Dominikk85

That is pretty normal if you graduate like 5 or 6 top 100 prospects in the last 3 years. Kopech, giolito, lopez, moncada, eloy all graduated so having like 5 top 100 left is pretty decent. Also Rutherford, hansen, dunning and fullmer have been ranked top100 by some publications but it didn't work out. The cubs systems wasn't great either after their guys all graduated. You have to look at prospects plus young mlb guys, nobody graduates tons of guys and remains a top system, farms are cyclical. The big issue w the sox is not lack of prospect depth but the rate of injuries and underperformance, their young guys simply didn't hit immediately like the Braves or cubs kids. Fortunately gio and moncada seem to have turned the corner, sometimes it takes time.

Fangraphs hasn't updated player grades, they just added the draftees. I'm pretty sure they will bump robert up in the midseason ranking especially if he can stay healthy.

Vaughn now ranked 46th in the top 100, third behind Robert and madrigal in the sox system. Other draftees: Rutschman 9 Witt 38 Bleday 45 Abrams 62 Greene 85 Pretty unusual that only 6 draft guys make the top 10 right away usually it is at least 8-9. Others will make it based on performance but so far it looks like a pretty weak draft. This year only had 7 50s at fangraphs last year it was more than 10.

The biggest factor is how much power the nerds get. Many teams have sabermetrics guys but then the final say has a non stat guy using his gut feel. Similarly a team might have a "data hitting coach" but then have traditional hitting coaches who just ignore him and teach what they think is right. The great strength of luhnow is that he creates power for those guys, if an old school coach postures like "i have 30 years experience in pro ball, we do it my way" he gets fired while in other teams following the saber guys is more optional than mandatory.

The riskiest guy from the top 10 rounds is probably dalquist. Some late rounders probably won't sign but dalquist is the riskiest of the relevant guys unless they really lowball Thompson.

Sox currently have the 9th worst run diff so maybe they could get another top10 pick with some luck. Teams like Baltimore, KC, Detroit, Miami are way to bad to catch them but about 6-12 are pretty open.

At least the sox got two progressive hitting guys with lisle and johanson. Not sure how it is with pitching though.

Weil they have already quite some depth and took a quite "safe" guy with Vaughn so maybe gambling on some upside isn't the worst think

It also means some mid tier free agents don't get contracts because of the draft pick. Kimbrel likely would have signed a month ago without the draft pick.

I agree you need stuff guys in these days. A lot of them will not throw enough strikes to start but those pitchabilty guys who "keep it on the ground and don't walk guys" but don't have great stuff don't work anymore against the high powered launch angle guys. The twins did the same mistake during most of the 2010s (get pitch to contact guys) and it didn't work and now with their new front office they switched to high spin high heat guys who give up a few more homers but also get more Ks and pop ups. I also read the cubs made the same mistake going for high floor strike throwers and it didn't work (they probably were trying to find the next kyle hendricks but this works rarely) and now also go the stuff route. The time of pitch to contact sinkerballers is mostly over even though there are still some guys who make it work.

Vaughn of course was a pretty conservative pick but I feel after him they went a lot more risk. No more "college high performer" with high floor low ceiling. 2. Mathew Thompson HS pitcher 3. Andrew dahlquist HS pitcher 4.James beard HS centerfielder 5 to 7 then are college pitchers I like what they did 2 to 5. No more "can't play a position but walked a ton in college" guys but HS guys who have high bust potential but also upside. The sox at this point don't need minor league depth but can gamble a bit on getting another star. Also like they went pitching heavy. Pitching was once the strength of the system but injuries have cut into that a lot and the last 2 years actually hitters have been the star of the system at least after kopech got hurt. They couldn't pick a pitcher at 3 this year because no one had enough talent to be picked there (no Mize this year) but after that they really went on pitching after going very heavy on hitters the last years (kinda like the cubs 2012-16) because they system needed some refill after all the injuries.

Abreu is like 33 next year so I wouldn't give him more than 3 years anyway. Nothing wrong with a two year deal though, 2020 vaughn spends in the minors, then he gets super 2ed until late may and the rest of 2021 Abreu DHs or is traded at the deadline.

Great. As I said before the only guys I care about this year in the majors are giolito, moncada, eloy anderson and lopez. The sox need at least 4 (better all of them) of them to succeed and except for lopez and eloy they are all having good years. Not worried about eloy but a little about reylo. Most other Sox guys are placeholders for the minor leaguers but those 5 are needed for the next core as the farm is not deep enough to fill the complete 25 man roster. The sox need 3 really good starters and 6 or 7 good hitters to compete and then 6-7 more "solid" guys (relievers, hitting depth, sp depth) for depth and those 5 plus the minor leaguers should he able to fill that gap.

I like the pick. If Vaughn is as good as advertised he should be able to continue the white sox tradition of good 1B men. Since 1999 the sox only had a bad 1b man in 2 years: 2003 when konerko had a suck year and 2013 when konerko was done. Otherwise 1999-2012: konerko 285/361/504 123 ops+ (was a really offensive era), 30 hr, 93 rbi on average 2014-19: abreu 291/349/515 136 ops+,32 hr, 107 rbi on average If vaughn can continue that he definitely was worth the 3 pick. Vaughn could very well be able to do that. Fangraphs has him at 60/60 hit power which means about a 280 average, 25 hr and a 120 ops+ but I have also seen 70/65 which would mean 290 with 30 homers and a 135 ops+ which basically is exactly abreu. Considering that abreu is much more expensive and might decline it probably doesn't make sense to extend him, however since vaughn likely will need until mid to late 2020 to be ready giving abreu a 1 year deal if he takes it might make sense, maybe a two year deal if you want to service time vaughn into 2021.

The fangraphs board has him 86 and mlb.com at 69 (nice) so it seems like he is slightly worse than draft position. Ot course internal assesments might vary from the prospect guys but at least he probably is not an overslot talent. Maybe they can get an overslot talent at 3 or 4 round but I would have hoped they could have moved a 25-35th talent to 45. But with arizona having 100 picks that was probably not really possible.

Seems like it is vaughn, fangraphs have abrams falling a lot like to 10 or so.

Fangraphs have him at 60/60. Where have you seen 70/65 for vaughn?

The orioles have a new front office with two key astros guys (elias and mejdal). Especially sig has done a lot of draft work for the astros, I don't think they will be as stupid as they were in the past unless angelos is meddling with the decision (which he is known for but I don't think elias and mejdal would tolerate- I think they would rather resign than not being able to do their job)

If vaughn would be guaranteed to be goldschmidt of course he would go first overall. Floor matters and he has plenty of it but there also is a chance he becomes a 265/25 hr guy which would limit his value while Abrams could be a 260/15 homer guy and still have similar value to Vaughn's madian projection. But of course abrams could also bust out competely which is quite unlikely for vaughn who has a realistic worst case outcome (unless catastrophic injury or other circumstance) of being a slightly above average hitter while Abrams could be a billy hamilton or byron buxton type of bat bust. But of course abrams could also be lindor and then he is the best player of the class even ahead of rutschman and of course any ceiling outcome of Vaughn.

Rutschman is a sure bet at one, at fangraphs they even said he is like the best number 1 in years. The witt, Vaughn, abrams, bleday group is good too but at fg they said they see them behind mize who was first last year and rutschman clearly ahead so there really is a whole tier between rutschman and the other 4-5. Because of this I don't think rutschman slips and if he slips the royals will take him even though they love witt.

Anyone was suprised how little power madrigal has shown so far. All the prospect guys saw him as a 10-12 homer guy who might grow into 20 hr power like altuve did. That would be a star player with his hit tool. Nobody expected him to only hit one homer in his first 350 plate appearances. Hopefully he can turn it on this summer and hits 7-8 homers the rest of the way. As a confirmation here is longenhagen talking about him as first overall pick and predicting 12-15 homers per year. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/could-a-5-foot-8-second-baseman-be-drafted-first-overall/ Nobody in the industry saw madrigal as an overdraft at 4.

Abreu has little trade value because he is 33 and quite expensive. If abreu was 24 and cost controlled he would have a pretty good trade value. And if Vaughn would become as good as abreu that would be an excellent outcome. Abreu has hit 293 averaging 32 homers that is pretty much a best case scenario for Vaughn and a top5 1b in the AL.

I agree, good day. The Performance of monacada, Anderson, giolito, eloy and lopez is the only perfomance of guys on the big club I care about,everyone else is just keeping the seat warm for the minor leaguers. Of course I wouldn't mind a breakout of a fringe prospect but if I have to choose I would pick the top talents performing even if the team loses more games.

Alonso is massively unlucky. He has a good walk to K ratio, above average exit velo, good groundball rate but the hits are not coming. wOBA: .269 xWOBA: .330 (league average is .316) Babip: .195 This should improve a lot in the second half

This is actually not quite true. A bunt can increase the chance to score a run what it does is decreasing the total run expectancy in that inning. This has been established already in the 80s by early sabermetrics guys like bill James with the bases outs matrix. bunting uaually is bad, exceptions are a super terrible hitter like an nl pitcher or situations were only one run counts (home game, tied game last inning i.e a walkoff situation.