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Growing up, I never realized how good of a player Jose Valentin was. I was a young meatball fan back then, like most are when they're young. I remember him leading the league in errors during his first year with the Sox, and thinking he was a lousy fielder. The advance metrics paint a different picture. Whether you like the stat or not, Jose's UZR at SS and 3B were very good throughout his tenure here. Below is Jose's WAR year by year during his tenure with the team: 2000: 4.5 2001: 3.3 2002: 3.5 2003: 3.9 2004: 2.2 Jose Valentin was a hell of a player with this Sox. I liked him, but didn't truly appreciate him in my younger years. Something I do remember is his walk-off against the Cubs. Man, was that sweet. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/video/day-jose-valentin-hits-walk-homer-vs-cubs

Just say you think it’s Tatis Jr

I just imagine Francona standing behind a dejected-looking Plesac at the rental counter like "no, he will NOT be needing SiriusXM radio, thank you very much."

You? Wrong? My world is shattering!

Say what? MLB has handled this about as poorly as possible. The cardinals have played 5 games lol. They're going to play like 10 fewer games than other teams. The cardinals had this issue because MLB didn't have protocol preventing players from going out. Now a bunch of teams have to jam games in a short window to get the cardinals to like 45-50 games so they're being punished because the cardinals chose to go to a casino. If the USA wasn't a complete joke, baseball would be canceled for this many positives like it is anywhere else in the world. I enjoy watching as much as the next guy, but mlb has handled this well? Please.

Hopefully Moncada comes out of this feeling fresh. Also good to get the bullpen some rest, Foster should be ready to come out firing as the opener.

CNN has had some mess ups, but I get a kick out of CNN being considered "fake news" by followers of someone who deceives you every day.

This is the official Jump the Gun thread. We have no idea what's going to happen with our starters the rest of the year nor do we know how Covid will affect next season. Confirmation bias is settling in on Mazara despite warnings about SSS just about everywhere you look. 8 games and 20 AB for Marzara. He could go 3 for 4 tomorrow with a HR and a double and his OPS is around .850 and OBP is around .450.

Tim worked Boyd like a puppet. That was one of the coolest lead off ABs I’ve ever seen. I don’t think Robert can do that yet- he needs to see all the pitchers for a couple years and learn

Line up construction is overrated anyway. Lots of comments here "why is ricky batting jose 3rd..." but I played with a lineup construction tool and I used a lineup of all great hitters (350/500) except for two who I made really super bad (280/300) and made lineups those guys one and three and 8 and 9. The difference was 0.25 runs or 40 runs over 162=4 wins. That is quite a bit but in reality examples are never that extreme (850 ops vs 580 and 8/9 vs 1/3 for the super bad guys) so realistically the worst lineups a mlb manager can create probably cost about a win per season. Much more important than batting order is who is batting in that lineup... https://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py?Player0=A&OBA0=+0.350&Slug0=+0.500&Player1=C&OBA1=+0.350&Slug1=+0.500&Player2=D&OBA2=+0.350&Slug2=+0.500&Player3=S&OBA3=+0.350&Slug3=+0.500&Player4=D&OBA4=+0.350&Slug4=+0.500&Player5=D&OBA5=+0.350&Slug5=+0.500&Player6=S&OBA6=+0.350&Slug6=+0.500&Player7=D&OBA7=+0.280&Slug7=+0.300&Player8=D&OBA8=+0.280&Slug8=+0.300&Model=0

I think people WAY underestimate the humanity of athletes. They are subject to all of the same peeves, tics, and oddities that regular people are, but some how we think that changing little things don't have a ripple effect on the mentality of the athlete. You will never convince me that where a guy hits in a line up doesn't get into the heads of some hitters. Whether it is pressure, anger, resentment, pride or whatever there are guys who are going to internalize that into their mental state, and carry it with them on to the field. Athletes are human.

Yep. Batting the reigning batting champ leadoff is a dope move, ha.

The other day during a broadcast Jason said something about how Steve's favorite song was "Regulate" and I don't know if that was true but it made me bust out laughing to picture it.

Is this the most transparent thread in Soxtalk history? At least Puigmania wasn't on the main board.

He obviously isn't a star player but it is hard for 1b men to put up great war numbers, he was ranked 6th in war in the AL among 1b men last year. This year his start was not great but he usually gets better later in the year and while he has some cold streaks he usually delivers you your 115-125 wrc+, 30 bombs and 100 RBI with a decent average and that is all you can ask for from your 1b. Obviously he is no miggy but he is a perfectly fine winning team first baseman. Of course at some point decline will come but then the sox hopefully has vaughn filling in and I would be very happy if vaughn delivered the same stats that jose delivered so far over his career (.292/348/512) with 30 bombs and 100 rbi a year.

The guys at the site are currently the ONLY guys who can be traded (also including the 28 man ML roster).

Right. Jose Abreu, the guy who was worth 1.2 WAR in 2018 and 1.9 WAR in 2019 is soooooooooo good. He has been even worse this year. The overrating of Jose Abreu continues.

"Boylen will stay, Jerry cheap"

Cowley being a hack once again confirmed.

I've wanted to trade for Nimmo for years.. He would fit this profile EXACTLY. Give them Collins and Dalquist/Thompson.

Praise the stars....Jim Boylen is fired! Is there hope for Ricky Axe???

Agree with Lopez at this point. I think he would flourish out of the pen. The same scenario needs to be considered for Rodon as well. I'm ready to go the Andrew Miller route with him, but will he be up for something like that?

With this line up we don't need an all star in RF, would like someone who plays good defense and gets in base at the bottom of the line up. Spend money on pitching

Polanco looks awful. Want nothing to do with him. It’s time to bring in an above average right fielder and stop with underachievers

It still cracks me up that the Indians sent Plesac home in a rental

Long term I want madrigal there, leadoff should be a guy with a good k/bb rate and both tim and robert aren't great in that department. This year I want tim there, no great k/bb rate but very consistent contact quality.

I won't be eating my words until Ray Ray eats his words about Frankie Montas

Lindor has been terrible so far and has the 5th highest batting average on their team hitting .227. Third highest slugging percentage at .387. Only three hitters on that team have a positive WAR so far. Jose Ramirez is the only player with an OPS above .800. They've scored the second fewest runs in baseball at 62. That is a BAD offense. Even if Lindor and Santana were hitting they only have three or four good hitters. Domingo Santana hasn't been good since 2017. Reyes was a part time player for a bad San Diego team. I don't think they're going to carry a 2.57 team ERA for the rest of the year so they'd better start hitting - to only be 10-9 while giving up ~2.5 runs a game is bad.

I think the whole "pressure" argument is bullshit.. When I played baseball I had just as much pressure batting 5th as I did 9th.. I have to get the job done regardless. That is a BS excuse to bat worse players higher.

I'm pretty sure Trevor Bauer is friends with nobody, by his own choosing. He's an odd dude.

I started this thread and I will eat my own words. This lineup is just different with TA up top. Hopefully by next season Robert has earned his way to 3, or at least into the heart of the order.

The real positive is that there are many quality hitters so they can be moved around a little to account for inevitable slumps. The are very few overall "easy outs" except for slumps.

Tim is obviously very talented.. But no way (next year and forward) do you have him above the insane Freak of Luis Robert. (unless you put Robert at 2 or 3 of course..

That makes too much sense. A bubble playoff in November would be awesome as opposed to playing outdoors at the end of October. Follow the NHL model. This is the MLB that won't work.

That’s Tim Anderson’s future job.

In the modern game, there may be nothing more overrated about leading off than working counts. Guys just don't throw their entire arsenal the first time through the order anymore so you're only seeing the same 2ish pitches over and over again. OBP and run scoring skills are really all that matter at this point in time. If TA can maintain a high BA which puts his OBP north of 350 he's a very good option to lead off. Moncada is going to work counts in the 2 hole.

Actually wrote about this today: https://www.ecopolibbling.com/post/the-1-spot-is-reserved-for-7 "It’s nothing against Robert - who is a generational talent and the most exciting young player I have had the privilege to watch in my 33 years on this planet – as much as it’s a testament to all the hard work Tim Anderson has put in since he was an unpolished slightly bowlegged state champion point guard from Alabama, who played short stop in his spare time." I think Anderson is the clear choice despite people's constant doubt. As long as he's dropping .350+ OBP I'm good with Tim doing the job. I'd even take a 340ish sink.

Robert swings and misses WAY too much right now for me to be comfortable with just handing him the spot. He's doing damage in spite of that but that is probably going to change and he'll have to correct for it. I don't think it's the right spot for TA either, but I'm by no means going to be upset with him over robert. Long story short, put either of them there idc, they're both not right for the spot right now anyway.

If Madrigal can put up high OBP numbers, this would work. In 2019, the average leadoff hitter OBP was .335 league wide. The best couple of leadoff OBPs were guys like Springer, LeMahieu, and Betts, who were in the .370-380 range. Can Madrigal get that to .360? I don't know. If not, then Robert.

Neither are good leadoff hitters. They don't take enough pitches. Robert will eventually be there, but he gives away way too many of his at bats at this point in his career. You can't really have your leadoff guy striking out 25-30% of the time. As much as I hate to agree with Ricky, I think Anderson should hit there for now until Robert finds ways to have more competitive at bats on a consistent basis.

I was going to say, I think I want Anderson leading off, at least for the rest of this year.

I agree. I would move Abreu to 4th or if they are in love w the righty/lefty Grandal in the 4 and Abreu in the 5.

Robert as a rookie is going to swing and miss and strike out a ton; Anderson has batter bat skills at this point and should lead off which is why he will.

No doubt. Robert will have a higher OBP than Timmy and is a better base stealer. You gotta give him as many ABs as possible. Robert should lead off.

What I was directly responding to was the statement that you can't suspend someone for language (words). He didn't specifically say Tim and my response was not specific to Tim's situation. Which once again I will say Tim should not have been suspended. You can and should suspend some people for language. Until we are able to definitely conclude someone's thoughts and intents all we can only respond to the words they are using. Objective not subjective is the clearest standard.

All of those are from before he was born. But I would hate to see history repeat itself. I guess I should have mentioned Ozzie and praising Castro.

^^^^^^