MackowiakYakYak

If Brash is going to be their starter it’ll be interesting to see if the Sox struggle again this year against good sliders. He’s a well-regarded prospect and is coming off a great season split between A+ and AA. Reports say he’s got good velocity, a good slider, and passable curves and changes.

Better stuff but with a worse walk rate. It comes close to evening out the quality of the two.

Who do you use in those innings? I like where our bullpen’s innings totals are at by having Banks throw 2. It gives another pitcher a day of rest and gets Banks acclimated to pitching multiple innings a game in the majors. I know Banks is an experienced starting pitcher but I wouldn’t peg him as a 3-5 inning reliever at this point because he has made changes to increase his velocity.

My first thoughts are that Tony had a good opening series. Bringing Hendriks in was the right decision even though it didn't turn out. My only critique would be that he possibly didn't give Hendriks enough time to get warmed up before entering in the 8th. Being quick to go to the bullpen instead of forcing starters into more innings was a good decision as well. Trusting the rookies turned out to be a great choice and will help the health of our bullpen overall. 2 and 2/3rds innings for Graveman is the only outlier for inning count. I'd give Tony an A grading for bullpen usage in the opening Detroit series. He did what the situations warranted and didn't have anyone throw too many pitches.

I thought it would be useful to have a thread to keep coming back to throughout the year. It would be interesting to see what kind of takes people are producing throughout the year and if they match up with Soxtalk's thoughts about Tony at the end of the season.

Some of each. The Detroit pitchers seemed to either have weak stuff or control issues, but the Sox still had to have good approaches to take advantage. Our guys did what they needed to. The mix of approaches, strengths, and weaknesses seem better this year

In a field that was not giving up many homers this series.

Agreed. There really wasn't an MVP for the game as much as the team just played quality baseball overall. The defense made all the plays they needed to and a few extra (Harrison spin-o-rama and McGuire scoop-n-gun), pitching kept the drama to a minimum, and all the bats were working with the hitting core doing damage. Love to see some quality baseball from our guys showing the Tigers what a real playoff roster looks like. But so I don't bring the baseball gods' wrath upon our team, the Tigers do have some solid pieces and we could have more competitive games with them later in the year.

Discount signing in the 10th round of the 2018 draft. He was a slightly old senior who had walk issues during college. Last season he split time between AA and AAA pitching a little over 20 innings at each. AA had his walk rate about 5 per 9 and then in AAA it was at 2 per 9. To me that indicates that he can be prone to losing his feel for long stretches of time. I wouldn't pencil him into any spot and would operate assuming we need to buy a LHP at the trade deadline. He would be the last of the depth relievers I'd send down as other players recover from injury, but I'd want three months of superb work before we can rely on him to take a playoff roster spot.

Everyone except Reese got a hit but he was great defensively. Bullpen gets the player of the game for pitching 5 innings with no hits and a low pitch count. The rookie bullpen arms are the series MVP as well. Only one earned run in 5 and 2/3rds innings. 0 Hits, 3BB, and 6K

I understand the thought that Banks' stuff doesn't look great individually but I think it will play decently well. He does a good job of keeping his arm behind him and has a fairly quick whip forward. The fastball looks like it has some life/rise at 94. The slider is probably below average but it was spotted mostly pretty well. It comes down to whether he can routinely spot the change on the outside corner. It has enough armside movement to play off his slider and fastball well. I think he could stick. He doesn't walk too many but he doesn't strike out too many either. He will live or die on the quality of contact against him and I think he could produce average exit velocities against. That should be good enough for a depth reliever.

I wish it signified if the pitcher left the game with the lead. Its fun having meaningless stats that we can say are all about intangibles like grit and determination. That's why the RBI is the best stat in baseball.

Do Ws still operate this way now that more starters are only going 4-5 innings fairly often? I thought I had heard about the rule being changed to the scorekeeper's discretion.

I’m glad he’s still with the org and I don’t think it’s a bad thing for his career. He really needs minor league at-bats to find what his approach will be in the majors.

Definitely some wishful thinking from me. Hate to see so much of our second tier of prospects give us nothing.

35% in 240 PA in AA and then 32% in 160 PA in AAA. Pretty bad rates but that’s a huge difference from 40% especially when he’s putting up .250+ iso in his first year post-pandemic. I agree that my prospect hopes are a little high to get someone to slot into our top 15, but also we have a terrible system so our #15 is a lot of other teams’ #25. edit: Also I’m just spitballing to see what other people think a return might be. I’m arguing he might get more of a return than a pure nobody.

How many other RF prospects are MLB ready right now, are ready to be traded, and have the upside of Adolfo? I believe the consensus is that one of the teams with high waiver priority would pick him up. So let’s say the Pirates have a roster spot and don’t have a 4th outfielder who projects some upside. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to pick up Adolfo for a mid-level prospect if they think the Orioles would grab him first? Same goes for any of the other teams I listed. You’re simultaneously buying low and high on Adolfo. He’s looking great and is MLB ready while having diminished value because of his lack of options. Adolfo has always been fairly well-respected for his skillset but he’s been injured. If I recall correctly Kieth Law or another prospects guy used to talk about Adolfo being a borderline top 100 prospect if he could ever be healthy. I’d love for a 2017-2020 Sox team to have traded away a prospect for current moment Adolfo. He’s more interesting now than Mazara, Palka, or Eaton were.

What could the value of Adolfo be? There are a surprisingly few RFs that Fangraphs projects to produce more than 2 WAR. They only have 9 2+ WAR RF listed on their depth charts prediction page. To be fair this doesn't take into account the WAR multi-position outfielders are expected to produce in the other outfield spots. Still they've got a number of competing teams like the Red Sox, Padres, and Rangers who don't have a very productive RF. Maybe one of these teams wants to catch a Yermin in a bottle in RF by throwing a mid-level prospect to the Sox. Alternatively the Royals, DBacks, Reds, Pirates, or Rockies could play long term and hope a year or two of seasoning does him well. I'd be pleasantly surprised if we got a high-ceiling/low-floor young prospect who can slot into the top 15 of our organization. It doesn't seem too unreasonable given that RF is a very weak position in MLB right now, and there are plenty of teams without a decent player manning the spot. I think top 15 would be around his peak value since he is out of options and if he sucks there's no real recourse for the other team.

Does he make the team better now? And is his future value worth the current costs? There are some great players who struck out 30%+ last season but they pair that with 30+ home runs and good defense. A slash of .220/.310/.440 would be the best we could expect out of Adolfo for a season or two. His profile is going to make us love him or hate him depending on how hot he starts. If he’s not hitting the ball hard where the fielders aren’t then we are just going to see a guy striking out 30-40% of the time. I’m not sold on adjusting plans to see if he can develop into Great Value Joey Gallo when we’ve a ton of other discount brand outfielders.

I’d be interested to see who was used in these tie games for the Sox. I have the feeling TLR wasn’t overly aggressive with using the big arms outside their standard inning. Also the late inning guys (minus the Aussie) were fairly mediocre to start the year. That’s why we had to at the very least get Tepera.

I forgot it wasn’t 2021. I had it in my mind that we had a top 4 without those guys. I still have the same mindset. Kopech should be in the rotation, Keuchel we have to deal with as a #5, and Lopez is a better than average #6. If Keuchel is the pitcher we saw last year then we cut ties and move Lopez in if Lopez is pitching well or go get cheap depth. Not having a Dylan Covey sitting in AAA isn’t going to be what kills this team, and if it comes down to needing those call-ups then they can be acquired for cheap. However, if the Sox need a 4th starter because none of the guys listed can do the job then a major move needs to be made. I still don’t think that will be too cost prohibitive, but we might need to see actually top 30 prospect value being moved to get someone.

I don’t have too much of an issue with our 5-7 being Kopech, Keuchel, and Lopez, but the complete lack of depth beyond that is worrying. What would it take to trade for a depth starter once the season starts? I can’t imagine a pure innings eater would cost all that much

Tough break for the guy. Hope he recovers well and finds a spot in another org where he can be a AAAA bat

I don’t know if this is trashing Vaughn too much? It makes him look bad, but the poster recognized that Vaughn will probably improve over time with righties. Maybe the adjustments were made over the off-season or maybe we will see it a the season progresses. I don’t think it’s someone talking trash when it’s just pointing out what we’ve seen from him so far. Everyone knows he’s got upside but it’s a matter of creating the best future Vaughn

But for the grace of the baseball gods go I