White Sox Minor Keys: Aug. 11, 2018
At this point, the checklist jokes as they pertain to Eloy Jimenez and Michael Kopech are getting sad. That’s no fault of the people making them — gallows humor and all — but at some point the task presented shifts from absurd to Sisyphean.
Jimenez is now batting .365/.409/.683 after hitting his 10th homer of the season for Charlotte on Saturday night (and 20th overall, in just 84 games). It was a ridiculous swing, and look where the ball ended up.
Eloy Jimenez. 2-Run HR.
Tonight: 2-for-2, HR, 3 RBILook where this pitch is that he hit out. Amazing. @SoxMachine pic.twitter.com/4EN1y5eJcZ
— Josh Nelson (@soxmachine_josh) August 11, 2018
The Knights shut out Rochester 8-0 behind another strong start by Kopech, who allowed just five hits and a hit batter over seven innings, striking out nine. He threw a whopping 69 of 96 pitches for strikes.
It’s Kopech’s sixth straight strong start, over which he’s 3-0 with a 1.89 ERA and 50 strikeouts to 32 hits and four walks over 38 innings.
At this point, Jimenez and Kopech are no longer allowed to “force the issue,” to use Rick Hahn’s parlance. They can only hope that they don’t backslide for one reason or another, so we’re not really following a prospect’s progress anymore.
Charlotte 8, Rochester 0
- Charlie Tilson went 1-for-5 with a strikeout.
- Ryan Cordell, 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.
- Eloy Jimenez, 2-for-5 with a homer.
- Jose Rondon, 3-for-5.
- Seby Zavala, 2-for-5 with a double and a strikeout.
- Michael Kopech: 7 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K, 1 HBP
- Carson Fulmer: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K
Montgomery 8, Birmingham 1
- Luis Basabe went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Joel Booker, 1-for-4 with a K.
- Zack Collins went 1-for-4.
- Alex Call, 1-for-4 with a double.
- Danny Mendick went 1-for-4 with a strikeout, and was caught stealing.
- Kodi Medeiros: 4.2 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 4 BB, 8 K, 2 HR, 1 WP, 1 HBP
Winston-Salem 4, Potomac 0
- Luis Robert went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and an HBP.
- Luis Gonzalez was 2-for-4 with two doubles.
- Nick Madrigal, 1-for-4, although he was picked off/caught stealing.
- Blake Rutherford was 1-for-2 with a double and two walks, and was caught stealing.
- Gavin Sheets, 0-for-3 with a walk.
- Laz Rivera went 2-for-3.
- Ti’Quan Forbes, 1-for-3.
- Alec Hansen’s start was effectively a rehab outing: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 K, 1 WP
- Lincoln Henzman: 3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K
More:
*Robert made a fine diving catch in center field.
He's making it look easy out there. Luis Robert with some stellar defense to take away a hit. @WSDashBaseball @whitesox
🎥https://t.co/lHPSOm8dKe pic.twitter.com/QtVUz7vl0y— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) August 12, 2018
Our man in Winston-Salem Jonathan Lee also shared video of Robert reaching on an error.
Idaho Falls 12, Great Falls 10
- Romy Gonzalez went 1-for-6 with a double and three strikeouts.
- Lenyn Sosa went 2-for-5 with two doubles and an HBP.
- Bryce Bush, 1-for-3 with two walks, a strikeout and a stolen base.
- Amado Nunez walked once and struck out four times.
- Gunnar Troutwine wnet 2-for-3 with a double and two walks.
- Konnor Pilkington: 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HR
- Davis Martin: 3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
DSL Reds 9, DSL White Sox 2
- Sidney Pimentel went 2-for-3 with a walk.
- Jose Rodriguez was 2-for-4 with a strikeout.
- Jerrick Francees was 0-for-3 with a strikeout.
- Wilber Perez bleeds: 5 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 1 HR, 1 HBP
Kannapolis at Lexington, PPD
Eloy and Robert in the OF together. So tantalizing.
Wonder if the Sox will have Madrigal change his approach at all in the offseason. The ability to never strike out is pretty incredible, but if he can’t ever drive the ball, pitchers are still going to have no trouble getting him out. It will be interesting to see if the Sox are patient and try to let the power come naturally, or if they decide to try to get him to adjust his approach a bit to work on at least adding some doubles power this early in his minor league career.
Some scouts believe he has room to add another 10lbs of muscle. Guessing they do that first.
I don’t see where he will add that.
Belly is the easiest
He’ll put on 15 pounds of muscle with Avi in the offseason.
One of the reasons I wanted India over Madrigal. Right now Madrigal’s ceiling is David Eckstein. Good for mid 2000’s maybe not good enough for the #4 overall pick now.
Madrigal’s Hit and Speed tools are at least one, maybe two grades higher than Eckstein.
Also Eckstein was a five-win player at his peak.
I would say Eckstein is closer to Madrigal’s floor than his ceiling.
I take it high heat is not a method for striking out Eloy…impressive
In Charlotte going to Chicago. No sign or Eloy or Kopech yet
So far it’s been, “They’ll be up after the all-star break”. Then, “they’ll be up after the trade deadline passes.” Then, “They’ll be up for the Cleveland series.” Now it’s “They’ll be up next Friday.” If they are not up yet, what’s the point of bringing them up now? I really believe their plan all along was to wait until next May, so they gain another year of service. In 2025, we’ll be happy they waited. But it sure makes things tough now. And it makes Hahn look like the idiot he is. But hey, we get to see Nicky Delmonico as a leadoff hitter! He has to be the only leadoff hitter in major league history that Adam Engel would pinch hit for.
Mid April but yeah, that’s the smart play. I also don’t remember the F.O. ever saying when they’d be up.
The F.O. only said they would be up when they checked all their boxes. That was obviously a lie.
If they don’t give a paper with boxes, you can’t check them.
maybe a box is “when they accrue another year of available service time”
“Checking boxes” is to Rick Hahn the kind of truth-abusing corporate babble that “zero tolerance” is to Jeff Luhnow.
At this point, they’re clearly just manipulating service time. Time to accept the fact that we likely won’t see either of them until next year.
It’s going to be really fun when they dominate ST after what they’ve done this year but still get sent down to Charlotte to start the year. I’m really interested in what those excuses will be.
This really need to be fixed in the next labor negotiations. Both Eloy and Kopech will be up almost a year later than they should have been. That’s just wrong.
Reylo promoted Aug. 11. Giolito, Aug. 22. Yoan after 80 minor league games.
I didn’t realize that. I guess there’s hope we’ll see Eloy and Kopech soon. But if they’re going to bring them up this year, why have they waited so long? It’s obvious they are more than ready.
I don’t know the exact details, but all 3 of them also already accrued varying amounts of service time with their previous clubs though. Like I said, I don’t know all the details, but I’d imagine the Sox would’ve had to kept them all down in the minors longer than a couple weeks the following year to gain that extra year of control, so I don’t think they were “losing” much of anything (besides baseball games) when they brought those guys up.
Maybe Hahn is just using this as a negotiation tactic to get them both to sign long term deals before coming up. I’d be cool with that.
*kidding, kind of