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White Sox on verge of slipping into another first-round rut


Jack Parkman

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4 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

If you ignore the highly atypical amount of injuries, most of our prospects had very positive 2018 seasons.  The biggest disappointments IMO were Hansen, Robert (partially injury related), & Sheets.  And with those last two guys it wasn’t all bad by any means.  Additionally, we had multiple guys with nice bounce back seasons and we even had a few guys come out of nowhere and become legit prospects like Rivera & Lambert.  I get the injuries really suck, but what are we expecting these to the be normal going forward?  Outside of a few cases, it just seems like a bad luck year to me.

I can't ignore the injuries though. Out of the top 10 guys on the Futuresox list coming into this year, 5 of them missed substantial time or the whole season, and some are out next year, then Eloy missed some time and Hansen struggled on top of that. I don't think that we can just assume that has to be a fluke...and the organization absolutley should not be. If an injury rate like that happens next year, we won't have a system left.

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39 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

I can't ignore the injuries though. Out of the top 10 guys on the Futuresox list coming into this year, 5 of them missed substantial time or the whole season, and some are out next year, then Eloy missed some time and Hansen struggled on top of that. I don't think that we can just assume that has to be a fluke...and the organization absolutley should not be. If an injury rate like that happens next year, we won't have a system left.

So what exactly do you theorize the organization is doing wrong?  Or do you simply think all the players are injury prone?

Sure, if we have this many injuries next year I’ll be right there next to you with the conspiracy theories, but teams in all major sports have stretches of bad luck on the injury front and those are usually not predictive of future problems.

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8 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

So what exactly do you theorize the organization is doing wrong?  Or do you simply think all the players are injury prone?

Sure, if we have this many injuries next year I’ll be right there next to you with the conspiracy theories, but teams in all major sports have stretches of bad luck on the injury front and those are usually not predictive of future problems.

I don't know, but at the very least if I was in the GM role I would have spent October having meetings with my coaching, scouting, and training staff, and asking them about this problem and coming up with plans for what we are going to do different next year to make sure it's a fluke. 

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Just now, Balta1701 said:

I don't know, but at the very least if I was in the GM role I would have spent October having meetings with my coaching, scouting, and training staff, and asking them about this problem and coming up with plans for what we are going to do different next year to make sure it's a fluke. 

100% agree with this, but how do we know Rick hasn’t done so already?  I hope someone brings this up at SoxFest because it would be great to hear Rick’s thoughts on the matter and what they’re doing (if anything) to address.

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5 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

100% agree with this, but how do we know Rick hasn’t done so already?  I hope someone brings this up at SoxFest because it would be great to hear Rick’s thoughts on the matter and what they’re doing (if anything) to address.

Hopefully he has. 

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7 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

Do you blame them? Outside of one glorious season, every move they have made over the last 20 years has blown up in their faces. 

At this point, I want KW to GTFO. Hahn can go with him, for all I care. 

Every move? You know that's false and a complete exaggeration on your part, come on man.  I'm all for people having and expressing their opinion of not trusting the current FO to rebuild the team that they couldn't build up to start. It's a fair position to hold tbh. But the proclamations that everything sucks because a rebulding team that we were told was going to be bad is in fact bad and has bad players on it by design is just being negative to be negative.  I could've sworn I remember them being anti-rebuild once it initially began, but maybe I'm misremembering. 

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5 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

I tend to think Sox players are worse than they actually are and other team's players are better than they actually are. It comes with the territory. Again, when you watch your team every day you see their warts in a different way than those you don't follow. 

So you can't be rational about it.  Ok.  Got it.

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38 minutes ago, Sleepy Harold said:

Every move? You know that's false and a complete exaggeration on your part, come on man.  I'm all for people having and expressing their opinion of not trusting the current FO to rebuild the team that they couldn't build up to start. It's a fair position to hold tbh. But the proclamations that everything sucks because a rebulding team that we were told was going to be bad is in fact bad and has bad players on it by design is just being negative to be negative.  I could've sworn I remember them being anti-rebuild once it initially began, but maybe I'm misremembering. 

I'm not mad that they're bad. That is understood. I'm mad that they're bad at scouting. You can almost count the number of neutral or good moves outside of the ones that built the 2005 team on two hands since the end of the 2000 season

Neutral:

Sirotka for Wells as a rental

Rowand for Thome (this is only neutral because they filled one gaping black hole and created another that still persists to this day)

Vizcaino, Young, and El Duque for Vazquez

Good: 

A broken Freddy Garcia for Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez

McCarthy for Danks

Re-signing Buehrle in 2008, and then letting him walk in 2012

Drafting Chris Sale in 2010

Signing Jose Quintana off the scrap heap

Reed for Eaton

Borchard for Thornton

Tentatively good:

Quintana for Eloy/Cease

Jury's out, but not looking so good right now:

Sale and Eaton selling trades

That's it. 

Outside of the 2005 team building, those are the only moves that did not blow up in their faces since the 2000-2001 offseason. It is utterly amazing that the same people occupy the front office. 

 

 

Edited by Jack Parkman
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8 minutes ago, turnin' two said:

So you can't be rational about it.  Ok.  Got it.

No, I can be rational about it. I was just saying I'd like to see where they fall in the 2019 lists since a lot of their players were injured and took a big step backward this year. When Spring Training opened in February, I was as positive as anyone. Now, not so much. 

They might still be top 10 in 2019, but I'd be surprised if they were top 5. 

Teams whose farm systems I would take over ours right now without blinking:

Padres

Rays

Braves

Teams that I'd have to do more digging about:

Yankees 

Jays 

A's

Edited by Jack Parkman
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11 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

If you ignore the highly atypical amount of injuries, most of our prospects had very positive 2018 seasons.  The biggest disappointments IMO were Hansen, Robert (partially injury related), & Sheets.  And with those last two guys it wasn’t all bad by any means.  Additionally, we had multiple guys with nice bounce back seasons and we even had a few guys come out of nowhere and become legit prospects like Rivera & Lambert.  I get the injuries really suck, but what are we expecting these to the be normal going forward?  Outside of a few cases, it just seems like a bad luck year to me.

Burger?  Dunning?

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I've said it when we started the rebuild and I'll say it now....having guys like Sale, Q, and Eaton to trade may have helped jump start the rebuild, but the only way this organization will have sustainable success is if it has also massively enhanced its drafting & talent development programs.  If it can't identify and develop players at the lower levels who go on to be good-to-great players, than this rebuild is for nothing and an entirely new regime needs to be brought in.

If you are an optimist, you'd point out to the fact that the Sox had new people in draft of player development and drafting (Hostetler / Getz / etc). 

If you were a pessimist, you'd say those changes weren't enough and you had the same overall leadership that had failed to effectively draft and develop from the early 2000's onward.  

I would say both parties are probably partially accurate, but as fans, we have to hope the 1st camp ways out. You could point out to the Robert signing as a sign of "something new", however, it is still a pretty small sign, since the Dodgers or Cubs would have not just "signed" Robert...they'd have knew they were going all in on that particular year and signed 5 guys to large deals.  

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On 10/27/2018 at 4:37 PM, Jack Parkman said:

Not sure tbh. If they do, I'd imagine it is now in the back end, in the around 9 or 10.

I don't see Collins as a prospect. 

I think Basabe, Adolfo and Gonzalez are prospects, but more in the borderline range.

I don't know what to make of Rutherford and Robert, as their lack of power is massively disappointing. I see both as similar to Avi Garcia when he was acquired. Both are supposed to have power, but they don't show it in games. 

Dunning and Hansen are complete wildcards based on health and lack of progression respectively. If Dunning blows out his elbow next season, he becomes a nonfactor. Same with Hansen if he doesn't stay healthy and find the strike zone. Both are entering their age 24 season and haven't been past AA. 

I just feel the Sox system is super top heavy with not much after that. Their top guys have to hit, otherwise they're screwed. 

You have Cease, Kopech and Eloy, with Moncada at the MLB level. Otherwise, I'm a huge skeptic on the rest of the system. 

I don't think much of Giolito and Lopez anymore. I guess keep running them out there.  There is minimal hope on both. 

Madrigal seems to be a relic of baseball times gone by.  Think Juan Pierre. 

 

  I got a good laugh at this.  Too bad baseball has become all about the homerun.

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On 10/29/2018 at 6:47 PM, Chisoxfn said:

I've said it when we started the rebuild and I'll say it now....having guys like Sale, Q, and Eaton to trade may have helped jump start the rebuild, but the only way this organization will have sustainable success is if it has also massively enhanced its drafting & talent development programs.  If it can't identify and develop players at the lower levels who go on to be good-to-great players, than this rebuild is for nothing and an entirely new regime needs to be brought in.

No doubt about it.

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Just looking at the rebuild period, I don't think that we would be having this conversation if it weren't for Jake Burger and his injuries. I think Madrigal is going to turn out to be a good player. I know there's a good amount of people here who are down on him but we have to remember that he played competitive baseball from February to October and suffered a wrist injury during that stretch as well. 

This upcoming draft is extremely important to the Sox, they need to land a star with his pick. 

 

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3 hours ago, Joshua Strong said:

Just looking at the rebuild period, I don't think that we would be having this conversation if it weren't for Jake Burger and his injuries. I think Madrigal is going to turn out to be a good player. I know there's a good amount of people here who are down on him but we have to remember that he played competitive baseball from February to October and suffered a wrist injury during that stretch as well. 

This upcoming draft is extremely important to the Sox, they need to land a star with his pick. 

 

If you add Dunning/Hansen/Robert and of course Kopech, that's a pretty substantial hit.

Other than Jimenez, there's no "surefire" impact position player.  Robert and Madrigal have tons of POTENTIAL, but...

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50 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

If you add Dunning/Hansen/Robert and of course Kopech, that's a pretty substantial hit.

Other than Jimenez, there's no "surefire" impact position player.  Robert and Madrigal have tons of POTENTIAL, but...

That's totally fair and another criticism is that the previous drafts before the rebuild have not yielded enough fruit to truly get the pipeline off the ground running. 

Like how the Cubs had draft Javy Baez the year before Theo came to town

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