The White Sox were active in the supplemental round, or “Comp Round A” this year. They were entitled to the pick the moment Mark Buehrle signed with the Miami Marlins as compensation for losing the free agent. With that pick the Sox selected another high school player.
Keon Barnum is another big kid. What do they feed these guys? At 19 Barnum is listed at 6-4 and 225 pounds. He’s a big left handed first baseman that the Sox will look to as an Adam Dunn/Paul Konerko successor in 2015.
Word on the street is that he is close to signing, thus enabling him to report and begin his development very soon. That makes 2 high school athletes the Sox have chosen thus far, a sign that Ken Williams is straying from the “safer” picks and opting to go with the high ceiling guys that could develop into stars while in the Sox system.
Or maybe he’s just buying lottery tickets so that he can trade them away before the winning numbers are announced.