Everyone, including myself, thought pitching would be the strength of the rebuild. Here's a current snap shot of the top prospects/young pitchers:

1. Carlos Rodon- can command his decent stuff, cannot command his great stuff with regularity;
2. Reynaldo Lopez- according to Fangraphs 66/83 in FIP;
3. Lucas Giolito- according to to Fangraphs dead last in FIP;
4. Carson Fulmer- 5.80 ERA and 1.84 WHIP in Charlotte;
5. Michael Kopech 4.70 ERA and 1.43 WHIP at Charlotte;
6. Dylan Cease- excellent numbers at High A and AA;
7. Alec Hansen- hurt for most of the season, 6.04 ERA and 1.75 WHIP at AA;
8. Dane Dunning- excellent numbers at High A and AA, but now hurt;
9. Zack Burdi- has not played all season due to injury;
10. Spencer Adams- middling numbers at AA and AAA;

I used to think they would get 3-4 starters out of this group and then either have a couple of bullpen pieces or a couple of assets to trade. Should I still feel that way or do most of these guys look like busts to you guys?

Cease will make it.

Overall still too early to tell. Except for Fulmer. He is toast.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Over on Les's replacement show this week Hahn said the rebuild would be ready around 2021/22 now. Before it was 2019/2020.


Why did it get pushed back?

They look fine. Lopez is defying saber in doing pretty well despite not being good in some metrics. He has the entire year. He certainly looks like a middle of the rotation MLB starter.

Kopech has had more dominant starts than bad ones this year. The bad ones have been very bad and skewing things.

Cease looks fantastic.

Quoting numbers for Hansen three starts is ridiculous. He is essentially in spring training while everyone else is in mid season.

Dunning has been dominant and his injury is not considered serious.

You are missing a handful of other guys in their top 30 who have done very well

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Good Dolphin, I gotta agree with you here.


Lopez kinda reminds me of Jose Contreras. Where he con dominate for stretches, and look avg for others. Before Hansen's injury, we were looking at him being the 1st one called up this year. I still think he has the best upside or ceiling. I am interested in what Cease can do. Sounds like he only has 2 pitches, but so did Gio Gonzalez. Dunning, looks steller! Kopech is the wildcard, imo. It is either going to be boom or bust. At worst, I think he is going to be an Andrew Miller type.

Im fairly confident they'll figure this out. You've left a lot of names seemingly because you want this to be as negative as possible. Stephens, Flores, Ian Hamilton, Guerrero...

They have the makings of a really good bullpen even without converting a bunch of starters.

Dunning and Cease are on really good tracks. Hansen is still getting back on track, his last start was extremely encouraging.

The only one who looks truly dead is Fulmer with Giolito not too far behind. Something happened to Giolito over the winter, he seems like he's toast.

Yup. Maybe Fulmer can be a bullpen guy (he can't be any worse than Volstad), but I am 98% sure he is not a starter.

Everybody else needs a lot more time to be proven good or bad.

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Be careful. Ruffcorn is going to be mad at you for being too negative towards fulmer

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

No, that guy objectively blows

Ruffcorn isn't bad.

Now Volstad is another story...

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i agree. Not bad....BRUTAL

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I'm not giving up on Fulmer. I still like his make-up and how he doesn't give in to hitters. We will see. Same thing about Giolito. With the team behind the pitchers being so weak offensively and defensively, a lot of these pitchers have to be extremely careful of hitting their spots and that is an entirely different way of pitching for all of them who all were dominant guys as they came up to the majors. Pitching carefully is a very tough slog.

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An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

We'll see what Rodon does over his next five starts. Too early to tell if he can't command his best stuff regularly.

Lopez: He's had a pretty good year on a team that's 30 games under. Fuck those stats.

I'd love to see all of these guys hit their potential. I started the thread because I'm sick of watching Giolito and Shields and wanted to see what the rotation might look like in the years ahead if they're not a part of it. When I did that, I found the results to be pretty discouraging. Unless Spencer Adams excites you, or you think Kopech is going to very quickly iron it out, there appears to be no one in their system that we'really going to see this year or the first half of next year.

Warren, you have to take a longer term approach to this thing, as sickening as that might be.

How do you like Giolito's last few starts.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The walks seem like they're down slightly, but he's going to have to do a lot more of that to convince me this is anything more than a blip. I would like to take the long term view on this, but I look at Sox pitchers who have come up over the last decade and either established themselves as above average to great pitchers (Sale and Quintana) or at least solid major league starters (Rodon) and I can't recall any of them struggling like Giolito, Fulmer, and Kopech are struggling. If I'm wrong about this, I would be happy to hear of some examples.

Jon Garland and that guy they got from the Braves who's name is escaping me.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Brent Lillibridge?

That guy was BAD!

Giolito is 24yrs old, he is gonna be fine.

Rodon is easy to figure out. He's ALWAYS needed an initial 50 innings to get his groove. His problem isn't pitching, it's staying healthy

2019 Cy Young award winner!

They acquired Garland 20 years ago, and while he did struggle initially at the major league level, he did better at the upper levels of the minors than Kopech, Giolito, and Fulmer. Because it doesn't look like he's going anywhere, I'll keep an open mind and watch Giolito for the rest of the year. I just would have liked to see more development out of those three at this point, and at least more health from most of the rest of the group.

Mike North on the rebuild talking honestly : http://www.espn.com/espnradio/chicago/play?id=24114081

11 strikeouts a few days ago for Kopech. He had a pretty bad stretch there for a while.

So I was at a wedding this weekend with a bunch a family from Boston. Basically what their people said is the Red Sox sold the White Sux a bunch of overrated fugaazi. Moncanda was way overrated by the Keith Laws of the world and Kopech is another Farnworth. Jacked up steroid freak that doesn't have the mental makeup nor the secondary pitches to hack it as a starter. This will be a very ugly trade...looking back.

I'll still take the White Sox's ability to eventually develop and coach up pitching prospects over most teams. Cooper is still a fantastic pitching coach after all these years. That said, its really hard to do. Look at how many Cubs pitchers have been drafted in higher rounds yet haven't been able to break the majors.

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Well that settles it. I heard it from a guy at a wedding. Clemens Boy on the Boston sports talker?

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

Based on what? The only success story (recent)is Chris Sale.