FS: Have the Sox ever had a prospect like Eloy in AAA?

[NorthSideSox72]

In this week's column, Julie explores the history of highly-touted White Sox prospects and their appearances in AAA, to see if the team has ever had one at that level quite like Eloy.

 

[Hatchetman]

Well Ron Kittle might have had a case. .345 and 50HR in AAA.

[Jose Abreu]

How do TA and Beckham get mentioned but not Moncada? 

[SoxAce]

Imagine if Big Frank didn't skip AAA. I shutter to think what his numbers would've been like.

[NorthSideSox72]

4 minutes ago, Hatchetman said:

Well Ron Kittle might have had a case. .345 and 50HR in AAA.

The article was focused on players with super-high national prospect rankings. Not sure if Kittle fit that bill, but maybe?

 

3 minutes ago, Jose Abreu said:

How do TA and Beckham get mentioned but not Moncada? 

Julie would need to answer for sure, but I got the impression the context here was pre-rebuild. That said you are absolutely right that Moncada is the other one likely in this discussion, but maybe not because he was in the majors prior?

 

[Hatchetman]

I don't think they had any prospect rankings back then but I'm thinking Kittle would've had been at least top ten given his insane minor league numbers.

[The Mighty Mite]

1. Going back to the late 50s the Sox thought they had the next Mickey Mantle in Johnny Callison. He played a little bit in 1959 season but Veeck traded him  in the off season with a few more very good prospects who all had very nice ML careers.

Edited July 19, 2018 by The Mighty Mite

[GreenSox]

2 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said:

1. Going back to the late 50s the Sox thought they had the next Mickey Mantle in Johnny Callison. He played a little bit in 1959 season but Veeck traded him  in the off season with a few more very good prospects who all had very nice ML careers.

Yes, like Norm Cash; Sox in the Series in 67 with Norm.
Re the question, I seem to recall  Lamar Johnson being minor league beast -  but not a 50 homer beast; pretty good couple of major league seasons as well.

Edited July 19, 2018 by GreenSox

[Lip Man 1]

Green:

During the 1959 off season the Sox moved the following players:

Norm Cash, Johnny Romano, Johnny Callison, Earl Battey, Don Mincher.

They combined to hit I think something like 700+ home runs and make numerous All-Star appearances. With a few of these guys the Sox win pennants in 1964 and 1967.

In defense of Bill Veeck he originally wanted to get younger power hitters. He specifically targeted Orlando Cepeda and Bill White. Sherm Lollar was part of the deal he proposed to the Giants for Cepeda. When he was rebuffed he felt the only other thing he could do was get some older powers hitters, guys like Minnie Minoso, Gene Freese and Roy Sievers.

Ironically those guys in 1960 combined to hit 65 home runs and drive in 275 RBI's. What let the Sox down in 1960 was the regulars who just didn't have as good of a year as in 1959...Aparicio, Fox, Landis, Lollar and among the pitchers Wynn and Shaw.

What he did was a mistake, no question but he felt with the Yankees getting Roger Maris to go along with their other power guys he needed to upgrade that part of the team.

[DestroyBaseball]

Lol, just addressing the Moncada issue, the answer is I literally forgot he existed, because I am a Writer who does Research (??) But yes, I'm going to go with, he had already played in the majors! It was planned all along.

Ron Kittle was too far back. I just wanted to go back far enough to see a few comps, not necessarily all of them. But I like this discussion! It can be hard to find info on the way-back minors, I wish there were more resources from back then to see what people thought of whatever prospects (if they thought about them at all - I'm sure not to the degree we do today, just due to data availability alone).

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

15 hours ago, Hatchetman said:

Well Ron Kittle might have had a case. .345 and 50HR in AAA.

THE ACTUAL FUCK

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Can you imagine Eloy hitting 40 HR in AA with a .326 AVG and 1.119 OPS and then the following year hitting 50 HR in AAA with a .345 AVG and a 1.194 OPS and NOT getting called up that year until September 2nd? That's fucking bananas to me. People would be asking for Hahn and Getz to be fired for letting Eloy sit in AAA for that long. 

And Kittle was 24 when he finally got called up too. Meanwhile, 1B Mike Squires hit .267 with 1 HR that season in 116 games. The fuck were they waiting for?

 

[WBWSF]

5 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Green:

During the 1959 off season the Sox moved the following players:

Norm Cash, Johnny Romano, Johnny Callison, Earl Battey, Don Mincher.

They combined to hit I think something like 700+ home runs and make numerous All-Star appearances. With a few of these guys the Sox win pennants in 1964 and 1967.

In defense of Bill Veeck he originally wanted to get younger power hitters. He specifically targeted Orlando Cepeda and Bill White. Sherm Lollar was part of the deal he proposed to the Giants for Cepeda. When he was rebuffed he felt the only other thing he could do was get some older powers hitters, guys like Minnie Minoso, Gene Freese and Roy Sievers.

Ironically those guys in 1960 combined to hit 65 home runs and drive in 275 RBI's. What let the Sox down in 1960 was the regulars who just didn't have as good of a year as in 1959...Aparicio, Fox, Landis, Lollar and among the pitchers Wynn and Shaw.

What he did was a mistake, no question but he felt with the Yankees getting Roger Maris to go along with their other power guys he needed to upgrade that part of the team.

I always found it interesting that Fox, Aparicio, Landis and Pierce couldn't believe that Veeck traded Callison, Battey, Romano, Cash and Mincher.  They knew they were young talented players and Veeck traded them for older players( Minoso, Sievers) who were past their prime. Veecks trades hurt the White Sox franchise for years.

[Timmy U]

5 hours ago, ChiliIrishHammock24 said:

Can you imagine Eloy hitting 40 HR in AA with a .326 AVG and 1.119 OPS and then the following year hitting 50 HR in AAA with a .345 AVG and a 1.194 OPS and NOT getting called up that year until September 2nd? That's fucking bananas to me. People would be asking for Hahn and Getz to be fired for letting Eloy sit in AAA for that long. 

And Kittle was 24 when he finally got called up too. Meanwhile, 1B Mike Squires hit .267 with 1 HR that season in 116 games. The fuck were they waiting for?

 

Kittle was a weird, under-the-radar prospect.  He had been released by the Dodgers, I believe, after he broke his neck, and he went to work in a steel mill.  Sox signed him more as filler and then he exploded.  I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe the results.  Also, this is before the era of 3 true outcomes.  He simply didn’t have the skill set of ideal outfielders in that era.  Remember, the White Sox we’re trying to build a dream outfield out of power/speed guys just a few years before like Chet Lemon, Claudell Washington, and Thad Boseley.  Harold Baines was a rookie in ‘82 and he was their priority prospect.  Kittle was like a giant softball player it took them a while to warm up to.

[southsider2k5]

23 hours ago, Hatchetman said:

Well Ron Kittle might have had a case. .345 and 50HR in AAA.

After having 40 homers the year before, along with a 1.119 OPS.

[FloydBannister1983]

8 hours ago, ChiliIrishHammock24 said:

Can you imagine Eloy hitting 40 HR in AA with a .326 AVG and 1.119 OPS and then the following year hitting 50 HR in AAA with a .345 AVG and a 1.194 OPS and NOT getting called up that year until September 2nd? That's fucking bananas to me. People would be asking for Hahn and Getz to be fired for letting Eloy sit in AAA for that long. 

And Kittle was 24 when he finally got called up too. Meanwhile, 1B Mike Squires hit .267 with 1 HR that season in 116 games. The fuck were they waiting for?

 

Kittle didn't play 1B.  He played LF.  Squires won a Gold Glove at 1B the year before Kittle was called up and was a fan favorite.

 

[The Mighty Mite]

6 hours ago, WBWSF said:

I always found it interesting that Fox, Aparicio, Landis and Pierce couldn't believe that Veeck traded Callison, Battey, Romano, Cash and Mincher.  They knew they were young talented players and Veeck traded them for older players( Minoso, Sievers) who were past their prime. Veecks trades hurt the White Sox franchise for years.

I also thought those trades were bad but somehow the Sox won more games than any other team in the years of 63, 64 and 65. They won 94 in 63, 98 in 1964 and 95 in 1965 and had nothing to show for it.

Edited July 20, 2018 by The Mighty Mite

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

3 hours ago, Juschill said:

Kittle didn't play 1B.  He played LF.  Squires won a Gold Glove at 1B the year before Kittle was called up and was a fan favorite.

 

Not in the beginning, but my point is they could have moved any of their corner OF over to 1B to make room for Kittle, or just played Kittle at 1B to get a guy who has belted 90 HR over the past 2 years in to the line-up. Squires was their back-up 1B that year, so you're talking about replacing a bench guy with no bat, with a slugger putting up legendary numbers in the minors. Us fans would be insane now a days if that happened, even with a non-prospect like Matt Skole. If he belted 40 HR last year, and then was on pace for 50 HR this season, we would be begging to see him get a spot somewhere on the team. I get that the '82 Sox were a decent team, but you get the point.

[Dominikk85]

Maybe it was a bias against Ks. Back then many coaches considered you a better hitter if you struck out a lot, even if there was power. 

Back then Ks were considered a disgrace and players were evaluated by average and not OPS. They probably  thought with the Ks he couldn't hit for average in the majors.

Btw his first 3 years he was pretty good in the majors averaging like 30 bombs although the average was around 230.

 

[WBWSF]

8 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said:

I also thought those trades were bad but somehow the Sox won more games than any other team in the years of 63, 64 and 65. They won 94 in 63, 98 in 1964 and 95 in 1965 and had nothing to show for it.

You should post here more often. You'll find that there are real White Sox fans here and the people who run this site are very open minded about everything that relates to the White Sox. I can't say the same thing about the mope who runs WSI.

[pcq]

1. The Natural collected two HR and a double for the Knights Friday. Did not know- Roy Hobbs was on his way to a tryout with the Cub when shot by the Black Widow. 

Stormin' Norman was my guy growing up. Hit 361 for the Tigs in1961 for the batting title then about 260 the rest of the way. Later claimed that he owed his career to expansion pitching, corked bats and a cozy RF wall in Tiger Stadium. Sent me an autographed pic once. 

[pcq]

16 hours ago, ChiliIrishHammock24 said:

Not in the beginning, but my point is they could have moved any of their corner OF over to 1B to make room for Kittle, or just played Kittle at 1B to get a guy who has belted 90 HR over the past 2 years in to the line-up. Squires was their back-up 1B that year, so you're talking about replacing a bench guy with no bat, with a slugger putting up legendary numbers in the minors. Us fans would be insane now a days if that happened, even with a non-prospect like Matt Skole. If he belted 40 HR last year, and then was on pace for 50 HR this season, we would be begging to see him get a spot somewhere on the team. I get that the '82 Sox were a decent team, but you get the point.

Greg Walker came up with Kittle in 1983 and manned 1B for a number of years. Spanky Squires was a slapstick with a vacuum glove at 1B and later made news briefly as a lefty catcher.