wrathofhahn

His issue has always been he has a good fastball with good velocity but it's very straight with not a lot of spin.

It seems like a waste of resources to be honest. Guys like him are a dime a dozen if you needed backup INF help just go out and trade for one they don't cost much to acquire. He has zero power and because of that the signing has almost no upside.

Joe Kelly is being massively overpaid. I like the player but at 8.5m yikes. Brad Hand signed for 1/6m. How do you pay Kelly more than that?

This is a ridiculous post but you already knew that. TLR is literally already in the HOF as a manager. He didn't need to stretch his qualifications for the job. I mean really.

What often doesn't get discussed is he also played in the majors for 6 years and played a total of 16 years in the minors plus majors and 1295 games. He is literally a baseball lifer. But some would have you believe he is some sort of idiot. Yes he is a hardass and honestly he has every right to be. He knows the game of baseball inside and out.

First of all it's obvious by who are his loudest critics on the board. It's also obvious because the national media who go after TLR for his age and being "out of touch" don't go after Dusty Baker in a similar way. I also look at the reaction to Guillen when he was rumored to be interested in coming back people mentioned him being a traitor and quitter but noone mentioned him being an admitted drunk as one of the reasons he shouldn't be hired. In any case I've probably said enough back to lurking.

It isn't even that TLR been around the game longer then most of these know it all posters have been alive and has seen it all. He knows what the Indians did was reckless by calling a pitch high and inside with a pitcher who had lost his command. He also articulated the issue of what happened perfectly and why he was upset/disappointed with the Indians and to be quite honest in the olden days the next Indians hitter would have gotten one right in the ribs. They didn't. So what exactly are the wusses on the board angry about? The fact he defended Abreu? Called out the Indians? If he didn't would they have been happy? Nope. The reason? Their hatred of TLR is completely not related to baseball it isn't honestly even to do with his DUI. They are political bigots and they will continue to attack one the greatest managers of all time as somehow unqualified no matter how ridiculous he continues to make them look in the process.

It wasn't just the fact he called a pitch inside it was the fact he called it high and inside with a pitcher that had no control. La Russa was completely right and in ole school baseball the next Indians player would have been plunked whether the pitch was intentional or not. Why the fuck should sox players care whether it was intentional to begin with?

I saw this same shit with Colby Rasmus with few exceptions almost every one of these situations where fans have backed the player have been proven wrong. Congratulations on Yermin supporters for joining the club. What a headcase! Glad his drama in the minors where it belongs

Calls are starting to come in to boycott MLB baseball. From Trump. To radio sports personalities. To politicians. https://www.newsweek.com/mlb-boycott-calls-grow-after-donald-trump-hits-out-over-all-star-game-1580840 For me I have no interest in baseball or giving any money to support the direction Manfred has taken MLB. Since the season has started I haven't watched a single game and it will be interesting to see what the numbers are for baseball since their fans tend to skew older and conservative. Going to war with the majority of your fanbase doesn't seem to be overly well thought out but we will see. You need ID to pick up your tickets. ID to receive the credit card to purchase the tickets. ID to purchase beer at the stadium. You need ID to get to the stadium in the form of a drivers license. The MLB has also came out in support of a vaccine card for attending games which you guess it is more ID (https://www.mlb.com/yankees/ballpark/health-and-safety/testing-requirements-faq) ID for voting? That is where they draw the line apparehently well they have theirs and I have mine. I'll won't be purchasing the MLB package and going to any games until they decide their business is baseball/sports instead of politics.

Not signing a DH is easily the biggest mistake of the off-season they aren't expensive and we literally were dead last in the AL All our eggs seem to be in Vaughn being able to step in day 1

You mean the 2.3 fWAR? And yes the nationals ballpark is one of the hardest to play defense and he can't cover the same ground as he used to. If he can put up a similar level of offense with even mediocre defense he'll be a bargain

Bottom line is we can find a quality DH at a very low figure so the waste of resources is malarky. Yermin was 27 last year and didn't get a shot and we had one of the worst DH situations in the league. Vaughn and Yermin are insurance if Schwarber or whomever we bring in either gets injured or isn't up to the job. Vaughn hasn't hit above A ball pencilling him at DH seems a bit nuts to me especially when the rest of the team is built to win now. People need to get over this mad scientist stuff we went through when we were rebuilding. We aren't in a position to put the season at risk for unproven players

Great move. Also lets not read too much into 40 games. He'll likely bounce back this year and is a massive upgrade at RF. Now we just have to find ourselves a DH and the lineup is pretty much set

I'd take him if he willing to backup and insurance against Madrigal but he will get a better offer elsewhere. Besides we still need to figure out our pitching and LF/DH.

Hed be useful as an extra infielder but down year notwithstanding he is gonna get starting offers. So zero interest

If he is playing well we keep Vaughn in the minor leagues to develop. It's a win win. I'd rather be in a position of keeping Vaughn longer then necessary in the minor leagues preserving extra service time then in a position where Vaughn struggles at the MLB level and not have another option at DH which is where we were last year with EE. Vaughn has yet to face any pitching above A ball. I know everyone is excited and I am to an extent too but lets see him face AA and AAA pitching first before anointing him ready to play at the MLB level next year.

I mean he was just non-tendered. He will likely be limited to AL clubs and maybe a handful of offers of those clubs who need a DH. We can offer him consistent playing time to start the year in a hitters friendly park and if he plays well we keep Vaughn in the minors. He may get a better offer then that I dunno but if it isn't acceptable move on to the next guy there will be other options

Do they? He played high A ball last year why are we so sure they plan on plugging him day 1 or in two weeks? I am not. Schwarber is likely gonna get a one year deal I am fine with giving Vaughn another year at AA and AAA you still have the option of calling him up if he is playing well and/or Schwarber struggles. What is clear is our internal options prior to Vaughn suck and we are about to lose our best DH last year which comically was our backup catcher. Fangraphs had our OPS collectively last year as .570 at the DH position

Eloy is being paid to play the field. I honestly don't know if he can be a fulltime LF that is on the coaching staff and FO if not then he probably shouldn't have been given that extension and if he can't then the conversation becomes finding a LF versus finding a DH. Moving Eloy doesn't solve our issue just create a new one and a good defensive LF who can hit will be many times more expensive then what Schwarber will be to DH. So we need to sort of figure that out and not waste money that could be spent elsewhere. I hope you are wrong Eloy is still 24 he can improve his defense we will see the other issue beyond how much we paid him is how he and his agent feels about it. Sure he is signed for 6 years but only 4 of that is guarnteed

Not to mention there will be whitesox players who are going to be arrested for DUI whether it be mary jane or another substance like alcohol. It's going to happen at some point heck it likely already has but just hasn't been reported on and if you look at other sports like the NFL where the media does a better job of tracking arrests it's the most common arrest or citation. I'd rather not be a position of having to explain why TLR DUI is somehow different then theirs but hey that is just me.

That doesn't make sense and if they traded for him they still could have worked out an extension if they wanted only with much more leverage.

Okay but he would have been traded then He at best will lget a similar offer

If memory serves didn't his knees get busted?

WAR is a misunderstood stat and is often used incorrectly by people who don't understand roster construction. Like our DH was the worst in the AL last year. The Blue Jays as an example created 55 runs (wRC) with their DH's (.816 OPS slightly lower then Schwabber splits). We created 14. For those against bringing in someone like Schwabber show me another position on the club where we can improve our wRC by 41 for 5.5M. If Eloy needs to be moved later to DH why are we pretending Schwabber would prevent that? He just was non-tendered why would anyone believe that he is somehow going to paid both in term and in money in a way that would block Eloy? Also Eloy is making serious money so lets make sure that he can't play the field before he moves to a fulltime DH.