Phil Watch: Let's Pound This Out

Phil did a mock draft yesterday.

He got five of the thirty picks right. Five.

By contrast, I got two of the top ten right while never even hearing the names of any of the selections until three days ago. I figure if you're going to be horribly wrong in life, at least be entertaining (read: Mike Huckabee).

Today, Phil analyses the Cubs/Sox first round picks. Well...analyse may be strong. He certainly types words into a computer.

An opening statement to Phil: I get it, you get it, everyone gets it. You don't care for the Sox farm system and the way Kenny has used it in particular. It's understood. You can shut up about it now. Writing it 18 times in the last five-plus months only makes you look like a hackneyed sportswriter devoid of new ideas and ready to be put out to pasture.

Lets' get started.

Here's hoping White Sox fans soon will love Gordon Beckham.

He could become the first homegrown regular at shortstop since Bucky Dent, who was traded to the New York Yankees for Oscar Gamble and LaMarr Hoyt at the start of the 1977 season.

I really hope Phil doesn't think Bucky Dent was a great Major-League player, a guy who had a .247 lifetime average and OPS+ed a lifetime 74. He's known for one home run.

But hey, he was homegrown, then traded. So in Phil world, he OPS+ed a 258. In Phil world, the Cubbies win the World Series every year, Dusty Baker is worshipped as the Sun God and if a team trades any draft picks or minor league talent, they're immediately disbanded.

(After a Jim Callis quote extolling Beckham's ability and how the White Sox were extremely lucky he fell to them) Given the circumstances, he's right.

Circumstances? Oh yeah! Phil's been making a curious point without actually saying it lately that the Sox 11-6 finish to the season last year cost them a higher draft pick. I don't want to think that Phil endorses tanking games but if you mention it three times in a week...well...I will think it.

But while hoping that the solid-fielding, power-hitting Beckham won't bend...

Get it?

White Sox fans should keep their eyes on two other guys: left-handed-hitting catcher Buster Posey and Cutter Dykstra, Lenny's son.

Don't watch the player your team drafted, a superlative player by every measure and a real coup for the Sox to get. Watch players the White Sox could have gotten if they tanked games in September or the guy they could have drafted with the supplement pick they surrendered for signing Linebrink.

These are more important matters.

Posey, who drew some consideration from Tampa Bay before it took Georgia high school shortstop Tim Beckham (no relation) with the first overall pick Thursday, could have been the White Sox's pick if they had not finished strong in inconsequential games in September.

I no longer think it. I know it. Phil is wholeheartedly endorsing the tanking of baseball games.

No ifs, ands or buts.

This man is getting paid to write about baseball. Paid!

As for Dykstra, a high school outfielder and bundle of energy who could wind up as an infielder and leadoff man, he was Milwaukee's pick in the second round. Maybe you won't hear of him again, but maybe you will. If you do, consider he was just as much of a cost for signing set-up man Scott Linebrink as his $19 million price tag. The Brewers got the White Sox's pick as compensation.

Phil. Stop it with this '$19 million price tag' shit. It's $4 million this year for a guy that has completely shored up the Sox bullpen this year, an issue that was a classic laugh romp in incompetence last year.

Giving away draft picks is not the way to build a deep farm system. It's something you do when you're filling gaps to try to compete now.

Have you noticed something?

Yes? Me, too.

Phil hasn't said one in-depth thing about Beckham yet outside of a dopey Bend It Like Beckham joke. But we did get a better descriptor about Lenny Dykstra's son and we are currently in the throws of yet another Philism where he blathers on about the lack of depth in the Sox farm system.

Phil. Get back to me when even one of the Sox prospects traded in the last ten years becomes a bona-fide Major League player (Chris Young doesn't count yet).

Linebrink's performance and the White Sox's spot atop the American League Central standings give general manager Ken Williams some justification for borrowing once again from tomorrow to have a better today.

Some? So if Dykstra hits .330 in Single-A this year and Linebrink regresses to some mean, it's a failure?

Single-A games don't count in the ML standings. You know that Phil, don't you?

But the philosophy has contributed to the Sox farm system being devoid of impact bats with the potential to replace Paul Konerko, Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye—average age: 34—in the middle of the order.

Yes. We've heard that. But what about Brad Eldred?

Beckham, 21, is hitting .397 with 24 homers and 65 RBIs in 62 games for Georgia entering this weekend's NCAA super regional series against North Carolina State. A quarterback-safety at The Westminster School in Atlanta, he has 49 career home runs for Georgia since turning down some football offers to concentrate on baseball.

There we go. Here's a thought, though. this might be something you insert in the first half of an analysis about yesterday's draft. Phil. Belching forth the same shit you've written 12,444,387 times is akin to watching the same crappy episode of My Boys 28 times in a row (BTW, I watched about five minutes of a My Boys rerun last night from last year and they were talking about the cicadas in Chicago - how horribly topical. New episodes next week, my friends).

The Cubs figure to be in more of a hurry with their first-round pick, Texas Christian right-hander Andrew Cashner, as he has the kind of arm that could help a big-league bullpen quickly.

What? He's not gonna...

General manager Jim Hendry and others will downplay the short-term expectations for Cashner, but scouts with other clubs believe his running fastball in the mid-90s and often-electric slider would play in the big leagues. He held batters to a .122 average this season, striking out 80 in 541/3 innings as a reliever. It's a long shot that Cashner can help a first-place team this season but not out of the question.

Yep. Phil's not the only one spewing this shit. Matt Blood of Baseball America said it as well.

The scouting report on Cashner says he throws ridiculously hard and his fastball is Major League ready. But he has no effective secondary pitch.

Please. Cubs. Rush him. I would love to see this shit happen.

I put a bet on the table - $12,000,000 he isn't called up this year and doesn't see action until September next year.