Chicago White Sox

If the Sox add Machado, they will most definitely splurge on a few more short-term pieces and give this team a chance to be a contender in the highly unlikely “everything goes right” scenario. The real challenge is the OF. Jimenez will be up at the end of April, but the other two spots are huge question marks. Engel & Avi would be the starters right now in CF & RF respectively and it would be very difficult to count on either of them. With Basabe the closest prospect to the majors and still adjusting to AA, I feel like you pretty much have to add one proven OF to a short-term deal if we land Manny. And preferably that would be a CF but the market it pretty much dry after Pollack and he’d require too long of a commitment IMO.

See, this is a great counterpoint. I agree there is a real element of risk by adding additional change into the mix. I’d still probably be willing to take that gamble, but I can today understand why others would rather keep him focused on hitting.

I appreciate your response. The goal of this thread was to spark conservation around how these two guys may fit in the long-term. I get the easy answer is to say “too soon to worry about it” but all organizations (sports & other fields) think though these types of things. I really think it’s an interesting exercise to talk through where these guys might fit if both end up making it. And while thinking through this myself, the question came up whether Moncada is potentially better suited for CF than 2B. To me, that’s the most interesting angle to explore here. Ignore Madrigal for a second and all our minor league OF depth. Based on tools alone, what position should Moncada be playing? To me the answer is clearly CF. I feel like the main reason we’re sticking with him at 2B is because of organizational depth and it being the position he’s most comfortable at. And that’s fine if we were competing, but given we’re in the middle of a rebuild, why not put him a spot that could optimize his value? By all means, people can argue that he’s better suited for 2B, but that’s not really happening in this thread. People are ignoring the proposition because they think it’s strictly tied to Madrigal. Glad you at least acknowledged that part of my post, because I think the idea is fascinating on its own merits.

One of the underlying assumptions in my OP was that 2B is not Moncada’s best position. I truly believe he would be more valuable in the OF where his tools play up. I’m guessing I’m in the minority on that viewpoint, but it’s not as simple as “make way for Madrigal”. Also, I truly think people here are being way too conservative with Madrigal’s projected timeline. High-end / polished college draft picks typically move fast. Schwarber, Conforto, Swanson, Bregman, & Benintendi all recent examples of college picks who made the majors in their full professional season. Madrigal was a similar ranked prospect to those guys & has tools that translate better to professional baseball. If he doesn’t move fast, it should be a major red flag as he should not require a ton of development.

Good...hopefully a lot of organizations get a bit nervous throwing $350M+ his way.

Great article! I really hope the organization is prepared to go all-in for Manny. He would be such a game-changer both on & off the field.

To those in favor of Harper over Machado simply because of the latter’s “antics”, definitely read the article below on Harper’s defense: https://www.google.com/amp/s/sportsinfosolutionsblog.com/2018/09/20/why-does-bryce-harper-have-25-defensive-runs-saved/amp/

I’m starting to get concerned about your reading comprehension skills. You said people were arguing to rush Madrigal to replace Moncada, which I called you out on for being bullshit. Now you’re going in a new direction, although at least this time it’s the right one.

Well sure, the money will need to be there. But I think outside the win now factor, there are a ton of plusses to joining the White Sox. And I fully disagree with your assessment of the marketing opportunities. Chicago is a major market and these guys would be the face of the franchise and not just another star. I think the potential would be huge.

No one is arguing to rush Madrigal to replace Moncada, that’s just a straight up lie.

Yeah probably. Obviously I’d see how he looks in the spring, but I’d prefer he start the 2019 season in High A. He’s going to be 23 next July, can’t be babying 2nd round college draft picks out of the gate. I simply don’t put much stock into his drafted season numbers.

You’re all over the place man and ignoring the last two seasons. We really don’t rush guys anymore, it’s actually the complete opposite. Moncada was an exception to some extent and even that one is debatable. He had a wRC+ of 130 when he was called up, so it’s not like he wasn’t having success. His K rate was bad though (28%) and probably should have been a red flag that he needed more development time. Hahn claimed he needed to face major league pitching to make those final adjustments. With the benefit of hindsight I think I can say they were wrong, but there have guys like Kris Bryant who had similar swing & miss problems in AAA only to address them in the majors. The development path for elite talents is sometimes atypical. Also, the other rush jobs you’re citing were pre Getz, so stop ripping the Sox for something they’ve addressed for the most part. And holding back Eloy was certainly the right decision given how everything else shaked out last year. I can’t blame them for calling up Kopech after more than a year in AAA and being absolutely dominant at the end. There were simply no more excuses with him. No idea what Eloy or Kopech have to with the Madrigal discussion we’re having though. The Sox did a fantastic (if not conservative) job developing both of them.

2 months facing minor league pitching with a wrist injury. The general rule of thumb is to not overreact to drafted season performance, let alone when someone is dealing with a serious injury. I mean, based on your logic Steele Walker should start next season in Great Falls. Quite frankly, your view on this is pretty absurd. If Madrigal looks shitty in spring training then maybe I’d be willing to ignore all my scouting reports and start him in High A, but otherwise him gutting through an injury should not result in a lesser assignment.

I don’t think the Moncada promotion to the majors was Getz’s call. And I don’t think calling up Kopech to the majors was rushing him at all, he was clearly more than ready. Whether it was the right decision is a different argument and one that goes well beyond Getz.

So you’d ignore all our scouting efforts (and others) over multiple seasons and would instead rely on a small sample of drafted season performance in which Madrigal acknowledged publicly his wrist was still affecting him. I mean good god, you make Getz look like Buddy Bell with this take.

Well it’s pretty obvious you haven’t been following the Sox too closely during your long absence from the site. The Sox have been super conservative in terms of assignments & promotions under Getz, almost to the detriment of our prospects’ actual development IMO. The only guy I think they were too aggressive with was Moncaa. He could have used more time in AAA to work on his swing & miss issues. Otherwise, things are much different than they were in the Buddy Bell years. As for Madrigal, guys with elite bat to ball skills typically don’t need years of minor league development. He is supposed to move fast, that’s one of the benefits of selecting an incredibly polished college hitter in the draft. I also think your concerns over his lack of power are unwarranted. No one should be expecting a ton of power out of this kid. If he becomes the next Jose Altuve that would be fantastic, but that’s like a 1% outcome and we should not keep him down in the minors longer than necessary in hopes of that happening. Next year his wrist should be healed and he should start spraying the ball around the field with more authority. As long as he’s hitting for high average with a reasonable amount of doubles & triples, he should continue to move up the ladder. Anything beyond that is simply gravy and can always happen at the major league level just like it did with Altuve in his age 26 season.

100% agree with this, but how do we know Rick hasn’t done so already? I hope someone brings this up at SoxFest because it would be great to hear Rick’s thoughts on the matter and what they’re doing (if anything) to address.

So what exactly do you theorize the organization is doing wrong? Or do you simply think all the players are injury prone? Sure, if we have this many injuries next year I’ll be right there next to you with the conspiracy theories, but teams in all major sports have stretches of bad luck on the injury front and those are usually not predictive of future problems.

I think you are fooling yourself if you think the White Sox took the most adanced hitter in the draft, sent him to High A in his first professional season, and then plan for him to start a multi-year program to change his swing and add power. The Sox are not going to make major changes to his game. They drafted him to be Nick Madrigal. His power will hopefully improve with a healthy wrist and as he naturally adds muscle over time. I highly, highly doubt they take a conservative approach with him while they wait for that part of his game to develop though. I would say it’s like 90% likely he starts next year in AA and from there moves up quickly assuming the hit tool plays up.

Why is that Lip? I think Uncle Jerry understands adding one of these mega-stars would bring significant value to the organization. Not only in terms of increased ticket sales, but more importantly an increase in TV ratings right before they need to negotiate their new deal. Another 100 loss season filled a bunch of fringe major leaguers will result in poor fan interest and likely cost them a lot of money in the process. Now is not the time he frugal and I truly believe Reinsdorf understands that. Add a legit star and a few vets on short-term deals and this team suddenly becomes that more watchable.

FIFY.

I agree with you on the injuries. He’s got to demostrate he can stay healthy for an extended period of time. That being said, the power has to show up too to some extent IMO.

If you ignore the highly atypical amount of injuries, most of our prospects had very positive 2018 seasons. The biggest disappointments IMO were Hansen, Robert (partially injury related), & Sheets. And with those last two guys it wasn’t all bad by any means. Additionally, we had multiple guys with nice bounce back seasons and we even had a few guys come out of nowhere and become legit prospects like Rivera & Lambert. I get the injuries really suck, but what are we expecting these to the be normal going forward? Outside of a few cases, it just seems like a bad luck year to me.

See, I disagree that 2B is his highest ceiling position defensively. His 70 grade arm is not being put optimal use there. I think he could be an incredibly valuable defensive OF with his speed & arm and I think he’d make much fewer mental mistakes out there. Also, I get we have a lot of CF options in the minors, but most of them are high variance prospects at AA or below. And the three you mentioned all have arms that make them capable of playing a corner OF spot. Having too many starting caliber OFs in a couple years would be a good problem to have.

2 or 3 years? Madrigal is probably the most major league ready guy in the entire 2018 draft, at least on the positional side of things. If he’s not up by some point in the 2020 season then things have gone terribly wrong with him. And honestly, I think he may force his way up this year. Regardless, do you really want Moncada learning a new position while we’re trying to compete? I guess for me personally, I don’t think 2B is his best spot long-term and would love to see what’s he capable of in CF. And a much smaller consideration to me is moving Moncada to CF now opens up a spot for Jose Rondon at 2B. Of all our fringe major league ready prospects, he is far and away the most intriguing guy we got. Would love to see what he’s capable of in 2019.