Comments on: The most valuable White Sox position player prospect of the Millennium http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/22/the-most-valuable-white-sox-position-player-prospect-of-the-millennium/ Just another Baseball Prospectus Local Sites site Wed, 05 Dec 2018 22:40:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 By: Mark Primiano http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/22/the-most-valuable-white-sox-position-player-prospect-of-the-millennium/#comment-6258 Mon, 22 Jan 2018 20:18:01 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9751#comment-6258 You’ve got a few things wrong here though. The Sox plan from like 2000 until drafting Beckham was absolutely not based on high-ceiling/low-floor players. Most years they went for low-ceiling/medium floor guys that were going to be cheap to sign. They went with “safe” picks like Royce Ring, Lance Broadway, and Kyle McCulloch and were burned every time.

Your assessments of the drafted players you named are a little off as well. Josh Fields lowest college batting average was .358. His OPS was over 1.000 his three years at Oklahoma State. Brian Anderson had a .969 career OPS as a CF at Arizona. Joe Borchard? 1.040 at Stanford. These weren’t stud athletes the Sox hoped would turn into baseball players. They were good collegiate baseball players who didn’t hack it at the highest level.

]]> By: Russ http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/01/22/the-most-valuable-white-sox-position-player-prospect-of-the-millennium/#comment-6257 Mon, 22 Jan 2018 17:34:16 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9751#comment-6257 The Sox’ problem was mostly drafting high-ceiling/low-floor players year after year after year with the picks in the top 100 of every draft. That’s a gambler’s approach and it was not wise because it cost them dearly in organizational depth.

That has finally changed under Hostetler, drafting baseball players first and athletes second. Josh Fields, Joe Borchard, Ryan Sweeney, Brian Anderson, etc were all stud athletes first and the organization prayed they would become baseball players. I still think it is wise to make an occasional high-ceiling/low floor pick in the top 100, but this should only be done based on the currently productivity of the system.

At least with Robert and Moncada, players who might be stud athletes first and baseball players second, their floors are a little higher and the drafts surrounding their acquisitions are complementary rather than more of the same type of player.

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