Fangraphs Top 30 White Sox Prospects

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-30-prospects-chicago-white-sox/

Decent read but I have the same issues I had last year. Their scouting, while very informative, is far too stubborn and reactionary. 

Cease is example number one for me. Neither one thought Cease would stick as a starter. Cease showed 2 +++ pitches all of last year and one league average pitch. To continue to hold firm on the assessment that he's a reliever after he dominated a level older than him with elite stuff is just stubborn. 

"We still aren’t completely convinced, as Cease is still control over command, and may fit best in a multi-inning relief role, or as a starter who doesn’t face any hitters a third time."

Scouts are too slow to admit they evaluated someone incorrectly. 

It's not as if Cease lacks stuff. To say Cease fits best as a multi-inning reliever is simply doubling down on a bad initial evaluation.

The Robert part about velocity is odd given his spring performance. Robert didn't struggle catching up to anything, and I personally really like his bat plane. The barrel stays in the zone for a long time, and he gets great extension. His back elbow is usually attached to his body on balls both inside and out. He does have an issue pulling his hands in but a lot of hitters that get great plate coverage away can have that issue - especially early in their career. 

Hansen shows how reactionary scouting circles can be. He moved up too high after his first season and has fallen too far after last year. He's somewhere in between. He had always been a high risk prospect as his command completely left him in college once already leading to his initial draft tumble. He has great skills but a lot of moving parts. This is nothing new, by the way, as very big pitchers historically take longer to figure it all out as their is more they need to align. 

I appreciate all their work, but they wrote off Moncada too soon (still citing his big league struggles in that article as a rookie) and they have started with subtle negative Madrigal comments because of a few games last year after being higher on him than anyone. Your opinion on a baseball players ceiling, talents or expectations shouldn't so dramatically based on sss. I understand scouts being naturally cautious but those things stood out to me as stubborn and reactionary.

Lastly, the Adolfo arm grade is either the definition of reactionary (to his TJ) or just greatly misinformed. Adolfo had the best right field arm in MiLB prior to the injury. A true 70 grade arm. Putting it at a 50 now solely because of TJ? No chance.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

One more piece of note, both were low on Gonzalez as an amateur (as they admit) in comparison to their peers and they remain stubborn in their evaluation of him.

[Harold's Leg Lift]

These guys are not scouts.  They're writers.

[TomPickle]

Didn't Robert have the best sprint speed in the Fall League last year? Not sure why his speed is only a 60. Unless speed is taking into account base running ability too? I've never really been sure.

[Harold's Leg Lift]

Speed is simply how fast he can run like how raw power is simply how far can he hit a baseball.  Base running ability is a separate grade.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

19 minutes ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

These guys are not scouts.  They're writers.

Well, they're actually both scouts and one has worked in a smart baseball front office.

[Harold's Leg Lift]

Their paycheck says Fangraphs.  They're writers.

[Blackout Friday]

I noticed that Adolfo arm grade too and kind of shook my head puzzled. Lowering Burdi’s FB to a 50 or whatever it was (maybe 55, cant remember) from an 80 seems premature. 

[ron883]

Kopech's ceiling is a number 3? Man, that's pretty harsh IMO

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

10 minutes ago, Blackout Friday said:

I noticed that Adolfo arm grade too and kind of shook my head puzzled. Lowering Burdi’s FB to a 50 or whatever it was (maybe 55, cant remember) from an 80 seems premature. 

Yes, especially given that velocity tends to bounce back about 18 months removed, not 12. Elite velocity requires muscles that were not being used as hard during rehab as they are when he goes to a full throwing program.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

2 minutes ago, ron883 said:

Kopech's ceiling is a number 3? Man, that's pretty harsh IMO

I've explained ceilings here, but they rarely if ever put a #1 ceiling on anyone in scouting circles. I'm not a fan of that logic, but it is pretty typical. They view a #1 as a top 3ish starter in the game.

[Eminor3rd]

Every time a list comes out that doesn’t gush on our guys, this board calls it stubborn or tears down the writers credentials. 

You don’t have to agree with their evaluations, but they are well-informed, well-thought our opinions based on a combination of industry sources and first-hand looks, and they have the resumes to back their opinions up. 

 

[Chicago White Sox]

12 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

Every time a list comes out that doesn’t gush on our guys, this board calls it stubborn or tears down the writers credentials. 

You don’t have to agree with their evaluations, but they are well-informed, well-thought our opinions based on a combination of industry sources and first-hand looks, and they have the resumes to back their opinions up. 

 

I haven’t read this article yet, but their top prospect list last year for us was complete garbage and the opposite of well-informed.  Just because they write for Fangraphs doesn’t mean they should get a free pass if it’s clear they didn’t do their homework.

[yesterday333]

9 minutes ago, Eminor3rd said:

Every time a list comes out that doesn’t gush on our guys, this board calls it stubborn or tears down the writers credentials. 

You don’t have to agree with their evaluations, but they are well-informed, well-thought our opinions based on a combination of industry sources and first-hand looks, and they have the resumes to back their opinions up. 

 

I don't think that is true at all. I think with having Futuresox, we have a group of people who are experts on our system. These lists, while done by well informed experienced opinions, don't have the background or complete understanding that Futuresox has. It is easier for us to see where they are off on their opinions for us. We also take into consideration other lists and peoples opinion and can point out where they differ from the rest of the scouting community. When everybody else loves Cease FGs isn't high on him and we can point to other educated opinions on why we think they are wrong. There are some people who question this lists and the peoples credentials, most of us just look at it as another piece to the puzzle.

[GenericUserName]

1 hour ago, ron883 said:

Kopech's ceiling is a number 3? Man, that's pretty harsh IMO

Really that means #2. The way the two of them grade pitchers they said there are only a few #1s in the league at any given time. So basically it means he isn't going to be an ace and probably doesn't have the control and secondary pitches to be a TOR.  I would slightly disagree with calling that his ceiling, but its not as much of a difference as what most people think of him.

1 minute ago, yesterday333 said:

I don't think that is true at all. I think with having Futuresox, we have a group of people who are experts on our system. These lists, while done by well informed experienced opinions, don't have the background or complete understanding that Futuresox has. It is easier for us to see where they are off on their opinions for us. We also take into consideration other lists and peoples opinion and can point out where they differ from the rest of the scouting community. When everybody else loves Cease FGs isn't high on him and we can point to other educated opinions on why we think they are wrong. There are some people who question this lists and the peoples credentials, most of us just look at it as another piece to the puzzle.

To add to this, with these lists really just being Kiley and Eric plus whatever they can get from scouts, there is a possibility they don't have the most up to date info on these guys. If you look at the write ups, most of these were from when they saw them once in spring or based on what they heard from the end of last year. The list just came out today, but that doesn't mean its all new info. Thinking about it, the White Sox are probably especially likely to have some of our guys overlooked. We don't have a ton of new acquired guys that have to be scouted, we don't have the young potential superstars that get looked at, and we likely aren't going to be trading any of our prospects of note any time soon. Those are basically all the reasons why not only these FG guys, but also ML scouts would be scouting our guys and we don't have any of them, so I could see how our system doesn't get as closely examined as it would from a site like FutureSox.

[GenericUserName]

2 hours ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

These guys are not scouts.  They're writers.

And what do you think scouts do after they watch a guy? They write about him. The format might be slightly different but the substance is the same.

[Eminor3rd]

12 minutes ago, yesterday333 said:

I don't think that is true at all. I think with having Futuresox, we have a group of people who are experts on our system. These lists, while done by well informed experienced opinions, don't have the background or complete understanding that Futuresox has. It is easier for us to see where they are off on their opinions for us. We also take into consideration other lists and peoples opinion and can point out where they differ from the rest of the scouting community. When everybody else loves Cease FGs isn't high on him and we can point to other educated opinions on why we think they are wrong. There are some people who question this lists and the peoples credentials, most of us just look at it as another piece to the puzzle.

But there isn’t a single, factual answer to “how good is guy x.” 

Every properly-informed opinion of a prospect contains useful information and should be used to build a consensus on a range of expected outcomes. 

[Harold's Leg Lift]

7 minutes ago, GenericUserName said:

And what do you think scouts do after they watch a guy? They write about him. The format might be slightly different but the substance is the same.

Ha.  They do a hell of a lot more than that.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

1 hour ago, Eminor3rd said:

Every time a list comes out that doesn’t gush on our guys, this board calls it stubborn or tears down the writers credentials. 

You don’t have to agree with their evaluations, but they are well-informed, well-thought our opinions based on a combination of industry sources and first-hand looks, and they have the resumes to back their opinions up. 

 

I respect the writers, but I have been adamant that their evaluation of Cease has been stubborn for a couple years. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

1 hour ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I haven’t read this article yet, but their top prospect list last year for us was complete garbage and the opposite of well-informed.  Just because they write for Fangraphs doesn’t mean they should get a free pass if it’s clear they didn’t do their homework.

I know you don't like fangraphs, but saying they don't do their homework just isn't true. They have the most in-depth prospect analysis in the game. I don't always agree with it - when does anyone always agree with a scout? - but I respect the work they put in. 

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

1 hour ago, GenericUserName said:

Really that means #2. The way the two of them grade pitchers they said there are only a few #1s in the league at any given time. So basically it means he isn't going to be an ace and probably doesn't have the control and secondary pitches to be a TOR.  I would slightly disagree with calling that his ceiling, but its not as much of a difference as what most people think of him.

To add to this, with these lists really just being Kiley and Eric plus whatever they can get from scouts, there is a possibility they don't have the most up to date info on these guys. If you look at the write ups, most of these were from when they saw them once in spring or based on what they heard from the end of last year. The list just came out today, but that doesn't mean its all new info. Thinking about it, the White Sox are probably especially likely to have some of our guys overlooked. We don't have a ton of new acquired guys that have to be scouted, we don't have the young potential superstars that get looked at, and we likely aren't going to be trading any of our prospects of note any time soon. Those are basically all the reasons why not only these FG guys, but also ML scouts would be scouting our guys and we don't have any of them, so I could see how our system doesn't get as closely examined as it would from a site like FutureSox.

I don't know; they cite Bush's good spring on the back fields. 

I'm telling you, they do more homework than most think - certainly more than any other publication.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Dominikk85]

4 hours ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

One more piece of note, both were low on Gonzalez as an amateur (as they admit) in comparison to their peers and they remain stubborn in their evaluation of him.

So they are biased against about anyone in the sox system ( madrigal, robert, gonzalez, cease...)?

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

56 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

So they are biased against about anyone in the sox system ( madrigal, robert, gonzalez, cease...)?

Bias?

They love Madrigal - my comment was about their overreaction to a one month sample of a kid coming off a broken hand. 

Cease they have had this view of prior to the Sox acquiring him - at least then, the injury concerns were real and valid. Them continually using his stuff as an example for not surviving as a starter is just laughable to me given the quality of stuff compared to countless MLB players. 

They literally admit that they are much lower on Gonzalez than many of their peers (if you read the article, they state that themselves). 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[Eminor3rd]

2 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I haven’t read this article yet, but their top prospect list last year for us was complete garbage and the opposite of well-informed.  Just because they write for Fangraphs doesn’t mean they should get a free pass if it’s clear they didn’t do their homework.

I mean based on their podcasts and the articles they write explaining their process, saying that they “didn’t do their homework” just couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Having been an avid listener of this type of podcast for nearly ten years (not just fangraphs, but the old baseball prospectus/baseball America iterations), I don’t know that there’s been a crew with a more rigorous process than what these two have put together. BA has had more eyes on the ground for sure, but I don’t think there’s been a more comprehensive blend of firsthand accounts, industry sources, and objective statistical analysis ever available to the public. Again, that doesn’t make them right, but it absolutely should make them free of being dismissed as lazy or ill-informed. 

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I know you don't like fangraphs, but saying they don't do their homework just isn't true. They have the most in-depth prospect analysis in the game. I don't always agree with it - when does anyone always agree with a scout? - but I respect the work they put in. 

Don’t like Fangraphs?  I read their articles all the time and visit the site on a daily basis.  I just don’t take what they say as gospel and am willing to call them out when it’s clear as day they didn’t put in a solid effort into something (like their 2018 White Sox top prospect list) or if I don’t agree with an assumption in an analysis.  It’s amazing to me that there are several posters here (many of them really smart guys) that immediately come running to protect their favorite Fangraphs writers whenever there is any level of scrutiny.