WTF Happened to Keenyn Walker

[maggsmaggs]

I know Keenyn had been struggling this year, but I looked at his stats this morning and was just terrified at what I saw.

 

.132 AVG., .179 OBP, .170 SLG, .348 OPS, 1 extra-base hit and a 3/26 BB-to-K ratio.

 

It really sucks that it's the beginning of 2014 and we can pretty much write off our first-round (supplementary) selection from 2011. In the beginning of his career, you thought that maybe he could be a decent lead-off hitter with his solid on-base skills. But even the good walk rate is gone for this guy.

 

OUCH. Thank gosh for Chris Sale. Otherwise, we had have nothing to show from any of our first-round selections since 1998 (not including Gio since he did not make an impact with us).

[caulfield12]

I know Keenyn had been struggling this year, but I looked at his stats this morning and was just terrified at what I saw.

 

.132 AVG., .179 OBP, .170 SLG, .348 OPS, 1 extra-base hit and a 3/26 BB-to-K ratio.

 

It really sucks that it's the beginning of 2014 and we can pretty much write off our first-round (supplementary) selection from 2011. In the beginning of his career, you thought that maybe he could be a decent lead-off hitter with his solid on-base skills. But even the good walk rate is gone for this guy.

 

OUCH. Thank gosh for Chris Sale. Otherwise, we had have nothing to show from any of our first-round selections since 1998 (not including Gio since he did not make an impact with us).

 

 

Just an athletic lottery ticket, not unlike Mitchell, Thompson, Jacobs (briefly), Jacob May and Hawkins

 

raw talent...limited baseball experience...usually it doesn't work out for those types of guys, but when you hit on one....

Edited April 27, 2014 by caulfield12

[Balta1701]

This is the kind of thing people should expect when they demand high risk, high-reward guys. You don't like Lance Broadways in the draft? Then you'll get a mix of guys who are really spectacular and guys who spectacularly fall apart.

[oldsox]

This is the kind of thing people should expect when they demand high risk, high-reward guys. You don't like Lance Broadways in the draft? Then you'll get a mix of guys who are really spectacular and guys who spectacularly fall apart.

I don't recall ever seeing a post saying I demand a high risk high reward guy. Is that what Walker was when Sox drafted him? Or was he just a bad choice for #1 supplemental round? Sounds like you are defending somebody.

Edited April 28, 2014 by oldsox

[danman31]

I don't recall ever seeing a post saying I demand a high risk high reward guy. Is that what Walker was when Sox drafted him? Or was he just a bad choice for #1 supplemental round? Sounds like you are defending somebody.

Seriously? Most supplemental picks don't even make the Majors.

[caulfield12]

I don't recall ever seeing a post saying I demand a high risk high reward guy. Is that what Walker was when Sox drafted him? Or was he just a bad choice for #1 supplemental round? Sounds like you are defending somebody.

 

 

He was more noted for his football exploits than baseball ability in Utah when he was drafted, fwiw.

[LDF]

Seriously? Most supplemental picks don't even make the Majors.

 

with all due respect, I don't buy it. let's called it what it is without soft-soaping with excuses.... it was horrible drafting and scouting

if that is where the blame goes. when was the last first rounder amounted to anything between the late 90's - 2009? and where

should the blame falls on?

[caulfield12]

with all due respect, I don't buy it. let's called it what it is without soft-soaping with excuses.... it was horrible drafting and scouting

if that is where the blame goes. when was the last first rounder amounted to anything between the late 90's - 2009? and where

should the blame falls on?

 

 

Laumann and Bell, mostly. Paddy now, will be held accountable for results (or lack thereof) with guys like Nestor Molina, Zapata and the Latin American connection, which isn't draft-related.

 

The problem is that everyone missed with/on Mike Trout. And then Mitchell getting seriously injured didn't help matters at all. Combine that with the fact that all their athletic/toolsy guys (Thompson and Walker) have struggled mightily, well, trends are hard to ignore.

 

They've done very well with the 2nd round draft picks for the last five years, Addison Reed in the 3rd, etc.

 

Ultimately, they're judged by their first round picks, and Beckham busting after starting out so solidly...they really need for Courtney Hawkins to continue his career resurgence and eventually become an All-Star middle of the order bat.

[witesoxfan]

with all due respect, I don't buy it. let's called it what it is without soft-soaping with excuses.... it was horrible drafting and scouting

if that is where the blame goes. when was the last first rounder amounted to anything between the late 90's - 2009? and where

should the blame falls on?

 

There have been 49 #2 picks in the history of the game. 20 of those guys have decent careers, unless you want to include guys like Ben Grieve or Darren Dreifort. That's 40% of #2 picks.

 

And you are complaining about late 1st and supplemental draft picks. That kind of stuff happens based on dumb luck.

[NorthSideSox72]

with all due respect, I don't buy it. let's called it what it is without soft-soaping with excuses.... it was horrible drafting and scouting

if that is where the blame goes. when was the last first rounder amounted to anything between the late 90's - 2009? and where

should the blame falls on?

We are talking about Walker, and you should listen to what people are telling you here. Supp picks rarely make the majors, and are even more rarely impact guys. The pick wasn't insane at the time.

 

I will say, I thought Walker would have a good rebound here. He got to repeat a level where he was aggressively assigned, and coming off a year where he just wasn't healthy. Obviously I was wrong. But any indictment of drafting/scouting cannot start and end with any one player, unless you want to say the Sox have the best scouting in baseball because of Chris Sale.

 

[southsider2k5]

There have been 49 #2 picks in the history of the game. 20 of those guys have decent careers, unless you want to include guys like Ben Grieve or Darren Dreifort. That's 40% of #2 picks.

 

And you are complaining about late 1st and supplemental draft picks. That kind of stuff happens based on dumb luck.

 

Take a guess as to how many of that years Supplemental picks have made it to the majors.

 

1

 

 

[southsider2k5]

Take a guess as to how many of that years Supplemental picks have made it to the majors.

 

1

 

It looks like the guy drafted right after Walker is already out of baseball.

[Dick Allen]

So we should expect supplemental draft picks to fail. We should expect #3 draft picks to fail since less than half of the #2 picks had solid careers, but in no circumstance should the White Sox have signed a player this offseason which would have caused them to surrender their second round pick. That pick is way too valuable.

 

It doesn't add up.

[witesoxfan]

So we should expect supplemental draft picks to fail. We should expect #3 draft picks to fail since less than half of the #2 picks had solid careers, but in no circumstance should the White Sox have signed a player this offseason which would have caused them to surrender their second round pick. That pick is way too valuable.

 

It doesn't add up.

 

I have never heard this argument. Will you please explain it in full and bring up any threads that have discussed this as a possibility?

[southsider2k5]

So we should expect supplemental draft picks to fail. We should expect #3 draft picks to fail since less than half of the #2 picks had solid careers, but in no circumstance should the White Sox have signed a player this offseason which would have caused them to surrender their second round pick. That pick is way too valuable.

 

It doesn't add up.

 

Way to rephrase the argument to something it wasn't. They see me trollin...

 

[NorthSideSox72]

So we should expect supplemental draft picks to fail. We should expect #3 draft picks to fail since less than half of the #2 picks had solid careers, but in no circumstance should the White Sox have signed a player this offseason which would have caused them to surrender their second round pick. That pick is way too valuable.

 

It doesn't add up.

You have derailed here. No one expects them all to fail, and no one was making the argument you are accusing of. The point is, all draft picks are lottery tickets, and there is no such thing as a can't-miss prospect.

 

Also, the point I was making was, the value of a draft pick (for the purpose of evaluating scouting/drafting or doing the math on what those picks are worth) is not about one player. It is about odds, when looking at the broader picture. If 25% of Supp picks make the majors, and 10% are impact players, and the average impact player in that group is worth (said for argument here) $20M during their 6-year protection career... and you have to pay them, say, $5M during that time in pre-arb and arb... then the SUCCESSFUL pick is worth approximately $15M. 10% of that is $1.5M. And guess what? That's not far off from what those picks are paid on average.

 

[Dick Allen]

Way to rephrase the argument to something it wasn't. They see me trollin...

 

Good one. Nice selfie.

 

But it pretty much was the argument. Rebuilding teams don't need capable pitchers, they need draft picks which apparently aren't expected to pan out.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Dick Allen

[witesoxfan]

Good one. Nice selfie.

 

But it pretty much was the argument. Rebuilding teams don't need capable pitchers, they need draft picks which apparently aren't expected to pan out.

 

Just f***ing drop it dude. The Braves signed Santana, the Orioles signed Jimenez.

[southsider2k5]

Good one. Nice selfie.

 

But it pretty much was the argument. Rebuilding teams don't need capable pitchers, they need draft picks which apparently aren't expected to pan out.

 

It wasn't the argument at all.

 

The central point of the argument was to do with the position the White Sox are in. You seem to have left that part out.

[caulfield12]

And the whole Santana argument is cancelled out by the fact that he wasn't going to sign for 3-4-5 years at the money the Braves were willing to offer for just one season, so as great as he has been pitching so far this year, he's much more valuable to the Braves than the White Sox for ONLY 2014.

 

He wanted and still wants that $100 million payday, if he continued with his current pace for entire season, unlikely as that is...even in the NL, then he could come darned close next off-season.

 

Now if we want to argue that signing Santana under those circumstances was the best solution, we would have simply kept Jake Peavy at a very similar cost, right??

 

Because competing in a single season and building towards the future don't go together with a contract like Santana currently has.

 

Who's to say Scott Carroll won't end up being another Phil Humber? You never know. Maybe Paulino will be sent to the bullpen and end up as the closer by the end of the year, although that's even less likely than a Humber or Eldred type performance out of Carroll.

 

[Dick Allen]

It wasn't the argument at all.

 

The central point of the argument was to do with the position the White Sox are in. You seem to have left that part out.

The position the Sox are in is they need pitching. It was the point that was made then and the point being made now.

 

They will always need pitching. If you are going to sign a free agent that requires compensation, and compensation freaks people out, wouldn't it be better when it's about as low as can be rather than waiting until it is about as high as can be?

 

 

[witesoxfan]

The position the Sox are in is they need pitching. It was the point that was made then and the point being made now.

 

They will always need pitching. If you are going to sign a free agent that requires compensation, and compensation freaks people out, wouldn't it be better when it's about as low as can be rather than waiting until it is about as high as can be?

 

If you are planting corn, do you buy cooked and frozen corn or do you buy seeds? You buy seeds. If some of those seeds don't germinate, you get rid of them.

 

I'm not going to patronize you anymore. You're trolling, bringing up old arguments that got threads locked which have long been buried and are moot and/or pointless anyways. If you forget about it, I'm sure the greater majority will too.

[Dick Allen]

If you are planting corn, do you buy cooked and frozen corn or do you buy seeds? You buy seeds. If some of those seeds don't germinate, you get rid of them.

 

I'm not going to patronize you anymore. You're trolling, bringing up old arguments that got threads locked which have long been buried and are moot and/or pointless anyways. If you forget about it, I'm sure the greater majority will too.

Please don't patronize me. You were happy the Sox bought corn in somebody's stool when they signed Paulino. It isn't pointless. I just want to know why the 2nd round pick was considered so valuable before, but now it's "the Sox will be lucky if higher picks work out, but it's not just them it is everyone". I'm not trolling, just wanting to know why people changed their minds.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Dick Allen

[NorthSideSox72]

Please don't patronize me. You were happy the Sox bought corn in somebody's stool when they signed Paulino. It isn't pointless. I just want to know why the 2nd round pick was considered so valuable before, but now it's "the Sox will be lucky if higher picks work out, but it's not just them it is everyone". I'm not trolling, just wanting to know why people changed their minds.

No one changed their minds. This is a straw man argument - no one is saying the things you are claiming they said.

 

[witesoxfan]

Please don't patronize me. You were happy the Sox bought corn in somebody's stool when they signed Paulino. It isn't pointless. I just want to know why the 2nd round pick was considered so valuable before, but now it's "the Sox will be lucky if higher picks work out, but it's not just them it is everyone". I'm not trolling, just wanting to know why people changed their minds.

 

I have no problem with my belief and thoughts regarding Paulino. I was wrong, or at least have been thus far. I've never shied away from that.

 

You are ALWAYS lucky if a draft pick works out the way it should. No one has EVER denied that. It doesn't mean that it doesn't have value and is something that should be held in high regard by a team in the Sox position.