South Side Fireworks Man

Who's blocking Vaughn?

What a load of crap.

Okay Rick, the ball's in your court.

Should be "We don't suck as much anymore." 😄

Don't remind me. We could've/should've had Miggy if only JR was willing to take on Dontrelle Willis's contract.

I guess he was better than Milledge, but his career 701 OPS is still pretty meh. I'd rather have Engel at this point for the role of platoon with Mazara and late inning defensive replacement and pinch runner. Of course, I'm still hoping they go after someone better.

I would hope it will be Robert after he settles in for a month or so, but I'm with you that the best candidate to start the season would be Grandal, even though Ricky probably wouldn't even consider him. I don't like Anderson leading off. Moncada seems like he would be a decent choice, but as another poster mentioned he apparently doesn't do well leading off for some reason. I'm surprised you mentioned Grandal. I didn't think anyone else would have thought of him to lead off. Great minds think alike, I guess! 😊

Is Kevin Pillar still available? I'd rather have him than Maybon, that is if they're intent on replacing Engel.

Reminds me of Lastings Milledge. Formerly high regarded prospect that never lived up to the hype.

Don't want.

I'll believe it when Not_Steve_Cishek tweets it.

Could be. I just remember I didn't care for him at all when he was managing the Sox.

I remember LaRussa sucked as a manager his first couple of years with the Sox. Basically he learned on the job and became a better manager.

That's what we all hope.

I can accept that maybe for the most part in-game strategy decisions don't ordinarily amount to more than maybe a difference of a couple of games in the Win/Loss column. But extremely poor decisions like repeatedly batting your worst hitter fourth or constantly having your better hitters sacrifice bunt, etc., can make the difference between a contender and an also ran. Also, a good manager vs. A poor manager can be a critical difference in a playoff game.