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I've gone from Mr. Optimism when this board was all negative, to Mr. Pessimism last year when I thought the team was unwatchable. It wasn't just Tony LaRussa either. None of the everyday hitters except Jose Abreu actually came to work everyday and played above average. Not a single one. But it's a new year, with a new manager and some new coaches, some new players, and no more Leury Garcia to whine about. I'm not going to sit here and project anything for the team. I have no idea if they will 1. Stay healthy 2. Play good defense 3. Stop chasing bad pitches 4. Become a HR team again (like 2020) 5. Pitch well But they might. I think the team has enough talent to win if they stay healthy and perform like they are capable of. They could also continue to get hurt too easily and too often, fall into bad habits, and lose. Here are the things I've liked this offseason. 1. Pedro Grifol as manager. Who had heard of him? Seems to say all the right things. We'll see how it plays out. 2. Benintendi addition. I think he will hit more HRs for the Sox than he has recently. Lefty. Good outfielder. On base guy. Maybe that will rub off on some others. 3. Yoan Moncada looking good at WBC. This guy was once the #1 prospect in baseball. Imagine the 2019 version of Moncada and what that could do for this offense. 4. Jose Castro as hitting coach. The Sox somehow morphed from the team that led the AL in HRs in the short covid season 2020 to a bottom dwelling singles hitting team last year. The Sox have plenty of players who can mash if they stay healthy. They need to do it. Grifol also has a role here. 5. Yasmani Grandal being healthy, and not facing the shift. Grandal went from the Sox best hitter in 2021 to one of its worst hitters in 2022. He's in a walk year on his contract. He should be motivated and ready to mash again. 6. Cutting Leury Garcia. Sends the right message. The team is better offensively and defensively without him. 7. Oscar Colas. Who knows how quickly he'll produce and fix his inevitable mistakes. But the Sox finally have a legitimate right fielder offensively and defensively, who is also a lefty. 8. Andrew Vaughn at 1B, not the OF. Should help him offensively, keep him healthier, and will vastly improve the Sox' outfield defense without him out there. He's not likely to ever be peak Abreu, but he might have years above Abreu's 134 OPS+ average. 9. Another reset for Lucas Giolito. As the middle guy in the Sox' rotation, the Sox need him to be his best version, not his worst. He ought to be motivated for contract reasons to do well. He's looked good so far. We'll see if it holds up. 10. Reynaldo Lopez out of the pen. I think Lopez will get a lot of closing opportunities with Hendriks out. And I think he will do well. 11. Garrett Crochet and Liam Hendriks should be back during the year. When they are, the pen might be great. 12. Lance Lynn healthy. He was a workhorse for several years before coming to the Sox. As the #2 guy, the Sox need him to stay solild. 13. Luis Robert healthy. He shouldn't be this far down the list. He is the best player the Sox have. He needs to play like it. There's my lucky 13. It will be interesting how the new bags and the lack of the shift will affect the Sox. In the past, we would expect other teams to take advantage of these changes more than the Sox. But Grifol and the way he thinks might change that. The Sox certainly have players who can steal. And they have some lefties who should benefit from the lack of a shift. They also have two shortstops on the infield to give them range. The pitch clock might also be interesting. Eloy always steps out and adjusts his gloves. We'll have to see how the new rules affect him and others. I hope the Sox win me back this year. I'm going to give them a chance.

Damn, @flavum ain’t that bad of guy.

Ricky’s boys don’t quit

Throughout last season's struggles, it always came back to Tony Larussa, for me. He was a league-wide embarrassment and no one wanted to play for him. If it wasn't his boneheaded pitching decisions, it was his boneheaded lineups. If it wasn't his boneheaded lineups, it was his boneheaded situational awareness. If it wasn't his situational awareness, it was his inability to understand the rules of the game....etc., etc., etc. He wasn't a motivator. He didn't believe in the value of the home run. He was an incredibly poor judge of talent. He ignored the importance of momentum and instead trotted out dog s%*# lineups to rest healthy players. I fully believe this team is set to rebound strongly and should win the division. A heavy, heavy burden was removed from everyone's shoulders.

Money to be made out there! Got 40-1 on WS for $500. Got 3-1 on division for $1000. Me and Vafan gonna be $23000 rich come October. Let's go!!

The biggest early indicator of success is how our batted ball profile and power output shakes out. Obviously the ball doesn’t carry as far in the cold April weather so can’t rely entirely on HRs to make this call, but seeing more lift, more pull, and less chasing will have me super excited.

I’m already past that BS. If he pitches really well and helps Sox make playoffs, I’ll nominate him for Sainthood.

You know what would solve this problem….not spending your money on a bunch of tier2/tier3 level players and actually signing stars instead of trying to bargain shop

That's....not how options work.

This game means nothing. The intensity level has to be as low as it can go. The team has been named, the game doesn't count. I hate Clevinger, so I'm glad he's getting lit up, but again, it means zip.

I just want Clevinger to be a boring person the next 7 months- treat people right, don’t abuse alcohol or do other drugs, show up on time. It’s not that complicated for him this season. Be boring.

I mean, I expected it the moment I saw his body type.

I'd rather stick Alberto or Sheets in the OF than Eloy, honestly. Not because I think they'll be better defensively (Eloy is easily the best OF of the trio), but because Eloy does no one any good if he's hurt and eliminating the chances of him getting hurt playing the OF would go a long way towards him play 130+ games. Yes, Eloy is just as likely get hurt running the bases as he is in the OF, but you're eliminating like 80% of those chances by making him the full-time DH. The math is simple, IMO. Add to the fact that even though Eloy is a better OF than Sheets/Alberto, he is not a good one at all.

So elaborating on this a bit, but the Braves had two players play 162 games last year (Swanson & Olsen) and one play 159 (Riley). Harris played pretty much every single day once he was called up and Acuna played most days once his season actually started (he did receive more rest than others which makes sense). Point is their stars started almost every single game if they were healthy. I’m not convinced that Grifol will go that extreme, but I truly believe he shoots for ~150 starts for our legit stars and the guys where there isn’t some obvious platoon advantage to take advantage of. Guys like Anderson, Robert, Andrus, & Benintendi should be playing pretty much everyday. I get that the former two haven’t been able to stay healthy over the course of a full season as of late, but giving them more than an extra off-day once every two weeks really isn’t going to change things. Unless they are actually hurt, put them on the field. Moncada, Eloy, & Vaughn fall into the next tier for me because of their history of nagging injuries. To me, I think Grifol shoots for ~140 starts out of them. For Moncada, proactively giving him ~22 off-days against LHP throughout the season makes some sense with a guy like Alberto on the roster. Similar logic applies to Eloy & Vaughn against tough RHP with Sheets on the roster. That only leaves Colas of the non-catching starters. And with him, it’s really hard to say how they treat him against LHP. My guess is they won’t do a strict platoon in the long-run, but they may slowly introduce him to major league lefties to start the season. Gun to head, I’m guessing he will also get ~22 days off against LHP this year, which would put him around 140 starts if healthy. As outlined above, this is very different from how Tony managed things. Yes, this hasn’t been the most healthy crew as of late, but Abreu was the only guy who was out there pretty much everyday. I’m super happy this will change significantly under Grifol as not utilizing your best players as much as possible is an incredibly stupid way of managing a team. Put them out there unless their bodies clearly say no, which will obviously quite a bit with this group, but zero reason to baby them.

Ugh, already sick of seeing that shitbag’s name every five days, and the season hasn’t even started yet.

I think part of that is because they were so hyped up the past two years and it didn't materialize. There were a lot of prognosticators picking us as World Series contenders. The players bought into that hype and didn't live up to it, and a few of them have admitted that the team got complacent after reading their own press clippings. I think this year will be different. Hopefully they're out to prove themselves.

38 million down the drain and he still hasn't enough to prove he sucks at his job apparently

Close the books on the Alex Rios era.

Yet the owner who throws nickels around like they are manhole covers, hasn't fired Hahn for his incompetence.

Everybody now.....

I propose a managerial challenge to ejections. Double or nothing. If the managerial challenge is upheld, the ejection is overturned and umpire is ejected. if the challenge is rejected, a second player (of the opposing manager’s choosing) is also ejected.

Which makes him a better fit for the roster. That, and the fact that he's been slugging them vs. RHP.

Something about a pitcher named Navarro rustles my jimmies.

It's exciting to see some of the prospects teeing off on Fulmer like this

Always been a Romy fan.

Undramatic game threads is an oxymoron.

Its a freaking preseason game. Sucks to lose to the Cubs at any point, but I don't think any point to get dramatic about it either.

No, Clevinger.

They should've brought Burger up instead of sheets imo. Both can't field worth a damn, but Burger is a better hitter albeit RH. either way you're bringing up a bench guy who cannot field worth a damn. again, not a serious organization.

Bummer

I understand what you are saying and you are correct but that chart means nothing. You go to Ticketmaster and pick a section and a seat and you see the price. If you don't like it pick a different seat in a different section or find a new game that has that seat at a lower price. This is why they can charge a different price for every seat and every game. I'm sure the 1985 version of Soxtalk went insane when the Golden boxes were invented as an increase over box seats. If the consumer does not know by now, the better the game the more expensive it will be.

There is no way Eloy plays 40-50 games in the OF if Benintendi, Robert and Colas remain mostly healthy. If one of those guys go down for a long period of time, all bets are off as they're not exactly loaded with OFs.

Idk I think you can put the O/U less than that and it would be safe. I don't expect to see him out there at all. No reason to.

I place the over/under on the number of Andrew Vaughn starts in RF at 5.

I don’t want him playing the OF either, but I think there is a path to quite a bit of playing time at 1B / DH. As for Haseley, if the swing change works out then that might change things, but otherwise he doesn’t complement this roster all that well at the moment. Let him prove himself in AAA first. I’m not a huge fan of Marisnick and would rather rely on Romy to fill that role on the roster in all honesty.

Those guys are massive downgrades and not legit 4th OFs. If we have to play either in CF for a 30 game stretch, we are in big trouble. We should have signed someone like Adam Duvall, but tired of beating that dead horse.

I hear ya for sure.

He can definitely shoot for as many games as possible but with the guys we have, durability will definitely come into play.

and they would've eaten half the s%*# buckets money of he didn't cut a deal with MLB. But it's all Kenny Williams fault.

I just don't know the upside. He was the worst hitter in baseball last year, and generally a below average player in a best case scenerio. He isn't going to be flipped for anything. He isn't going to show your young players how to play. Unless you are tanking and want to lose, it's the only appeal to have him on the roster.

I’ve said it for the past few seasons, the Sox aren’t serious about winning as long as Leury Garcia is on the roster. I guess they’re finally serious about winning. It’s a new day.

That and Lavine has been absolutely stellar since the all star break.

Totally agree. Also, it’s important to note that he isn’t the only GM in the game to make signings that didn’t pan out. plenty of examples of this happening every season, the main reason they aren’t the big dollar failures is because the owner is a cheap ass. Hahn also is largely responsible for making the trades that infused serious talent into the team i.e. kopech, moncada, cease, Eloy etc… those were some great moves that really positioned the team to make a championship run. Unfortunately the corresponding moves to push the team over the top didn’t pan out and we’ve been left with the roster we currently have. He’s done an ok job overall in my opinion given the constraints, nepostism and favoritism he has to deal with as part of the WS front office.

Death by a thousand cuts. 8-10 solid players but we are right back to 2013-2016 again. Not enough talent infusion from the minors and failures across the core.

Definitely rooting for the Kings in the West. The Beam is the most fun thing in a while. Meanwhile, for the Bulls, Pat Bev is wilding.

Haven't been there for a few years(Last time I went was for an education conference). However, we did eat at a place called Buckhorn Exchange which we thought was phenomenal.Pretty diverse menu,if I recall even rattlesnake was a choice lol.

A thousand pardons, Chick. You never came up when I was passin' out the pitty patties.

In the old days of 10 pitchers/15 position players, Hamilton makes some sense as a pinch runner/defensive replacement. However, whoever takes that spot is going to start twice a week. Do you really want Hamilton getting 10+ ABs a week? I do not. But that's what makes the game interesting.