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Yea, they added a new sign to the booth for the series:

I would say Venable is getting A LOT out of the team he has. There's talent, for sure, but it's young, raw talent for the most part. The few veterans sprinkled in are helping on and off the field. Grichuk fit right in, Benintendi (despite being bad at baseball) seems to be well liked, Hill is having the time of his life, and Kay is helping a young pitching staff. Don't overlook the fact that the culture of this team has been completely overhauled with the last of the *ahem* problems traded away during the off season. And I firmly believe that Murakami has been a huge part in bringing this team together. It's amazing that a guy with limited English and Spanish fits in so well and already seems to be a leader in the clubhouse. Venable will get a lot of credit, deservedly so, but this group of players is so tight and truly seem to like each other. That, along with the growing talent, is producing an exciting team to watch.

This s%*# sucks. @southsider2k5 @WestEddy @CaliSoxFanViaSWside it’s time to ignore each other and just move on. Closing another fucking thread because you guys wanna gripe about online grudges this is fucking dumb @ron883 make another sandlin thread if you want

Before anyone says Benintendi is hitting well lately: He's got .148/.148/.333 over his last 7 and .204/.273/.600 over his last 15. For a guy that's played 3 innings of defense all years, that's horrible.

Unrelated, but Charlotte's stadium has such a great outfield skyline.

Bring your kid to work day?

He isn't good when healthy and seems like anyone could replace him.

Can the booth actually fit two egos of such massive size?

it would def be nice to be able to DH Colson and Vargas a bit and keep them fresher. Colson especially is playing his first full MLB season and he will wear down at some point this summer I'd imagine.

Same suggestion I had a month ago: call him up for DH, and to spell other infielders a few times per week. Dump Beni. Low-risk move. Another thing I like about him is that his K rate is reasonable. The big club Ks too much, as do the 2 top prospects.

Gonzo is still in the dugout FWIW, not zooming off to pack his bags

Gonzalez was just pulled

I’m trying to be optimistic about Mune. Watching the replay I didn’t really see one instance where it looked like it grabbed him, and he was wasn’t hobbling a whole lot.

I blame the Sox complete stupidity and insanity of starting colson at third while he's playing elite shortstop for the absurd scenarios being proposed by fans for him to move off the position permanently so chase meidroth can play there.

Or they give Acuna SS, lol. Montgomery to 3B...Vargas first. Gonzalez only has 18 minor league games at third.

Meidroth would be a better SS than Gonzalez. I think probably the most sensible thing to do would be to play Gonzo at 3B or even consider 1B, which he did for a bit in AAA this year.

Replacing Mune with Acuna is like totaling your Bentley and being given a Pinto as a replacement.

Colson will play 3rd. Gonzalez at SS if they bring him up

Damn. Truly on a heater if he's socking dingers between games.

To the best of my knowledge this will be the first time Bob has called a Sox game not connected to a national broadcast network.

I hope he calls him Stone Pony.

It handled Harry, Hawk, and Steve, it will be fine

LOL @Quin locked the Robert thread and you jabronis just carried it into the Sandlin one. Water under the bridge man.

I don't quite remember where I was, I just wanted the ordeal over. But I think I wanted Robert's option picked up. Things happened after they picked up his option. Mune wasn't exactly in their plans, but they found he was a real possibility. If they were still being low-balled on Robert, I was okay with running him back out there in CF. It seems they picked up LuBob's option, planned on kicking in money for a prospect, Mune fell in their laps, JR said to move LuBob's money, and Getz had the Mets' offer in his pocket. The whole ordeal saved them $2M on LuBob's option, netted a depth arm and Acuña, then unclogged the budget to fill some holes.

He's great. He seems to be the kind of manager many of us had been begging for for years. Young, smart, and data driven. He gives us the best of Renteria but I think he's just a much better manager.

Looking at our team right now, the weakest positional guys are Acuna (-0.7 fWAR), Benintendi (-0.5 fWAR), Quero (-0.4 fWAR), & Hays (-0.3 fWAR). Ignoring Rikuu, every other active player is positive fWAR on the season and has a wRC+ above 100. Periera fits the billing whenever he comes back. The infield is incredibly strong right now with Colson & Murakami on pace for ~6 fWAR, Vargas on pace for ~5 fWAR, & Meidroth on pace for ~3 fWAR. These guys are also playing almost every single day, so the role of a backup infielder is going to be highly limited. For context, players other than the four above have combined for 74 total plate appearances at those four spots. That’s about 213 plate appearances over a full season. There could be an opportunity to sit one of Chase or Vargas against tough righties and increase that figure, but I don’t think you want to rush Gonzalez up only to ride the bench the bulk of the time. Gonzalez doesn’t play the OF, but I will address the current situation briefly due to broader considerations that impact him. Right now, our OF has combined for a total of 0.4 fWAR. However, this is highly misleading. Peters is currently on pace for a 3.5 win season as the strong side of a CF platoon thanks in large part to his defense. Hill is a perfect platoon partner for him with a 142 wRC+ against LHP, but he also serves value as a late inning defensive replacement and pinch runner. Get rid of Acuna’s negative production and CF looks very solid overall. Antonacci is also playing pretty much everyday in LF and is currently on pace for a 2.5 win season. That production is coming entirely against RHP, although I think we should continue to expose him to LHP and see if he can improve there. RF is the problem spot at the moment. Grichuk & Pereira are both LHP killers and I think there is a chance Everson could be an everyday guy with time (but comes with risk). We lack a capable LH option at the moment as I am skeptical of Rikuu being more than just a minor role player. We also have Hays who has been both bad & injured this year, but who has a history of dominating RHP and being slightly above league average against LHP. If he ever can get healthy, his ability to play most days would prove very useful somewhere in the OF (or even DH), but that looks questionable at the moment with multiple injuries & setbacks on the year. I still believe Braden will be ready for a shot around the All Star break and that would give us an option for RF who can hopefully handle RHP. Ultimately, the point above is there is a path to a productive OF, but one that is heavily reliant on platooning and will be very crowded. This makes Benintendi as our primary DH even more challenging. He is never going to hit enough to be more than replacement level there. Cutting bait on Andre and using the spot to rotate multiple guys through makes sense. Gonzalez could certainly get a lot of run there, but it also opens up some time for Murakami & Vargas there which provide Jacob more chances in the infield. It also allows some of the OF guys to rotate through there as well, which could be a big positive for Hays’ health. TLDR - Cut bait on Acuna & Benintendi and eventually free up the DH spot for a rotation that would include Gonzalez.

Let him keep raking in the minors. Never know, a spot can open with an injury to someone or he plays himself into a trade chip for a starter with control.

This is a good problem to have.

You keep harping on Hayes and Grichuk being the same player but glossing over that Acuna up til this point has not been a MLB player, at all. You even pointed out he has a negative WAR on D, which is where he was supposed to be great regardless. He is fine backing up SS but he can’t hit a cut to save his life and teams run on him like crazy because of it. The team has reduced his playing time to very little because of how bad he has been. I’m no huge fan of Hayes but his bat is major league quality, Grichuk has been everything you could ask for in a short period of time. There are better options than Acuna right now, if he is DFAed this team isn’t going to suffer for it.

No it didn't ,but it was, so that was the reality coming into 2026. Saying he didn't have to pick the option or saying he didn't trade him after 2023 is water under the bridge. I'm not dealing with "what ifs". I'm talking about the reality of what actually happened . That's like that inning recently that the Sox had men on 1st and 2nd no outs and Hill up and the question was bunt or not bunt.I didn't want them to bunt but once they did I liked the immediate single that drove in 2 runs and posted hey it turned out good .But Ray Ray asked me what was good about it. I said 2 runs right away. Ray says but it could been a big inning cause they got some hits after. That's a "what if". He don't know how that inning turns out if Hill doesn't bunt and neither do I but I'll take the 2 runs in reality rather than the "what if" of a K and a DP or Ray's dream of Hill and bottom of the order continuing to single the Twins into a big inning. Anyway... Most here actually wanted him to pick up the option hoping he could establish some value. I can't remember my stance on it. A lot of people also thought Robert was worth more than that return or the Sox just should have kept him .Yuck. I was happy to be rid of him finally. It dragged on way too long. I do know that when they traded Crochet a lot people thought Robert was as good as gone too TDL 2024 I think. I gave reasons why I didn't think Robert would be gone..Someone called me naive. Ive been around a long time and my specialty with the Sox is reading the tea leaves pretty accurately . No one is always right but my arguments are well thought out. I look at the big picture. Naive I am not so when Robert wasn't traded I let that guy know in no uncertain terms that I managed to be right while also not questioning his knowledge like he questioned mine. People don't like the s%*# they say being thrown back in their face. Too bad so sad. I'm not here to take anyone's s%*#. No disrespect to you of course . You're pretty fair minded . Peace🖖

I love that Getz actually valued having respectable depth in AAA and went out and acquired major ready guys who were part of a roster pinch. Both Peters & Pereira were smart pickups on that regard and cost basically nothing.

trade all of our young players and bat benintendi lead off. how is this a question

There's no such thing as too much savagery, Ron. If anything, I want to see Vargas and Meidroth learn how to switch hit. Give me MOAR!

I think in my time as a full fledged Sox fan, 94 was probably the best offensive team I have ever seen, but 2004 should have been damn close before Frank and Maggs got hurt

Tristan Peters is the honestly the top of player that makes me slowly change my opinion on Betz. Such a crazy good pick up.

I remember that. I’m pretty sure we won one of the games (or maybe even two) by getting out of a bases loaded jam in the 9th. Possibly a game ending double play. Keith Foulke is popping into my head.

Great news!

After years of misery, us Sox fans are finally enjoying good baseball on the southside. We should sweep Detroit this weekend with how banged up they are and with how bad they are playing. But 2 out of 3 would be good too. I’m really excited for the gauntlet in June against Philadelphia, Atlanta, LAD, NYY and Cleveland. It’s going to give this team an opportunity to show the rest of the baseball world what they are capable of. Really show they’ve turned the corner and are no longer the laughing stock. I mean it could also show how far they still have to go. But I’m opting to believe in the former, it’s much more fun. And damn, we’re doing all this without Kyle Teel. What a time to be alive.

Of course you mean the people who are still mad that someone dares to argue with them? Because damn are they mad. Like so mad they can't even enjoy the team in front of them.

I’m struggling with how to handle competent baseball from the White Sox. I’m predicting Fedde doesn’t pitch like Fedde tomorrow. Let a guy dream.

Sweet, a client just found out I was a Sox fan and gave me two Teel rookie cards, it's all coming up Sox!

Twins, go home and think about what you did. Go on now, git

Nice - glad to see them get back home and take the 4 game series. Now lets take the next series. One game at a time - lets go Sox!!!

I can see Jerry Reinsdorf refusing out of principle - even with the low payroll and with Ishbia taking over in the near future. It's a total Reinsdorf move to refuse to give that much to a player that hasn't proved it in the MLB. Like how he is with giving pitchers big contracts.

That lineup gave me a hard on

He is tops on my list in terms of Ishibia infused splash moves. Fits the timeline, fits the position need, enhanced marketing opportunities, etc.