White Sox Minor Keys: June 18, 2023
Out of all the Baseball America White Sox prospect ranking revisions from last week, the 10-spot drop for Kohl Simas surprised me the most. He’s not having a particularly great season, sure, but as I mentioned when I saw him pitch in person earlier this month, his chief shortcoming seemed to be a problem with righties.
On one hand, that’s a considerable weakness given simple demographics. On the other hand, a righty who already has a sense of how to handle lefties has already eliminated one of the toughest tasks for his own development. How you view these is kind of a pessimist/optimist test.
Anyway, Simas struck out 10 batters over 5⅓ innings in his start for Winston-Salem on Sunday, giving him 67 over 47⅔ on the season, including 26 against four walks over 18 innings in June. His ERA has fallen to 5.85. It doesn’t seem like he’s having a 10-spot-drop kind of season,. although there’s an argument that it was really aggressive to rank him 13th in the first place, and he’s a victim of editing. Aren’t we all.
Durham 15, Charlotte 8
- Oscar Colás struck out three times while going 0-for-5.
- Carlos Pérez went 1-for-4 with a strikeout.
Notes:
*Ryan Burr picked up the win, which I suppose makes it a Revenge Game.
Tennessee 5, Birmingham 4 (10 innings)
- José Rodríguez went 0-for-3 with two walks and a strikeout.
- Bryan Ramos was 1-for-5 with two strikeouts.
- Yoelqui Céspedes wore the collar and silver sombrero.
- Luis Mieses and Adam Hackenberg both were 1-for-4 with a strikeout.
Winston-Salem 6, Asheville 5
- Terrell Tatum came up a double short of the cycle while going 3-for-4 with a walk. He also stole his 30th base.
- DJ Gladney went 0-for-4 with a walk.
- Wilfred Veras, 1-for-4 with a walk, and was picked off.
- Wes Kath was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Kohl Simas: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 10 K
Kannapolis 7, Down East 3
- Tanner McDougal: 3.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K, 1 HBP
Author
McDougal! Nice!
As depressing a year for a minor league system as any team could possibly have. Colas OPS down to .760 after a hot start at AAA, which means he has been worse than that for the past month. Montgomery yet to play a game. Ramos .620 OPS. Just bad juju, everywhere.
its pretty bad, wes kath can barely hit his weight and looks like a trash 2nd round pick, injuries galore, the only guys doing anything exciting are in the low A’s and still very much projects…
“Colas is too good for AAA, I don’t want them to sign some blah league-average OF, let the kids play”.
There was a lot of praise from some here for maybe the 200th best prospect over the off-season that shows how I’ll-conditioned Sox fans are to what an actual farm system looks like. Better than last year doesn’t really matter when you’re trying to compete with 29 other teams and you’re worse than almost all of them.
I don’t remember fans fawning over Colas as much as you suggest, nor anyone arguing he was “too good for AAA.” You’re right, I think, that fans were too eager to accept him as Plan A.
But I don’t fault fans for the 2nd and 3rd of your, I presume hypothetical, quotes. I don’t think Sox fans would’ve argued if the Sox resolved to solve RF but a bonafide league-average OF was never realistic on JR’s budget. When you consistently watch this team dumpster dive and miserably fail, I can’t blame fans for preferring to watch talented kids try than fading veterans.
To put it another way: you’re crossing your fingers either way. I’d rather it be with talented but unproven “kids” than with $3m on the open market.
The problem wasn’t that fans were too eager to accept Colas as plan A. It was that Hahn was. Turns out, it didn’t work out. What a surprise!
Personally the only reason I wanted to see Colas play was b/c I know all their other options (the usual suspects of crappy castaway outfielders) were awful. Colas is still the only one among them with a future, only now it appears that it isn’t necessarily that bright. Bottom line is that they haven’t had a real RF on the roster in probably 10 years, and Colas isn’t looking likely to change that anytime soon, if ever. Crappy owner, idiot GM, awful farm system and player development.
Leading immediately to a promotion to the majors. That line is better than what Tim Anderson’s done this week, so sure.
He’s hit well since returning from the IL or developmental list or whatever it was, although the 2 HR game is doing the heavy lifting in that line.