Three Surprises in White Socks
The White Sox are certainly a surprising team this year. I do not think many gave much thought to the AL Central under the assumption that the Twins were clear favorites there and that the Wild Card was assured to come out of the AL East. Instead, the White Sox are holding the divisional lead and they are doing it with little help from their position players.
It has been the pitchers where Chicago has made up ground on the better teams in baseball and the success on the mound has come from some unexpected sources. Mark Buehrle is having a typical Mark Buehrle season and Jake Peavy was a bit of a disappointment in both performance and durability, though neither should have come as too big a shock. To counter the letdowns and exactly-as-predicteds, three pitchers have exceeded expectations enough to propel the White Sox up the divisional leader board.
J.J. Putz came into 2010 on the heels of an injurious and all around disastrous 2009 season with the Mets. Having thrown just 29.1 innings, Putz’s strikeout rate fell from a three year average close to 11 per 9 to just 5.8. His walk rate also stayed at his 2008 level in the mid to upper 5s, which left him with an equal number of walks as strikeouts in 2009.
The projection systems did see much improvement for Putz in 2010. CHONE and ZiPS put him at a 4.29 and 4.24 FIP respectively. FanGraphs readers were a lot more optimistic with a 3.49 predicted FIP, but even they are being blown out of the water by Putz’s actual performance that is right out of his 2006 model of success. The strikeouts are back to 10.6, the walks are back down to 1.5 and the high ground ball rates are back as well, keeping the home runs infrequent. In total, Putz has already thrown 35.2 innings with just a 2.00 FIP. He’s been one of the very best relievers in baseball.
John Danks ended up in Chicago with a reputation as a big time fly ball pitcher, a reputation well deserved. His ground ball rate in his rookie 2007 season was just under 35%. It has steadily risen each season since up to 43% in 2008, 44% last year and now up to 47% in 2010. Interestingly, the cause might be because of his drastically reducing the use of his breaking ball. During that transformation, Danks has managed to hold onto his strikeouts and cut down on his walks by a smidge. His continued improvement has once again bested the average projections.
Gavin Floyd took a sizable step forward last season, upping his strikeout rate by about one per nine without any additional walks. Largely, the projection systems did not expect Floyd to hold onto those gains as well as he has in 2010. The other part that nobody expected was Floyd’s ground ball rate going from a well-established rate in the low 40s to 51% this season. Floyd’s 6.4% home run per fly ball rate is unsustainably low, but even adjusting for that, Floyd has held onto his 2009 improvement and is establishing a new baseline for performance as a high-3 xFIP pitcher as opposed to the mid-4 range that was working in previously.
There are obviously many reasons for Chicago’s success to date in 2010, but the above three pitchers are both some of the biggest and some of the least expected.
Matthew Carruth is a software engineer who has been fascinated with baseball statistics since age five. When not dissecting baseball, he is watching hockey or playing soccer.
“The White Sox are certainly a surprising team this year. I do not think many gave much thought to the AL Central under the assumption that the Twins were clear favorites there and that the Wild Card was assured to come out of the AL East.”
i wonder how many times this has been written in the blogosphere over the last five years. over that same time frame, it’s this second sentence that has probably never been written. the offense has never looked this bad.
FG’s authors conceded the division to MIN. Plenty of readers, myself included, continually pointed out that the difference between the Twins and CWS and DET was not large at all.
I think quite a few regulars at this site saw a 3-team race in 2010.
I, personally, think that if any other GM had pulled off the Danks and Floyd trades, they would be lauded as historically great trades. KW flat out stole 2/5’s of a solid rotation.
The Peavy injury is tough because he appeared to be overcoming his rough start … But we all knew that an injury was a possibility.
The race in the ALC could get to the point where the 1-2-3 teams fluxuate week-to-week. Should be fun.
FWIW, even CWS fans seem to write the team off every year and beg for the “blowing up of the team” and “rebuilding” to begin. Yet, they are generally competitive … Even without Beckham. Rios has turned a “laughable” move into a good “change of scenery” story.
I hate to admit it, but the manager might also have something to do with the team’s play. I would have thought by now that Ozzie’s “bit” would have run out by now … But obviously it has not.
This is like the Mariners being a surprise in the AL West…. folks got on a bandwagon based on minimal actual data and then when the forecasts are wrong, it’s a surprise.
Was there anyone who didn’t think they had the best rotation in that division going into the year along with a pretty good bullpen? The only question was ‘would they hit enough?’ I don’t see how this could be that surprising going into the season, but I could understand it if it’s based on their performance over the first month and a half or so of the season.
I also wanted to add, without looking at pitch data, that what we’re seeing with D & F is that they could be evolving as pitchers and just not relying on high fastball to get hitters out. If they are able to sustain that it only helps their chances to be good in the next few years.
Putz is coming off an injury, so who knew what you’d get? He’s certainly been a surprise.
Danks and Floyd are 25 and 27 respectively. neither has ever been really bad in a full season – Danks posted 0.8 WAR in 26 starts and 139 IP in 2006, the next worse full season for the two of them is Floyd’s 2.4 war in 206 IP in 2008. So is it really a surprise that they have been performing well? I don’t know if “learning how to pitch” means anything, but shouldn’t you expect decent, young pitchers to get better?
Buehrle, Danks and Floyd have evolved quite a bit over the years… Take a look at how their pitch selection percentages have adapted.
Floyd and Danks could be very different pitchers today if they had stayed with their original organizations. Both were strong but underachieving prospects with their original teams. It looks like the White Sox have made some smart decisions within each pitcher’s development.
If Don Cooper and Dave Duncan were in reversed roles, this would be an article about The Club’s (Sundays at 9 ET) pitching coach.
I’ve heard Coop speak a few times at the ChiSox baseball academy, and once you get past the “aw shucks” vernacular, he knows his stuff.
Somewhat surprisingly, he’s not a “talk over your head” type of professional coach, but more of a “it’s all about mastering the basics” type of stuff. In short, he doesn;t try to fool you with trying to get you to think he’s the Merlin with all the hidden secrets, but rather a guy that focuses on the “meat and potatoes” (his words) of pitching.
Pretty cool guy, actually. One of those guys that could be “everybody’s uncle Don”.
Also, one big difference with Duncan … he has a history of taking guys that have failed elsewhere or are viewed as being “out of it” and helping them becoem really effective pitchers, whether we’re talking Stew and Honey in OAK, or the numerous examples in StL.
That’s a completely different scenario than helping talented young pitchers mature and diversify.
Regardless, Coop should get some credit.
Which (meaning your comment below this one…) speaks volumes about what Kenny Williams has done – how many other teams’ pitching coaches even get the chance to work with two ‘talented young pitchers’ from other organizations?
“speaks volumes about what Kenny Williams has done – how many other teams’ pitching coaches even get the chance to work with two ‘talented young pitchers’ from other organizations?”
Sure… because most organizations are busy developing their own drafted talents, haha. Take a look at the last 10 years of pitching prospects drafted by the White Sox. That speaks more to me.
I also find it hard to believe that he could be so right with evaluating another team’s prospect talent to trade for, but be so off target with the talent they draft into their own system. They obviously saw a potential quick fix in Gavin Floyd and made the move because of that… same with Thornton and Jenks…
I’d like to know more about how these decisions were considered and made… Is it Cooper just as he’s watching guys around the league? Their MLB scouts? Guillen? but if Kenny really had things figured out, they’d be making sound decisions in the draft for once to develop guys on their own.
I made a post and dis the math on KW’s acquisitions, including getting Jenks of waivers or rule 5 or whatever it was.
If memory serves he got 30+ WAR over 3-4 years while giving up nothing.
Some don’t like KW and I get that, but if you look at a total of his moves, he’s done some really good stuff (and put together a title winner … Which is kind of a big deal for Chicago baseball, since the previous title coincides with the arrival of automobiles).
And yes, many of us mentioned that the difference in value of the CWS pitching offset the difference in value in the MIN batting.
Found my old post …
Danks, Floyd, Jenks, and Thornton … for Borchard, McCarthy, and Freddy Garcia.
Yeah, I don’t understand why KW gets nailed for the trades. “He gave away Nick Swisher!” Well, ok. But you are accurate that he has gotten far more in return than he has given up over the years. He hasn’t given up alot that you would desperately want back. Maybe Poreda? The jury is still out on him.
You are dead on that this team can’t draft. How many guys on the 25 man roster did they draft? Not counting rule-5 acquisitions (Jenks and Santos) or foriegn free agents (Ramirez, Viciedo) I count Beckham and Hudson. I’d have to look up Threets but even so, that would be all of three! It’s a tribute to somebody that they have remained competitive with that kind of record. I don’t know who deserves the credit -management for finding guys when the draftees fail or the coaching staff for making something out of nothing.
Personally … I don’t think any GM/Org really has the draft “figured out”.
The busts and successes seemingly have no pattern. It isn’t like the NBA or NFL where the top picks generally pan out. We’re talking about situations like the Cardinals franchise being completely transformed by a 12th round draft pick.
I agree, the ChiSox cannot draft. But the big draft strategy seems to be just get as many picks/prospects as you can and hope a couple pan out.
My personal opinion is that we have FAR too many players drafted. 50 rounds, 30 teams, every year. As anti-Amnerican as it is, we don’t need 7 levels of professional baseball. I think it makes player evaluation/development even more difficult.
@MikeS would you rather have Richard or Peavy, right now, and for the rest of their contracts / team control?
“@MikeS would you rather have Richard or Peavy, right now, and for the rest of their contracts / team control?”
I get tired of statements like this. Its 20/20 and the circumstances are not apples to apples.
If your question is whether I would want Peavy or Richard at the beginning of the season its Peavy all day. Yes Peavy is market price but so what? All players don’t have to be bargains. Floyd, Danks, Q and Alexei served that purpose.
Peavy is gone but he was a a MAJOR reason the team turned around in the first place.
Id make the Peavy trade over again all day.
@Travis L: to this point, Peavy has 1.8WAR, Richard 1.6. Peavy ahd better K/9, BB/9 and WHIP. Sure, going forward this year (and probably next depending on the rehab) Ricvhard will rack up more WAR. But even though Richard is only 27 I’m not sure he’s ever going to be much more than a middle of the rotation starter, not as hard to find as a front of the rotation starter which Peavy has been adn maybe was becoming again – we’ll never know if the recent Peavy was going to continue. The White Sox took a risk and lost (for now, maybe for the future) but I’m not crying in my beer that Clayton Richard isn’t in the White Sox Rotation.
Richard won’t. As far as I’ve known, he’s always been tabbed as a 4th starter kind of guy. I always thought he’s the type of pitcher built to have reasonable success in San Diego. A lefty ground baller pitching in that park… Nice move to maximize some production out of a decent player. His splits definitely favor his pitching at home.
He’s made some nice moves to acquire some very valuable assets, but it doesn’t excuse Kenny’s amazingly awful draft history….
With 10 years of service, I can’t think of a single Kenny Williams draft pick that’s started at least 1 full season in the majors playing for the WS (relief pitchers should not count)… That’s why the White Sox are consistently a surprise. Their management has a knack for turning the careers of fallen prospects, and hard luck veterans into something of value. Notice that Kenny has yet to be burned by a swap of his doing …the sign of a truly lousy minor league system.
You do realize you point out farther up that Danks and Floyd would be completely different pitchers potentially in different systems, and may not even succeed at all, and are now saying that since KW has yet to be burned, obviously the White Sox have a truly lousy minor league system. By your own logic, some of the prospects KW has dealt may have had largely different careers in different systems, its not as if he is delivering finished products to other teams.
I’m not saying that I don’t agree with you to some extent that KW has made some very poor draft decisions, but at least stick to your own logic and recognize that the prospects he trades away still continue to develop (or not) based on the system they move to.
beckham?
It’s true that their drafting has not been the best, but two caveats – (1), Reinsdorf will not approve an overslot (or, massively overslot) pick, and (2), because of their consistent winning, they haven’t had high picks, and don’t pick up players like Porcello who fall because of bonus demands.
Also, there have actually been a lot of high value prospects KW has traded over the years – I often have hated the trades, but they seem to work out. Chris Young, I hated that trade, but aside from this year, he’s been awful. Jeremy Reed, I hated that trade, but he’s stunk and has returned to the White Sox in the minors. Chris Carter, he got Quentin for, and that monster 2008 season. Hated the Brandon McCarthy trade, but Danks has clearly been the prize.
Their minor league system hasn’t been the best, but the highly touted prospects Kenny has traded have been traded at exactly the right time, generally. Furthermore, extracting all the value that he has from a “truly lousy” system should be a plus in his favor.
Classic pump and dump. The goofs drafting before are gone and you have seen results already in the past 3 years.
Do I wish he’d paid attention a lot sooner? Yes but there is more than 1 way to build a team and people seem to forget that sometimes.
sorry I accidentally placed the reply at the bottom, but you might just want to ignore it, it kind of turned into a really annoying rant, haha. My apologies
Do recall the White Sox scouting scandal in ’08…several scouts were fired and the department was restructured following this. The last three drafts appear to have been much improved over those of the previous decade, so I would expect the farm system to improve. But, it certainly appears that KW has a desire (and a knack) for building clubs from outside rather than from within.
Gavin Floyd’s success also should be credited to an improving gb/fb, no?
The White Sox recent draft history is embarrassingly bad:
2000 – 4 of 50 (8%) to MLB combining for -2.0 WAR, 0 on MLB team
2001 – 5 of 51 (9%), -2.0 WAR, 0
2002 – 9 of 50 (18%), 2.7 WAR, 0
2003 – 2 of 50 (4%), 4.3 WAR, 0
2004 – 8 of 54 (14%), -4.4 WAR, 0
2005 – 4 of 49 (8%), 2.1 WAR, 0
2006 – 1 of 50 (2%), 0.0 WAR, 0
2007 – 2 of 45 (4%), 0.3 WAR, 0
2008 – 2 of 49 (4%), 1.2 WAR, 2 (Beckham, Hudson)
Total of 37 out of 448 (8%) making majors for 2.2 WAR and only two of the 37 are on the big league club.
How does that even happen?
I’m not just hating as a Tigers fan either, I’m just stunned at how bad they have been. For comparison, the Tigers in that period have 40 of 430 to the majors (9%), but for 47.8 WAR and 11 are still on the major league roster.
You know what’s missing? The WAR that the traded pumps and dumps provided.
If they drafted horrible AND held on to that garbage that to me would be 10 times worse. Folks like Garcia, Vazquez etc.. have more than paid for it. Remember the key is KW aquired these assets outside of FA bidding wars.
Im sure Detroit would trade its last 10 years with the White Sox.
Of course there is also the fact that he HAS to be this savvy with FA & trade moves because the draft has been a complete and utter waste for them.
Yeah they’d probably trade the last 10 for 10 since it includes a World Series, but Detroit was the laughingstock of the league in the early part of the decade. I’m not sure they would trade the last four plus (the plus being 2010 to date) for Chicago’s.
Both teams are over .500, but the Tigers are better at .529 to Chicago’s .508 while the Tigers also have a better nucleus around Cabrera, Verlander, Jackson, Scherzer, Porcello, Perry and Boesch than Chicago’s around Beckham, Danks, Floyd and I guess maybe Peavy & Rios?
Nevertheless, I don’t think KW is a bad GM and I think the White Sox will be a very, very tough out for my Tigers, but I was just shocked to find out how putrid their draft history had been the last decade.
*since it includes a World Series WIN that is… the Tigers of course made the World Series in 2006. (stupid David Eckstein!!!)
Huh?
The White Sox percentage over the last decade is .528 and Detroit’s is certainly not .529. The Chi Sox have won the division 3 times with a WS. Detroit had a wild card berth. Get real.
As far as nucleus having a great pitching staff along with SS,2B and CF is pretty easy to build around. No I don’t worry about Detoit at all.
nice visual.. thanks for that one!
Yeah, Kenny’s draft history is bad, but as was pointed out, there was a big scandal and restructuring of our scouting system and things appear to be getting better.
And the draft is only one part of the big picture of a GMs job. He still makes good trades and free agent picks up and does so while maintaining a somewhat decent budget.
Also, as was pointed out, he did put together a World Series champion that was not picked to do much before the season started.
Yes, the scandal was huge, but lets not forget that the scandal surrounded one of Kenny’s biggest buddies. Remember that lots of GMs are the ones responsible for building the crews involved with scouting processes, and remember that…
Kenny got his administrative start with the White Sox as a scout in 1992
followed by becoming the Minor League director of operations in 1995
became vice president of operations in 1997 before becoming GM in 2000
So he’s been involved with these processes for quite some time. It shouldn’t have taken a recent scandal to finally decide their system needed an overhaul.
Things seem to be turning around a bit, but I’d like to hold on that thought for another 3-4 years before committing to that.
Yes the WS championship is always a major plus. 🙂
Understandable… Not meaning that Danks and Floyd might not have been as successful with another organization, but they might have been a very different type of pitcher… ex… Danks and his cutter… Floyd and his slider… both major changes within the WS organization… Just different types, not really knowing what the results might have been otherwise.
As for the draft… The year they drafted Beckham, from a value standpoint they couldn’t loose… It was either Smoak or Beckham at 8 and it’s tough to screw that one up even if you only wanted something around slot value.
“Their minor league system hasn’t been the best, but the highly touted prospects Kenny has traded have been traded at exactly the right time, generally. Furthermore, extracting all the value that he has from a “truly lousy” system should be a plus in his favor.”
I’m sorry, but Brandon McCarthy and Brandon Allen were never close to being excellent prospects… Mostly highly touted through the WS organization. I very much remember the emergence of the “truly mature beyond his years” Brandon McCarthy just before he was traded. With some great minor league success, he was poised to be traded.
The Brandon Allen trade was a no brainer, an impatient blunder by the Diamondbacks, with the most disappointing part of that deal being the fact that Brian Anderson their current CF bust was someone they drafted ahead of Carlos Quentin (in ’05 of ’03 whenever that was) when Carlos had the better pedigree as a college outfielder in that particular draft.
My argument is that the Sox have thrived on putting mediocre prospects in the best available position to be traded to upgrade their MLB roster. Kenny has been great with this over the years. That’s why they have yet to see a prospect come back to bite them. Chris Young was the only true elite prospect talent they have shipped out during the Kenny Williams regime, and Gordon Beckham, so far is the only MLB regular to show for the last 9 years of drafting (i think).
And, yes there are multiple ways of building teams, and the draft is only one element, but it’s the most important element. You won’t find much value out there for Kyle McCullough, didn’t get much for Lance Broadway, and had to beef up a trade that involved your organization’s top two pitching prospects in Aaron Poreda and Clayton Richard to acquire Jake Peavy… Only a few examples, but still plenty of wasted value with first round selections.
Take a look at the first round history for the Sox under Kenny. It really speaks for itself.
There is no “most” important element. Only results. The Sox have been one of the more successful teams this decade. If their payroll was $40 million year after year then yes the draft does make or break you.
KW never really believed in minor league talent and missed the boat for most of the decade. No argument there. I just don’t believe it was crippling. Well obviously it wasn’t. Fortunately Sox fans can look forward to a turn around in that area. They probably still won’t pay over slot though. That’s on ownership.
You need those elements to produce results. And yes, the Sox have been a very successful organization. Kenny Williams has been a very adequate GM, and Reinsdorf has proven that he’s willing to take on payroll when necessary.
But you can’t say that there isn’t a more important element in building a ballclub than building value through the draft. My response to that would be, off the top of my head…
When you look at Dave Cameron’s article on the top 50 trade values in the Major Leagues, I would bet that at least 75 percent of those players are playing on the teams that originally drafted them (i hope I’m not wrong, having not checked this out, haha). That’s value! How else are you going to control the Longoria, Pedroia types at such minimal costs for extended periods of time. You can certainly take different routes to building championship ballclubs, but unless you’re the Yankees, you sustain your organizations overall value through the draft.
As well as the IFA signings… Also, surprising to me, the Sox have been pretty active with Cuban players over the last half decade. Pretty successful with that so far.
Sorry, to clarify even more…
“You can certainly take different routes to building championship ballclubs, but unless you’re the Yankees, you sustain your organizations overall value through the draft.”
It’s been imperative that Kenny produce these deals to sustain/increase the value of the ball club. That’s how the White Sox have generated value with their MLB roster. He has essentially built the farm system to be traded in order to create successful production at the major league level.
The earlier post by Terry was very very true. If they would have kept those commodities, we might be looking at yesterday’s Pittsburgh Pirates, but it’s obvious that Kenny has been playing to a major strength of his (to compensate), in being able to capitalize at the right moment with all of these deals.
That’s not an annoying rant, it’s accurate. And I’m a Sox fan. The Yankees get accuserd of buying championships but they have more home grown talent than the White Sox. Ditto the Red Sox.
I think it’s great that KW gets usable parts back for busts like Joe Borchard but if he could draft real talent he’d have more younger players on the team, more payroll flexibility and he’d be able to go after a big ticket free agent like Cliff Lee or CC Sabathia instead of trading away prospects for him. I’m the first to say they’ve mostly been failed prospects, but if they hadn’t failed he could be a bigger player in FA instead of the trade market. He could end up with the same types of guys, but still have young talent coming through the pipeline to keep costs down.
Oh please, the NYY had that statement said about them because [1] they signed the top 3 free agents of the year, and [2] paid 200M for them.
Don’t blur the issue.
All I said was that KW doesn;t get any credit for the trades he has made.
IMO, the only organuizations that draft well do so by [1] getting lots of 1st round picks (TBR) or early picks (WAS), where it’s basically impossible to continually be horrible, or teams that pay overslot so much that they can get #1 or #2 talent at slots 8 or 9 (DET Porcello, etc).
Another thing to consider about “homegrown talent” is that the NYY get to keep all the hg talent they want because they don’t have to trade them away before free agency. For example, KC would have had an OF of Dye, Beltran, and Damon. If those 3 were NYY prospects they could have given them all 18-22M contracts for multiple yers. It’s not like the NYY see talent where others don’t, only they can throw money in any and all directions, and it works out.
Let’s not pretend that some organizations just happen to see talent that others don’t. I continually get annoyed with the can’t miss 5-tools prospects that turn out to be complete poop, or how teams are “really smart”, but the best player of the decade was drafted after 350 other players were picked.
C’mon.
All very good points. But the White Sox still have less home grown talent than most clubs. Certainly less than the Twins, Tigers, Angels or other clubs dealing with similar upper middle class payrolls.
Yes, the draft is a crapshoot but I would bet that the White Sox failure falls outside the bounds of statistical variation. It would be interesting to see an MLB wide analysis.
I agree. The CWS could be the worst team in baseball at drafting talent. But I also wonder how often they have been in position to draft “can’t miss” talent?
For example, DET has drafted Porcello and Maybin off the top of my head.
Having Danks and Floyd, might also have somewhat blocked Hudson and Richard, wheras both guys may have been starters had the Sox had a lesser rotation.
It seems that when the Sox have been able to draft a “can’t miss, they got Gordo.
There is also the situation where it appears that organizationally, they prefer vets (Super Joe at 3B instead of fields, AJ instead of Flowers, Pods and Pierre, Omar freakin Vizquel, etc) instead of prospects.
I am unclear as to whether they just outright suck at drafting, are terrible with development, or view their window to win as being now and trade prospects for more established vets, or whatever the case may be.
I have stated before that one of the things that has happened since 05 is they have been “just competitive enough” to avoid rebuilding, and keep trying to win the division. It seems like every year since is going to be THE year that AJ and Paulie are going to be terrible enough to cut bait and start rebuilding, but they keep performing just good enough to maintain a sense if competitiveness in a winnable division.
Talk of rebuilding and “getting rid of these bums” blows up the airwaves at 670 The Score, and has since 06 … But then they win 25 of 30 and we’re back to “Don’t stop believin’ “. *shrugs*
The weird things about this article:
“I do not think many gave much thought to the AL Central under the assumption that the Twins were clear favorites there”
I don’t know who these many were or what caused their strange perception. I don’t know if this many even existed or if it’s a construct of the author’s mind. Neither the Sox, Twins, or Tigers were a CLEAR favorite. The Twins sure had the better offense on paper. They sure didn’t have the better pitching on paper.
And if you’re going to write about 3 surprising White Sox pitchers this year, there’s nothing more bizarre than excluding Freddy Garcia. Remember how he’s coming off an injury and there was a lot of uncertainty as to whether he could be effective again, if some semblance of his velocity would be back, and whether he could simply hold up and not get injured? He started all of 9 games last year. The Sox only had to give him $1,000,000. For a starting pitcher. In baseball. That’s how much demand there was for him. Did you Fangraphs clowns really expect he’d have 13 quality starts out of 17 games started? Danks and Floyd have been pretty much exactly the Danks and Floyd of the past 2 seasons. Garcia had only pitched in 23 games in the 3 seasons prior to this.
One thing people need to understand a little bit more is that be General Manager doesn’t have as much say over a draft as the Scouting Director (either strictly amateur or both amateur and professional, depending on the organization) in many cases.
The GM has considerable influence in the first couple rounds, but after that the Director is generally the primary decision maker.
The Sox have also been limited by not generally being allowed by ownership to go over-slot. They’re not the Red Sox who are given the green light to essentially buy out tough signs in the later rounds and then act like geniuses down the road.
Lastly, the Sox scouts don’t get the credit they deserve. They usually get their share of late round diamonds in the rough, and they also self-scout as good as any team in baseball.
Absolutely true, but the General Manager typically still has control over every one of those decisions. He can always find another scouting director.
And, not being allowed to go over slot, and taking selections that are projected as being much more underslot are two different things. I would have loved to grap Porcello instead of Poreda, but I understand the history between Boras and the Sox, so fine, it is what it is.
They don’t need to break the bank with the draft, just be reasonable. If your’e objective is to treat prospects as just tradable commodities, then why not invest in some better pieces. Even if it’s just a little better.