing to go to say $170M (which would rank 10th in baseball this year) I think you can suddenly add someone like Conforto to play RF.

I don’t get why Rodon doesn’t resign if we have Wheeler instead of Keuchel.

The Sox desperately need to give Kopech innings and I don’t see how we make seven guys work. I’d definitely prioritize a RH setup man and a bat of some sort.

As much as Harper or Machado would be awesome, I will say losing out on Wheeler really hurts because we finally offered market value to a relatively high end SP and got turned down. The difference between him and Keuchel would be massive right now and heading into next year.

Duane Shaffer, the guy who notoriously drafted low ceiling pitchers Lance Broadway & Kyle McCulloch in the 1st round of back-to-back drafts.

No, that was Doug Laumann, who was the scouting director from 2008 to 2014. Timmy, Rodon, Bummer, Fry, & Engel are all current White Sox that were selected by Doug. He also drafted stars in Sale & Semien, but outside of a few others (such as Daniel Hudson) there isn’t much to show for his 7 drafts.

If my options are playing Engel in RF or Leury at 2B, I’m taking Adam 100%. But assuming Engel is suddenly a 3 win player seems premature. That also doesn’t consider the fact the dude frequently gets injured. To me, Adam is a tremendous 4th OF, but not someone I want to bank on being an everyday guy.

Good stuff bmags. I’ve been wanting to say that the recent “Sox are great at drafting” stuff in the media is a little overblown, especially under Hostetler. Here’s what we have to show from his five drafts: 2015: Backup infielder (Mendick) & 3rd string catcher (Zavala) 2016: Backup catcher (Collins), potential reliever (Burdi), & potential swingman (Lambert) 2017: Potential 3B (Burger), potential 1B/OF (Sheets), potential 5th OF (Gonzalez), potential reliever (Johnson), & potential swingman (McClure) 2018: Starting 2B (Madrigal), setup man (Heuer), & the rest being too early to call 2019: Starting LF/1B (Vaughn) & the rest being too early to call I will admit that I think he started hitting his stride a bit with the 2018 draft, where Nick focused on power arms and started introducing more HS talent into the mix. While I don’t think we should give too much credit for top four picks (although scouting directors do get these wrong all the time), Madrigal looks like a 10 year starter at 2B, Heuer in the 6th was a great pick, Stiever in the 5th was a great pick, and there still remain several players who could be contributors down the road in Pilkington (3rd), Weaver (7th), Remy Gonzalez (18th), and possibly some of the over-slot college arms that were taken in rounds 12 to 15 (Carranza, Bilous, Martin, & Shilling). That doesn’t include the selection of Steele Walker in the 2nd (who was traded for a major league piece), which is probably my biggest issue with the strategy of this draft. He then followed that up in 2019 with a guy who looks like a 10 year starter in Vaughn (a top four pick again), an infusion of HS talent with Thompson, Dalquist, Beard, Torres, Gladney, & Krogman who are all active parts of a young Kannapolis roster, along with some college arms in Freeman & Weems (who helped us land Lynn). Given the youth of this draft, it’s way too early to tell how it will all shape out, but ultimately the system needed to get younger and this draft accomplished that in strides. The 2017 draft could work out in the end, but I will say after the top two picks the rest was very meh. This was one of the safest drafts in recent memory with us taking a ton of low ceiling college players throughout. But if Burger & Sheets can become legit major contributors, then Nick deserves some credit. I would argue that the 2015 draft was just plain bad, although Fulmer wasn’t technically Hostetler’s selection and he didn’t have 2nd & 3rd round picks. The 2016 draft also looks pretty bad in hindsight unless Burdi & Lambert can actually become key members of our pitching staff going forward. That being said, there was a time we could have capitalized on this draft and moved a guy like Alec Hansen (who was a legit top 100 prospect) for a major league piece. Also, I do think Nick was to some extent the victim of a poor / developing player development system, as that may have dictated a high floor strategy with some of these earlier drafts and limited the results of those that were selected. I think Getz has mostly righted that ship now and that could really help the more recent HS heavy drafts be far more productive than his earlier drafts.

I don’t see how our OF could be considered a position of strength if Eloy is going to be DHing the majority of the time.

Burger isn’t going to be a headliner for Gallo IMO. Lynn commanded a consensus top 100 prospect and he only had a year of control and has zero chance of getting you a comp pick if he leaves via free agency. Gallo is way younger, doesn’t have the same injury risk a mid 30’s pitcher has, and also would eligible for a QO under the current CBA rules. I think Gallo requires at minimum Crochet plus a second really nice piece. I think Burger’s value is quickly rising, but his age and lack of track record will cause his value to be discounted to some extent.

One thing I will add is this draft will hopefully do a good job of giving Kannapolis a pretty interesting roster next year. Montgomery & Kath should own the left side of the infield and will join guys like Bailey, Comas, Glass, Veras, Sanchez, Tatis (maybe), & Mendoza from the ACL club and possibly a repeat guy like Beard to form a promising young positional core. On the pitching side we’ve just added Burke & possibly McDougal to a staff that could also include interesting arms like Vera (at least initially), Guzman & Mena. That’s a pretty nice roster behind what should be a loaded Winston-Salem club. The upper minors will remain incredibly weak, but we can’t expect to fix everything overnight.

Let’s wait and see how today goes. I love the big four selections, but it’s not entirely fair to say they punted a lot of picks when they could still add some overslot guys today. I’m not sure how much Kath & McDougal will eat into their savings from all the senior selections, but it definitely seems like they should have some bonus pool to work with today.

Where are you seeing this?

Hopefully it’s not us after that pathetic performance in the Derby.

I’d personally take Ramos over Rodriguez. Either way, I’d take Colson over both of them. Think about it this way, would Rodriguez be the in the mix 22nd pick in this year’s draft if eligible? As fun / exciting of a prospect as he is, I don’t think he’s anywhere near that conversion. Also, I believe Longenhagen is lower on Montgomery than most of the other experts (except Law). And I say all this a big Rodriguez fan.

I’m more concerned about an overly aggressive approach at the plate hurting him as he moves up levels than his defense, but regardless he’s one of the more exciting prospects in the system.

Montgomery is pretty much the slam dunk #1 and Kath is arguably #2 overall. Just depends on how much your valuation of Kelley changes with a tough 2021 season.

So we real talk, but if can land an over-slot guy in the 2nd, they immediately become our #2 prospect after Montgomery? I know all clubs are re-upping right now, but the system feels like it’s in much better shape with Kelley ranked 3rd.

Exactly, I have zero problem gambling on an athlete like this at #22. The ceiling is pretty massive and our system is clearly lacking potential impact talent at the moment.

Yeah, I was just telling my dad the same thing. Also. I get the concern with taking a 19 year old HS kid, but he’s also a legit multi-sport athlete with plenty of room to grow physically. He would never have been available at #22 if he was 18.5 years old and serious value can be gained by zigging when most of the analytics heavy organizations are zagging.

So Montgomery or Madden will be there.