8/21 ML Gameday Thread: Owens & Rodriguez headline the slate

Just referring to yesterday it's good to have Barnes back. You have to admit the Sox pretty much know how to handle the pitching. I wish they could get a break with the hitting or offensive side.

Since this is a minor league thread and since you are referencing a pitcher that has never pitched in the minors, I couldn't agree with you less regarding our positon player prospects.

We share a boat.

Apologize though, meant has never pitched in the majors.

I think Russo may be right here. They need to catch some breaks with the MLB ready hitters

Jr Russo, It's been an interesting year, nonetheless. I hope we get some more transaction excitement in the next 10 days with another trade or two. And then September 1 will bring one surprise, with Matt Spring making the leap.

Sox have recently specialized in stockpiling veteran relievers in AAA for the stretch run. And, yet, the group headed by Jose Valdez will likely play out the string and leave the org when the season in AAA ends suddenly.

I heard from a pretty reliable source who totally has not never seen him play that Sam Travis doesn't have enough power. He's a washed up college draftee without any sort of ceiling.

As far as closing the books, I can't close the book on JBJ, I'll be watching his box score every night. He'll hit, at some point, enough to be an at least average overall CF.

WMB I'm out on, and Cecchini I was never really all that 'in' on, for some reason.

With today's win (and four-game sweep) over TB, the GCL team is close to clinching the division (magic number is 3 with 8 games to go) and is 0.5 GB of the overall best record in the GCL (MFY1). Based on the first tiebreaker (average runs allowed), BOS would win any tiebreaker as it has given up the least number of runs in the league by far (29 less than the #2 team, MFY1).

I think he was joking ...

For position prospects (edit: at the AAA and major league levels) of course it wasn't a great year, but except for Cecchini, I'm not that different in my opinion than I was before the year. I'm firmly convinced Bogaerts will be a star, think Betts and Swihart are very solid prospects, and have never really believed in JBJ or Middlebrooks as hitters, although I think JBJ has a chance to refine his swing enough to make it. And I still think Cecchini has a shot to be a good hitter, it's just impossible to deny that he's shown serious warning signals since High-A.

The only time I ever started believing in Middlebrooks was when I stupidly bought the old "contact lenses" spring training BS ... ah, was I really ever so young and naive?

It seems clear that the sox have made development of young starting pitchers their priority, and what is wrong with that? Look at the cost of top starting pitching. Yet again, it seems that they are one step ahead of most franchises in terms of farm development. They have made the decision to draft a lot of starting pitching prospects with their top picks and trade for a lot of starting pitching prospects, and it doesn't seem like they are moving away from that approach in their recent transactions.

I was projecting Cechinni to be our top prospect at this time last year with Swihart maybe the top guy by year end. What happened to Cechinni is hard to understand but at every level things can happen to cause failure and that last level is at mlb. There is an attrition rate at each level and it's significant.

We should probably expect failure from at least 30-40% of our top guys even at the mlb level. If you have 3 guys in the majors is it all that surprising that 2 of them fail or 2 of them fail one year and one comes back to succeed the next?

Last year at this time I was projecting Barnes to be a valued reliever at the mlb level at this point, as Brandon Workman was last year. Things happen. It's ok.

I'm on board with the program as long as they sign that occasional David Ortiz level stud to keep the offense rolling. They should have money for it. I'm not sure we can say the same thing about top starting pitching unless we develop most of our own. I'm more worried about developing the next Jon Lester.

My apologies. Normally, I pick up on things like this, but I'm recovering from a painful medical procedure and my temper is very short. I probably should not write much, but it is about the only thing I have found to be therapeutic.

I can't see how we can be at all down on our system's developmental year this year. If you were to go back and look at the top 20 from the start of the year, for example, I doubt if many of you can say that your unhappy with the year the majority have had.

For me personally, I've had a lot more 'surprises' to the upside than to the downside and can only think of 1, Cecchini, that is a position player. For the pitchers, Barnes, Britton & Alcantera. Of those 4, 2 Cecchini & Barnes have recently turned it around and scouting pretty much didn't give up on them.

In the top levels, for position players, who can be disappointed with the development of Vazquez, Swihart, Betts, Shaw, Marrero, Coyle, Gibson, Ramos, KDLC, Hassan ?

The good hasn't just been confined to the top, from the lower levels (which I view as a bunch of lottery tickets), we've had significant advances by Devers, Margot, Johnson, Haley, Diaz, Blair, Weems, Berthea, Basabe, Asuaje plus the addition of the 2014 draftees. We also have another very large group poised to make the next leap including a large percent of the pitching staffs of both Salem and Greenville.

It's been a good year outside of Boston.

GicleSox won 8-3. Chavis 2/4 BB,2B,3B. US Basabe 3/4 BB.