Still, if you go to pretty much any leaderboard, particularly on the position player side, and sort from the top, you’re going to find it dominated by first round picks.  Mike Trout, Alex Bregman, Matt Chapman, Francisco Lindor, Manny Machado, Christian Yelich, and so on.

And, as we know in baseball, there can be quite a bit of lag time between adding an amateur talent and their arrival in the majors.  Jorge Alfaro just played his first full year in the majors and he was on seven BP 101 lists—I didn’t realize Baseball-Reference had a “Show All” expand tab for prospect list appearances, but here we are.

This all brings me to the White Sox.  Given they’re in a rebuild, their first round picks are the best way to add star talent at minimal cost, and if they’re planning on competing in 2020-2022, ideally they’d be getting big contributions from their 2015-2017 first round picks.  When you throw in that the White Sox went college with all three of those selections—Carson Fulmer, Zack Collins, and Jake Burger—you’d hope their arrivals would sync up rather nicely with that window.*

Granted, these selections weren’t at the very top of the draft, coming eighth, tenth, and eleventh overall, so the degree of difficulty is higher than say, the barrage of Top 5 picks Dayton Moore has used to poor results for years, but right now these picks aren’t looking great.  Let’s look at each of them in turn:

• Carson Fulmer: The pros and cons were clear. Fulmer’s stuff is electric and he performed well against the toughest amateur competition, pitching for Vanderbilt in the SEC while getting good marks for his makeup.  But, he did not boast ideal size, delivery, command, or a clear third pitch. The theory might have been the White Sox have succeeded with unconventional deliveries and it was a way to maybe get an impact performer out of a comparatively low draft pick.  The negatives have definitely won out to date.  After getting absolutely obliterated in multiple tries as a starter at Triple-A and the majors, he has now been converted to a reliever.  There’s still a chance he’s an impact reliever, and today’s game makes them more valuable than they’ve been in the past, but a star this is not.

You can criticize almost any team by using hindsight and look at the guys who went after and cherrypick to say, “Aha! They should have picked [Player X] instead!” Still, it is kind of amusing they didn’t even take the best high risk, high reward starting pitcher from Vanderbilt in this draft available to them.

• Zack Collins: Another “zig when everyone else is zagging” pick—very few evaluators gave Collins a chance at sticking behind the plate defensively, and there were a lot of questions about his contact skills. The White Sox figured they’d coached up rough catcher defense before, and if he could stay back there they had a chance at an All Star given his power and patience.  At the ten spot, Collins’ ideal ceiling certainly had appeal.  However, as we sit here today and like Fulmer, although hope is not lost, the negatives are outweighing the positives, as he has stalled out in Birmingham, making marginal improvements on his defense while still posting batting averages in the .230s against minor league arms.  The walks are there, and the power is still pretty good, but it’s hard to say this year was a good one for his stock.  He turns 24 before Opening Day next year, and one would hope someone with his power, eye, and advance college competition would be able to muster better contact against Double-A pitchers in his third pro season.  Catchers are weird, and he’s certainly focusing very hard on his defense, but the probability he is a second division or bench quality 1B bat is frighteningly high.
• Jake Burger: Our prospect team liked Burger quite a bit—even if they thought he was a future 1B instead of a 3B. He just had a ton of batspeed and power and if you have enough of those two things you can contribute even if you have a whole lot of other problems.  Still, everything was going to have to break perfectly for him to play 3B, and as soon as you are moving a prospect to 1B they have to be absolutely elite bats in order to be stars.  Unfortunately, any chance Burger could string together some 3B seasons in the majors before moving across the diamond were blown up in dramatic fashion, as he tore his Achilles tendon not once but twice.  There’s still time for him to get back on track, but it’s a dramatic injury and it’s unclear how much power and batspeed will remain when he returns to the field.  And, as we’ve seen in recent years, the value of 1B/DH-only bats is lower than it has been in a long time.

Ultimately, despite the pedigree and obvious major league tools these three picks possessed, they all bore a significant amount of risk, and it’s looking like the White Sox may have rolled snake eyes on all of them.  If they continue to fail in the way they have to date, they can’t say these failures were unforeseeable, like, say, Gordon Beckham forgetting how to hit. And, the cumulative effect may be that once again the White Sox have a contender with holes where they wouldn’t be if they’d had better results with their first round picks.  Maybe they can just paper over it by blitzing studs they grab at the top of the draft like Nick Madrigal and whatever Top 5 player they grab next year to the majors, but they’re tying one hand behind their back if they get minimal contributions from three selections in the Top 11 overall.

The story of these three prospects is hardly over. This time next year we could be talking about Fulmer as a relief ace, Collins as the catcher of the future, and Jake Burger as a pure cleanup hitter, but if you think of each prospect as a range of possible outcomes with various probabilities assigned to those outcomes, the negative outcomes are currently gobbling up a whole lot more of the pie chart.

*The White Sox had a compensatory pick and got an extra first rounder to select Zack Burdi in 2016.  I don’t believe it changes the above analysis.  As a pure reliever, Burdi was always going to be a member of the supporting cast rather than a sizable piece of the “Core.”  The White Sox are better at it than most, but Ian Hamilton, Ryan Burr, Caleb Frare, and even potentially Tyler Johnson and others down in the minors look like late inning relievers and they did not cost the 26th overall pick.

Lead Image Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

I have declared myself as the president of the Jake Burger Fan Club and anyone who would like to challenge my spot on the throne is welcome to fight me on that waterfall in Wakanda.

— Collin Whitchurch (@cowhitchurch) February 26, 2018

As you’ll see from the time stamp on this tweet, I made my grand declaration at 2:41 p.m. CT. And then…

Burger is down and holding his knee

— James Fegan (@JRFegan) February 26, 2018

Honestly, the turn-around would make Jonah Keri weep.

Jokes aside, Jake Burger’s injury — he crumpled over while booking it to first on a slow grounder and the initial diagnosis is a left Achilles’ tendon injury — is terrible news. We should know the severity of the injury on Tuesday, but assuming the worst, it would mean an entirely lost season for a player the White Sox thought highly enough of to draft No. 11 overall just nine months ago.

Semi-reasonable optimistic take: Burger missed a season, the rehab goes smoothly and he comes back next year, no worse for wear in the power department, and only marginally worse in the departments he wasn’t so good at in the first place (speed, defense). He’s not yet 22 years old and even after losing a season, is still young enough to have a productive career.

That’s not overly far fetched, but it’s also not likely. No matter what you think of Burger (scouts and evaluators are incredibly split on him as a prospect) it’s a major blow to his development.

2. Burger’s unfortunate injury overshadowed a Michael Kopech spring debut that was everything one could hope for.

It’s hard to get too excited about any performance on Feb. 26, but in an abbreviated two innings of work, Kopech seemed to accomplish exactly what he and the White Sox wanted, giving up just one hit (a ringing double by Stephen Piscotty), walking none, and striking out three. His fastball was as advertised, reportedly hitting 101, and he mixed in his secondaries, including a developing changeup that was the focus of the outing.

“The velocity is going to be there for me,’’ Kopech said. “I’m excited about my other stuff right now, throwing my changeup when I can, using my slider as an out pitch. I’m not going to focus on velocity, but it’s always good when it’s there.’’

Kopech’s bread and butter will always be that fastball, but they key to his developing as the White Sox hope will be him commanding the secondary pitches. It was just two innings of a spring training start before the calendar even says March, but a good start is a welcomed sight.

3. Kopech is the consensus No. 2 prospect in the White Sox system. The consensus No. 1 prospect, Eloy Jimenez, has only appeared in one of the White Sox first four Cactus League games. The reason, we found out Monday, is because of a sore left knee he suffered during practice and re-aggravated during his lone appearance in a game.

The White Sox are, as you might expect, taking things slow.

“We’re very, very cautious with him,” Renteria said, adding: “As soon as we get a nice feel for where he’s at and he feels comfortable, we’ll start inserting him into the lineup.”

Getting a glimpse of the uber-prospect’s prodigious power is one of the most-anticipated things of the spring. It’s Feb. 27. (Have I mentioned that it’s very early yet?) The White Sox caution is completely understandable.

4. Last spring, Tyler Saladino hit .365/.431/.692 with four home runs in 56 spring training plate appearances. He followed that up with a disastrous, injury-plagued season in which he was only able to play in 79 games and put up an embarrassing .178/.254/.229 line.

Saladino is once again hitting in Arizona, going 4-for-7 through three games thus far (I know, LOL spring training small sample sizes), including Monday’s game in which he went 2-for-2 with a walk. The numbers to date don’t mean a lick, but it got me wondering where the 28-year-old fits in on this White Sox roster.

Barring any unforeseen roster changes, one would presume Saladino will have a spot on the White Sox bench come Opening Day as a second utility player, backing up Yolmer Sanchez, Tim Anderson, and Yoan Moncada along with Leury Garcia. But while he looked like a reasonable bet to stick around in that type of role two years ago, the back injury that plagued him throughout 2017, as well as his advancing age, puts his future with the team in doubt. One would expect this year to be his last shot.

5. White Sox prospect Mikey Duarte, a 23rd round pick in last June’s draft, spoke to reporters Monday about last October’s mass shooting in Las Vegas that claimed the life of 58 people, including his sister.

As we continue to grieve over yet another mass shooting two week ago at a high school in Parkland, Fla., the voices that have spoken out about the issue of gun control have grown in stature as those voices have turned into the survivors themselves, or those, like Duarte, who were directly affected.

“There’s no reason that a school should be shot up with 17 kids dead,” Duarte said. “A church, 26 people dead. A concert in Las Vegas, 58 dead. It just keeps happening over and over again and it’s not going to stop until our people high up do something about it. And yeah, I think there’s no reason to have a semi-automatic weapon. There’s no reason to have an AR-15. If you need to protect your home, you should be able to have a pistol at your house, to protect someone if they break in your house. There’s no reason to have an AR-15 or a bump stock weapon to kill hundreds of people at a time. There’s no reason. So yeah, I think something needs to be done to help your kids and my kids one day, live in a safer environment.

“People keep tweeting the same stuff over and over again after a mass shooting and nothing’s done. Sorry it happened. Thoughts and prayers to the families that lost someone today.  But what have you done to prevent it? You’re high up, you have every resource to do something about it and nothing is ever done besides a tweet. And what’s a tweet, really? A tweet is just a tweet. That’s just some words coming out of the mouth. I think something needs to be done to make this country safer.”

The entire account is deeply moving, unsettling, troubling, and a whole bunch of other verbs that don’t entirely do it justice. I highly encourage you to check it out for yourself.

Lead Photo Credit: Caylor Arnold-USA TODAY Sports

1. Avisail Garcia attributed a new offseason program and 17-lb. weight loss to his surprising turnaround in 2017. On Monday, he reported to camp seven lbs. lighter, according to him, with eyes toward turning his improvements at the plate last season into more power in 2018.

We joked a lot last season about how long it would take the most stringent Garcia doubters *raises hand* to finally come around to him being an above-average contributor, but the fact that his breakout at the plate was fueled by an insane .392 BABIP leaves reason to believe regression will come. Indeed, PECOTA expects a .275/.329/.431, 1.6 WARP season out of Garcia, down from .330/.380/.506, 3.7 WARP a year ago.

Considering where Garcia came from (he had never been so much as a 1 WARP player before last season) even those numbers would be acceptable when you consider the fact that he was borderline DFA-able a year ago, but it’s clear he’s still kind of in the “prove it” phase of his supposed turnaround. If he can indeed add some more pop (his .176 ISA in 2017 was slightly above average) it would certainly make the expected did in his batting average more tolerable.

2. When Corey Dickerson surprisingly hit DFA Land on Sunday, it brought about the usual flurry of rumors about where the 2017 All-Star could land. Dickerson had been a solid if unspectacular outfielder for most of his career before last season’s breakout in which he hit .282/.325/.490 with a career-high 28 home runs and an ISO on par with the likes of Justin Turner and Chris Davis. He was worth 3.9 WARP, although like Garcia PECOTA projects some regression (1.0 WARP).

It’s borderline sacrilege of me, the world’s staunchest Nicky Delmonico supporter, to suggest a move that would shuffle him to the bench, but one wonders if someone like Dickerson, who will be 29 in May, might be of interest to the White Sox. He’d be under team control for the next two seasons and, depending on what the White Sox think of Delmonico, could be a short-time contributor or a long-term solution. This all, of course, depends on Tampa’s asking price, but the Rays aren’t operating from a position of strength following the DFA, and surely want to get something for instead of letting him hit the open market for nothing. I’d be surprised if it’s not something Rick Hahn & Co., are at least considering.

3. One of the more intriguing new faces in White Sox camp is Thyago Viera, the flame-throwing reliever the White Sox acquired for international money from Seattle during the Mariners’ ill-fated pursuit of Shohei Ohtani. Viera is the type of highly-volatile arm that’s easy to dream on, but while he’s maybe more interesting than most players acquired for $500K and nothing else, there’s a reason he was available for exactly that. His fastball touches 100 and he has a developing slider, his BB% has never been lower than 9.0. His lineout in the BP Annual sums it up:

Thyago Viera has the potential to be a bullpen weapon if he can harness his command, which is something that can be said about dozens of other minor-league relievers.

That potential is the reason you write about someone like Viera, of course, and if there’s anyone capable of harnessing Viera’s command it would seemingly be Don Cooper. The uncertainty in the White Sox bullpen is such that Viera will likely get his share of opportunities (if you’re a fantasy player you could consider him a deep sleeper closer candidate if things break right for him and if something were to happen to Nate Jones and/or Joakim Soria), and if he lives up to the potential the White Sox have in him, it will aid their bullpen rebuild a lot quicker than anticipated after last season’s clearing house sale.

4. Speaking of fantasy baseball, Baseball Prospectus came out with its Dynasty 101 on Friday, which is the fantasy-focused version of their Top 101 prospects list. The list features six White Sox, No. 5 Eloy Jimenez, No. 12 Michael Kopech, No. 19 Luis Robert, No. 53 Alec Hansen, No. 75 Jake Burger, and No. 80 Dylan Cease.

From a purely baseball perspective, the list isn’t a whole lot different from the Prospect Top 101, which isn’t unexpected. (Good prospects are good prospects, fantasy or otherwise, ya know?) But given how combustible pitching prospects are, it’s understandable that Robert and Burger are higher than the other list while Hansen and Cease are lower. The fantasy team on the main site provides good coverage all season long, if you’re into that kind of thing, and I hope to supplement it with some White Sox-specific fantasy thoughts this year as well.

5. Speaking of Burger (dang, you are killing it with those transitions today, Collin), James Fegan’s feature story on the White Sox most recent first round pick makes him sound like an sponge for information. Burger moved to Arizona over the offseason and spent time with Mike Gellinger, the White Sox minor league hitting instructor whom both Matt Davidson and Nicky Delmonico have credited with helping them develop within the organization.

The spring, of course, is filled with optimism from a number of players confident that the work they put in over the summer will translate to success on the field. As James notes, Burger’s draft spot was considered high by many observers and he has plenty of doubters among professional scouts and analysts. But his profile is such that, if all of his hard work truly translates as he moves his way through the season, he’ll wind up a helluva find for the White Sox.

Lead Photo Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

• The overall state of the White Sox farm system.
• The upside of Eloy Jimenez and Michael Kopech, what sets them apart from the rest of the system, and what went into picking between the two for the No. 1 spot.
• The high upside but risk of a prospect like Dylan Cease.
• Alec Hansen’s roller coaster ride from potential No. 1 draft pick to terrible college performance to top prospect.
• How the hell you rank Luis Robert.
• The next group of guys, what to like and dislike from Jake Burger, Dane Dunning, Blake Rutherford, and Zack Collins.
• Thoughts on guys outside the Top 10, including Micker Adolfo, Spencer Adams, A.J. Puckett, Yeyson Yrizarri, and more.
• The construction of the White Sox Under 25 rankings, as authored by Nick.
• Some always necessary talk about Japanese wrestling between Jarrett and Collin, while Nick tries not to fall asleep.

Be sure to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by searching for “The Catbird Speaks.” Please be sure to rate and review us!

If your first look at Lucas Giolito was in his White Sox debut, you might have concluded he profiles differently than he has all year in Triple-A.  Despite a total inability to locate or utilize his offspeed pitches, Giolito scrapped through six innings anyway relying entirely on his low-to-mid-90s heat.  And while some evaluators have praised Giolito for his cerebral approach and pitchability, the story of post-hype Giolito has largely been one of a pitcher whose curveball remains ahead of his fastball.

On Sunday, in his second White Sox outing, Giolito threw seven shutout innings, with four strikeouts against three walks. Giolito was able to throw his curveball and slider–a relatively new offering–for strikes in the zone.  It helped him get ahead more often and meant that hitters couldn’t simply hold off any time they identified that a pitch was offspeed.  In addition, it meant hitters could not simply sit on his fastball, either, yielding more awkward swings on that pitch as well.

As the strikeout to walk ratio indicates, it was hardly a perfect outing, although he was getting a lot of weak pop-outs on the infield, which–like strikeouts–are automatic outs but for the most unusual of circumstances.  Giolito’s fastball command is still a work in progress, even taking into account that it looked like he was getting squeezed on a lot of close pitches.  He loaded the bases in his seventh inning of work with two outs, and, after a conversation, Rick Renteria left him out there to see if he could get the final out.  It nearly ended in disaster, as Jose Iglesias ripped a potential grand slam just barely foul.  But, it only went for a long strike and Giolito would eventually finish the inning without allowing a run on the day.

As has been the case since before the White Sox acquired him, Giolito no longer profiles as an ace.  The fastball sits around 93 now, rather than the 97-100 range he boasted once upon a time.  Even so, the curveball still looks like a good offering, and he shows confidence in the slider as well.  There’s still the the material for a good, mid-rotation starter here and it may not be far away, which is a tremendously valuable thing.

Matt Davidson has returned off the DL, and after falling behind 0-2, he smashed a 3-run home run to right-center, pushing the White Sox to a 5-0 lead over the Tigers.  His strikeout to walk ratio is rather unnerving, his OBP is still .286, and he doesn’t have a ton of defensive utility, but the power is very real, and while he doesn’t have much margin for error, even a modest improvement in his bat-to-ball skills and/or patience in his second full season could solidify his role as an extremely useful complementary piece.

In the minors…

Even with Yoan Moncada, Reynaldo Lopez, and Lucas Giolito in the majors (and two of them on the DL for what appear to be minor injuries), there is still too much going on in the suddenly booming White Sox farm system to cover here.  Michael Kopech and Eloy Jimenez continue to produce, even as they adjust to their promotions to Triple-A and Double-A respectively, and Dylan Cease struck out ten in six innings of one-run ball in his most recent outing.  While it’s important not to rush a prospect’s development, elite talent will find a way to push the timetable forward.  If guys with elite stuff like Kopech and Cease can throw it for strikes, they’re going to move quickly, and a bat as special as Eloy’s might be ready sooner than you’d think.  Our prospect team also got eyes on both Jimenez and 2017 second round pick, Gavin Sheets, and you can read about them both here in deeper dives.

Over the last week, 2017 first-rounder Jake Burger has hit .480/.519/.720, including a 5-for-5 game wherein he hit for the cycle and drew a walk.  And, although our prospect team’s Jarrett Seidler warns against the potential arbitrariness of hot streaks coinciding with promotions and yielding deceptively clean, pretty stat lines, it is still worth pointing out that Zack Collins has .304/.500/.609 in his first look at Double-A pitching.

Oh, and Luis Robert has returned from an ankle injury and continues to brutalize outmatched teenagers in the DSL.  The White Sox system is truly a delight, and the minor league updates on the main site are required, daily reading given just how littered they are with Sox prospects these days.

Lead Image Credit: Jim Young-USA TODAY Sports

Their run differential following Wednesday’s 4-2 loss in Minnesota is now zero, which is somehow second best in their division, and their Third Order Winning Percentage entering the day was .495. Put simply, the White Sox performance to date is more in line with approximately a .500 team.

That difference also only equates to about three wins, so we’re not saying the White Sox have been unlucky to a substantial degree, but this illustrates by larger point. The White Sox are somehow playing better than their record despite their staring pitching performing like utter trash.

First, the season stats: Entering play Wednesday, White Sox starters have thrown the third fewest innings in the American League, ahead of just Minnesota and Baltimore. Their 4.85 ERA is ahead of only the aforementioned pair and Seattle. Their HR/9 is tied for third worst with Seattle, ahead of only Minnesota and the LA Angels. They’re striking out batters at the fourth worst rate in the league, and they’re walking batters at the second highest rate in the league.

Using an arbitrary end point, in 18 games since the calendar turned to June, the White Sox have had only one starter go seven innings and only five times have they gone six innings. Starters have only lasted as much as five innings in half of those 18 games.

You get the point.

We knew coming into the season that the White Sox pitching depth was thin. The fact that as we approach the halfway point, the only starters who started the season with the team and have yet to spend time on the disabled list are Jose Quintana and Derek Holland — and neither have been particularly good — means we’ve seen a whole lot of Dylan Covey, David Holmberg, and Mike Pelfrey, hardly a trio that elicits a whole lot of confidence. What’s funny is that those three more or less held their own, relative to expectations, but Holland, Quintana, and Miguel Gonzalez have all been underwhelming.

2. Really, it’s been a credit to the White Sox bullpen that the White Sox are merely the second worst team in the American League and not on par with, say, the Philadelphia Phillies. They currently sport the fourth best ERA in the American League and sixth best K/9.

This, of course, is not sustainable, and Rick Renteria is well aware.

“These guys are trying to give us length,” manager Rick Renteria said. “It just hasn’t happened. I get it. I don’t anticipate that’s what’s going to continue to happen as we move forward. I don’t think anybody could sustain over a long haul using your starters for three or four innings. It’s impossible. You would wear out your arms in the pen. Today we were fortunate in that we just used two guys for quite a few innings and outs. … They did a very nice job. That type of work is unsustainable.”

One of the crazier aspects of the White Sox bullpen’s stellar performance is that it hasn’t come from the guys you would’ve expected coming into the season. David Robertson has been better than last season, but Nate Jones and Zach Putnam have both been injured for most of the season, while Tommy Kahnle could be an All-Star and Anthony Swarzak has been lights out for long stretches of the season. Likewise, they’ve gotten competent innings out of the likes of Chris Beck, which I never would’ve imagined coming into the season.

3. We worried at the start of the season that the White Sox pitching depth issues would lead to premature promotions for any of the heralded prospects. That, uh, hasn’t been a problem.

So that’s now 32 IP, 36 H, 27 ER, 23 BB, 16 K, 6 HR and a 7.59 ERA over Carson Fulmer’s last 7 starts

— James Fegan (@JRFegan) June 21, 2017

Once the White Sox acquired Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez, Fulmer fell down the totem pole a bit in terms of pitching prospect upside, but the White Sox top arms taking longer than normal to look major league ready is at least worth keeping an eye on. The plus side of having no interest in winning is that their struggles simply mean they get more time at Triple-A to develop, while the downside is that, ya know, they’re struggling.

4. Tim Anderson committed his 16th error of the season in Wednesday’s loss, which is the highest total in baseball by any player at any position.

Errors don’t tell the whole story, of course, but FRAA has him at -2.1 on the season, which is 26th out of 35 qualified shortstops this season (although above bigger names like Jean Segura, Xander Bogaerts, and Brandon Crawford) and right in line with how they viewed him last year (he finished at -4.7 last year in a little more than half a season).

Anderson’s struggles are noticeable, but also given his athleticism and what we’ve seen from him when he’s at his best, they’re likely mental. I’d fathom a guess he’ll break out of his defensive funk sooner rather than later.

5. The White Sox announced the signing of first round pick Jake Burger on Wednesday to a signing bonus worth $3.7 million. They also reportedly came to terms with second round pick Gavin Sheets on an over-slot deal worth approximately $2 million.

They saved approximately $500K on signing Burger under-slot, and also reportedly got third round pick Luis Gonzalez to sign for $119K less than his slot, so some of those savings went to Sheets. It’s nice to see the White Sox avoid any type of draft pick signing drama, and all of their top picks should be reporting to short season ball soon enough.

For full coverage of White Sox draft pick signings, our friends at FutureSox are a great resource.

Lead Photo Credit: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Jake Burger may very well wind up sticking at third base, which would certainly be helpful, as it would mean whatever production he could add with the bat would be that much more valuable and increase roster flexibility.  And, if the White Sox’ third baseman of the future is in the organization already, it’s not clear who that is.  Gavin Sheets is evidently first base only, but not in the “this dude is going to be a DH by age 25″ way, in that he can handle the position well.

I spotted some discussion last night of how these picks create “problems” moving forward based on the assumption that Jose Abreu may still be around when one or both of them reach the majors and/or given that Zack Collins may yet wind up at 1B/DH as well.  That line of thinking is a very close cousin to the traps that I wrote about in yesterday’s draft article.  If, in fact, Sheets, Burger, and Collins need to play at 1B/DH but they’re all hitting well enough such that you want to play them all, that’s still a pretty good outcome.  Collins is still in High-A and neither Burger nor Sheets has signed a contract yet.  If they all start forcing their bats into a major league lineup that’s a pretty excellent problem to have. The overwhelming likelihood is that at least one of them won’t make it.

It’s also premature in the sense that, as mentioned above, Burger may very well stay at third, and Collins has made strides defensively at catcher.

Zooming out a little, these players fit strategies that have worked for good organizations in the past — Theo Epstein and the Cardinals have frequently picked “best bat available and figure out the rest later” in recent years and had it work out quite well for them.  Similarly, although you can never have too much up the middle talent, the White Sox’ organizational prospective depth among position players has improved of late. Obviously the plan is to have Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada up the middle for the foreseeable future, with Leury Garcia and Yolmer Sanchez suddenly looking like serviceable second division starters or quality back-ups.

Going further down the depth chart, the aforementioned Collins still hopes to represent the catcher of the future, while Luis Alexander Basabe and Luis Robert offer further hope up the middle.  Meaning, as Nick Hostetler mentioned after his first two picks last night, that the White Sox need bats. Just dudes who can mash. First basemen, left fielders, even players who will rotate through the DH slot.

When it comes to baseball, you should be extremely skeptical of those who will take minor league prospects and pencil them into some sort of future lineup.  And, even if you think you have “too many” shortstops or whatever similar fictional problem you may have, it doesn’t hurt to draft more of them if you think they’re the best player available when you select.  All of that said, the White Sox appear to have a credible major leaguer in his 20s and a credible backup for both middle infield spots, and potentially in center field as well.

That makes it that much easier to grab what Craig Goldstein might refer to as “beefy boys” with the hopes that they will help drive the offense while Anderson and Moncada are doing all the premium athletic stuff.

The White Sox may not ultimately get what they hoped for out of Burger or Sheets or any of these guys. But you can certainly see how it all could fit together if they do.

Lead Photo Credit: Kim Klement – USA Today Sports Images

Burger is a 21 year old who hit .328/.443/.648 during his junior season with the Bears. Most scouting reports you’ll find call him one of the best college bats in the draft, someone with big power who also projects to have the ability to hit for average.

There are questions about whether or not he’ll be able to stay at third base long term, but like with Zack Collins at catcher, the White Sox will likely give him every opportunity to prove he can. Here’s MLB.com’s scouting report:

With 10 of its pitchers appearing in the Majors since the turn of the century, Missouri State is known for producing mound talent. Yet the Bears’ two best big leaguers have been position players Bill Mueller and Ryan Howard, and they should have their first ever selected in the first round in 2017. Burger went undrafted out of high school but has blossomed into a college star, finishing second in NCAA Division I with 21 home runs in 2016 and winning Missouri Valley Conference player of the year honors this spring, when he led the league in all three triple crown categories (.341-22-63) entering NCAA tournament play. Though he went homerless with the U.S. college national team during the summer, scouts still recognize Burger as one of the top power sources available in a Draft class short on college hitters. He generates his pop more with strength than bat speed, and there are some worries about an arm bar in his right-handed swing. He controls the strike zone well and makes reliable contact for a slugger, so he should hit for some average as well. While Burger isn’t the most graceful player, one scout compared him to Hunter Pence for his ability to get the job done in less than pretty fashion. Despite his large frame, he has average speed out of the batter’s box and decent range at third base. With his solid arm, reliable hands and admirable work ethic, he should be able to stay at the hot corner.

Regardless, he’s a welcome addition to an organization that is deep in pitching but less so from a positional standpoint. It’s yet to be determined where he’ll slot in the system’s individual rankings, but he joins Collins, Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert, and Luis Alexander Basabe as potential above average bats in the system.

The White Sox continued their search for power in the second round, taking left-handed first baseman Gavin Sheets at No. 49 overall. Like Burger, Sheets’ value is almost entirely tied to his bat. Unlike Burger, who has a shot at sticking at the hot corner, Sheets seems to be solely the first base/DH type. Burger and Sheets combined to hit 42 home runs in 2017. Here’s MLB.com’s scouting report on Sheets:

For the second straight year, Wake Forest has a big-bodied corner infielder who will factor into the early rounds of the Draft. Sheets won’t go in the first round like Will Craig did to the Pirates in 2016, but he could go in the top three rounds to a team seeking left-handed power. The son of former big league outfielder Larry Sheets, he played for his father at Baltimore’s Gilman High before turning down the Braves as a 37th-round pick in 2014. An imposing presence at 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, Sheets has ranked among the NCAA Division I home run leaders this spring. He has a pretty swing and impressive strength, though there are some concerns about whether he has the bat speed to do damage against big league fastballs. He has made improvements to his plate discipline and pitch recognition this spring, giving him a chance to hit for average to go with his pop. Though Sheets is a well below-average runner, he moves well for his size. He gets the job done at first base and has plenty of arm strength to turn 3-6-3 double plays. First base and DH are his only possible positions, so he’ll have to hit.

Whether it is just coincidental given the players available when they selected or not, the White Sox have ended the night with a pair of bats who, if they reach their respective ceilings, could be impact power bats in years to come.

The draft continues Tuesday with rounds 3-10.

Lead Photo Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports