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Fletcher will be the primary right fielder and start vs RHP. Are we really taking anything out of 44 spring training plate appearances? Who gives a s%*#

For a reason? How about Arizona’s loaded fucking OF? When will you stop with this insanity.

Lee to Maldonado:

There's A's radio for this one. It's actually interesting hearing their broadcast say "the Sox really struggled with [thing]" last year and then have to admit that the A's were, in fact, worse.

sextalk.com/forums

Big day for my QB1 Bagent

Wait until they find out the White Sox infected him with the failure virus, which will spread to the rest of the team. Should have given up Kjerstadt, MFers!

If they are just "neutral" moves in terms of team talent level and 40 man roster competitiveness from last season...that would be a massive victory.

To be fair, only one person is doing this and they constantly look for things to feed their pessimism.

Can we please stop doing this every year? Spring training stats mean almost nothing and I say this as one of the most vocal critics of the Fletcher / Mena trade. And for the record, if Fletcher doesn’t make the Opening Day roster, that would much more indicative of Getz has no clue about player evaluation.

The two rookies combine for 8 innings of 1 run ball. Jesse Chavez continues to struggle. I am not sayin spring stats matter, but it will be interesting to see if the “competition” they promised is real.

Cannon gave up a solo shot to lead off his 4th inning of work, so the game ends as a 3-3 tie. He finished with 4IP, 4H, 1ER, 0BB, 4K. Nastrini also went 4IP (0ER), and pitched out of a jam after a leadoff walk and single in his last inning.

If Fletcher's not ready now, he never will be. He's 26. I think they're going to give him a chance anyway but if he looks anything like he has in spring during the regular season it is already a dumb trade regardless of what Mena does.

Korey Lee with his 3rd HR of the spring, tied with DeJong for the team lead.

I know, Spring Training, but if Korey Lee keeps this up and Martin Maldonado continues being the worst major league hitter on the team, is Maldonado gonna be the recipient of the Jeff Keppinger award?

The Sox would find a way to start him there.

Whoops - sorry, wrong meeting.

And I am looking to have a 13 inch penis that has built in freight train vibration functionality that is controlled telepathically.

It just sounds phony to me, and quickly got on my nerves last game. Add in Stone’s ever increasing org boot licking and we have the makings of a pretty terrible booth.

No way Kopech goes back to minors.

In the Athletic they had a panel of three writers who grades our side of this trade. Here were their evaluations: B- B A-

I pray to all that is good and holy it doesn’t return. I’m just bracing myself for if and when it does. Sure won’t help me warm up to Schriffen’s overzealous hype-man stylings or Steve Stone’s ever increasingly condescending tone 🤦🏽‍♀️.

Who says you can't go home again. https://www.si.com/mlb/orioles/news/baltimore-orioles-acquire-outfielder-from-chicago-white-sox

I'm more of the Buffett/Munger school of thought on this. Never invested. Obviously the intrinsic value comes from the underlying block chain technology itself...rather than as a store of actual value, because it's essentially backed more by the faith and belief of its devotees. That's said, it's certainly more interesting personally than NFT's and SPAC's. Not particularly insightful because I decided in the very beginning not to invest. (But then again, I sold BRK.B and bought BABA, which was my second major investing mistake since the late 90s. Which resulted in even more index fund investing.)

Back in the day, this board was known for being objective. Now, it's just an echo chamber of negativity. There's only a handful of poster who are actually objective now. The rest are just circle jerking about how much we suck. We know that. It would be great if the board could move on from that and try to be a bit more analytical. Last night I was really hoping we could have a discussion about Drew Thorpe's change up, and only a small group of posters actually wanted to talk about baseball. It's a bummer because his board used to kick ass when discussing actual baseball. Now it's a circlejerk of "jerry sucks." Yeah, no s%*#. Jerry's always sucked.

What have the Sox done recently to give you any idea that they're anything other than a complete clown college? I actually hoped that Fletcher would be decent when they traded for him.

I was also thinking Tanner Banks, although lefty-lefty wouldn't be ideal. Banks, despite the AAAA reputation, has been effective pretty much every season he's pitched in pro ball. He's never had a WHIP above 1.4. He has 100 pro starts. Now his FIP was a tad high last year, I guess because he doesn't have high K totals. And what I like best is that he minimizes the walks.

The funniest part of this is that everybody laughed at thinking Fletcher was good based on 102 MLB PA's, but are now declaring him a bust over 30 spring training PA's. Smells like Troll Spirit.

You know who gonna you know who.

Although I hated the trade, lots of guys hit well in spring and do nothing when the season starts and vice versa. Matt Davidson was a spring training god for years once upon a time.

If we use Sheets as the strong side platoon in RF, then Getz should be fired immediately because he’d be even more full s%*# than Grifol.

I think they’ve already made it pretty clear they’re trying to win games over development at the MLB level. Unfortunate, but it is what it is.

And Lawrence is teetering on massive bust territory as well. If Caleb ends up being a bust, I give up.

I mean, if they really were offered much better deals and Fields' team said no, then I'd say he got played by David Mulugheta. But I doubt that was really the case. Maybe they were offered slightly better and they decided that sending him to where he wanted to go would make good PR for the team.

Fwiw, this is exactly how Maldonado was treated last year. Way better catcher offensively and defensively in Yainer Diaz constantly on the bench because Dusty has to have his veteran catcher.

When people said "Eaton lite" they meant 2021 Eaton

Shuster cut himself with how he looked yesterday. He has a lot of work to do to be a 5th starter let alone more. I am not obsessed with getting an extra year on Nastrini cuz he’s not that young. Healthy arms you could easily do Soroka, Fedde, Flexen, Crochet, and either Nastrini or Thorpe and that wouldn’t be embarrassing. Kuhl or Keller… that’s embarrassing.

And I say that because that is 4 different orgs. 1 was the best development situation of all time (Lance). Utter failure. Pats developed best QB of all time. Consistently drafted later round QBs and flipped them (Garoppolo was equal value, but others as well). By year three they hated him. Jets and Bears both equal strugglers. But Jets have Wilson a strong defense and a damn good skill room for wide outs. Failure. The jags have Lawrence the worst first year set up of all time. He’s a sure long time starter.

Wilson is washed. I firmly believe that. I would not be surprised if Justin is starting by week 5.

It’s quite obvious that Poles overestimated Fields’ value and held on to him too long while every team that wanted a QB traded for someone else. Your example is an excellent one. The Bears traded a 5th round pick for a backup OL in Ryan Bates who was about to be cut, but Fields only goes for a conditional 6th rounder that could turn into a 4th if he plays enough? Anyone who thinks Poles didn’t screw up is wrong, period.

You have to wonder if the Eagles were willing to give the Bears the deal the Steelers got for Pickett, but then Khan swooped in and got rid of the last realistic suitor for Fields, which drove his price down even more. A 6th next year is just baffling. The 4th round possibility is unrealistic unless Wilson gets hurt. The Bears gave up more for Ryan Bates. The Bears sent a 6th for freaking Dan Feeney. This is literally a case of we don't want to cut the guy, so please take him for basically nothing. What's actually kind of funny is that the Bears would have saved about 3 million if they cut Fields as opposed to trading him. That might have actually been a better option outside of the ability to choose where you send him.

None of it will matter, 0%, if Caleb Williams is the real deal. Even if Fields goes on to show more than he did in Chicago, if Williams plays at the level basically every scout and prognosticator projects him to, I wouldn’t bat an eye if they just had to release Fields. If he’s another bust in the long line of busts, then Poles won’t be here long and it will be another GM in his seat still searching for that QB the Bears can’t find.

I’m hoping Odunze falls to #9. You know what’s better for a rookie QB than two stud WRs? Three. It also protects them against Allen inevitably aging out even if he signs a short-term extension. Not sure about Latham or Olu over Odunze, but I wouldn’t complain if Alt dropped to 9 and they took him. Stupid end of the season wins.

When you have back to back HOF’s still playing at an incredibly high level, it’s a lot easier to let someone sit. But Smith/Mahomes and the Packers are really the only situations where it’s happened and worked. Burrow, Herbert, Dak, Russ, Kyler, Allen, Luck, etc…all started right away and it worked just fine. You’re taking a guy No. 1 overall, he’s got 3 CFB seasons under his belt…it’s go time. Sitting and watching Justin Fields play for 6-8 games isn’t going to help his develooment

Guys, just because they said Fields has been traded….doesn’t make it true. Poles is playing chess on another dimension, here. Why hasn’t he said anything yet?! Poles said he is building through the draft. And don’t you remember that picture of both of them hugging each other!? It’s because Fields is our QB1, and we’re trading our #1 pick (to avoid the future bust) for a HAUL.

Burns pitching against a very good Virginia team. Strikes out the side on 12 pitches in the first.

No chance. I can see maybe one team being dumb but not four.

They’ll finish in 4th or 5th place.

If anyone read Keith Law's 2023 write up on Zavala, you would be giddy. The Padres signed Zavala in January of 2021 for $1.2 million, part of the delayed signing period due to the pandemic. He went out and posted a .400 OBP that summer as a 16-year-old in the DSL, one of only four regulars that young in the league and the only one to top even a .340 OBP. He started last year in extended spring training, blasted through the Arizona League in 10 games (.345/.412/.621), then hit .254/.355/.508 in six weeks in Low A. He was the only 17-year-old to get 100 plate appearances in full-season ball last year, but posted a median OBP for the level and was in the top 15 percent of all hitters there in slugging (same minimum of 100 PA). He has absurd bat speed, rifling the bat through the zone with big hip rotation for hard contact and power, while he’s already shown unusual plate discipline for his age, especially when it comes to laying off pitches out of the zone. As a defender, he shows good instincts and routes, playing center so far more than right, but the odds are he’ll move to the corner in the long term.