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

The most obvious example of this was the trade that brought Adam Eaton to Chicago. The White Sox, long known for their successes developing starting pitching, traded one of those developmental successes, former 30th round draft pick Hector Santiago, to bring in an outfielder who had already been fully developed in Arizona.

As the White Sox transitioned into rebuild mode, acquisitions like Yoan Moncada and Eloy Jimenez weren’t exactly “ready-made” players, but hitters who were premium enough that it was (or is, in Jimenez’s case) more about getting more reps before being major league ready than anything specific in their development.

The White Sox have taken measures, as detailed in the above link, to streamline their hitter development, and the dividends thus far have been in the form of Tim Anderson fulfilling, at least thus far, more or less what they hoped he’d become. There are other lesser development triumphs, such as Yolmer Sanchez or Leury Garcia. Nicky Delmonico’s 2016 emergence, as fleeting as it might prove to be, is something you’d more likely expect from an organization like the Cardinals or Dodgers than the White Sox. Likewise, players like Marcus Semien and Tyler Flowers, who spent the better part of the developmental stages of their careers, have blossomed into useful players, although it’s unclear how much the White Sox had to do with either cases.

The rebuild becoming successful is going to be based primarily on the White Sox top prospects living up to their potential. Moncada, Jimenez, and the glut of young pitchers both at the major and minor league levels panning out will be the biggest factor in the White Sox snapping their long playoff drought sometime in the near future. Of course, ownership proving it’s willing to open its wallet for premiere free agents to supplement said roster should it come to fruition will be important in filling roster holes as they emerge, too.

But while the White Sox path toward future contention has primarily centered around a group of top-level arms and two top-tier hitters, proving the advancements they’ve made in hitter development will go a long way toward not only contention in 2020 or so, but sustaining that success long term. While not top-tier prospects like Moncada or Jimenez, there’s a group of talented but volatile hitters whose development is integral in them doing just that.

That group includes the likes of Luis Robert, Zack Collins and Blake Rutherford, but also Micker Adolfo, Luis Alexander Basabe, Seby Zavala, Gavin Sheets, and a few others you could convince me to mention. Jake Burger, of course as well, but his last few months has zapped a lot of that hope for the time being.

Some of these prospects have a better chance that others, but the point is that while Moncada, Jimenez, and the arms are the biggest keys in building the team the White Sox hope to have, some of that next tier becoming major leaguers is a big factor, as well.

Not every player in a contending team’s lineup is a superstar. But every contending team features a stable of capable players able to produce. The White Sox have a few players with star potential, and a whole stable of them who could become the latter. Hitting development has been a sore spot for a while, but has made great strides in recent years. Just how far they’ve come will be determined over the next few years.

Lead Photo Credit: Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

1.  Michael Kopech has generally continued to force the issue, although he hit a stumbling block on Sunday.  While he won’t be mistaken for Carlos Silva any time soon, 2018 has seen the retention of his second half 2017 progress in terms of limiting walks while pitching against Triple-A competition.  He’s done so while deliberately throwing his change-up as much as he possibly can.  For the hyper-competitive Kopech, it is probably difficult to maximize the use of your third best pitch, but he and the organization are clearly on the same page that this is the limiting reagent for him taking the next step to ace-dom.  If he had shoved again on Sunday, it may have been difficult to keep him down in Charlotte, but even with the poor outing, he is still definitely knocking on the door.  Whenever he is called up, he will still have work to do, as fully harnessing this arsenal will be a career-long endeavor.  However, as he still has high-90s with life to get out of any jam he’s in, he may need to be facing major league hitters to make further progress.

2. Dylan Cease has generally sat behind Alec Hansen and Kopech on prospect lists as the furthest away and most volatile of the three top pitching prospects.  The second piece in the Jose Quintana deal is fairly straightforward: insane fastball, hammer curve, crazy fragile.  To wit, he has struck out 12 batters per nine in his minor league career, which, due to injuries, has only been 162 innings over three seasons of pro ball.  So far, 2018 has been a huge success, as he is now pitching at Winston-Salem, his most advanced assignment yet, and dominating to the tune of a 1.95 ERA over 32 1/3 innings with 42 strikeouts against only 14 walks.  The indication is he hasn’t had any of his stuff eroded by injury to date, and if he can make it to ~120-150 innings without injury he could put himself on the radar for a late 2019 call up and increase the odds he actually leverages his massive potential into a major league career.

3. Luis Alexander Basabe has continued his hot start, which he attributes to simply being healthy as contrasted to last year.  With a .299/.419/.598 triple slash so far in High-A, Basabe is making the case for a promotion to Birmingham sooner rather than later.  Such a promotion could be paired with a corresponding bumping of Eloy Jimenez to Triple-A.  The uber prospect has clearly knocked all the rust off after an injury-delayed start to the year, as a .481/.500/.852 line over the last week has raised him to .319/.347/.652 on the season.  There’s no real rush for either of these guys, but at a certain point with Jimenez, as with Kopech, one wonders if minor league pitchers at any level can provide him with sufficient challenge.

4.  Dane Dunning continues his ho-hum, clockwork excellence even after his promotion to Double-A.  The White Sox have taken it slowly with the relief-to-starter convert, as he was allowed to annihilate Winston-Salem in a second look for four outings to start the year.  One suspects they aren’t going to be in any rush with him either, but as a plus-pitch-ability/command prospect, he too may take his timetable into his own hands.  And, once you’re at Birmingham, you’re certainly within shouting distance of the South Side, and if he doesn’t hit an innings limit, may even wind up getting some relief appearances in September.

5.  Zack Collins is still getting rough reviews for his work behind the plate, but at least he is showing signs that his new swing may be paying dividends in terms of bat-to-ball.  His last seven games have seen him hit .381/.567/.524 with more walks than strikeouts.  It’s a small sample, but Collins really needs to rake in order to support what looks like a weak glove at catcher or the immense pressure which would be on his bat at first base.  The walks and power certainly look like a permanent feature of his profile, and if he has eliminated a flaw in his swing, a .260-.270 average could mean a potential plus bat at the major league level.

All of the above are small samples, but — Collins aside — they are largely consistent with what we know of these players in tandem with good health.  We all know in the abstract that a brighter future is ahead, but sometimes it helps to get some concrete examples of what that might be.

Photo credit: Joe Camporeale- USA Today

• 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!

Throughout his time in the minors, Omar Narvaez demonstrated that he could make contact and draw walks. After a partial season in his major league debut in 2016, the skill apparently translated against the highest level of pitching. Another ~300 PAs of .277/.373/.340 hitting showed he clearly owns an on-base ability that is well above average in a league where catchers collectively posted an OBP of .315.

Indeed, Narvaez achieves this despite the complete non-existence of any power whatsoever. Anyone who has watched him hit shows how he pulls this off, with his good eye, ability to spoil pitches, shorten his swing, and approach with a goal of nothing more than reaching first base. And thus, we have a triple slash line that accurately conveys exactly the type of player Narvaez is on offense, and what we can reasonably expect to see moving forward.  After all, if pitchers could just get him out by going straight at him, one imagines they would have already done so.

So far so good — we have a lopsided, but valuable offensive profile from a left-handed bat that plays a valuable position in his mid-20s. The problem isn’t here. The problem comes on the other side of the ball.

By our metrics, Narvaez ranked as 87th in framing runs and 94th in overall catcher defense. Between that and his power, the ceiling here is low. One reason for optimism is that Narvaez is quite young, framing is something that can be improved with coaching, and in some, but not all, instances, the White Sox have managed to coach up framing.

The White Sox don’t have to make any decisions about Narvaez right now. Unless they want to try to sign a reclamation project like Jonathan Lucroy this offseason, the other catchers on the free agent market are all much older than Narvaez and offer similarly one-dimensional production, if any at all. Teams aren’t really in the habit of trading away usable catchers, either, seeing how few of them there are to be had.

Internally, Zack Collins is the only prospect with a chance at being an impact player at the position, and that is hardly a given, nor is it imminent. In other words, with Narvaez here, the White Sox have a player who pairs well with the more numerous, right-handed options at catcher for a platoon situation, and may be able to shore up his weaknesses on defense such that he is something resembling a second division starter.

If nothing else, for zero investment, he is a nifty find, and certainly an unusual, interesting player to watch.

Lead Photo Credit: Caylor Arnold-USA TODAY Sports

Eloy Jimenez and Zack Collins have been promoted from High-A Winston-Salem to Double-A Birmingham. While there are only a few weeks left in the minor league season, players are human beings and when you excel in superlative fashion at your job a promotion is in order.  There’s also reason to believe that they have mastered the level and are ready to be promoted.  Jimenez has hit .345/.410/.682 in 122 PAs since arriving in Winston-Salem.  As Rafael Devers and Yoan Moncada have demonstrated, elite hitting prospects can move really quickly, and Jimenez will therefore start next year in Double-A, and if these trends continue this time next year he could be a candidate for a September call up.

It speaks to the expectations for Collins’ bat that as a 22-year-old catcher in his first full pro season his .808 OPS is viewed as a disappointment.  If you are of the opinion that he will not remain as a catcher, then it is a troubling offensive output for an advanced college bat in the low minors.  However, he has devoted a lot of his time and energy to developing on the defensive side of the ball and catchers tend to take a long time to figure things out, if they ever do at all.  It’s an arbitrary endpoint, but dating back to a doubleheader on July 30, Collins has hit .342/.490/.658 and walked more than he has struck out.  There’s no specific reason to believe he’d be overmatched at Birmingham or that he’s being moved too quickly, although per James Fegan over at The Athletic, there are still mechanical changes he wants to make to shorten his swing this offseason.

The promotion to Double-A also means that we will finally have some pitch framing data for Collins, although it isn’t quite as precise as at the major league level.  The general sense is that Collins has made a lot of defensive improvements since becoming a pro, but with something like catcher defense the more information we have, the better.

The White Sox also announced that Dylan Covey would be promoted from Charlotte having completed his rehab to take Tyler Clippard‘s spot on the 25-man roster.  It looks like the White Sox will be able to keep the Rule V pick on the roster all season, which means he’s theirs permanently if they want.  I am curious to see what he can do in relief, as I’m not sure there is starter’s durability there, regardless of stuff.

On Free Agency…

There is something of the magical when thinking about free agents. As opposed to draft picks, where you have to wait years and years for likely disappointment, or a trade where you have to give up something to get something. Free agents can just be shoved into the roster.  Instant gratification.

A byproduct of the White Sox rebuild, where you are theoretically building as much of a contender as you can from within, is that the roster should be cheap, composed of a higher percentage of players being paid the league minimum, or suppressed salaries through the arbitration process.  Therefore, such a team should have a surplus of money to allocate to free agency.  The Cubs, for example, were able to sign Jon Lester (nice!) and Jason Heyward (whoops!) to huge contracts to supplement their homegrown core, and have made deep playoff runs including a World Series win, as you may have heard.

And, given that Rick Hahn has floated 2019 as the first year he foresees the White Sox potentially contending again if everything breaks right, some have noticed that syncs up with the 2018-2019 free agent class.  For reference, that class projects to contain Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, A.J. Pollock, Charlie Blackmon, Clayton Kershaw, Dallas Keuchel, Andrew Miller, and more.

A lot of teams with bigger budgets than the White Sox have been obviously targeting this free agent class for a long time.  The Red Sox and Yankees have made conspicuous efforts to remain below the luxury tax threshold of late, and the Dodgers have to be on the short list of favorites for basically any player they would want to sign, just to name a few.

In addition, the White Sox have never signed a free agent to a contract of more than $100 million.  Jose Abreu’s deal remains the biggest in franchise history, and not since Albert Belle has the organization really gone out and grabbed a splashy, top of the class free agent.  So, until they do, I will assume that that trend will continue.

But, for all that I would bet all kinds of money against Harper or Kershaw playing for the White Sox until maybe their early 40s, some of those names further down the list could fit really nicely to help push a young White Sox core over the hump and into the postseason.  And, speaking of Lester, the Cubs signed him slightly earlier than when people believed the Cubs would be ready to compete.  That type of move makes sense, given that it is difficult to assemble a whole roster all at once, and that free agency doesn’t always provide the player you want when you want him.  To that end, although this winter’s free agent class pales in comparison to the subsequent one, it may be worth monitoring to see what pieces–if any–the White Sox add this offseason to see if they too make “early” moves in advance of their contention window opening.

Lead Image Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

2. Miguel Gonzalez, James Shields, and Mike Pelfrey were the other three pitchers to go against the Red Sox over the weekend. They pitched just about as badly as Rodon did well. Gonzalez lasted just 1 2/3 innings while giving up seven earned runs. Shields and Pelfrey both spent more time looking over their shoulder at home runs than delivering to the plate. A lot of this is to be expected. The White Sox aren’t good, and being good isn’t their current intent. Gonzalez’s start was clearly not one that is ever desired, but there were positives to be found in the starts made by both Shields and Pelfrey. Shields was able to scrape by six innings while Pelfrey was just a single out away from doing the same. With a bullpen that’s been emptied through trades often taking on the burden of finishing games in which the starter leaves far too early, those types of outings are incredibly important. The bullpen was beleaguered in the first game of the series because of Gonzalez’ short start, but Shields and Pelfrey were able to help chip in to keeping the arms in the pen well-rested.

3. Zack Collins has been the subject of much debate as part of a loaded White Sox farm system. The results have been bad, but the tools he showed in his time at Miami were good enough to make him Chicago’s first round pick a little over a year ago. Being an older player stuck in High-A is never a great sign, especially when he’s struggling mightily to hit the ball. One of the weaknesses that has been pointed out in his game since draft day is the existence of a hitch in his swing. The Athletic’s James Fegan recently saw him in North Carolina and received some answers to questions about his poor season. Collins recognizes his failures, but he refuses to put the blame on anything other than his own poor play. That kind of maturity is important in a player that has struggled early in his pro career. The hope is that he figures things out in 2018, putting himself back among the best White Sox prospects.

4. Rick Hahn spoke at Saber Seminar, an annual baseball analytics conference in Boston, this weekend. He provided a Q&A for those in attendance and unsurprisingly received questions about when Reynaldo Lopez would make his way to Chicago. His response was vague but blunt enough to draw a real conclusion.

Asked about pitching prospects being called up, Hahn said "Maybe buy tickets for Friday night."

— Phenomenal Source (@SouthSideSox) August 5, 2017

It certainly seems like Lopez will be making his first White Sox start on Friday. He pitched on Sunday, having his worst start in recent weeks. It wasn’t a complete disaster, but he did allow four earned runs on four hits and three walks in five innings pitched. The good news is that he struck out nine. His stuff is certainly ready for the big leagues, but the question remains about whether he can control the ball well enough to maintain a starting role. It looks like Lopez will get two months in the big leagues to prove that he can. At the very least, it gives White Sox fans something to look forward to and watch as this team tumbles even lower in the standings.

5. Yoan Moncada hasn’t had an earth-shattering start to his White Sox career, but that doesn’t make him a bust either. Things have started to turn around, however, in the trip to Boston. He registered hits in five of his 17 plate appearances and also drew three walks. He still isn’t quite at the level that is expected, but he’s certainly showing a good process. When he adjusts to major league pitching and becomes more aggressive, he should see more success. It’s far too early to be worried about the young second baseman.

Lead Photo Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

2. The White Sox pitching staff has, predictably, become much worse since the departures of Quintana, Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle. Those three were arguably the best three pitchers on the roster, so it’s natural that their departure would have lasting impacts on the team they left behind. Quintana has only been gone from the team for 10 days now, but since his departure the longest outing by a White Sox starter has been six innings. Miguel Gonzalez has done it once, and James Shields has done it once.

Things are bound to get even uglier when fatigue sets in for both the rotation and the bullpen. Gonzalez has been unimpressive, Shields has shown flashes of his poor 2016 self, and Carlos Rodon has battled control issues since arriving back in Chicago. That’s going to be taxing for the bullpen, which just lost two of the relievers they leaned on the heaviest. Robertson and Kahnle threw more pitches for the White Sox than everyone but Chris Beck, Anthony Swarzak, and Dan Jennings. Tyler Clippard was supposed to alleviate some of that burden, but he’s thrown just one-third of an inning in two games while allowing three hits and an earned run. The team will have to get creative with how they handle the remainder of the innings needed in 2017 while keeping in mind that they don’t want to burn any of the young arms.

3. One young arm that could be on his way to Chicago in the near future is Reynaldo Lopez. While his future as a starter still hangs in the balance, he’s already shown an ability to make some starts at the big league level (with Washington in 2016) and is having a fine season in Charlotte. In his last nine starts, he’s posted an ERA of 3.23, which includes one stinker of a game where he allowed six earned runs and four walks. In those last nine starts he’s walked more than two batters just that one time while striking out six or more five times, including two different outings with double digit strikeouts. He’s looked really good, which should be a sign that the White Sox are ready to give him the call. They’re right to be patient, of course, but he seems like a pitcher that is ready to make that next step. It may not be before his next start, but it seems like his time in Charlotte is coming to a close.

4. Another prospect who has been lighting it up as of late is newly acquired Eloy Jimenez. On Sunday he went 5-for-6 with two doubles and a home run. He’s had just 31 at-bats with the Dash, but he’s managed to hit seven extra base hits. His 19.7 percent strikeout rate this season indicates that he’s not whiffing or getting fooled all that often. In fact, his 10.8 percent walk rate seems to point toward some excellent discipline at the plate. This is all scouting the stat line, of course, but it’s certainly not a bad thing to see a top 10 prospect getting the desired results. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before he departs the crowded outfield of Winston-Salem for the bright, shiny Double-A ballpark in Birmingham.

5. Zack Collins is a prospect with less desirable results than Lopez or Jimenez. Despite being drafted as a bat-first prospect, Collins has stalled in High-A, a level that a player his age should have no problem with. There is of course the notion that catching prospects develop at different paces with different parts of their game taking a back seat at different times, which the lovely James Fegan mentioned in his excellent article about Collins. Even being generous towards Collins in that regard, the failure to hit at such a low level is a concern. If he’s unable to put things together the White Sox could have a failed pick at the top of the draft on their hands. The good news, however, is that the team has built enough prospect depth to withstand such a thing. It is also far too early to give up on a player like Collins, but the clock keeps ticking and he does keep getting older with each passing second. The concern is there, but the alarm bells aren’t quite ringing yet.

Lead Photo Credit: Denny Medley-USA Today Sports Images

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

First and foremost, the decision was made with increasing offensive production in mind. Flowers hit an abysmal .239/.295/.356 with a wRC+ of 79 in 2015. With patchwork being done elsewhere on offense, the White Sox simply didn’t believe they had any path to success with Flowers in the lineup on a daily basis. That’s certainly a fair assessment. However, Flowers went on to have the best offensive season of his career in Atlanta in 2016. Perhaps the automatic reaction is that Flowers went to a somewhat weaker National League, and the White Sox had no way of predicting that a breakout was coming.

That is not necessarily true. While Flowers wasn’t great during the 2015 season, he showed some shockingly good improvements in areas that sometimes go unnoticed. From 2014 to 2015 some serious improvements were made in his contact and swing rates. He lowered his swing percentage on pitches outside the zone from 34.1 to 29.5 percent while keeping his swing percentage on pitches inside the zone relatively the same. Laying off the garbage helped him raise his contact rate on pitches inside the zone by 7.9 percent. Even more noticeable was the drop in strikeout rate from 36 to 28.8 percent. That adjustment seemed to stick around in Atlanta where he held a 28 percent strikeout rate while raising his walk rate a bit to become an above average hitter, which is not often seen from catchers.

The success of Flowers only compounded the issues that the White Sox saw from their decision to change things at catcher. While they were looking to make an offensive improvement, neither Avila nor Navarro held up their ends of the deal. Navarro’s slash line was horrifying. He hit .207/.265/.322 with a 56 wRC+. He was disastrous at the plate, which was where he was supposed to excel. Avila faired slightly better, mostly due to his ability to take a walk. Avila had a walk rate of 18.2 percent, which helped him reach above average wRC+ (104). The offensive production was bad and disappointing. However, the White Sox can be mostly forgiven for that part of it. They expected success at the plate (although perhaps that’s a poor reflection of their scouting department), but they got failure. Where the White Sox were really burned for their decision was behind the plate.

Tyler Flowers was coming off his best defensive season, in which he had an FRAA of 11.0 and ranked third in framing runs with 15.2. The misconception appears to be that the White Sox weren’t even aware of this impressive framing ability, especially in the year before his release. Rick Hahn put those suggestions to bed with his comments during a conference call in March.

“I think there’s an unfortunate perception out there that we let Tyler Flowers go because we don’t believe in or perhaps are even not aware of framing data,” he said. “Hopefully people realize it was a little more of a sophisticated decision than that. We certainly have, I believe, owned the fact that it did not pan out with (Dioner) Navarro and (Alex) Avila the way we had hoped.”

Hahn makes two things clear with this statement. First, the White Sox do consider and value framing data. Second, he owns up to the fact that the decision to move from Flowers to Navarro and Avila was not a success. He went on to talk in a little more detail about framing and the things the White Sox consider when pursuing a catcher.

“We do very much value catcher defense,” he said. “We spend a great deal of time on framing and teaching framing at the minor league level … In fact, you will recall that Tyler made great advances as part of our organization in his framing metrics. When it does come to evaluating a catcher’s defensive ability, we don’t limit it strictly to framing. We would like to also have their ability to control the running game be evaluated, their ability with lateral movement to handle passed balls in the dirt, to a lesser extend wild pitches and the effect a catcher has on that, as well as their ability to work with a pitching staff and manage a pitcher’s compliance with their game plan as well.

“So it’s easy to look at the decision on Tyler and think it was us not understanding or appreciating framing data, however, nothing could be farther from the truth.”

First off, he’s right about the fact that Flowers learned his framing skill in the White Sox minor league system. When he was acquired, he was actually considered an above-average hitter with questions about whether he could stick behind the plate. (Sound familiar?) What is more interesting is that he goes on to describe the other aspects of defense that they do value. Specifically throwing runners out and blocking.

Using numbers from Baseball Prospectus, Flowers had -2.8 blocking runs and -0.6 throwing runs in 2015. Being in the red on any defensive metric isn’t a great sign, but certainly those small negatives are outweighed by the +15.2 runs he produced by framing. It becomes even more questionable when the unimpressive -0.8 blocking runs and -0.6 throwing runs from Navarro in 2016 come into play. His numbers before the addition were very similar, so there wasn’t a drastic change year to year after joining Chicago. Avila wasn’t much better in 2016 with 0.0 blocking runs and -0.6 throwing runs. It’s easy to deflect the displeasure over framing away by mentioning other aspects of defense. After all, framing just happens to be the in vogue stat. However, neither Avila nor Navarro was an upgrade defensively outside of framing.

Add on the poor framing from both Avila and Navarro and the decision becomes even more mind-boggling. It’s not often that an inability to frame is readily seen day to day via the eye test. Navarro made that possible. His -18.8 framing runs in 2016 only backed up what the eyes told us right away. It would’ve been hard to be worse than Navarro behind the plate. In fact, nobody was worse. Avila, however, did his best to catch up by producing a -6.5 framing runs.

The decision to move from Flowers to Avila and Navarro was a bad one. It was made even worse by an inability to identify improvements from Flowers on the offensive side of the ball. The biggest discrepancy, however, was on defense. While Avila and Navarro failed most excessively at framing, they weren’t good in any aspects of defending.

Does this matter anymore? Hahn has owned up to the lack of success they saw from the move. Hahn has expressed a desire to have catchers excel behind the plate. It really shouldn’t matter anymore. However, it continues to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth. Flowers wouldn’t have cost much at all for the White Sox to retain. They failed to see that he was on the verge of a good offensive performance in addition to his consistent ability behind the plate. While Flowers is long gone now, the impact of this catching decision will continue to reverberate.

Rehashing the details of the catchers added last year can be painful, but it perhaps gives us an insight into the mindset of the team going forward. Omar Narvaez appears to be the guy the White Sox are going with for now. At least until Zack Collins can work his way up in the next few years. Narvaez isn’t egregious behind the plate like Navarro and Avila were. However, he’s not going to help his pitchers out nearly as much as Flowers did. The White Sox must deal with the consequences that has for their pitching staff. They must also consider how that affects their decision making in regards to the catcher position going forward. It doesn’t appear as though Narvaez or Collins is going to be impressive on defense, so what are the White Sox going to do if they continue to fall behind the league in catcher defense? The answer to that question remains to be seen. It is, however, certainly a question that must be answered.

Lead Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell/USA Today Sports Images