Dominikk85

I would be very surprised if the top4 are all pitchers. The class is very weak on hitters but I think at least one team does prefer the lesser risk of taking a bat even if it means slightly less upside. Also we will likely see that typical late rising of college players and dropping of HS players.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ May 28, 2017 -> 05:19 PM) Just watched video of Kendall, didn't see anything super concerning in his swing despite a few here mentioning issues, though maybe I just don't know what I'm looking for since I've always had problems identifying a "hitch" in a swing. Further, I think his bat speed and control would help him to negate any swing flaws. The big problem I saw with Kendall, though, was pitch recognition. He swings at way too many bad pitches, which is what led to every strikeout I saw. If the White Sox think they can make him a more discerning hitter, he might be worth drafting. Here is a guy analyzing his swing He has a good wrist snap which gives him power but the snap is out front after he gets extended so his power is only to pull and he doesn't have much room for error. Basically he does the old school swing were you first bring the knob around by extending the arms and then you whip the bat forward really fast like a bullwhip using the hands. That gives you good batspeed but only if you hit it out front. Nowadays coaches teach to have that whip deeper in the zone so that the bat head gets down on plane early and you have more room for error and get the ball in the air to all fields.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ May 26, 2017 -> 05:22 PM) Bryant struck out a lot in college, but he also walked a ton and had immense power. Another gripe I have with Kendall is that he has not improved as a hitter during his three years at Vandy. OPS freshman year was .924, sophomore year was .964 and this year .950. Bryant's k rate was much lower than Kendall though (around 15%)

QUOTE (steveno89 @ May 11, 2017 -> 08:51 AM) Kendall is falling pretty fast due to the strikeouts that will likely only get worse when facing more advanced pitching I wouldn't hate Pavin Smith as a selection at #11. He is a pretty safe prospect and is very hard to strike out. Problem with smith is that he is pretty much a 1b only in pro ball and not manyour coliege forster basemen had success at the majors. He is a pretty safe hitter but the bar at first base is very high and if he only is an OK hitter he is a 1 WAR player so that position thing lowers his floor.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ May 24, 2017 -> 02:50 PM) Any chance of the White Sox drafting Keston Hiura? Seems to be a polished hitter who should find a home in the OF. What are the knocks on him? One of the main knocks on him is that he needs Tommy John surgery and he only played DH his final year so you can not really evaluate his fielding.

I'm not totally against taking a college bat with swing and miss issues but if on top of that his swing might need an adjustment to tap into his raw power that is too many question marks for a first round college bat.

There is not just the Ks but also guys who don't like his swing. Can the sox fix that? I would prefer a more polished bat. The batspeed and athleticism is there but right now he probably doesn't even have the swing to get enough power output with a wood bat to compensate for the Ks (compared to a dunn or Reynolds who also struck out buy at least hit everything hard in the air to Maximize the little contact they make). So you are talking about a guy who could become adam dunn offensively IF he developed elite patience and improves his swing. Now peak adam dunn in center field wouldn't be bad but for that ceiling that are too many ifs for my liking.

QUOTE (rowand's rowdies @ May 23, 2017 -> 05:37 PM) If anything is 100% true Keith Law is an insecure jerk who bullies people like Chuck who he feels are beneath him. He could have made his point in a much nicer less defensive way. What a POS. I don't think he is a jerk. He sometimes acts like one but I think this is because he has some kind of personality disorder. He is very qualified in his job but is a tough personality to deal with but that probably is due to his disorder that causes him to occasionally tick off. I don't think he is a bully there are just situations when he feels pressured and doesn't know how to react otherwise. Those people can be tough to deal with but it isn't always their fault.

The problem is that the modern bullpen use does not only decrease the wins but also other counting stats like IP, Ks and even WAR because the pitchers simply pitch less. Starters have given up part of their value to the bullpen. The question now is how to handle this.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 21, 2017 -> 09:14 AM) Errors Mean little in low minors. Errors go down, power goes up as players advance. I agree. Errors will improve, what doesn't improve is athleticism and range. If your range is fringy in A ball it will usually only be worse in mlb. But if you have the range and athleticism for a position the rest can be learned. I'm not so worried about errors but I'm very concerned if I read " might have to move off the position if he fills out" or something like that. I rather have an infielder that gets to a lot of balls and tries to make a lot of outs even if it means he makes errors than a guy who is rather steady but doesn't get to balls that are more than 10 feet to his sides.

Btw im pretty sure it means abreu is not traded within the next year.I think a big reason why he signed was abreu and moncada so they prbably keep abreu around for a year or two to give the two cuban prospects a big brother.

Isn't there now a hard cap for international signing? I read articles that otani can't sign in mlb because teams now can't offer more than 5M. What can they give him 25 now? But anyway great signing no matter what the penalty is.

definitely 1 top100 guy+1 more solid top15 organisational prospect. that basically just leaves soto, kieboom and robles. Maybe even robles could be done: -nets get robertson -nats get almost all of robertsons salary -maybe sox add another reliever white sox get robles.

Longenhagen said the draft is very weak on hitters and some of the best hitters might be drafted as pitchers (McKay, greene). Maybe you don't get as good of a hitter as usually at 11 and they should consider another pitcher?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 11, 2017 -> 06:07 PM) Well this is officially the worst logic I've ever seen used to determine the strength of a minor league system. The Sox system is probably top 5, very top heavy with limited depth. This. The system is still not deep and that is an issue but the top quality is much more important. Still the 8 to 20 range could be better. For success in minor league games it is more about the quality of 20 to 100 but most of those guys never see the majors.

He does have an extremely straight front arm which probably makes his swing slightly longer http://noontimebaseball.com/category/todd-frazier/ However I'm not sure if that is the reason. Griffey also had a straight rmv although he had a smoother back elbow slot (Todd almost has a two stage swing were he drops the elbow first and then pulls the lead arm around. The swing is probably not ideal for covering the zone but it gives him good leverage and power. Not sure if he should change that at this point.

Some math assuming an above average BABIP of .310 .250 ISO, 11% BB, 30%K , 6 hbp, 30 HR = 147 hits, .238/.328/.488 which is about a 120 wRC+ in Chicago On the other hand the same with 20 HR and a .220 ISO 140 hits, .226/.318/.448 which is about a 105 wRC+ And 25%k, 11bb and .220 with 20 HR. 151 hits, .244/.334/464 which should be around a 115 wRC+ with the chicago park factors. 25 % k and 250 ISO would be a monster, 158 hits, .255/.344/.505 which would be almost a 140 wRC+.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 8, 2017 -> 11:39 AM) Uh, if he hits for a 250 or greater ISO he'll be one of the best players in MLB almost immediately That's more than decent power, that's elite, at 2B it's almost unheard of. I'd happily settle for a 260/330/460 line this year and improvement on that as he ages. You have to consider the power jump of the league, the average ISO is now .170. Of course a .250 iso is great but at 30/11 it isnt great. Chris carter last year was at 32/12/.277 and he had a 112 wRC+ and barely found a job. Of course at 2b a 112 wRC+ does play very well but don't forget that 30% ks used to be historically high and used to be a death sentence, most guys that made it work had elite power (closer to .300 iso). Now of course at 2b he would play well below that but to get to a 120+ wRC+ consistently he either needs Ks below 30 or an iso above 250.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 8, 2017 -> 07:32 AM) You also have to take into consideration the havoc Moncada causes when he gets on base...there's no simplistic way to quantify the effect speed has on the psyche of the opposition. His speed is a plus but the most important thing is that he hits. His Ks are some risk but if he can keep up the walks and hits for decent power ( 250+ ISO) he will be a good hitter.

Some interesting young sox hitters: Moncada: last year AA 0.309- 0.13-0.254 = -0.075 pretty solid AAA 2017 - 0.024 could need some improvement. It is not terrible but to make 30/11 K/BB work he needs more power and I think he has that in him. Key for him is staying disciplined and getting good pitches and hit them in the air at a good angle. If he does that he has the power and can become a very good hitter even at 30% Ks. I think he needs the homers though. He is solid as a doubles and line drive hitter too but whiffs too much to be really effective as that kind of hitter. To be really a plus hitter he needs to elevate the ball and hit 30 plus bombs and he can do that. A guy I'm concerned about is tim anderson. He can hit some but low power, little patience and and lots of Ks are not a good thing. I said that already last year, he had a kind of late start and has the athleticism to make changes but he does need to change some in his hitting profile, just hoping for a .380 babip can't work long term. Last year he had a 95 wRC+ but with an almost .380 BABIP and his K minus BB minus ISO was a positive 0.09 which is terrible. This year his Ks minus BB minus ISO is even worse but he also had some bad babip luck (.260). He isn't as bad as this year but he still is a below average hitter by quite a bit. I think he needs to either tap into some power or improve his Ks. He actually did increase his LA and FB rate (I actually send him an article on his LA on Twitter because I though he could benefit from the LA change but while he did change his LA - not sure if conscious effort or not his exit velocity is down and the fly balls are not leaving the park at just 6% HR/FB). The positive thing is that as a SS he doesn't have to hit that much. If he can improve to a 90 wRC+ he can be a good MLB player if he plays well at shortstop. Zack collins Excellent K minus BB minus ISO at negative .169. I think he should tap into some more power though because I expect his Ks to go up a little in the majors and 20% BB is not quite sustainable either. But overall I think he has a pretty safe profile to be at least a better than average hitter. There is a small chance that he has the Dan vogelbach/tyler white profile of walks galore with just OK contact and power which does not quite hold up against plus Velo pitching but I think collins has better batspeed then they have. Luis alexander basabe Last year he had a K minus BB minus ISO of negative 0.021. That is below average but for a considered raw player 26/9/.189 is pretty balanced. To make it work at the majors he needs to either improve his contact or power a little but there is not a huge improvement needed (like with anderson). Overall I like him, he has some ways to go but it is not impossible.

I did a little research on batting data with fangraphs leaderboard to research the relationship between power, strikeouts and plate discipline. Generally Ks are bad but some very good hitters strike out a lot because they can compensate with walks and bombs. And likewise some good contact hitters are bad because all they hit is singles and outs. Here is my post at the fangraphs community section. http://www.fangraphs.com/community/introducing-k-bb-iso/ BTW the table file with the original data does not work due to the conversion from european to US excel so added a corrected version in the comments https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bfQ...h_Z78LDeo4/edit what I did was exporting the leaderboard from 2014 to april 2017 in wRC+ from fangraphs and then I did a calculation. with pitchers K% minus BB% is a very strong indicator for success, so I did something similar for hitters: I first scaled K and BB to decimal (0.2 instead of 20%) to bring it to the same scale as ISO (isolated power) and then subtracted BB% and ISO from K%. I found that good hitters get a value of negative 0.1 or lower while bad hitters are closer to zero or in some cases even positive (terrible hitters). I did a correlation analysis and there was a strong correlation between wRC+ and K minus BB minus ISO (0.75 Pearson correlation). overall the K minus BB minus ISO leaderboard looks pretty similar to the wRC+ leaderboard. the value of that stat is that it removes some of the noise of BABIP that is present in wRC+/OPS/BA/OBP which makes it a useful predictor for small sample sizes (early season) and minor league players. here is ta rule of thumb general scale: great good - 0.08 to -0.14 OK -0.07 to -0.03 bad > -0.03 You have to be careful with young prospects though. Some have a bad K minus BB minus ISO but their body type projects power growth so I would not write them off. And likewise high BB without power are hard to maintain in the majors where pitchers have control.

Some of the supposed bad teams have started rather well maybe one or two of them decide against selling more. Who could still sell at the headline?

QUOTE (turnin' two @ Apr 20, 2017 -> 04:50 PM) I think you would be hard pressed to find a sky-high ceiling HS hitter that didn't have some swing and miss concerns they are few and far between. There is certainly risk in a guy like Adell, but those risky HS players are also a teams best chance to get a superstar talent (other than signing a young Cuban defector). You can't draft Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw if you don't draft those high risk HS players. The team has some risk assessment they need to conduct on players like Adell. Though, if they do sign Robert, that would allow them to play it a little safer with a guy like Haseley, or having two guys like that (Robert and Adell) kind of acts as a little bit of a hedge against the Jared Mitchell risk (gosh he was the worst. A high risk college bat? Yikes. Trout being taken 2 picks later in that draft is really a kick in the head). **edit** Wow, looking back on that draft, after Strasburg, it was really a disaster. No one else in the top 15 picks really became impact players (Sorry Mike Leake!) but the second half of the first round was really good:) AJ pollock Randell Grichuk Mike trout James Paxton Garrett Richards shelby miller

QUOTE (ptatc @ Apr 20, 2017 -> 01:34 PM) True. But eventually the Sox will need this type of player. Since they take longer to develop, if they have a shot at one they really like they should do it. They can't go so conservative that they miss out on a really good player just because they've picked the wrong ones in the past. This is why they get paid the big bucks. I'm actually more confident of a good contact, good plate discipline guy developing some power than a hacker becoming a good hitter. of course you have to have some power, a billy hamilton is never going to hit for power but in the last 3-4 years there have been many 10 or so HR guys becoming 20 HR guys by hitting the ball at a higher launch angle and pulling it a bit more. guys like turner, murphy or altuve all were 10 HR guys that tapped into more power by elevating the ball more. not everyone can make that swing adjustment but good barrel control guys probably have a better chance to make that adjustment. the league is full of power right now, more than 100 guys hit 20 last year and like 35 or so hit 30. as long you are able to hit the ball in the air at 95+ with some consistency you can hit some homers. guys like benintendi or bregman are good examples of this. they are good hitters with a bit but not really big power but they are projected to hit 20+ bombs in their prime because they can hit the ball at a good angle. they won't be real power hitters who hit 35 but being .370/460 guys with 20 HR is valuable. however you have to be able to play defense. I think it is good to get good plate discipline guys who can hit but getting 5 DH types does not help. first basemen are cheap in the market, the key is to find players who can at least adequately play an up the middle positions. all the young superstars today can hit but are also solid up the middle defenders (trout, lindor, correa) or at least defensively strong 3B men who can play other positions well too (bryant, machado). teams are built up the middle, if you have a good C, 2B, SS, CF, 3B and maybe a couple more prospects that are up the middle types but switch to the corners you can still find a 1B and a DH somewhere at a reasonable price.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Apr 20, 2017 -> 11:44 AM) Can we please stay away from "Significant swing and miss issues" I agree. Toolsy OF that is raw at the plate sounds a little too familiar:). Swing and miss in the pro game is not terrible as long you have big power but if someone has swing and miss issues at the HS level I'm a bit alarmed because typically even the high K guys in the majors have been good contact hitters at the HS level. maybe it is not his hand eye coordination but a swing issue but I'm not confident in the sox system fixing swing issues either. I would hope they take a rather polished hitter, either college or the rare HS player that already has a good swing and approach.