Second Tier

[Greg Hibbard]

I want to make something clear. I love many of our players, and I want them to succeed. Really, I do. I root for them to win. I root for them to win EVERY GAME. 

I wish Eloy could stay healthy. He has so much power. But since he can’t, we get to settle for 40-60% of the production we might have if he could stay healthy. Which means he will never be a superstar, but he’s talented enough to produce like a solid second tier player. You know the kind of player-  a secondary player you can basically count on to do good things most of the time, but not a star. Like One dog. Ray ray. Carlos Quentin. Jermaine Dye. 

I wish Luis Robert could stay healthy too, because he’s the one who seems like really could be an actual superstar, someone with such freakish talent that 8 WAR seasons should be pouring off of him year in and year out, but mystery injuries just happen every other week so we will never know. We will just see 100 games or so each season if we are lucky, which I guess also puts him at the production level of a solid second tier player. 

I wish Yoan wasn’t so inconsistent. I figured he would be a solid 4-5 WAR player, nothing flashy, but good enough, especially considering his strikeouts. After 2019, I think I knew a lot went his way, but I was hoping he would be the top of the solid second tier player. Thats what I hoped for. That seemed like his ceiling. Now I guess bottom of the second tier is his ceiling. 

I wish Andrew Vaughn could put the power game together but he just can’t seem to do it. And we need it very badly. Because as it stands, he’s just a middle second tier player. 

Tim has become a really, really good player. Is he exceptional? No, not really. He doesn’t belong in the same conversation with the best shortstops, but he’s probably…you guessed it! The top of the second tier. 

I wish Abreu was 30 instead of 35, because he’s still so fucking good and I want him to have something to show for this other than a career of pouring his heart and soul into an inept franchise run by nincompoops, appointed by an old man who has lost touch with the game, and run on the field by an absolutely bewildered coot.

It is a National embarassment. 

Jose Abreu is a great player. God, I love him. Will he ever have another .900 OPS season? Probably not, but he was never really a stratospheric, first tier superstar. He was always….yep, a second tier superstar,  having probably his second or third best season. 

The bottom of our order? A bunch of second tier castaways and also rans that are not even good enough to be first tier also rans.

What can I say about Leury that hasn’t already been said? He’s a part time utility guy any sane team would have in their lineup 40 games of the year. 

We end up with Josh Harrison playing out the very end of his string with a lot of hustle but not enough talent, especially in high leverage situations.

We end up with AJ Pollock who doesn’t seem to have anything left worth much of anything.

We send out a stray Gavin Sheets to remind us that we never really ever learn the lesson provided to us by Daniel Palka: older than 26 year old left handed slugging rookies are in the minors for a reason. 

Jake Burger who doesn’t have a position. Adam Engel who always had some promise but I don’t know why. I can’t even remember honestly. 

All of this is to say that the White Sox are a team that went out and assembled the largest bunch of second tier players ever with no superstar offensive player, and thought they were gaming the system by stacking the deck with The Hall of Pretty Good. 

And it turns out that sometimes you just have to go out and sign an actual goddamned superstar or two, and this Organization of Cheapskates was so fucking smart that they thought their way into a ten year debacle of albatross contracts and a rotating clown car of  indifference, incompetence, and injury. 

I have never felt more trapped as a fan in my life. 

 

[fathom]

The ability to go through a season and not get injured has severely diminished the ability of basically all the core guys.  

[kitekrazy]

 When you add NL players they have to deal with pitchers they rarely faced.  Grandal was starting to come around last season.  They are not instant solutions.

[caulfield12]

The pieces just don't fit together.

The veterans broke down before the core peaked together.

Maybe they never will.

But it's too early to completely write off our starting pitching (even Giolito), Robert,Vaughn, Jimenez, Anderson...until they have a new manager and hitting coach/philosophy change.

That can make a world of difference.

Look at 5 1/2 months of 2012.

The biggest problem outside all of the cosmetic ones is figuring out what they have left of Grandal and Moncada and whether to cut bait or go all out to "fix" what already amounts to sunk costs.  Giolito, number three.

And how to break Abreu Vaughn Jimenez logjam.

Who knows, maybe they finally strike gold with Colas and Montgomery for once in a decade or two like Beckham and Viciedo their rookie seasons...

But it won't happen under TLR.  That much is already baked into the cake.

[CentralChamps21]

6 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

The pieces just don't fit together.

 

Taking injuries out of the equation for a minute, this is a key point. This team is less than the sum of its parts.

[The Mighty Mite]

7 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

I want to make something clear. I love many of our players, and I want them to succeed. Really, I do. I root for them to win. I root for them to win EVERY GAME. 

I wish Eloy could stay healthy. He has so much power. But since he can’t, we get to settle for 40-60% of the production we might have if he could stay healthy. Which means he will never be a superstar, but he’s talented enough to produce like a solid second tier player. You know the kind of player-  a secondary player you can basically count on to do good things most of the time, but not a star. Like One dog. Ray ray. Carlos Quentin. Jermaine Dye. 

I wish Luis Robert could stay healthy too, because he’s the one who seems like really could be an actual superstar, someone with such freakish talent that 8 WAR seasons should be pouring off of him year in and year out, but mystery injuries just happen every other week so we will never know. We will just see 100 games or so each season if we are lucky, which I guess also puts him at the production level of a solid second tier player. 

I wish Yoan wasn’t so inconsistent. I figured he would be a solid 4-5 WAR player, nothing flashy, but good enough, especially considering his strikeouts. After 2019, I think I knew a lot went his way, but I was hoping he would be the top of the solid second tier player. Thats what I hoped for. That seemed like his ceiling. Now I guess bottom of the second tier is his ceiling. 

I wish Andrew Vaughn could put the power game together but he just can’t seem to do it. And we need it very badly. Because as it stands, he’s just a middle second tier player. 

Tim has become a really, really good player. Is he exceptional? No, not really. He doesn’t belong in the same conversation with the best shortstops, but he’s probably…you guessed it! The top of the second tier. 

I wish Abreu was 30 instead of 35, because he’s still so fucking good and I want him to have something to show for this other than a career of pouring his heart and soul into an inept franchise run by nincompoops, appointed by an old man who has lost touch with the game, and run on the field by an absolutely bewildered coot.

It is a National embarassment. 

Jose Abreu is a great player. God, I love him. Will he ever have another .900 OPS season? Probably not, but he was never really a stratospheric, first tier superstar. He was always….yep, a second tier superstar,  having probably his second or third best season. 

The bottom of our order? A bunch of second tier castaways and also rans that are not even good enough to be first tier also rans.

What can I say about Leury that hasn’t already been said? He’s a part time utility guy any sane team would have in their lineup 40 games of the year. 

We end up with Josh Harrison playing out the very end of his string with a lot of hustle but not enough talent, especially in high leverage situations.

We end up with AJ Pollock who doesn’t seem to have anything left worth much of anything.

We send out a stray Gavin Sheets to remind us that we never really ever learn the lesson provided to us by Daniel Palka: older than 26 year old left handed slugging rookies are in the minors for a reason. 

Jake Burger who doesn’t have a position. Adam Engel who always had some promise but I don’t know why. I can’t even remember honestly. 

All of this is to say that the White Sox are a team that went out and assembled the largest bunch of second tier players ever with no superstar offensive player, and thought they were gaming the system by stacking the deck with The Hall of Pretty Good. 

And it turns out that sometimes you just have to go out and sign an actual goddamned superstar or two, and this Organization of Cheapskates was so fucking smart that they thought their way into a ten year debacle of albatross contracts and a rotating clown car of  indifference, incompetence, and injury. 

I have never felt more trapped as a fan in my life. 

 

Excellent analysis.

[caulfield12]

7 minutes ago, The Mighty Mite said:

Excellent analysis.

Of Sox current situation, but not total transformation possible with a new hitting coach, training/strength & conditioning staff, revamped analytics group, international scouting budget outside Cuba (please finally make some inroads in the DR for heaven’s sake!), Hahn and TLR.

[The Mighty Mite]

When you think about the franchise since WW 2 which I would call the modern era, it has had some great players, just about all of them what the OP would call the lower end of the top tier or at the top of the second tier. I would include Appling, Fox, Minoso, Aparicio, Fisk, Baines, Ordonez, Ventura, Konerko and Abreu. I might have left out a few but there has only been 1 Superstar and that was Frank Thomas. I omitted Dick Allen as he was with us only 3 years with 1 great year. The point is the 2022 White Sox are a continuation of what we have seen for over 70 years, we just  can't seem to develop really great cream of the crop players and certainly don't sign any as free agents. As long as JR is around, nothing will change and we will continue having a mediocre farm system with lousy scouts, lousy managers and coaches but will still manage to win an occasional division title and of course lose in the first round. 

 

 

[SpringfieldFan]

When you bring in new guys, especially in a rebuild, you tend to see the ceiling as the likely outcome. That sets you up for disappointment when it doesn’t materialize perfectly. 

[lpneck]

 

8 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

I wish Eloy could stay healthy. He has so much power. But since he can’t, we get to settle for 40-60% of the production we might have if he could stay healthy. Which means he will never be a superstar, but he’s talented enough to produce like a solid second tier player. You know the kind of player-  a secondary player you can basically count on to do good things most of the time, but not a star. Like One dog. Ray ray. Carlos Quentin. Jermaine Dye. 

I understand what you are saying and agree with most of your post, but I think you are drastically undervaluing the players you have mentioned.

Eloy is 25 and has regressed every year since his rookie season when he had a 1.5 WAR.  At age 25, Carlos Quentin had a 5.3 WAR, an OPS of .965, and would have been the MVP if he hadn't stupidly broke his hand.  He was the main reason the Sox won the division that year.

Jermaine Dye was the freaking World Series MVP and had an OPS of 1.006 in 2006.  He had a 4.6 WAR in his age 32 season, which is more than Eloy has put up for his entire career.

Lance Johnson was soooo underrated.  (And unlike almost all of the current Sox players, so much fun to watch.)  He had a 6.1 WAR for the Sox when they won the division in 1993, and then a 7.2 WAR season for the Mets in 1996.

Ray Durham is the 2nd or 3rd best 2B the White Sox have had in 122 years of existence.  He had 12 years in his career with an OPS of +.800.

My point is, all of those guys you mentioned WERE stars, and don't deserve to be compared to Jimenez, Robert, Moncada, or Vaughn.

Edited August 23, 2022 by lpneck

[Dick Allen]

8 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

I want to make something clear. I love many of our players, and I want them to succeed. Really, I do. I root for them to win. I root for them to win EVERY GAME. 

I wish Eloy could stay healthy. He has so much power. But since he can’t, we get to settle for 40-60% of the production we might have if he could stay healthy. Which means he will never be a superstar, but he’s talented enough to produce like a solid second tier player. You know the kind of player-  a secondary player you can basically count on to do good things most of the time, but not a star. Like One dog. Ray ray. Carlos Quentin. Jermaine Dye. 

I wish Luis Robert could stay healthy too, because he’s the one who seems like really could be an actual superstar, someone with such freakish talent that 8 WAR seasons should be pouring off of him year in and year out, but mystery injuries just happen every other week so we will never know. We will just see 100 games or so each season if we are lucky, which I guess also puts him at the production level of a solid second tier player. 

I wish Yoan wasn’t so inconsistent. I figured he would be a solid 4-5 WAR player, nothing flashy, but good enough, especially considering his strikeouts. After 2019, I think I knew a lot went his way, but I was hoping he would be the top of the solid second tier player. Thats what I hoped for. That seemed like his ceiling. Now I guess bottom of the second tier is his ceiling. 

I wish Andrew Vaughn could put the power game together but he just can’t seem to do it. And we need it very badly. Because as it stands, he’s just a middle second tier player. 

Tim has become a really, really good player. Is he exceptional? No, not really. He doesn’t belong in the same conversation with the best shortstops, but he’s probably…you guessed it! The top of the second tier. 

I wish Abreu was 30 instead of 35, because he’s still so fucking good and I want him to have something to show for this other than a career of pouring his heart and soul into an inept franchise run by nincompoops, appointed by an old man who has lost touch with the game, and run on the field by an absolutely bewildered coot.

It is a National embarassment. 

Jose Abreu is a great player. God, I love him. Will he ever have another .900 OPS season? Probably not, but he was never really a stratospheric, first tier superstar. He was always….yep, a second tier superstar,  having probably his second or third best season. 

The bottom of our order? A bunch of second tier castaways and also rans that are not even good enough to be first tier also rans.

What can I say about Leury that hasn’t already been said? He’s a part time utility guy any sane team would have in their lineup 40 games of the year. 

We end up with Josh Harrison playing out the very end of his string with a lot of hustle but not enough talent, especially in high leverage situations.

We end up with AJ Pollock who doesn’t seem to have anything left worth much of anything.

We send out a stray Gavin Sheets to remind us that we never really ever learn the lesson provided to us by Daniel Palka: older than 26 year old left handed slugging rookies are in the minors for a reason. 

Jake Burger who doesn’t have a position. Adam Engel who always had some promise but I don’t know why. I can’t even remember honestly. 

All of this is to say that the White Sox are a team that went out and assembled the largest bunch of second tier players ever with no superstar offensive player, and thought they were gaming the system by stacking the deck with The Hall of Pretty Good. 

And it turns out that sometimes you just have to go out and sign an actual goddamned superstar or two, and this Organization of Cheapskates was so fucking smart that they thought their way into a ten year debacle of albatross contracts and a rotating clown car of  indifference, incompetence, and injury. 

I have never felt more trapped as a fan in my life. 

 

There is something going on and it's not just injuries. Eloy has easy power. 40 HR pace should be standard. Suddenly he's half of that, just like the rest of the team. How they have made no adjuistments is beyond belief. There is superstar talent around. Robert, Moncada, TA...those guys could be outstanding in all facets. But the offense is a dud, and something needs to happen. Waiting until the offseason is the front office being hard headed, stupid, cheap, or all of the above. DO SOMETHING HAHN.

[SCCWS]

"I wish Andrew Vaughn could put the power game together but he just can’t seem to do it. And we need it very badly. Because as it stands, he’s just a middle second tier player. "

I agree that Vaughn is a second tier player but I don't know how much his defense affects his offense.  Abreu needs to be the field  because he is by far the best offensive  player on the team. When AV plays 1B and DH , he is a +.300 hitter but once he goes to LF or RF his offense drops down.  I hope next year they re-up Abreu and make him be  the DH and move Vaughn to 1B.  Then maybe we can see if the power game is fully restored. I think the Sox are better off w Vaughn as the 1B and keeping Abreu as a DH than trading Vaughn as a 2nd tier player.

 

[JoeC]

7 minutes ago, SCCWS said:

"I wish Andrew Vaughn could put the power game together but he just can’t seem to do it. And we need it very badly. Because as it stands, he’s just a middle second tier player. "

I agree that Vaughn is a second tier player but I don't know how much his defense affects his offense.  Abreu needs to be the field  because he is by far the best offensive  player on the team. When AV plays 1B and DH , he is a +.300 hitter but once he goes to LF or RF his offense drops down.  I hope next year they re-up Abreu and make him be  the DH and move Vaughn to 1B.  Then maybe we can see if the power game is fully restored. I think the Sox are better off w Vaughn as the 1B and keeping Abreu as a DH than trading Vaughn as a 2nd tier player.

  

You're right. It's pretty plain. For his career:

1B: .776 OPS (104 AB)
DH: .802 OPS (126 AB)

LF: .748 OPS (377 AB)
RF: .685 OPS (173 AB)

[The Mighty Mite]

43 minutes ago, lpneck said:

 

I understand what you are saying and agree with most of your post, but I think you are drastically undervaluing the players you have mentioned.

Eloy is 25 and has regressed every year since his rookie season when he had a 1.5 WAR.  At age 25, Carlos Quentin had a 5.3 WAR, an OPS of .965, and would have been the MVP if he hadn't stupidly broke his hand.  He was the main reason the Sox won the division that year.

Jermaine Dye was the freaking World Series MVP and had an OPS of 1.006 in 2006.  He had a 4.6 WAR in his age 32 season, which is more than Eloy has put up for his entire career.

Lance Johnson was soooo underrated.  (And unlike almost all of the current Sox players, so much fun to watch.)  He had a 6.1 WAR for the Sox when they won the division in 1993, and then a 7.2 WAR season for the Mets in 1996.

Ray Durham is the 2nd or 3rd best 2B the White Sox have had in 122 years of existence.  He had 12 years in his career with an OPS of +.800.

My point is, all of those guys you mentioned WERE stars, and don't deserve to be compared to Jimenez, Robert, Moncada, or Vaughn.

 Durham might have been the 3rd best second baseman in Sox history but not close to Joe Morgan, Craig Biggio or Ryne Sandberg. That's the problem, we develop some very good players but not great players and like I posted earlier we don't sign great free agents.

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, JoeC said:

You're right. It's pretty plain. For his career:

1B: .776 OPS (104 AB)
DH: .802 OPS (126 AB)

LF: .748 OPS (377 AB)
RF: .685 OPS (173 AB)

Between this and the fact that Vaughn's legs have been bothering him at the end of 2 straight seasons now tells me that Vaughn isn't conditioned for the OF.

[JoeC]

3 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Between this and the fact that Vaughn's legs have been bothering him at the end of 2 straight seasons now tells me that Vaughn isn't conditioned for the OF.

That, and the fact that Vaughn never played OF tells me that he isn't an outfielder.

I commend him for seizing the opportunity to break into the big leagues, but at some point the org should strive for something beyond a second-tier solution.

[lpneck]

1 hour ago, The Mighty Mite said:

 Durham might have been the 3rd best second baseman in Sox history but not close to Joe Morgan, Craig Biggio or Ryne Sandberg. That's the problem, we develop some very good players but not great players and like I posted earlier we don't sign great free agents.

The standard doesn't need to be: "The White Sox need more future Hall of Famers." 

It needs to be "The White Sox should have more than 2 position players that are better than AAAA replacements."

If this team had an OF of Carlos Quentin, Lance Johnson, and Jermaine Dye, and had Ray Durham at 2B, they would be leading the division by 10 games.  Those were all great players.  Not "second-tier" caliber guys.

Edited August 23, 2022 by lpneck

[southsider2k5]

15 minutes ago, JoeC said:

That, and the fact that Vaughn never played OF tells me that he isn't an outfielder.

I commend him for seizing the opportunity to break into the big leagues, but at some point the org should strive for something beyond a second-tier solution.

The kid is being a team player no doubt, but if he is really going to be an OF for this franchise going forward, he has some conditioning work to do.

[The Kids Can Play]

11 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

I want to make something clear. I love many of our players, and I want them to succeed. Really, I do. I root for them to win. I root for them to win EVERY GAME. 

I wish Eloy could stay healthy. He has so much power. But since he can’t, we get to settle for 40-60% of the production we might have if he could stay healthy. Which means he will never be a superstar, but he’s talented enough to produce like a solid second tier player. You know the kind of player-  a secondary player you can basically count on to do good things most of the time, but not a star. Like One dog. Ray ray. Carlos Quentin. Jermaine Dye. 

I wish Luis Robert could stay healthy too, because he’s the one who seems like really could be an actual superstar, someone with such freakish talent that 8 WAR seasons should be pouring off of him year in and year out, but mystery injuries just happen every other week so we will never know. We will just see 100 games or so each season if we are lucky, which I guess also puts him at the production level of a solid second tier player. 

I wish Yoan wasn’t so inconsistent. I figured he would be a solid 4-5 WAR player, nothing flashy, but good enough, especially considering his strikeouts. After 2019, I think I knew a lot went his way, but I was hoping he would be the top of the solid second tier player. Thats what I hoped for. That seemed like his ceiling. Now I guess bottom of the second tier is his ceiling. 

I wish Andrew Vaughn could put the power game together but he just can’t seem to do it. And we need it very badly. Because as it stands, he’s just a middle second tier player. 

Tim has become a really, really good player. Is he exceptional? No, not really. He doesn’t belong in the same conversation with the best shortstops, but he’s probably…you guessed it! The top of the second tier. 

I wish Abreu was 30 instead of 35, because he’s still so fucking good and I want him to have something to show for this other than a career of pouring his heart and soul into an inept franchise run by nincompoops, appointed by an old man who has lost touch with the game, and run on the field by an absolutely bewildered coot.

It is a National embarassment. 

Jose Abreu is a great player. God, I love him. Will he ever have another .900 OPS season? Probably not, but he was never really a stratospheric, first tier superstar. He was always….yep, a second tier superstar,  having probably his second or third best season. 

The bottom of our order? A bunch of second tier castaways and also rans that are not even good enough to be first tier also rans.

What can I say about Leury that hasn’t already been said? He’s a part time utility guy any sane team would have in their lineup 40 games of the year. 

We end up with Josh Harrison playing out the very end of his string with a lot of hustle but not enough talent, especially in high leverage situations.

We end up with AJ Pollock who doesn’t seem to have anything left worth much of anything.

We send out a stray Gavin Sheets to remind us that we never really ever learn the lesson provided to us by Daniel Palka: older than 26 year old left handed slugging rookies are in the minors for a reason. 

Jake Burger who doesn’t have a position. Adam Engel who always had some promise but I don’t know why. I can’t even remember honestly. 

All of this is to say that the White Sox are a team that went out and assembled the largest bunch of second tier players ever with no superstar offensive player, and thought they were gaming the system by stacking the deck with The Hall of Pretty Good. 

And it turns out that sometimes you just have to go out and sign an actual goddamned superstar or two, and this Organization of Cheapskates was so fucking smart that they thought their way into a ten year debacle of albatross contracts and a rotating clown car of  indifference, incompetence, and injury. 

I have never felt more trapped as a fan in my life. 

 

Well done analysis and everything is accurate. I feel your fan pain as well!

[Jerksticks]

You ever feel sorry for Vaughn?  If I was him sometimes I’d be thinking, “I play first base.  I’ve always played first base.  I wish this team would have passed on drafting me if they didn’t want me to play first base.  I’m gonna keep working hard and doing my best, but fuck me, I play first base.”

[The Mighty Mite]

59 minutes ago, lpneck said:

The standard doesn't need to be: "The White Sox need more future Hall of Famers." 

It needs to be "The White Sox should have more than 2 position players that are better than AAAA replacements."

If this team had an OF of Carlos Quentin, Lance Johnson, and Jermaine Dye, and had Ray Durham at 2B, they would be leading the division by 10 games.  Those were all great players.  Not "second-tier" caliber guys.

Great is a word that gets thrown around a lot when it come to sports. When I think of a great player, I think of HOF caliber players. Ruth, Gherig, Williams, Musial, Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Robinson, Tony Perez, Rose and our Frank Thomas plus so many more. 

I loved Johnson, Quentin and Dye, very good players but IMHO not great and certainly not Hall of Famers.

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by The Mighty Mite

[southsider2k5]

18 minutes ago, Jerksticks said:

You ever feel sorry for Vaughn?  If I was him sometimes I’d be thinking, “I play first base.  I’ve always played first base.  I wish this team would have passed on drafting me if they didn’t want me to play first base.  I’m gonna keep working hard and doing my best, but fuck me, I play first base.”

He also made it to MLB at least a year quicker than he would have anywhere else, so there is that.

[The Kids Can Play]

56 minutes ago, JoeC said:

That, and the fact that Vaughn never played OF tells me that he isn't an outfielder.

I commend him for seizing the opportunity to break into the big leagues, but at some point the org should strive for something beyond a second-tier solution.

You are absolutely right about Vaughn, but the Org/FO made a huge mistake in drafting Vaughn in the first place then. He was one of the best hitters in college baseball, who never played the outfield in his baseball career and only first base. Maybe the FO should have used the #3 overall pick for someone else! Why should Vaughn have to be a team player and learn a new position? I don't think the other successful teams do that. Since Hahn obviously decided to go with Abreu at first, maybe a different player could have been drafted to address the other Sox needs and weaknesses back in 2019.

I don't care if he gets in better condition to play the outfield, to keep playing him there is just dumb. If Hahn is waiting until Abreu retires or his numbers significantly fall off to play Vaughn at first, then he is wasting the best years of Vaughn. It's either that or trade Vaughn. 

[lpneck]

25 minutes ago, The Mighty Mite said:

Great is a word that gets thrown around a lot when it come to sports. When I think of a great player, I think of HOF caliber players. Ruth, Gherig, Williams, Musial, Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Robinson, Tony Perez, Rose and our Frank Thomas plus so many more. 

I loved Johnson, Quentin and Dye, very good players but IMHO not great and certainly not Hall of Famers.

 

 

 

That's fine, and I think we are pretty much saying the same thing.

The OP called players like Robert, Jimenez, Moncada, and Vaughn second-tier players, and compared them to Johnson, Quentin, Dye, and Durham.

I'm just saying that if we are using your standard that Johnson, Quentin, Dye, and Durham are second-tier players, then Robert is a third-tier player, and Jimenez, Moncada, and Vaughn are fourth-tier players.  There is no comparison between those groups.

 

[southsider2k5]

4 minutes ago, The Kids Can Play said:

You are absolutely right about Vaughn, but the Org/FO made a huge mistake in drafting Vaughn in the first place then. He was one of the best hitters in college baseball, who never played the outfield in his baseball career and only first base. Maybe the FO should have used the #3 overall pick for someone else! Why should Vaughn have to be a team player and learn a new position? I don't think the other successful teams do that. Since Hahn obviously decided to go with Abreu at first, maybe a different player could have been drafted to address the other Sox needs and weaknesses back in 2019.

I don't care if he gets in better condition to play the outfield, to keep playing him there is just dumb. If Hahn is waiting until Abreu retires or his numbers significantly fall off to play Vaughn at first, then he is wasting the best years of Vaughn. It's either that or trade Vaughn. 

This is not true.  In fact most of the successful teams have true positional flexibility with having many players who can play multiple defensive positions to make their line ups it together.  The concept isn't the problem, it is that Vaughn just doesn't have the tools to be a decent OF.