Andrew Vaughn Article - 3B/OF and Opening Day considerations

[TheCommish]

5 minutes ago, Vulture said:

Perfect example of why most say to never pick from need. No way Madrigal was the BPA. 

I completely agree with this, especially in baseball when prospects take a minimum of 2 years to develop anyways, and who the hell really knows where you're needs are going to be over that span. Get the best talent and you can structure your team around that talent as they develop. 

Same thing in the 16 draft when Kyle Lewis was picked right after the Sox took Collins. No way Collins was a better prospect, but we picked for need. And now Lewis and Robert in the OF would be hella good! But... in the baseball draft it's FULL of what if's..,

[poppysox]

12 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

Yes...by the time he got state side he began turning people's heads.  But that's not when he was traded.   Months before ANY TEAM in baseball, including the Padres could have had, Tatis, Jr for a million dollars signing bonus.  In the exact same signing period the White Sox gave twice as much money to Franklin Reyes who also had a family member (brother) who was a major league player.   He "...has shown raw power and a plus arm"...and he was out of baseball two years later.   If the Padres had taken him instead of Tatis we wouldn't be talking about a debacle.  There are tens of thousands of 17 year old baseball players and only one of them turned into the greatest player of all time.  If you think this was not just bad luck...OK.  

Hindsight is always 20-20.

[michelangelosmonkey]

2 hours ago, Rowand44 said:

That'd be a huge problem if Rick is afraid to trade away a guy because the Tatis deal was botched.  I don't think that's the case but if it is, not good.

It was a debacle.  Every single statistic that was available would tell you Shields was regressing big time and that he was basically done.  Obviously Tatis has ended up about 8 billion times better than anyone could have possibly imagined but trading anybody with any talent for Shields at that point was an awful, awful idea.

There are two separate arguments...trading for Shields=bad...which MANY on Sox talk said at the time (though your regression story isn't true...he averaged 3.5 WAR the previous 5 years and had a 3.00 ERA and 0.7 WAR through the first third of the season. looking elite until he gave up 10 runs in his last start before being traded).   Lance Lynn could absolutely become James Shields 2.0.   Those that argued about trading Dunning for him should have used JS as exhibit A.   

Including Tatis was not a bungle it was bad luck...no one on Sox talk or anywhere that I can find, concurrently, bemoaned including him in the trade.    

I can accept the Shields=Bad argument because it's reasonable at the time.   Though Its only a debacle in hindsight...I have made the argument that at the time of the Verlander trade the Astros could have been getting James Shields 2.0...it just turned out right for them and wrong for Shields.   Roll the dice you take your chances.   

 

[michelangelosmonkey]

13 minutes ago, Vulture said:

If the Sox are using Baseball America prospect rankings to evaluate their players value, they’ve got more problems than apparent. Actually, maybe that does explain it.

Any team could have had him for a million dollars of international pool money.  Are the Bucks geniuses for drafting Giannis 17th and all the other teams idiots?  Every NFL team passed on Tom Brady about five times including the Patriots.  Sometimes there is just damn luck in player development.  

[Dominikk85]

36 minutes ago, Vulture said:

Perfect example of why most say to never pick from need. No way Madrigal was the BPA. 

Nobody drafts for need and nobody knows BPA because then you would always sign him (except for pool money play).

I think they saw madrigal as the best combination of ceiling and floor. Obviously he wasn't the highest ceiling guy but maybe they saw his 50th percentile outcome as the best.

[chitownsportsfan]

4 minutes ago, Dominikk85 said:

Nobody drafts for need and nobody knows BPA because then you would always sign him (except for pool money play).

I think they saw madrigal as the best combination of ceiling and floor. Obviously he wasn't the highest ceiling guy but maybe they saw his 50th percentile outcome as the best.

Moreover he fit the window from 2021 to 2025 or so.

[35thstreetswarm]

1 hour ago, Vulture said:

Perfect example of why most say to never pick from need. No way Madrigal was the BPA. 

I think they thought he was BPA.  Lots of folks at the time hyped him as the best/smartest college player they'd ever seen.  I don't think they drafted based on need - IIRC Moncada was still thought of as our primary 2b at the time, and it's not like our outfield was "full."  He was above Kelenic in every mock I saw.

[Dominikk85]

Also there wouldn't be that many from the 2018 first round drafted behind madrigal that I would take over him.

Taking a quick look at the draft I would only take kelenic surely over him.

Grayson rodriguez, Matt liberatore, nolan gorman and jordan groshans have the potential to overtake him but neither of them is guaranteed to do so.

 

 

[SonofaRoache]

3 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

I think they thought he was BPA.  Lots of folks at the time hyped him as the best/smartest college player they'd ever seen.  I don't think they drafted based on need - IIRC Moncada was still thought of as our primary 2b at the time, and it's not like our outfield was "full."  He was above Kelenic in every mock I saw.

His ceiling was being compared to Jose Atuve and Dustin Pedroia. Nick can still become a very good baseball player and we need to give him a little time. 

[35thstreetswarm]

1 hour ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

Yes...by the time he got state side he began turning people's heads.  But that's not when he was traded.   Months before ANY TEAM in baseball, including the Padres could have had, Tatis, Jr for a million dollars signing bonus.  In the exact same signing period the White Sox gave twice as much money to Franklin Reyes who also had a family member (brother) who was a major league player.   He "...has shown raw power and a plus arm"...and he was out of baseball two years later.   If the Padres had taken him instead of Tatis we wouldn't be talking about a debacle.  There are tens of thousands of 17 year old baseball players and only one of them turned into the greatest player of all time.  If you think this was not just bad luck...OK.  

I think the bottom line is we'd have to know more about the Padres' scouting of Tatis, and their decisionmaking process in that trade, to be able to evaluate how much was scouting and how much was luck.  It's possible they had him pegged as a star and couldn't believe their luck when we were stupid enough to trade him.  It's possible they basically picked his name out of a hat, thought no more of him than we did, and were as shocked as we were when they saw what they had.  It's possible they were at any number of points on the spectrum between those extremes.  I don't know enough to know, but I think it's fair to say there was a substantial element of "surprise" in Tatis's outperformance of his perceived value as of 2016.

[heirdog]

I find it odd that people crap on Madrigal after 29 games.  Madrigal is not a bust--he should have an incomplete grade since he has ~100 MLB at-bats and delivered 0.5 WAR in that short stint.  At the moment, he is not prime Altuve either, who didn't break out until his age 24 season.  Nick will be there this year so let's reserve judgment.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

23 minutes ago, heirdog said:

I find it odd that people crap on Madrigal after 29 games.  Madrigal is not a bust--he should have an incomplete grade since he has ~100 MLB at-bats and delivered 0.5 WAR in that short stint.  At the moment, he is not prime Altuve either, who didn't break out until his age 24 season.  Nick will be there this year so let's reserve judgment.

If you extrapolate his WAR into a full season, it would be above 3.... People act like he's a scrub.

[CentralChamps21]

Andrew Vaughn [a different one] was a Jeopardy contestant today.

[Timmy U]

46 minutes ago, Dominikk85 said:

Also there wouldn't be that many from the 2018 first round drafted behind madrigal that I would take over him.

Taking a quick look at the draft I would only take kelenic surely over him.

Grayson rodriguez, Matt liberatore, nolan gorman and jordan groshans have the potential to overtake him but neither of them is guaranteed to do so.

 

 

I wanted Kelenic at the time.  The thing that sucks is that he was on the Sox roster for the Area Code games, so it's not like they didn't scout him.

[Balta1701]

8 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

If you extrapolate his WAR into a full season, it would be above 3.... People act like he's a scrub.

If you choose fangraphs rather than B-R he only put up 0.1.

[maxjusttyped]

22 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

If you choose fangraphs rather than B-R he only put up 0.1.

*Every* scouting report you'll find on Madrigal had him as plus defender and base-runner. If you extrapolate Madrigal's FG defensive metrics out to a full season, he's like a -35 run defender. Which backs up what we saw. He was terrible. But that seems very unlikely to continue, for me. There was concern about pitchers being able to knock the bat out of his hands, which didn't happen. Everything we saw from him at the place suggests his approach should play.

[Eminor3rd]

8 hours ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

And I just have to repeat....The Tatis trade was not a debacle...it was putting a lottery ticket in a birthday card for someone at work and it turns out to be the winning powerball.  You sure look stupid after the fact but at the time it was a lark.  

You'd be correct if the trade made sense, at all, at the time. Unfortunately James Shields was a bad idea even then. He was one year into his joke of a free agent deal, already 35 years old and coming off a year where he pitched over 200 innings and somehow only produced 0.8 fWAR. At the time of the deal, he had an ERA over 4 in the best pitcher's park of the last two decades.

I HATED that trade the moment it was made, and I had no idea who Tatis was. It was the type of trade that, for a team trying to contend, wasn't even worth the roster spot they gave him LET ALONE any kind of lottery ticket going the other way.

[Eminor3rd]

2 hours ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

There are two separate arguments...trading for Shields=bad...which MANY on Sox talk said at the time (though your regression story isn't true...he averaged 3.5 WAR the previous 5 years and had a 3.00 ERA and 0.7 WAR through the first third of the season. looking elite until he gave up 10 runs in his last start before being traded).   Lance Lynn could absolutely become James Shields 2.0.   Those that argued about trading Dunning for him should have used JS as exhibit A.   

Including Tatis was not a bungle it was bad luck...no one on Sox talk or anywhere that I can find, concurrently, bemoaned including him in the trade.    

I can accept the Shields=Bad argument because it's reasonable at the time.   Though Its only a debacle in hindsight...I have made the argument that at the time of the Verlander trade the Astros could have been getting James Shields 2.0...it just turned out right for them and wrong for Shields.   Roll the dice you take your chances.   

 

I didn't like the Lynn trade, but Lynn/Shields is not a good comparison. Shields was bad for more than full season leading up to the trade, and was two years older. Lynn hasn't been bad since he... got good.

[Harold's Leg Lift]

1 hour ago, Timmy U said:

I wanted Kelenic at the time.  The thing that sucks is that he was on the Sox roster for the Area Code games, so it's not like they didn't scout him.

They saw Kelenic (he played a game in the Cell) a ton just like they did every top player but they decided to play it safe.  

[DoUEvenShift]

1 hour ago, WhiteSoxFan1993 said:

Andrew Vaughn [a different one] was a Jeopardy contestant today.

Haha my coworker and I watch Jeopardy everyday and noticed that! Good omen for this season

[Orlando]

Does anyone think they are sending all these Vaughn signals to make people think they will start him on Opening Day and then go with a guy like Sheets who they have been pumping for some reason? I don’t see them not doing the service time stuff.

[SonofaRoache]

30 minutes ago, Orlando said:

Does anyone think they are sending all these Vaughn signals to make people think they will start him on Opening Day and then go with a guy like Sheets who they have been pumping for some reason? I don’t see them not doing the service time stuff.

Mariner boy ruined the service time game for everyone. Gotta pull out all the stops now. 

[poppysox]

2 hours ago, Timmy U said:

I wanted Kelenic at the time.  The thing that sucks is that he was on the Sox roster for the Area Code games, so it's not like they didn't scout him.

Probably means they think Madrigal will be the better player.  

[chitownsportsfan]

42 minutes ago, Orlando said:

Does anyone think they are sending all these Vaughn signals to make people think they will start him on Opening Day and then go with a guy like Sheets who they have been pumping for some reason? I don’t see them not doing the service time stuff.

[caulfield12]

4 hours ago, michelangelosmonkey said:

Yes...by the time he got state side he began turning people's heads.  But that's not when he was traded.   Months before ANY TEAM in baseball, including the Padres could have had, Tatis, Jr for a million dollars signing bonus.  In the exact same signing period the White Sox gave twice as much money to Franklin Reyes who also had a family member (brother) who was a major league player.   He "...has shown raw power and a plus arm"...and he was out of baseball two years later.   If the Padres had taken him instead of Tatis we wouldn't be talking about a debacle.  There are tens of thousands of 17 year old baseball players and only one of them turned into the greatest player of all time.  If you think this was not just bad luck...OK.  

The quote was that BAL gave him the money before he was on a single Top 40 list.

Then he popped when Keith Law suddenly had him in the Top 5-10 and almost nobody could believe it.

The arm strength was always there, and the speed/explosiveness, but that he was able to maintain those two characteristics while adding 2-3 inches in height/leverage/power while still being able to play a spectacular (defensive ratings in 2019 were down because he made numerous mistakes trying to turn every single play into an ESPN Top 10 moment) shortstop.

Guys that size in the past like Ripken and A-Rod (Michael Morse would be another) always ended up at 3B or even the outfield.