TomPickle

I hated the hiring, but I expected TLR to at least be a competent in game manager. What we have gotten instead is a clown show both on and off the field. I wish I knew how to quit you White Sox.

If your first thought when seeing that list of baseballing titans was "Boy, I would love to pay United States dollars to watch them play baseball." then I have some bad news for you.

This is a real quote said by the actual manager of the baseball team I cheer for. God help us.

Man, I was going to come in here and say Ruiz is going to have a better season than Kopech. This is a really spicy meatball.

I don't think he'd be cheap, but they signed Kim and Profar this off-season so he's more expendable on the Padres than he would be for just about anyone else. I would be willing to give up Kopech for him.

I would see what Jake Cronenworth would cost you. He crushed RHP last year and can play all over the diamond so he wouldn't lose any value when Eloy comes back.

He is much more likely to lose his spot in the rotation than win the Cy Young. Of course I will also use this article to say KIKUCHI HIVE STAND UP so take my opinion with an extra small grain of salt.

Sun-Times says 20%

Steven Hajjar made his debut tonight for Michigan 6.2 IP, 6H, 2ER, 1BB, 8K Mostly seen him mocked in the second round range (usually to the Tigers as a lazy pick since Fetter is their pitching coach now). Only his 5th start in college since he missed 2019 with an injury and only got 4 starts last year. Didn't get to watch the game, but from the highlights seemed like he was spotting the fastball pretty well. I'll be interested to follow him this year and see if he moves up the board at all.

Okay, I'm done. We don't need two people doing play by play lol

Eaton strikes out swinging on a breaking ball up in the zone

Feel like I should say to subscribe to The Athletic using all this Fegan content.

This is terrific and I would absolutely buy one.

My biggest worry about Cease is that he's already tried a lot of the new wave pitching training and he still can't throw strikes. Maybe he will find the thing that clicks for him and unlocks his potential, but personally I have almost no faith he's going to be a useful starting pitcher. I have real worries about Cease and Rodon pitching back to back days given both have routinely left the game before the 5th inning. If Lopez can throw strikes and wear it for 6 innings I would rather have him in the rotation.

If he never improves his approach at the plate then he's probably already bordering on his peak. I think he will end up being something like Alfonso Soriano if Soriano was a gold glove CF on the high end or pretty much the same as Byron Buxton on the low end. He will probably be about a 5 WAR player when healthy with a season or two where he might be a 7 WAR player. If he can drag his K to BB rate from nearly 4 to 1 to closer to 2 to 1 he has basically unlimited potential. I would not be surprised by multiple 8+ WAR seasons in his peak. That peak would likely arrive a bit later than the first scenario, maybe closer to the end of the decade than the beginning of it where he still has about 90% of his raw tools, but knows exactly how to attack pitches.