Dominikk85

Yeah I think he is really good. Some people hold size against Leiter (listed at 6"1 but many say he is more like 6"0 at best) and rocker has more of a classic ace starter body but if he is really good I don't care about that.

The delayed Milb start will obviously have no implications on getting that extra year because sitting around for two weeks won't hurt his development. However it could have an effect on keeping him down until super 2 deadline because with no minor leagues in until the second week of May keeping him down that long wouldn't be great.

It depends on how his plate discipline developes. He doesn't have to be Carlos Santana or Joey votto at the plate but over 40% chase rate is not going to cut it. If he can maybe lower that to like 32-33% he could be a real superstar. It was his first year so there definitely should be some room for growth. Don't get me wrong, Even with a high chase rate he can have 5 war seasons if he has some babip luck but to be a consistent performer he needs to tighten up that a little.

It's not really an issue, you figure that out when it's time. Maybe one gets injured or underperforms. Maybe Jose declines finally. Usually that stuff figures itself out, having too many good guys rarely is an issue.

BTW his low launch angle and pull rate might actually be a good thing for him. Generally pulling more and higher launch angle increases performance but they are also negatively correlated with Babip, I. E high pull rate and high launch angle guys often have low BABIPs (prime example of this is Jose Bautista who was the ultimate fly ball pull guy). So if Eloy can hit 40 bombs like this he might actually be better off to hit like this and gain the higher babip because he doesn't need any more power and if he loses some physical steam later in his career he still has it in his back pocket to pull the ball more to keep up his power.

BTW even if it is unlikely I think if yermin continues to rake like this they should put him at DH for two weeks until Vaughn is "ready". I don't think yermin is the second coming of miggy Cabrera and his hitting might be worse in the majors but he has nothing but hit so far and I think at least he wouldn't be terrible. He also has more than earned his shot. So why not bring him up, see what you got for 2 or 3 weeks and then trade him when Vaughn comes up?

Not much but generally batting left is a slight advantage due to the platoon situation plus sometimes people bat worse from their non natural side so there really is no reason to bat like this while a natural righty batting left gains the platoon advantage. It worked for Rickey Henderson though:) but generally it is not something that is recommended and thus it is very rare.

Eloy simply has to make two more years in the Of. Abreu is a free agent after 2022 and while he has been good he will be like 37 or so in 2023 and I think at that point Vaughn takes over first and Eloy goes to the Of. Defensively that is not ideal and it is some injury risk but having those 3 in the lineup produces so many runs that you can live with some runs lost in the field.

Batted ball quality is definitely already off the charts and the scary thing is that there is more in the tank with a little higher launch angle and pull rate. If he is a 40 Homer guy like this a bit of optimization could make him a 50 plus bomb guy. On the flip side his plate discipline of course still is below average in both walks and strikeout department. Would be good if he improved that but even if not his batted ball quality is good enough to compensate.

There was a lot what went wrong for Bryant though. It is probably even better for him now to be a FA later but it took injury, a bad year and the cubs faltering to make it work that way. An additional year can make a big difference as you are forced to make a decision a year later. 7 So let's assume that it is Vaughns last year and the Sox have about one year in the window left. What are you doing then? You know you have to take a step back as several players are leaving so do you offer Vaughn a 7 year contract that could haunt you or do you let him walk and hurt the last year of the window. The Nats kinda had that decision with harper before 2019. They were nearing the end of the window and didn't want to commit 10 years to harper but they were not totally Done yet. They would have loved to have harper one more year for 2019. I know it worked out anyway for them but another harper year would have helped. And even if your window is over an Extra year can help as you can trade that player if he has contract left. Yes it could also happen that the white Sox miss the playoffs by one win (or only make the WC and get dropped there) due to the 14 days of Vaughn and that would suck, especially if you never win a WS after that but chances are it won't move the needle too much.

Vaughn definitely looks ready, he doesn't chase and is on time when he gets a fat one like in this Homer. I still think they should keep him down those two weeks, if they can't survive two weeks of Collins or Mercedes at DH they weren't ready anyway. I once did the math and even having a 70 wrc+ guy at DH for two weeks only costs like. 3 war assuming Vaughn is a 3 war player which is optimistic (I would be fine if Vaughn is a 110 wrc+/1.5 war DH his first season). So we are talking trading 0.3 wins for 3 future wins, I. E a net gain of 2.7 wins. Easy choice.

Ganzalez is not great but he also had a. 240 babip last year, he is projected to have an ops that is about 50-60 points higher than leury.

I'm not sure what to think about that. On the positive side this could give the sox an absolute monster pen. Also this doesn't completely rule out them becoming starters later but it probably isn't an ideal way to develope. But for 21 it definitely should make the team better.

Tigers top prospect spencer torkelson will miss the start of spring training because he cut his finger in a kitchen accident.

I agree. It should bei different for college, HS or international players though. Make it 10 years for international, 9 years for HS and 7 for college or so. That would incentive teams to develope players quicker.

In the end only the coaches can decide how much last year at the alternate site replaced a year at AA or AAA. Obviously vaughn has only play high A ball and didn't even dominate all that much (was solid but not destroying the league) but last year just wasn't a normal year and vaughn was a polished college hitter who likely would have started at AA last year given a full milb season and it seems that the sox just assume that season happened and was successful using the impressions from the alternate site.

I think as long a player performs TLR will accept bat flips, trash talking and stuff like this. He probably would take issue if a player doesn't do well and then jogs to first or if someone does a batflip on a homer when the team is down 6-1 in the 8th.

I do believe preller liked tatis, but if he truly saw him as a star why didn't he offer him two millions and allowed the sox to get him for 700k which was the 30th highest signing bonus in 2015? Tatis was seen as a prospect but most had him around 25-30th best of his international class. The rise of tatis was just very unusual, because of the way his body developed. It is normal that a young kid gets stronger and improves his approach but he also got faster and more athletic which is an kinda unusual thing. Nobody in the industry saw that coming, maybe preller liked him but no way he thought he would become a mega star or otherwise tatis would have gotten 2+ mil.

I don't think they will wait until super 2, what they said seems to indicate they bring him up quickly, possibly even opening day. I would prefer going with Collins for two weeks to get the extra year and then call up vaughn, at least if he does well in spring.

Also there wouldn't be that many from the 2018 first round drafted behind madrigal that I would take over him. Taking a quick look at the draft I would only take kelenic surely over him. Grayson rodriguez, Matt liberatore, nolan gorman and jordan groshans have the potential to overtake him but neither of them is guaranteed to do so.

Nobody drafts for need and nobody knows BPA because then you would always sign him (except for pool money play). I think they saw madrigal as the best combination of ceiling and floor. Obviously he wasn't the highest ceiling guy but maybe they saw his 50th percentile outcome as the best.

Yeah freddie freeman was reported to have a pretty severe case and he had a monster season while others were affected quite a bit.

Also not doing a trade out of fear because you got burned would be very bad. There are lots of good reasons to keep vaughn (and also the other top prospects madrigal, kopech and crochet) but a trade in the past that went wrong is not one of them. You can't let fear be your advisor as a GM, you gotta use your projection of the player, compare with surplus value and projection of the return and then make a decision. And obviously there is a price for anyone, nobody is untouchable but it would be very unlikely to get fair value for a prospect like vaughn or even kopech. At this point the sox should keep their advanced top prospects and sign one if they need him. If vaughn gets traded it likely will be when he hits his second arb year as first basemen tend to be overpaid at that point due to the way arb works. But I could also see vaughn becoming another konerko and stays with the sox for live to continue the great sox 1b history of the last 2+ decades (thomas, konerko, abreu).

Definitely the Rays and As situation has to be resolved before you can think about expansion, two good teams with half empty or less full stadiums is enough.

Yeah Eloy proves to be a disaster trade for the cubs. At least torres gave them chapman who closed game 7 of the WS but quintana didn't do much for the cubs. I can understand the cubs at the time though. Eloy was a top prospect with great power potential but he also was defensively limited, was seen as a bit injury prone and was a bad k/Bb guy so there was a chance he would become a low on base DH slugger like CJ cron. Quintana on the other hand was very solid even though he always was riding limiting batted ball production which was a bit risky compared to a high K ace but that was what the cubs had success with arrieta and hendricks before. But then eloy really reached his ceiling becoming probably more of a 40 homer guy instead of a 30 homer guy and also his OBP seems to outplay his still shaky plate discipline because he hits the ball so well. And on the other side quintana did become quite bad.