Effectively Wild White Sox preview podcast w/ James Fegan

[bmags]

So just something to listen to, good breakdown of the sox from a more national perspective. Sox starts last third of episode, I want to say at the hour mark.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1348-season-preview-series-indians-and-white-sox/

It is pretty depressing but a good high level view of how difficult a place in the rebuild we are in. At one point Fegan basically says "this is about as critical as I can be while being a beat writer" (this is a paraphrase). 

[mqr]

It starts at 1:15 to be specific

[Chicago White Sox]

Yeah, that podcast wasn’t a fun listen and outlines many of our biggest concerns with the state of the rebuild.

[caulfield12]

Really down on Moncada, specifically.  Also wish washy about Giolito and Rodon, tempering expectations on Jimenez (2-3.0 fWAr, low 800s ops).

A little more positive on Cease (still concerns about secondary arsenal, stamina, control...starter or reliever profile?) and Madrigal.

70-92 win projection.  Originally was thinking 66-68.

Nothing on Robert, Lopez or Collins, three of the other key pieces.  Pointed towards the next two drafts, and less to Collins/Burdi/Burger.  Nothing on promising relievers.

Kopech expected back in ST next year but definitely not in 2019, despite his Twitter pronunciations.  Throwing from 75 feet.

Seemed he thought Sox were around 75 wins with Machado, noted Moncada’s going to lose some of his defensive value moving over to 3rd...Alonso is what he is, slightly above average 1B/DH in need of a platoon partner (Guyer?) against LHP but one doesn’t really exist at DH currently, with Guyer taking mostly OF at-bats (didn't say that last part so directly, just my interpretation/assumption.)   Maybe Leury?

Rebuild currently down to C+ / B- fromone of the most promising in recent memory , plethora of concerns about pitching injuries and depth behind Kopech and Cease.  Guess Erwin Santana now has the locker between Jay and Alonso.  Said 30-40% of rebuild momentum has been lost, especially with early struggles, swath of injuries and not signing Machado after investing four months of time and $13 million in Jay/Alonso.

Edited March 18, 2019 by caulfield12

[bmags]

33 minutes ago, mqr said:

It starts at 1:15 to be specific

Thanks!

[bmags]

He was only tempering expectations on Jimenez rookie season.

[caulfield12]

4 minutes ago, bmags said:

He was only tempering expectations on Jimenez rookie season.

Yes, but also noted age difference (at 22) compared with guys like Acuna, Soto, Robles, Vladdy Jr., etc.

[bmags]

1 minute ago, caulfield12 said:

Yes, but also noted age difference (at 22) compared with guys like Acuna, Soto, Robles, Vladdy Jr., etc.

This only comes after saying that going through moncada and the pitchers has made him temper expectations, but he is older than acuna/etc so he may not have same struggles. 

[caulfield12]

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

This only comes after saying that going through moncada and the pitchers has made him temper expectations, but he is older than acuna/etc so he may not have same struggles. 

We’ll see. I guess everyone has pretty much learned to temper any expectations at this point...but Jimenez, Cease and Robert are still being projected as studs, and rightfully so.  The obvious caveat being injuries to derail them.

[GenericUserName]

The thing that really got me mad was when he said that Getz has dragged us back to about being average in terms of modern advances in terms of analytics and player development. Part of undergoing a rebuild is to reallocate money so you can be out in front on things like these, not simply drag yourself back to an acceptable range from an unacceptably bad level. Like, great we got rapsodo units, but it would have been nice to have gotten them before most colleges and some high schools started using them.

[Chicago White Sox]

7 minutes ago, GenericUserName said:

The thing that really got me mad was when he said that Getz has dragged us back to about being average in terms of modern advances in terms of analytics and player development. Part of undergoing a rebuild is to reallocate money so you can be out in front on things like these, not simply drag yourself back to an acceptable range from an unacceptably bad level. Like, great we got rapsodo units, but it would have been nice to have gotten them before most colleges and some high schools started using them.

Part of the problem when you have such a long-term focused / build-from-within organizational culture.  Given that we’ll never be on the forefront of changes in analytics & player development, we really need a constant flow of outside hires to make sure we’re not falling way behind.

[bmags]

48 minutes ago, GenericUserName said:

The thing that really got me mad was when he said that Getz has dragged us back to about being average in terms of modern advances in terms of analytics and player development. Part of undergoing a rebuild is to reallocate money so you can be out in front on things like these, not simply drag yourself back to an acceptable range from an unacceptably bad level. Like, great we got rapsodo units, but it would have been nice to have gotten them before most colleges and some high schools started using them.

I agree, but I do think it's important to keep in mind his caveat that he's not really able to gauge player dev of other orgs. He's seen sox modernize in last two years, but pretty much every team has when it comes to technology from what I understand. Even the marlins are doing so under new ownership and they were the one I usually heard as being a very old school org.

Ben Lindbergh (one of the co-hosts) has a new book on player development coming out soon which I'm excited for. I don't expect sox to be in it.

But I don't disagree with premise of your post. The sox totally seem like an org that chases the pack rather than sets it (understatement). So when others have success with rapsodo or trackman, yeah they'll take a look.

But are they going to push it beyond that? For the sox to succeed at their self-limited payroll, they need to squeeze every ounce of value out of their personnel. They need everyone to be that 5% better, so they can either avoid paying for that on market, get 5% more return on the market, or have a team overperform its baseline. 

Instead they seem to think they are similar to the astros type org, in that they will spend more when they win and it makes sense, without learning any of the other lessons.

[Lip Man 1]

3 hours ago, bmags said:

I agree, but I do think it's important to keep in mind his caveat that he's not really able to gauge player dev of other orgs. He's seen sox modernize in last two years, but pretty much every team has when it comes to technology from what I understand. Even the marlins are doing so under new ownership and they were the one I usually heard as being a very old school org.

Ben Lindbergh (one of the co-hosts) has a new book on player development coming out soon which I'm excited for. I don't expect sox to be in it.

But I don't disagree with premise of your post. The sox totally seem like an org that chases the pack rather than sets it (understatement). So when others have success with rapsodo or trackman, yeah they'll take a look.

But are they going to push it beyond that? For the sox to succeed at their self-limited payroll, they need to squeeze every ounce of value out of their personnel. They need everyone to be that 5% better, so they can either avoid paying for that on market, get 5% more return on the market, or have a team overperform its baseline. 

Instead they seem to think they are similar to the astros type org, in that they will spend more when they win and it makes sense, without learning any of the other lessons.

The Sox always seem to be reactive instead of proactive. That's part of what happens when you have people in their front office jobs for years (decades) and a group mindset of security without accountability for results sets in.

[Boopa1219]

13 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

 

Said 30-40% of rebuild momentum has been lost, especially with early struggles, swath of injuries and not signing Machado after investing four months of time and $13 million in Jay/Alonso.

You get what you (don’t) pay for. 

[OneDog847]

21 hours ago, bmags said:

I agree, but I do think it's important to keep in mind his caveat that he's not really able to gauge player dev of other orgs. He's seen sox modernize in last two years, but pretty much every team has when it comes to technology from what I understand. Even the marlins are doing so under new ownership and they were the one I usually heard as being a very old school org.

Ben Lindbergh (one of the co-hosts) has a new book on player development coming out soon which I'm excited for. I don't expect sox to be in it.

But I don't disagree with premise of your post. The sox totally seem like an org that chases the pack rather than sets it (understatement). So when others have success with rapsodo or trackman, yeah they'll take a look.

But are they going to push it beyond that? For the sox to succeed at their self-limited payroll, they need to squeeze every ounce of value out of their personnel. They need everyone to be that 5% better, so they can either avoid paying for that on market, get 5% more return on the market, or have a team overperform its baseline. 

Instead they seem to think they are similar to the astros type org, in that they will spend more when they win and it makes sense, without learning any of the other lessons.

The Sox FO has proven time and time that they are not capable of doing something like this. Cleaning house from top to bottom was something that should have happened before the Sox decided to rebuild. Letting dumb and dumber architect this rebuild was an epic blunder by Mr. Reinsdorf. 

[Dick Allen]

17 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

The Sox always seem to be reactive instead of proactive. That's part of what happens when you have people in their front office jobs for years (decades) and a group mindset of security without accountability for results sets in.

This is true. Even when they were good, they would rather wait to see what they needed at the trade deadline than to put the most stacked team together for opening day. And they have always relied way too much on way too many things going right. They are very rarely prepared for something to go wrong, which something does every season.