Rebuild

[Dick Allen]

I just want to see how everyone is with the current status of the rebuild. It seems most were on board when it commenced. Anyone like me, seeing some huge issues?

it seems most assumed or hoped a rebuild would make the Sox like the Astros or Cubs. Probably the 2 best case scenarios of a total rebuild. But even those teams have made some mistakes. Houston released JD Matinez and passed on Kris Bryant. They also traded Hader to Milwaukee. The Cubs seemed locked into some bad contracts after winning once. They now seem to be taking on Father Time banking on Hamels and Lester at least for 2019.

But even with all those missteps, they will be right there again and again. This rebuild has a pitcher who would be have been an odds on favorite for TJ surgery in Vegas, wind up having to have the surgery, and the consensus is, it pushes the entire rebuild back a year. Moncada struggled which in and of itself probably isn’t shocking, but shouldn’t we be at a point where a guy either ranked 1 or 2 should be showing a bit more consistency? Tim Anderson improved in the field and walked several times in April, then no better, maybe even worse offensively than he has ever been. Shouldn’t the lack of progress be concerning? Gio didn’t exactly look like a top prospect on the mound. Lopez definitely had some really good moments, but he even admits to losing focus, and his peripherals have to be a concern. Alec Hansen was awful. Zack Collins was a guy Hostetler said he would have picked 1-1. While he appears he will be a big leaguer, he certainly doesn’t look like so,Rome you would pick first overall. The White Sox spent a lot of cash on Luis Robert. His next professional homer in the US will be his first. He seems to spend more time with trainers than on the field. I am not suggesting he is a bust. I know it is way too soon for that, but the performance has to be a bit concerning. Jake Burgers injuries aren’t  the White Sox fault, but he is a guy that carries some extra weight and isn’t so athletic. The injures may make him a wasted pick. Burdi has some diminished velocity. If it’s permanent, he is probably not a guy any better than the crap they have been picking up on waivers. It is possible he was another wasted pick. Guys like Palka, and Delmonico are no reasons to get excited about a rebuild.

Cease looks great. Hopefully it will continue, although a past TJ so early scares me he will eventually need another. Eloy is Eloy, but he will have the weight of the White Sox fan base on his shoulders in 2019. Any kind of struggle, and a lot of the people who are loving the rebuild right now may change their mind. Dunning was really doing well, although that is another questionable elbow. Basabe had a far better 2018 than 2017. 

There just doesn’t seem to be anyone except Eloy close to can’t miss. I would think with as many top 10 draft picks as they have had, as many prospects as they acquired for their good players, as many times as we read Hahn fleeced another team, there should be at least a couple more.

 

Other than perhaps winning a few more games, what has to happen in the next year to keep your faith in the rebuild, KW and RH, and Ricky and his coaches?  If they win 70 games, what are the excuses you would buy to keep the faith the right guys are in place, and the White Sox are just a little bit away from dominating the AL Central?

Edited November 2, 2018 by Dick Allen

[iWiN4PreP]

1. Absolutely need to see more progress from Moncada.

2. Would be really nice for Eloy to come up and dominate.

3. Gio and ReyLo have to progress. If they don't, we need to look at plans to replace them. More so in regards to Gio.

 

These are my three key views on 2019. They are obvious, but without them going right, my confidence in the WS future will be shot.

4. Kopech needs a healthy and sustainable return in 2020.

Also would be nice to see some sort of progression with Timmy and his OBP and to figure out who he is defensively in 2019.

 

[Eminor3rd]

Positive: 

1. I remain convinced that the trades we made were good. I think we did well in selling assets for legitimate high end talent. 

Negative:

2. I’m concerned about player development organization-wide. I’m not sure they know what to look for to determine if a player is truly ready to go. I wonder if they are effective at diagnosing issues that need corrected. 

I’m not worried about Moncada’s numbers or “where he is” relative to his age and experience, for example, but I am concerned that he didn’t seem to make much progress over the course of the year, especially given that much of his struggles seem to be related to very coachable issues. 

3. I do not blame the rash of injuries on coaching or training, but it still concerns me, because they could all be long-term issues whether or not they could have been avoided. 

Overall:

I think that it just isn’t realistic to expect this process to be one of linear growth, even if it has gone that way before for other organizations. I think we look at the Astros and Cubs and find it hard to recall the bumps in the road, but they were there. Even though this was a disappointing year overall, I’m not convinced that it means we are “off track” necessarily.

I remain cautiously optimistic and will continue to preach patience. The next 12 months will be important and telling. 

[Eminor3rd]

I am also disappointed that several teams now seem to have figured out how to reliably add velocity to pitching prospects, and we do not seem to be one of them. I think Don Cooper and company know how to clean up mechanics to noticeably improve control, which is great, but they can not add power at this juncture. 

For example, it’s been popular to think about why we didn’t draft Walker Buehler. But he added 3-5 mph to his fastball in the minors. Would he have done that in our system? I don’t know but I tend to think he wouldn’t have. And that is frustrating. 

[southsider2k5]

4 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

I am also disappointed that several teams now seem to have figured out how to reliably add velocity to pitching prospects, and we do not seem to be one of them. I think Don Cooper and company know how to clean up mechanics to noticeably improve control, which is great, but they can not add power at this juncture. 

For example, it’s been popular to think about why we didn’t draft Walker Buehler. But he added 3-5 mph to his fastball in the minors. Would he have done that in our system? I don’t know but I tend to think he wouldn’t have. And that is frustrating. 

We just did it with Dylan Covey, didn't we?

[Eminor3rd]

14 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

We just did it with Dylan Covey, didn't we?

Did we? If so, that’s a good sign. I was under the impression that we helped go add horizontal movement to the fastball, but I knew basically nothing about him before he was called up to us, let alone before we acquired him, so I could be wrong. 

[SonofaRoache]

Dick, you and I had several disagreements about a few things, but I'm okay with the rebuild. Our FO did a good job acquiring talent, they just need to grow it. I am concerned that we will not bring in good enough FAs to offset busts and to lead our guys to a championship. We will not win with just the guys we have in the system now. Boston, Yanks, Dodgers, Houston, and the Cubs will spend money. If we want to play with them, we need to pay. I want to see us acquire a huge bat and a huge frontline starter before 2020. 

[Ducksnort]

I wonder if the Astros or Cubs or even Royals for that matter had any doubts about the rebuild similar to the ones many have with our rebuild at this stage.

[bmags]

I am with that Eminor post, would add to DA and theirs that my biggest disappointment is the FOs lack of success in finding talent outside of trades. I am quite frankly not thrilled with the development of our draft picks, middling results from LatAm and truly bizarre handling of the 2016 class, waivers, and far and away, pro free agents.

I will add a caveat that there could be big returns here if Palka improves and Rondon's power number end up for real. But they require big improvement. Those would be nice waiver pickups (rondon may have been a minor trade after a waiver claim).

After initially being really intrigued, I'm very skeptical of this intense focus on collecting minor league relievers. Among other reasons, I worry that we will end up running out of space for them before they even get to bigs.

Lastly what I've been batting around in my head, is if you acquired the white sox this offseason, would you keep Rick Hahn and co? I would not. I would do a huge revamping of FO to focus on getting this group into competition and one that has better pro scouting ability.

And that's as someone that supports the rebuild and in terms of trades generally thinks Hahn did well, with the exception of the more marginal trades where he went after AAAA "one year past a prospect" guys instead of more raw A/INTL players. I think his trades were good, but, the phrase one foot in, one foot out, that's all I can think of when I look at white sox. Smart enough to know they should put soem resources toward things, restricted enough to ever go full bore.

[southsider2k5]

5 minutes ago, Scoots said:

I wonder if the Astros or Cubs or even Royals for that matter had any doubts about the rebuild similar to the ones many have with our rebuild at this stage.

Cubs fans were already starting to talk about firing people at about year 2 or 3.

[Dick Allen]

They got their wish. People did get fired. Both with the Cubs and Astros. 

[SonofaRoache]

33 minutes ago, Scoots said:

I wonder if the Astros or Cubs or even Royals for that matter had any doubts about the rebuild similar to the ones many have with our rebuild at this stage.

Fair point. The difference is the Cubs hired Theo and didn't let a failed FO oversee their rebuild. They also brought in a manager who took Tampa to the WS. If we aren't hiring a Theo to run our team who brought titles to Boston, then we need to at least bring in a top of the line manager. The Cubs fired Ricky to complete their rebuild, no reason why we should keep him around for our completion. The Royals have been rebuilding for a while, but I told people in my personal life the squad they assembled would win two titles. Modern rebuilding is down to a science. 

[SoxAce]

1 hour ago, Eminor3rd said:

Positive: 

1. I remain convinced that the trades we made were good. I think we did well in selling assets for legitimate high end talent. 

Negative:

2. I’m concerned about player development organization-wide. I’m not sure they know what to look for to determine if a player is truly ready to go. I wonder if they are effective at diagnosing issues that need corrected. 

I’m not worried about Moncada’s numbers or “where he is” relative to his age and experience, for example, but I am concerned that he didn’t seem to make much progress over the course of the year, especially given that much of his struggles seem to be related to very coachable issues. 

3. I do not blame the rash of injuries on coaching or training, but it still concerns me, because they could all be long-term issues whether or not they could have been avoided. 

Overall:

I think that it just isn’t realistic to expect this process to be one of linear growth, even if it has gone that way before for other organizations. I think we look at the Astros and Cubs and find it hard to recall the bumps in the road, but they were there. Even though this was a disappointing year overall, I’m not convinced that it means we are “off track” necessarily.

I remain cautiously optimistic and will continue to preach patience. The next 12 months will be important and telling. 

My biggest thing there too with this organization. 

[Jack Parkman]

Positives:

1) I agree with others that you really can't complain about the value the Sox got in return for the players they sold. They did well in their trades. 

Unfortunately, this is the only major positive so far. 

Concerns: 

1) Player development

I can't help but think that they are screwing this up with their position players. Moncada's lack of readiness/rush job to the bigs is maddening. None of the players that the Sox called up in 2017 should have been. Zero. Moncada should have been in the minors until 4/15 at the earliest, and I wouldn't have called him up until Memorial Day. Giolito obviously needed to work on his mechanics, and because options are an issue with him, I would have been fine with both he and Lopez breaking camp with the team. I am pissed to this day that Moncada was up before Memorial Day 2018. 

2) Drafting

Fulmer, Collins, and Burger don't look like good picks right now at all. Jury is out on Madrigal, but he has to be able to hit a lot of 2B and 3B with his lack of power. I don't like it at all currently. You don't really know what Burdi is, but hearing that he lost significant velocity after TJS is no bueno, because that usually doesn't happen. Dude lost 4-6 mph off his heater. (he's been sitting at 94) He might still have good enough secondary pitches to get by with that loss, but his best secondary was his change and usually the velo drop only happens with the fastball, and not the change too. Velocity separation could be an issue. By all means, if he doesn't get that high-90s heater back, he becomes a decent relief prospect and not a high end closer one anymore. 

3. Injuries

They are something that happens, and you can't really blame anyone for that. It sucks, and it is what it is. 

4) Lack of "buy low, sell high" rental moves in FA. 

There is never enough talent in your system. They should be doing this each year, spending money to plug holes and acquiring talent at the deadline. You never know what you will get. 

All in all, I waver between cautiously optimistic and chicken little on the rebuild. 2019 will go a long way to determining what type of team the Sox will have. I have always said, and will continue to say that no matter what Eloy does, unless another prospect surprises and becomes a superstar, this rebuild hinges 100% on Moncada becoming a superstar. Eloy alone isn't enough. Moncada must be a huge offensive contributor, otherwise they won't have enough offense. If this works out, it seems it is going to be a long process in player development, and the window will be about 2-3 years at most. If it is going to take any track similar to another championship  team's rebuilds, think the Royals. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that, but that is my opinion and belief. 

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2018 by Jack Parkman

[Thad Bosley]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

I am with that Eminor post, would add to DA and theirs that my biggest disappointment is the FOs lack of success in finding talent outside of trades. I am quite frankly not thrilled with the development of our draft picks, middling results from LatAm and truly bizarre handling of the 2016 class, waivers, and far and away, pro free agents.

I will add a caveat that there could be big returns here if Palka improves and Rondon's power number end up for real. But they require big improvement. Those would be nice waiver pickups (rondon may have been a minor trade after a waiver claim).

After initially being really intrigued, I'm very skeptical of this intense focus on collecting minor league relievers. Among other reasons, I worry that we will end up running out of space for them before they even get to bigs.

Lastly what I've been batting around in my head, is if you acquired the white sox this offseason, would you keep Rick Hahn and co? I would not. I would do a huge revamping of FO to focus on getting this group into competition and one that has better pro scouting ability.

And that's as someone that supports the rebuild and in terms of trades generally thinks Hahn did well, with the exception of the more marginal trades where he went after AAAA "one year past a prospect" guys instead of more raw A/INTL players. I think his trades were good, but, the phrase one foot in, one foot out, that's all I can think of when I look at white sox. Smart enough to know they should put soem resources toward things, restricted enough to ever go full bore.

The answer is "most likely not", as new owners usually like the optics of bringing in their own people.  But then you have cases like the Astros and Cubs.  The new owner of the Astros came in around 2011, saw the very pedestrian record/results of Ed Wade, the GM he inherited, and immediately cleaned house and got rid of him, before he then brought in the now very successful Jeff Luhnow. 

Similar story with Ricketts and the Cubs.  Ricketts came in at the end of 2010, inherited Jim Hendry, but at least gave him a year before dumping him in favor of Theo & Co.  

In both cases I think Wade and Hendry got replaced because they simply didn't get the job done, at least not in a convincing enough way that a new owner coming in without any loyalties would want to retain them.  

So to answer your question, what would a new owner coming in today to take over the White Sox think about Hahn & Williams, who have been 1-2/2-1 atop the White Sox front office for the last 18 years, and only have two playoff appearances to show for it, albeit one being the deservedly-heralded World Series championship?  A 2-for-18 record is what leads me to believe that a new owner taking over today would "most likely not" retain their services.   

[daggins]

If this rebuild fails, unfortunately, the person most responsible will not be able to be fired.

[bmags]

9 minutes ago, Fan O'Faust said:

The answer is "most likely not", as new owners usually like the optics of bringing in their own people.  But then you have cases like the Astros and Cubs.  The new owner of the Astros came in around 2011, saw the very pedestrian record/results of Ed Wade, the GM he inherited, and immediately cleaned house and got rid of him, before he then brought in the now very successful Jeff Luhnow. 

Similar story with Ricketts and the Cubs.  Ricketts came in at the end of 2010, inherited Jim Hendry, but at least gave him a year before dumping him in favor of Theo & Co.  

In both cases I think Wade and Hendry got replaced because they simply didn't get the job done, at least not in a convincing enough way that a new owner coming in without any loyalties would want to retain them.  

So to answer your question, what would a new owner coming in today to take over the White Sox think about Hahn & Williams, who have been 1-2/2-1 atop the White Sox front office for the last 18 years, and only have two playoff appearances to show for it, albeit one being the deservedly-heralded World Series championship?  A 2-for-18 record is what leads me to believe that a new owner taking over today would "most likely not" retain their services.   

I'm not really interested in creating an ownership persona, per se. You are right in that often ownership groups will inherently want to hire their own staff.

I'm asking if I or YOU took control, following the sox like we have, knowing what we know, do you think this is the group to finish off the rebuild and get us to contention?

[Lip Man 1]

16 minutes ago, bmags said:

I'm not really interested in creating an ownership persona, per se. You are right in that often ownership groups will inherently want to hire their own staff.

I'm asking if I or YOU took control, following the sox like we have, knowing what we know, do you think this is the group to finish off the rebuild and get us to contention?

In my opinion KW, Rick and the baseball side of the front office are not the people to finish this job. That may be unfair to them but as mentioned the track record and the issues taking place during the early stages of the rebuild speak for themselves. I simply think "accountability" needs to be brought into the forefront of the organization. Winning matters...period. End of story. Not necessarily loyalty, friendship or any of the other traits that are currently more in vogue. 

I'm not saying those aren't important especially in today's world where that is in short supply but it needs to be moved into a proper perspective.  

 

[Dick Allen]

IMO, you have Sale, Eaton and Q to trade, you have all of these top 10 or top 11 draft picks as well, anyone is going to hit on someone. I just wonder if these guys will hit on more than the average guy on a message board. 

[bmags]

1 minute ago, Dick Allen said:

IMO, you have Sale, Eaton and Q to trade, you have all of these top 10 or top 11 draft picks as well, anyone is going to hit on someone. I just wonder if these guys will hit on more than the average guy on a message board. 

Yeah, that's how I feel. That Q trade seems to have been legitimately inspired, but it's really the talent accumulation outside of that that has me nervous. It's EARLY for sure, but not that early.

Also, I think the point I"m making is that Hahn and co have been in charge for 6 years now, but to execute this move to being a contender it's not a group you can sit back and say "if they just do what they do we should be alright". You could say that about dombrowski to red sox, theo to cubs. But Hahn actually needs to improve the outcomes and processes to do that. So he's just not a sure thing despite his experience.

[TheFutureIsNear]

Not gonna lie, Kopech blowing his elbow was a huge kick to the junk. Took a little bit of wind out of my sail. But there is still light at the end of the tunnel for sure, just looks like it may be a slight detour to get there. 

Personally I'd like to see the front office get aggressive this off season. I'm not expecting Harper or Machado but I think a couple of smart signings could go a long way with jump starting things. Kinda like the Phillies did with Arrieta and Santana (just an example). A trade for a proven young player would be real nice as well. 

 

[Buehrlesque]

15 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

Not gonna lie, Kopech blowing his elbow was a huge kick to the junk. Took a little bit of wind out of my sail. But there is still light at the end of the tunnel for sure, just looks like it may be a slight detour to get there. 

Personally I'd like to see the front office get aggressive this off season. I'm not expecting Harper or Machado but I think a couple of smart signings could go a long way with jump starting things. Kinda like the Phillies did with Arrieta and Santana (just an example). A trade for a proven young player would be real nice as well. 

 

I agree with this. 2018 was not a good year for development or enthusiasm. The FO will have to get aggressive to propel things forward a bit. The shot in the arm to fans is a nice bonus, but the truth is the on-field product has too many holes to just wait and see what the farm produces anyway. That product could be years away and it will be incomplete at best. You have to start adding sensible outside pieces to the puzzle now when they're available.

[Chicago White Sox]

Right now, I think you have to score this one under inconclusive.  The first wave of guys really struggled and failed to meet expectations IMO.  Obviously it’s way to early to jump to any conclusions with those guys, but it would have been nice if even one of them had a strong season or even a great second half.  I do have some concerns that Coop may be a bit behind the times now and that Steverson just isn’t good.  The 2019 season needs to be make or break for them IMO.

Then you had the array of injuries that decimated our term system.  I may be in the minority here, but I actually saw positive signs with our player development this past season.  Cease made major strides.  Basabe, Adolfo, & Rutherford all improved.  LuGo became a legit prospect.  Dunning was fantastic when healthy.  Lambert came out of nowhere.  A bunch of minor league relievers had strong seasons.  Overall there were far more positives than negatives if you ignore the injuries.  The question is whether 2018 was just an unlucky year or a sign of things to come.  We better hope it was the former and not the latter.

Drafting is a big concern right now for me.  At this moment in time, the Burger / Sheets combo looks horrific.  I’ll acknowledge that could change with a strong 2019, but it just seems like we selected for need (i.e. power) vs. BPA.  I won’t overreact to the Walker pick, but something about going overslot for college juniors seems off to me (same with Sheets).  Madrigal better be a big hit or I’m afraid Hostetler needs to be on the hot seat.

LatAm is concerning as well and the going “all-in” for Robert but not actually signing a ton more guys seems like a wasted opportunity.  That decision goes well beyond Paddy, but if Luis flops that’s another misfire in a long list of them for Marco.  At some point we can’t use the “needs more time” excuse to protect Paddy.

Overall I’m a little down, but will be far more optimistic if the front office can land a whale free agent.  If last year taught me one thing, it’s that we’re going to need more than internal talent to end this rebuild.

[zisk]

  6 years of this crap is almost more than I can handle. Next year looks terrible and 2020 who really knows. I've been watching for 50 years

and the thought of 2 more seasons like this feels like a death sentence. I wonder what i'll feel like when my seasonal affective disorder kicks in.

[bmags]

12 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Then you had the array of injuries that decimated our term system.  I may be in the minority here, but I actually saw positive signs with our player development this past season.  Cease made major strides.  Basabe, Adolfo, & Rutherford all improved.  LuGo became a legit prospect.  Dunning was fantastic when healthy.  Lambert came out of nowhere.  A bunch of minor league relievers had strong seasons.  Overall there were far more positives than negatives if you ignore the injuries.  The question is whether 2018 was just an unlucky year or a sign of things to come.  We better hope it was the former and not the latter.

My big concern about this is it was a whole lot of "age appropriate" success. Basabe they can hang their hat on but my big concern is the amount of older prospects they have still in low-a to high-a, then you have a player like Jimenez that blows out of that mold. They haven't had a "big success" player organically despite a huge amount of focus that should have gone into talent accumulation. But Robert ties hands behind back in one sense, in other, the draft focused so much on college players that we just don't know if are good or just older yet.