Schad wrote:I wouldn't be too concerned. Yeah, the White Sox tore everything down, but if you look at their roster, it's still pretty old. And a large part of the reason it's old is that they had some really awful drafts/IFAs, so few quality young players have bubbled up. From 2012-2017, here's the grand sum of the major leaguers/high-end prospects that they've found:
Tim Anderson. Flawed, but solid enough SS.
Carlos Rodon. Derailed by injury, but also not very good.
Aaron Bummer. Decent-enough reliever.
Luis Robert. Feast/famine J2 signee, their top prospect.
Considering that they had some relatively high picks, plus being at least on level playing ground in IFA, that's atrocious. They have had some arms blow up and the usual, but they've also just whiffed on a lot of opportunities. Their most-recent two drafts look a bit better, and they could still fill out a credible core, but you can't get next to nothing into the pipeline for six seasons and rebuild well.
They're actually the reverse of our management in that regard: their biggest trades actually look quite good (Moncada and Kopech is an excellent return for Sale if Kopech can stay healthy; Eloy and Dylan Cease is an excellent return for Quintana; Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez for Adam Eaton looks like a steal), but that alone isn't enough.
Pretty much started typing the bold then saw what you wrote.
And i just looked up their draft record from 2012 to 2017, boy what you listed was 100% right and terrible.
White Sox did what they Jays didnt by selling early, went for high end pitching early in the draft and in trades and drafting poorly as a whole. Seems like the Jays are ahead of where the Sox are after rebuilding close to 3 seasons later. That should speak to how well the Jays are drafting.
Biggest one that hurts for the White Sox is trading a prospect for James Shields... turned out to be Fernando Tatis Jr.
Could you imagine a lineup of;
C: Collins
1B: Vaughan
2B: Mandrigal
SS: Tatis
3B: Moncada
OF: Eloy
OF: Robert
OF: Anderson
Then arms like Giolito, Lopez, Rondon, Kopech, Fulmer, Dunning, and Cease. Tatis is only one guy but he could change the makeup of a rebuild like he might have for the Padres and Bo/Vladdy did for us.