Let's talk Lenyn

[ron883]

Lenyn Sosa was always a guy that hit pretty decently at each level given his age. He's always been younger for his level. Most scouting reports I read said that he isn't overly athletic, and his ceiling is limited. Usually they peg him as a future utility player. 

However, this year he is absolutely demolishing the ball while taking the difficult jump to AA. In 38 games (decent sample size), he's batting .368, .431 OBP, .594 SLG, 1.025 OPS. He has 9 HRs so far. He's got a wRC+ of 171. 7.5% BB% and a respectable 13.2% SO%. All while being 22 years old in AA. 

Is it time we look at him as more than a future utility player? His offense looks ridiculous so far this year. Can he potentially be our future 2B if Yolbert doesn't cut it?

[3-2 Slider]

I would like to see him starting at 2nd for the White Sox tomorrow. The bar is so low at second that he is almost guaranteed to be an improvement. 
I’d rather just skip over Yolbert and his low ceiling.

[flavum]

Nice to see Sosa and Sanchez are performing at a high level. I’d prefer to see the Sox give Yolbert the first shot at it if Harrison doesn’t heat up the next couple weeks. Then if Yolbert sucks, they can move on to looking outside the organization for a replacement…or just settle on Leury, which is probably what they’ll do. 

[southsider2k5]

Guys like this are the wild cards.  We need guys like Montgomery, Colas, and the high and expensive signings to come through to sustain things.  If we start getting some guys like Sosa come out of no where to turn themselves into viable prospects, the Sox could actually sustain this run for more than a few years.

[bmags]

He's a good boy. We love him.

It is exciting as I can't remember many near-age-appropriate guys who hit well in Birmingham and fell on their face in Charlotte, and it feels like the successful ones all made it up to the majors at some point.

Mendick and Sheets both provided that "not amazing but they hit X home runs in Birmingham?" before pulling of some pretty good AAA campaigns and moving up. 

Romy lit up AA, made a cup of coffee in a year. 

But Romy, Adolfo were amazing campaigns last year yet pale in comparison to this. This is the kinda stats that Eloy/Robert put up. (Right now it's better)

It is early though. I think it's fine for him to get some 300 PAs down here before moving him. Romy started off en fuego, cooled for a bit, then adjusted. But he can move up too. Who cares.

[ron883]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

He's a good boy. We love him.

It is exciting as I can't remember many near-age-appropriate guys who hit well in Birmingham and fell on their face in Charlotte, and it feels like the successful ones all made it up to the majors at some point.

Mendick and Sheets both provided that "not amazing but they hit X home runs in Birmingham?" before pulling of some pretty good AAA campaigns and moving up. 

Romy lit up AA, made a cup of coffee in a year. 

But Romy, Adolfo were amazing campaigns last year yet pale in comparison to this. This is the kinda stats that Eloy/Robert put up. (Right now it's better)

It is early though. I think it's fine for him to get some 300 PAs down here before moving him. Romy started off en fuego, cooled for a bit, then adjusted. But he can move up too. Who cares.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=gonzal002rom&type=bgl&year=2021

Link above to Romy's split last year. He started off hot in May, then had a more mediocre June. Some months he killed it, like in August (1.076 OPS in 23 games). 

What's notable about Lenyn is he is 2 years younger than Romy was, he hasn't been cooled off yet while Romy had by now, and his SO% is far superior than Romy's was. Romy had the better BB% in AA (11%), but his SO% was much higher (28.2%).

I'm no minor league expert compared to others here, but I understand a high SO% can be telling in regards to how certain players will perform at a higher level. Leury's improvement to a 13.2% SO% is huge. Seems like he's made some great adjustments. Really hope he keeps it up down in AA. 

[bmags]

1 hour ago, ron883 said:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=gonzal002rom&type=bgl&year=2021

Link above to Romy's split last year. He started off hot in May, then had a more mediocre June. Some months he killed it, like in August (1.076 OPS in 23 games). 

What's notable about Lenyn is he is 2 years younger than Romy was, he hasn't been cooled off yet while Romy had by now, and his SO% is far superior than Romy's was. Romy had the better BB% in AA (11%), but his SO% was much higher (28.2%).

I'm no minor league expert compared to others here, but I understand a high SO% can be telling in regards to how certain players will perform at a higher level. Leury's improvement to a 13.2% SO% is huge. Seems like he's made some great adjustments. Really hope he keeps it up down in AA. 

Yes these are all good points. I guess I’m just swimming blind because we have been just such an older system for so long that the only “guy blew up” stories are your 24-27 year olds (yermin was another I realize now).

I think Yolmer was the last guy to really blow up in Birmingham back in 2012 when buddy bell promoted guys for not pissing down their legs until they were crushed. 

[oldsox]

2 hours ago, bmags said:

Yes these are all good points. I guess I’m just swimming blind because we have been just such an older system for so long that the only “guy blew up” stories are your 24-27 year olds (yermin was another I realize now).

I think Yolmer was the last guy to really blow up in Birmingham back in 2012 when buddy bell promoted guys for not pissing down their legs until they were crushed. 

Boy, Hawk sure loved Buddy.

[wegner]

19 hours ago, bmags said:

He's a good boy. We love him.

It is exciting as I can't remember many near-age-appropriate guys who hit well in Birmingham and fell on their face in Charlotte, and it feels like the successful ones all made it up to the majors at some point.

Mendick and Sheets both provided that "not amazing but they hit X home runs in Birmingham?" before pulling of some pretty good AAA campaigns and moving up. 

Romy lit up AA, made a cup of coffee in a year. 

But Romy, Adolfo were amazing campaigns last year yet pale in comparison to this. This is the kinda stats that Eloy/Robert put up. (Right now it's better)

It is early though. I think it's fine for him to get some 300 PAs down here before moving him. Romy started off en fuego, cooled for a bit, then adjusted. But he can move up too. Who cares.

Is there a chance that Sosa will develop into the player some of us hoped Madrigal would be or even better with more power?  How is his defense at 2B?

[chitownsportsfan]

2 hours ago, wegner said:

Is there a chance that Sosa will develop into the player some of us hoped Madrigal would be or even better with more power?  How is his defense at 2B?

Converted SS so you'd think it would be fine but then again I thought the same of Madrigal. Scouting report says similar bat to ball skills but Sosa has much more raw and in game power. MLB.com had him 40 grade overall preseason. Have to think that would be revised up to 50 or even 55  if he keeps up this batting line, which is solid regular territory.

[bmags]

2 hours ago, wegner said:

Is there a chance that Sosa will develop into the player some of us hoped Madrigal would be or even better with more power?  How is his defense at 2B?

This was the note from BA in the latest update (may 2022)

Quote

The power has emerged in Sosa’ s age-22 season, with his ISO jumping from .068 last year to .197 in 2022. His walk rate has also improved significantly while strikeouts have dropped. With the ability to play all three infield positions, there could be further upward movement as the season progresses.

But yeah how proficient that is remains to be seen.

[chitownsportsfan]

Someone already said it but man it's nice to have a guy 22 doing this and not 25-27 range. Of course that's the same thing I thought about our last young breakout 2B, Yolmer. Maybe we can get a three WAR season out of Sosa at some point. Yolmer was actually a decent starter for a minute. My personal suspicion is that he stopped the vitamins once he established himself in MLB and then the power absolutely dried up.

Edited May 24, 2022 by chitownsportsfan

[oldsox]

3 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Someone already said it but man it's nice to have a guy 22 doing this and not 25-27 range. Of course that's the same thing I thought about our last young breakout 2B, Yolmer. Maybe we can get a three WAR season out of Sosa at some point. Yolmer was actually a decent starter for a minute. My personal suspicion is that he stopped the vitamins once he established himself in MLB and then the power absolutely dried up.

I thought the same thing, but never thought to mention it.  Probably didn't want to know.

[chitownsportsfan]

1 minute ago, oldsox said:

I thought the same thing, but never thought to mention it.  Probably didn't want to know.

It's a plausible scenario. Borderline utility guy at best, poverty background, makes a risk reward calculation to get to the bigs then makes another one once he's established as a 25 man guy. As always, I really don't care about players using PED. Do what you gotta do and it's up to the league to prevent and catch it. I wouldn't be for some organized team led juicing thing but players are always going to cheat one way or another I don't attach any moral value to not juicing or juicing.

[ron883]

2 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

It's a plausible scenario. Borderline utility guy at best, poverty background, makes a risk reward calculation to get to the bigs then makes another one once he's established as a 25 man guy. As always, I really don't care about players using PED. Do what you gotta do and it's up to the league to prevent and catch it. I wouldn't be for some organized team led juicing thing but players are always going to cheat one way or another I don't attach any moral value to not juicing or juicing.

Have you ever juiced up? I've always wanted to honestly. 

[bighurt4life]

10 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Someone already said it but man it's nice to have a guy 22 doing this and not 25-27 range. Of course that's the same thing I thought about our last young breakout 2B, Yolmer. Maybe we can get a three WAR season out of Sosa at some point. Yolmer was actually a decent starter for a minute. My personal suspicion is that he stopped the vitamins once he established himself in MLB and then the power absolutely dried up.

I disagree about yolmer. He never showed any kind of power in the minors. He was always a contact type guy, not really the sort I suspect of taking the forbidden vitamins. 

[DirtySox]

Dunno if James knows something, but I'm pretty okay with calling Up Yolbert and moving Sosa to Charlotte.

[bmags]

His swing reminds me of Willie Harris, and to some degree I worry how long it is. 

But this is some kinda stretch. The only reason I'm not too concerned is I think Birmingham is as good of seasoning as Charlotte, especially with how the pandemic backed up age.

[Chisoxfn]

3 hours ago, DirtySox said:

Dunno if James knows something, but I'm pretty okay with calling Up Yolbert and moving Sosa to Charlotte.

Harrison's swan song was throwing some pitches and now they are replacing him? I am ready to see some Yolbert and for sosa to move up.