How comfortable are you rooting for the draft pick?

[Eminor3rd]

Yeah, but if they lost on Opening Day and more often the first week, it would have helped their draft position correct?

 

So those wins were just as meaningless and hurtful to draft position now. If you are going to cuss Gillaspie for going deep now, you should be upset Flowers hit a game winning homer on Opening Day.

 

The Sox were 1-9 this roadtrip. It's just obnoxious to me people were upset they won a game. Not upset because 1 out of 10 was embarrassing, but because 1 out of 10 was too much. The Sox have 19 games left. They are probably going to win at least 8 or 9 of them.

 

Yeah, but on opening day they weren't meaningless. That's the distinction here. We hold out hope when there's hope to have, but when you're 25 games under 500 with like a month to go, the W column becomes meaningless.

 

Even tomorrow I'm going to be holding out for hope on opening day, and probably well into June at the very very least. Hopiong for losses in September when you have the worst non-Astros record in the league is way different than what you're describing.

[pettie4sox]

And this will be the second thread closed pretty soon.

[Jerksticks]

I'm not rooting for a draft pick...but I'm sure not upset at losses any more.

[Dick Allen]

Yeah, but on opening day they weren't meaningless. That's the distinction here. We hold out hope when there's hope to have, but when you're 25 games under 500 with like a month to go, the W column becomes meaningless.

 

Even tomorrow I'm going to be holding out for hope on opening day, and probably well into June at the very very least. Hopiong for losses in September when you have the worst non-Astros record in the league is way different than what you're describing.

Maybe not at the time they didn't seem meaningless, but as the season unfolded, they became meaningless. Isn't trying to see into the future what we all are trying to do? The standings now are meaningless, but playing well may not be meaningless. The Sox were awful in 2007. For quite a while they were in position to grab the #1 pick. They had a good September dropping them to 8th and they picked Beckham. I think there is only 1 player with a higher career WAR than Beckham picked before him and he wasn't picked top 3. And who knows what affect that September had on the next season when the Sox made the playoffs. Buster Posey was picked #5, by far the prize of that draft, and it wasn't signability. He signed for $50k more than Tim Beckham who was chosen #1.

A couple of good hitters and this team is right back into it. Cleveland was horrid and added Swisher, Bourn, Reynolds. Reynolds is gone, Bourn hasn't hit much and Swisher's numbers haven't been what they normally are. If the Sox sign the correct guys, and a couple of their young bats take a step up, they should be OK next year.

 

I just want them to play well. If they drop to 5th, a future All Star will be available.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Dick Allen

[witesoxfan]

Really, this argument is silly anymore. They aren't going to get the #1 pick. That's the only pick that, historically, has any amount of significance, and it's far less of a guarantee in baseball than any other sport. Really, except maybe hockey, first round picks are going to play professionally at the highest level with rare exceptions (like Royce White or Europeans). In the MLB, something like 50% of 1st round picks don't ever do that. So no, there is no guarantee either way.

 

This is all besides the point, because top 5 picks are far, far likelier than any other pick in the first round of becoming an impact player at the MLB level. They probably have something like a 99% chance of getting a top 5 pick. At this point, that should be all anybody cares about and it's almost certainly going to happen no matter what the Sox do from here on out.

[Eminor3rd]

Maybe not at the time they didn't seem meaningless, but as the season unfolded, they became meaningless. Isn't trying to see into the future what we all are trying to do? The standings now are meaningless, but playing well may not be meaningless. The Sox were awful in 2007. For quite a while they were in position to grab the #1 pick. They had a good September dropping them to 8th and they picked Beckham. I think there is only 1 player with a higher career WAR than Beckham picked before him and he wasn't picked top 3. And who knows what affect that September had on the next season when the Sox made the playoffs. Buster Posey was picked #5, by far the prize of that draft, and it wasn't signability. He signed for $50k more than Tim Beckham who was chosen #1.

A couple of good hitters and this team is right back into it. Cleveland was horrid and added Swisher, Bourn, Reynolds. Reynolds is gone, Bourn hasn't hit much and Swisher's numbers haven't been what they normally are. If the Sox sign the correct guys, and a couple of their young bats take a step up, they should be OK next year.

 

I just want them to play well. If they drop to 5th, a future All Star will be available.

 

You may be right when we look back at the draft, that the top picks didn't matter. But for now, I want them to have as much flexibility as possible. We don't know how the class will shake out, there may be a clear top two, or top four, or whatever. The higher our pick, though, the better our chances. That's all it is.

 

Like a few have said before -- if Ws are coming because of legitimate improvements in our core players, then that's fine, that's great. But if it's bad process producing good results, it won't last, and we're just losing one potential advantage for the future, however small it is.

 

When I watch though, I never actually end up hoping for futility. I don't think my head can do that. But when the game is over and we lost, I feel just fine about it. Kinda like Jerksticks is saying, I think. I probably would be upset in retrospect though if I saw someone do something stupid and it worked out.

 

At the end of the day, I just want our hitters to have a clue. If they can't get it, I want to replace them as fast as possible. Man, I've been watching other teams lately because the Sox are so ugly, and I gotta say, it makes me so envious to see how good teams are playing. Hitters just hitting, Watching the Sox all season has made hitting seem like a futile effort, but it really isn't for most of the league. Blech.

[Dick Allen]

You may be right when we look back at the draft, that the top picks didn't matter. But for now, I want them to have as much flexibility as possible. We don't know how the class will shake out, there may be a clear top two, or top four, or whatever. The higher our pick, though, the better our chances. That's all it is.

 

Like a few have said before -- if Ws are coming because of legitimate improvements in our core players, then that's fine, that's great. But if it's bad process producing good results, it won't last, and we're just losing one potential advantage for the future, however small it is.

 

When I watch though, I never actually end up hoping for futility. I don't think my head can do that. But when the game is over and we lost, I feel just fine about it. Kinda like Jerksticks is saying, I think. I probably would be upset in retrospect though if I saw someone do something stupid and it worked out.

 

At the end of the day, I just want our hitters to have a clue. If they can't get it, I want to replace them as fast as possible. Man, I've been watching other teams lately because the Sox are so ugly, and I gotta say, it makes me so envious to see how good teams are playing. Hitters just hitting, Watching the Sox all season has made hitting seem like a futile effort, but it really isn't for most of the league. Blech.

This is what I don't understand. If guys haven't clearly made themselves top 3 picks right now, why would next college or HS season be enough to say, yeah that guy is a future MLB star? It seems to be putting a heck of a lot of weight on 60 games, if that. To me it makes it more of a crapshoot. There will be at least 5 future stars in the 2014 draft. They might not all be first round picks, and as usual, even when chosing in the 20s, the Sox will have a shot at one of them at minimum. It comes down to your scouts. They screw up #3 picks pretty often.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Dick Allen

[Eminor3rd]

This is what I don't understand. If guys haven't clearly made themselves top 3 picks right now, why would next college or HS season be enough to say, yeah that guy is a future MLB star? It seems to be putting a heck of a lot of weight on 60 games, if that.

 

Well, that's a LOT of time for guys that young though. I mean it's a whole season for them. The difference a year can make when you're 17 or 21 or whatever is huge. It's 60 games plus a winter of growing and working out. Plus there will be injuries. Rodon could tear his UCL or something, which would decrease the value of the first pick but increase the value of like the 5th pick because there'd be one less guy left.

 

This year's class was supposed to be really bad, but then as it got closer, the media prospect guys, at least, were impressed with how it had improved over the couple months leading up to draft day. There's just a ton more volatility as you are talking about younger guys.

[southsider2k5]

And this will be the second thread closed pretty soon.

 

Yes, plus a little bit of admin actions.