Dominikk85

If someone gets hurt the Sox can Stil make a trade in season. Yeah it might be a tad more expensive in terms of prospects but you will get a crusty old innings eater without giving up any of the top 5-6 prospects. Just don't give up a 17 yo who hasnt played a game as a lotto ticket:)

I hate 5 rounds. I think 40 rounds is too much considering the contraction of the minors but 20 is a good compromise.

He just misses too big with the curve. It is not always needed to throw a curve for a strike but he really misses a lot of curves by more than a foot so hitters don't have to swing at it. If he gets his misses closer to the plate ( Say only 2 or 3 inches) batters will have to swing more at it.

Definitely has earned it offensively but it depends on whether the Sox trust his glove.

That was true for Giolito too though. Obviously such an improvement is rare but sometimes a little change can have a big effect.

That's why the other teams want an international draft:). If Tampa loses the ability to sign and scout international guys at age 14 like wander Franco it will be harder for them to maintain their edge.

Mlb is quite keen on eliminating edges by analytics, scouting and front offices. Analytics used to be an edge but now that everyone uses it owners are viewing it as a cost drag that gives nobody an edge. That is why the want an international draft (less effort to scout and convince players) and they are also against pick trading because that could give smart front offices an edge. Essentially the owners want to create a more level playing field and not an analytics bidding war because when anyone does it they see it mostly as a cost factor without production.

I'm not sure the tigers are better. They have some interesting young pitching but their offense is still extremely bad and their pen probably too.

I still think madrigal will be a solid defender and baserunner. Give the guy some time, he has had like 40 games in mlb abf and just came back from a shoulder injury. All scouting reports suggest he should be a solid defender.

Ricky had 3 and a half starters and Cordero was one of the guys who had to fill out for that. Not saying Ricky managed the pen great but that starting pitching situation always meant some guys would be overused. Somebody needed to throw those innings.

Depends a lot on starter health. Offense and pen should be very good and if anyone is healthy they could even win 100 games. But there isn't a lot of starter depth and an injury to a key guy could be tough to compensate. However that really applies to most teams in baseball.

Not sure why they are doing that, the investment is low of course but using a roster spot for a pinch runner doesn't make much sense in these days. Sure it makes sense to take out Eloy late as he is very bad Defensively but are you using a roster spot for that? The issue with Hamilton really is that his issues are not fixable. He has decent plate discipline (28% career chase rate which is better than league average) but he has barely average contact rate (20.7% career K rate is ever so slightly above average but obviously not for a zero power guy) and of course By far the lowest exit velo in mlb. This means there is really no upside. If he was a no power, good contact guy like dee Gordon or madrigal he could at least hit for average but his K rate is not low enough for this. And obviously he also isn't a guy which can compensate for his low OBP with power. If the Sox want to have a low OBP speedster at least take a guy with power upside, the minors are full of really fast outfielders with power who can't hit. Or if you want hit tool get a no power good contact guy, but BH can do neither above average contact rate nor any kind of power.

I wrote it already in the other thread, I'm a big Vaughn fan but collins has been out hitting him this spring, so give collins the DH job, lucroy to back up and Vaughn to the minors and when Vaughn comes up in a month or so you figure out what to do with collins. Collins has earned his shot and Vaughn is not on the 40 man plus you get the extra year. Unless there is an extension that is an easy decision for me.

Gore really is all over the place, no command today.

Having two utility infielders is really not needed. Mendick and leury are kinda redundant, you only need one and then call up the other one when there is an injury.

With the crunch I would just keep Vaughn down a couple weeks and collect the extra service time year. Collins actually has a higher OPS than Vaughn (1063 vs 905) this spring so just give him the DH job, let lucroy back up and use those two or 3 weeks to decide whom to keep and then you bring up Vaughn in late April and get rid of one of lucroy or Collins. And if Collins and lucroy both really suck you bring up Vaughn a little earlier and if they both really do well you wait for super two. Collins raking is the perfect excuse to service time Vaughn and just going by roster crunch and 40 man status this might be the best decision anyway.

Honestly if they don't give Collins the backup job after the spring he is having why keep him at all? I mean he is 26 now, staching him in the minors really has no value. So either give him the backup job or trade him, maybe his hot spring training is a good point to sell high on him.

They are compared as the top 1b prospects. I wonder if Vaughn should be seen as the top 1b prospect about torkelson at that point.

Torkelson finally got his first hit but he is 1 for 17 with 10 Ks and 3 walks. I wouldn't be worried about 1 for 17 if I was a tigers fan but 10 Ks in 20 PAs clearly shows that he is not ready at all and probably won't be ready until mid 2022.Vaughn on the other hand looks pretty good, hitting 300 with good plate discipline and decent strikeout numbers (16% so far this spring, if he can keep that under 20 this season it would be great).

It is interesting how bad the draft is for college hitting after 18 and 19 were so good on college hitting and 20 was slightly down from that turning towards pitching but still decent. But this draft seems to be all pitching on the college side, I'm Sure guys will pop up but there aren't really guys like Vaughn, madrigal, rutschman, torkelson or martin who had been talked about as top 3 picks already in their soph year. But that makes me optimistic the sox are not getting another athletically challenged college high performer:)

He still looks stiff behind the plate but it is good to see that he is trying the modern framing stuff with going on a knee and catching the ball low to high. Not sure how good he executes it and he probably will remain a bad blocker but at least he tries the new stuff.

Does anyone else think Collins swing got better? Imo his load looks a bit more quiet and he also so far has only one K in 19 PAs. It is spring and a small sample but if he can lower his K percentage to let's say under 25% he could be a really good hitter with his walks (maybe even a Carlos Santana type of hitter).

Engel or any other current mlb bench player would probably extremely dominate if time machined to 1910 simply because pitchers threw like 83 instead of 95, it is like facing division 3 college pitching (and most pro players would probably hit 400 at the d3 level). However of course he also wouldn't be as good if he grew up with 1910 training methods and nutrition and if he had to work full time in the off season like many players at the time did.

Kawasaki is an extremely hilarious dude Watch some snippets here Imatitating Bautista homerun celebration On mastering English language https://youtu.be/Jm9bEizIGBE

And why wouldn't they after all those years? The white Sox don't owe him anything as they paid him well and the game has passed by him but of course a guy who dedicated his life to baseball will feel bad if he loses his job and doesn't get a new one with another team. Baseball was his whole life and getting told he can't do that anymore is hard. I'm sure he understands that this can happen quickly but it sucks nontheless. I think he is a great pitching coach who knows a ton about pitching but in the last 5-6 years that field just evolved so fast that he just lost touch with it and the Sox needed to adjust to that.