ESPN hosted a Zoom call with MLB Insider and author of Future Value: The Battle for Baseball’s Soul and How Teams Will Find the Next Superstar, Kiley McDaniel, to elaborate on his recent top 100 prospect list. The Chicago White Sox have three prospects in McDaniel’s top 100: shortstop Colson Montgomery (#8), left-handed pitcher Noah Schultz (#57), and third baseman Bryan Ramos (#90). Regarding Ramos being ranked, it’s mainly due to a consensus from MLB industry experts that there is a considerable drop-off in talent after the top 40 prospects.
I got a chance to participate in McDaniel’s Zoom call to follow up about his thoughts on the top White Sox prospects, and of course, I couldn’t help but ask about Dylan Cease.
JOSH NELSON: The Chicago White Sox need a lot of help. Colson Montgomery and Bryan Ramos, what do you need to see from them during the Minor League season to give you confidence that they can join the Major Leagues soon?
KILEY MCDANIEL: Colson [Montgomery], I'm the high guy on. I don't need to see much more. He's almost a slam dunk to be an above-average offensive threat that can -- I mean, he's fine at shortstop. He's probably a third-baseman. Just stay healthy and keep doing what he's doing.
Bryan Ramos is interesting because he was one of the guys I was trying to decide if he should be on the list. I got a resounding "No" from one team, and another team that values players similarly to that first team said, "Oh, yeah, he definitely should be on." There's a lot of different opinions about him.
Ramos doesn't have a true plus on-field tool, but you could argue that all five tools are at least average, if not above. The fact that he's been young for levels, performing pretty well, and still has untapped potential is what I gravitated to. I like all those qualities instead of taking a guy in a rookie ball that swings hard. That kind of guy doesn't appeal to me in the top 100 at this stage.
Fans see the top 100, and they think Ramos is going to be an All-Star. No, this guy is probably not. But I think he'll be a really good player, even if it's not the traditional huge upside, giant BP power, and all that kind of stuff that everyone likes to get excited about.
Whereas if you like Noah Schultz -- I'm imagining where you will go next -- it's a little more of that guy. Schultz is 6'9" and kind of looks like a taller Chris Sale. I compared his frame to Gumby, and everything Schultz throws is plus [stuff]. Just seems terrifying, like create-a-player running amok.
NELSON: White Sox fans look at your list, and they're searching for ballclubs that can possibly trade for Dylan Cease. What short list of teams have the prospects to acquire Dylan Cease? On top of that, if you were advising a Major League team, what would you be willing to give up in prospects to acquire a Dylan Cease?
MCDANIEL: I would talk about someone like Bryan Ramos, that kind of guy that's back half of the top 100. You can count on having three years of controllable starter for cheap. We saw in the Corbin Burnes deal, which was for one-year of control rather than the two you get with Cease, Joey Ortiz and DL Hall get dealt. They are the back end of the top 100 types. With Ortiz, not huge upside, and Hall might be a reliever. Those are the kind of guys I would feel comfortable trading for Cease.
The teams that still need pitching, it's been fun watching everyone tap dance like they don't need Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery. All these owners and general managers dancing with Scott Boras, like, “We don't need those guys.”
So teams have been proactively signing guys so they're not forced by their owner telling them they have to sign Snell. I think a lot of teams have solved that problem, which is why I think the White Sox may have waited too long, and I know the buzz in the industry is that the White Sox have been asking for too much. But also, if Cease is the last guy on the market that can be acquired, maybe at the deadline or in-season is the right time to do it.
Obviously, the Orioles I think make some sense as a team that just added some pitching but probably needs one or two more sort of front line guys. But I think they're one of those teams that might think those guys are sitting in the upper minors for them, so they're hesitant to really go out.
With the Rangers, everyone is assuming they'll sign Montgomery or maybe Snell. They obviously have a lot of prospects. If they don't sign those guys, that would make some sense for Cease.
I would assume the White Sox are waiting for the dominoes to fall to see who is the desperate team willing to overpay at this point. I'm guessing it will be more in-season, not based on information or sourcing. You've got to let that part of the market play out, and I think it's going to be in March before all that stuff is done based on how it's going.
NELSON: Chris Getz is entering his first full regular season as general manager after two decades of Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams calling the shots. What are the impressions you're getting of the new regime change?
MCDANIEL: Some curious texts were sent around after those two trades earlier this week. I wasn't quite sure what the approach was, and that's two of the handful of deals. You probably have a better sense than I do of the proactive moves that are not just arbitration signings and whatnot that Getz has made so far.
Those [trades] were peculiar. I don't know why Getz needed to trade Gregory Santos to get guys who are not standout players. The Aaron Bummer deal was also interesting for both sides.
There's a lot of uncertainty in the industry about how good of an evaluator this front office under Getz's supervision will be given his background. We don't know what kinds of players he likes and being from the tree of the regime that was here before.
Until proven otherwise, we assume Getz will do a similar sort of thing that they have always done, which ran hot and cold. There were playoff appearances, teams full of stars, and underachieving teams that seemed like a nightmare from the beginning. We'll probably need to wait until the deadline to understand his style, who he likes, and how he evaluates —the larger team-building approach.
You can probably tell; I wasn't a huge fan of the hire but apparently knowing Jerry Reinsdorf for ten years was the first qualification for getting this job, which I think is insane. That's why I don't own a team, I guess.
