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Sox have been talking to Cruz since early December .

Some people are saying Nelson Cruz would be a waste, but coming into the offseason we had five major holes to fill IMO: SP2: Lance Lynn - quality addition regardless if you like the price SP4: TBD - need a bridge guy who can offer innings and/or upside CL: Liam Hendriks - best possible addition for the spot RF: Adam Eaton - underwhelming addition but LH bat with contact / OBP DH: Nelson Cruz? - best possible addition for the spot I get Vaughn could fill the DH spot for less, which would allow us to add a more impactful #4 starter, but there really aren’t any of those guys after Tanaka and who knows if he’d even take a one year deal. Short of a Burnes trade where you’re potentially adding an elite starter, sign the game-changing bat in Cruz and go with a Richards, Wainwright, or Archer in that #4 spot. Cruz should be significantly better than Vaughn next year and it allows Andrew a year of development, which maybe isn’t needed but can’t hurt. We just need to survive to the trade deadline and between the mid tier guys I mentioned above, Kopech, Stiever, & Lopez we should have enough depth to weather the storm. If a more impactful starter is needed at that time, our prospect cupboard should be fully stocked and we can make another move. Having an elite offense & bullpen will help get us there though.

Peak soxtalk delusion

How people STILL choose to ignore this blows my mind.

Still the true HR King.

So he's right if you believe that the worst thing that could happen is that you have waste on your roster in your worst case scenario, requiring you to spend more to compensate, or eat some cost to lower the burden. But he does not consider it a bad thing to happen to lose an incredibly productive player for nothing and likely overpay for less production and be a worse team. It's also bad to lose a productive player when you are ostensibly trying to win! But if you gave Jerry two possibilities: Win a world series every year for the rest of your life or Be able to dissolve the player union Don't tell me he wouldn't be this meme!

speaking of things that mean nothing.

They won't be trading Lucas Giolito over the next 3 years. People need to relax.

Why would he even be retweeting Heyman if Cruz is signing with the Sox soon? He totally contradicted himself. It's all BS. It didn't make sense.

Eaton is a fun and scrappy player to watch when healthy. I look at his career, not a shorten season snapshot to evaluate if he will be an upgrade. Obviously, the baseball evaluators on the WS agree with me. I find optimism much more enjoyable than pessimism. Baseball is supposed to be something to lose your cares over for a few hours...not aggravate the snot out of you.

If anyone knows how to handle steroid aided sluggers, it's Tony LaRussa.

Totally disagree. Some guys are just ready and pure hitters and Vaughn is one of them. He will starting DH. Bank on it.

This just feels too much like a Gio Gonzalez signing a year ago.

Lol...so Richards who literally was healthy in a season over 2/6 in normal length suddenly is all but certain to get injured over a slightly lesser duration and somehow Kopech has imploded into nothingness making Lopez our only option. Meanwhile 39 year old Wainwright is somehow a lock to stay healthy for a full season.

Would rather have Richards than Wainwright

There is a better chance the pitcher you trade him for gets hurt or busts . Paul Konerko is supposedly the poor man’s Andrew Vaughn.

I'm pretty sure his value will be higher 2 years from now when he's one of the best first baseman in the sport

On-going. It's amicable and they both want to get it done.

Minor leagues 2021 Team Vaughn

Now I am officially excited.

What he said was right, the Sox had made the biggest offer. He didn't know Padres were going to come in and top it

Let's celebrate the dude who could do this while facing constant death threats and racism, just because he was threatening Ruth's record (he also received an outpouring of love). And then let's celebrate the same dude who could have fun and voice a wacky role like Hank Aaron the 24th, the worst athlete of all time, in Futurama: B1dFKt.mp4

Vaughn spent last summer hitting against all the Sox best pitching prospects on a daily basis. To me...that is even MORE invaluable than a bunch of has been 30+ year old junkballers in AAA. He is ready. He is smash. He excite.

Yep. Regarding Vaughn, it's important to remember that he's a slow, short, right-handed, 1B-only player, and was still a consensus top 3 pick in the draft. Someone like that isn't a consensus top 3 pick if scouts and talent evaluators believe he needs a couple years in the minors to develop. It's really not hyperbole to say that Vaughn's bat was MLB-ready before he left college.

I was hoping you were trolling instead of something this reductionist. Criticizing the US governmental response to the coronavirus should not need to be paired with a compliment of general US governance. It is actually a good thing that US citizens should expect the best from their government, and not stare failure in the face and say "well, on the other hand I enjoy my local creek". Vietnam is one of the most beautiful countries in the world with wonderful food, incredibly generous people and great street fashion. Its governmental response to COVID was genuinely extraordinary. Would I rather be a Vietnamese citizen instead of an American? No. Would I rather the Vietnam government instead of the US government? No. Nobody here would. And nobody in this thread for months felt a need to bring in these statements because it really isn't relevant or necessary to couch criticism of the government's COVID with perspective that not everything ever is also bad. That is until you showed up with this argument. So let us all welcome tex775.

This is something I agree with. There are certain types of guys who are just pure bats ... now obviously I haven't watched enough of him, but the scouts have. People like Madrigal have gone through the years of college ball and are pretty polished. I dont think its crazy to expect Vaughn to come up and hit for at least average production. either way I hope this cruz rumor is not a precursor to where we sign him and trade vaughn for a controllable pitcher. If so, that would be upsetting.

Not sure why anyone wouldn't want Cruz at DH. Vaughn? Why would we bring him up to DH when we can keep him developing and next season, if he's doing well, he can play first with Jose moving to DH. Age? Unlike EE he has shown zero reason to think he'll slow down. Could he? Sure.... but why assume he will? Its a 1 yr deal. Roids? I have yet to see him test positive. You guys? We need a SP? Unless Cruz stops us from financially getting (if they even want to come here) Bauer or Tanaka the rest of the field has a lot more risk than Cruz IMO. I'll take our nasty BP + our O with addition of Cruz over adding a Richards like SP. You can get a cheaper 5th starter that all he has to do is keep us in the game for 5 innings and watch the O and BP handle the rest. You can't tell me Cruz + Cahill or Walker isn't very doable.

Also, despite being 40, Zips projects him to be the 12th better hitter next year in all of baseball and better than everyone on the Sox. If we want to go toe to toe with the Yankees next year, we could definitely use this type of bat. You can simply never have too much offense, especially when you’re trying to develop young pitchers.

Cruz makes absolutely NO sense. If he comes here itd be a complete waste of resources. We have a dh, we desperately need quality sp

IDK seems kinda unlikely the Cubs trade back for Schwarber.

I notice that he is a shit ton older than everybody on that list

I think hector is wrong again

1 Covid year=3 ordinary years

If the Sox traded for Burnes for that madrigal package, their projected ‘24 rotation without a giolito extension would be Burnes/Kopech/Cease/Crochet/Thompson/Dalquist/FA. I’d rather have that kind of projected rotation than madrigal and Heuer every day of the week. Gio/Burnes/Kopech/Cease/Crochet with Gio extension even better.

I feel the same. Blow the remaining $15 mill budget (if true) on Tanaka. Offer a one year deal with a second year option and buyout. Roll with the combo of Collins, Mercedes, Garcia, Engel in the extra spot in the order and play by matchup until Vaughn is ready.

Yermin Mercedes should get a tryout while holding down the fort for Vaughn. We might find a valuable trade chip in our own backyard.

Cruz just gives me flashbacks of every other DH "solution" we've trotted out there, and I get worried.

If he went by the boards, he would be looking at something like: 21- 6 mil 22-12 mil 23 -20 mil 24-32 mil 25-32 mil That works out to a touch over $100 million. I didn't quite put him up to the top level guys, (Cole maxed at $36, DeGrom 35, Stras 35) but realize that if he goes year to year 3 more times, he is probably staring at a 8/250 or more type of a deal, maybe as much as a $300 million type of deal. if he puts that off for a couple of years, you have to make it worthwhile for when he does. I think I worked out a deal at like 4 years 65 mil, with a 5th year at $25 mil for an option, so essentially a 5/90 type deal. Bonus 5 mil 21- 5 mil 22- 10 mil 23-15 mil 24-25 mil 25-25 mil (buyout 5 mil)

Abreu has been on the DL one time in his career

While he’s obviously not as proven, at least Burnes has upside...I’m not buying last year’s small sample size- to me Gonzales is still the 190 inning 4 ERA guy he’s always been. Obviously that’s still a valuable pitcher, but just no way that type of pitcher is worth Madrigal, Heuer, Kelley + more. That’s crazy talk in my opinion. Seager brings nothing to the deal either and completely goes against the logic of budget being the issue. I’m not against trading prospects for a piece that can get us to the World Series, but Gonzales ain’t that.

Engel ain't no slap hitter boys! .182 iso in 2020 it's REALLLLL

Wrong. Just wrong again.

https://www.mlb.com/braves/news/hank-aaron-baseball-legend-dies I link this because there is a great video with Matt Vasgergian and Harold Reynolds interviewing Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. It is unimaginable for any of us to truly comprehend being in the on deck circle thinking you might get gunned down . Kendrick made point of saying how difficult baseball is under the best of circumstances yet Aaron endured and excelled under the worst of circumstances.

Ban Hector. Foodies4lyfe

Nah this is wrong

I hope they just sign a SP rather than trade 2 MLB guys (Madrigal, Heuer) and a super high ceiling SP (Kelley). Just give me someone. Paxton? Hamels? Walker? Fine with all of them... Even Richards I guess...

Hendriks just had some interesting comments on facing Eaton on NBC Sports a few days ago. Called him a "little gnat" that just drives you nuts with his pesty hitting. Was very up about Eaton and Madrigal as a matter of fact. I love players that can do more than hit a bomb every 5 days.

Nothing about Eaton's stats last season scream "phenomenal" upgrade over what we had in RF last year.

We're not a perfect union and have a long way to go to get there. On most of those social issues we're middle of the pack, which is embarrassing at best, and horribly catastrophic at worse. It's sad that we don't see a third group. A group in the middle that believes we are great with an incredible opportunity to be even greater. I'm optimistic things will improve. Biden just signed multiple executive orders that should have been done a year ago that will help and put us on a better trajectory. But I'm certain someone will argue I'm wrong and they won't help, it will just make things worse. From now on I will always balance anything positive with a negative. We're a great nation but we totally failed the people of Flint. We are a beacon of opportunity for many around the world then they will be hit with horrible racism and possibly murdered. We have an incredible constitution and form of government that was almost overthrown in one day, something the Confederate Army couldn't do in years. We have the best interstate highway system anywhere but with drunk drivers and corrupt cops that will kill you. We have a horrible education and health system that bankrupts students and kills the poor. Trump really wanted that fence to keep Americans from moving south to a better country. Yep, we have a ton of problems. More than will be solved in my children's children's lifetime. There are a few countries that would be very nice to move to, but I'll stay here and keep working to improve this one because we have the people and resources to be amazing.