WestEddy

#4 favorite - Durham Bulls

Only one walk and one HBP through two for Hagen. It's one camera angle from up behind the plate. Gameday shows him to be a little wild. Aggressive Saguaro baserunning has bailed him out of both innings.

Aubry Huff was on every Tampa Bay team that McClung played on, so I can guess one of the toxic dudes.

Number 5 on my top 5 places to play during my career is #Tampa Bay Devil Rays, St. Petersburg, #Florida. 1. Stadium/Field Tropicana Field gets a bad rap across the league but, from a player’s standpoint, it was actually pretty easy to play on. It always played the same—no factors like wind, rain, or temperature. The ball acted how it acted all the time. You knew what you were going to get. 6/10 2. Front Office/Coaching staff Aside from us just not being good, the front office wasn’t that hard to deal with; you just had to know what you’re dealing with. There was roster manipulation, we traded players away for future hopes. The issues I had were with my personal development. We had a revolving door of pitching coaches, and I was never really put in a role long-term to figure anything out. Coaching pretty much stopped once I got to the major leagues with Tampa Bay. I wish it hadn’t. I really needed it, and it ended up haunting me the rest of my career. I loved playing for Lou Piniella—I knew where I stood with him at all times. I sometimes struggled playing for Joe Maddon. By the time he got there, I think I was written off as part of the future, and I think that factored into my relationship with him. 5/10 3. Clubhouse/Locker Room The clubhouse was nice! Could be hard to get gear from time to time, but overall it was a great place to be. The food was good, and there was plenty of space. 7/10 4. City St. Petersburg wasn’t extremely exciting, but it was big enough to have everything and small enough for a young guy like me to not be overwhelmed. I enjoyed it. I still live here today. 7/10 5. Fan Base The fans that showed up loved us! Sadly, there just weren’t a lot of them. What most people don’t realize is that even if they didn’t show up, it didn’t mean they weren’t paying attention. People watched us, they knew who we were out and about in town—in St. Pete. In Tampa, it was hit or miss if you got recognized. Overall, this isn’t Tampa Bay’s strongest quality. 4/10 6. Living Situation During my time as a Devil Ray, we also had spring training in St. Petersburg. That meant I could live there year-round and not miss any training. This was a huge advantage. And you’re living in Florida—beaches, bikinis, and no state income tax. Pretty perfect for a 22-year-old. 9/10 7. Team Chemistry This is where the Devil Rays struggled. For the most part, we had solid guys, but there were members on these teams who were just toxic. These guys took pleasure in ruining young guys. If you didn’t fall in line with how they trashed the team, other players, or just matched their negativity, they made your life hell. I don’t miss the feeling of dread walking into the clubhouse and thinking, what type of bullshit am I going to have to deal with from these toxic guys today. 2/10. 40/70

McClung continues on to list his 5 favorite places to play

Arizona Fall League | MLB.com Streaming on the front page.

Hagen Smith's 1st inning is starting in the AFL, if anybody's interested. Arizona Fall League | MLB.com

There's a lot of debate of Getz now vs. Getz when he ran the organization through Hahn and KW. Here's Caden Conner talking about the difference between Getz vs. Machiavellian Getz: add: he also talks some around 10:30 about talking to vets on various teams.

Correct, a top ranked farm system will probably produce more major league stars than the lowest ranked system. No, not shocking, so we should probably stop presenting it like we invented the concept of number "one" being a good rank to have. I don't think we should disregard prospect rankings "because many will bust". I think they should be seen more as a snapshot in time of individual player pedigrees, and not of the system as a whole. We just graduated 3-4 top 100 prospects, which makes the system ranking take a hit. Our top pitcher was injured, another needed work on his mechanics, while a third prospect played across 3 levels and didn't mash at the highest level he attained. That also was a hit to the ranking. 4 other starters just had TJS that delays their careers for 18 months. Another hit. Did our minor league system suddenly become bad? No. Did Schultz, Hagen Smith and B. Monty suddenly drop off and are no longer considered prospects? Of course not. But because of the nature of ranking systems, they need to look at healthy, pedigreed dudes who are dominating their current, age-appropriate level, and declare who has an elite system from that. Is it unfair? I wouldn't say that. We just drafted an elite defense shortstop who could be a stud if suggested hitting tweaks are made. We also plucked an elite high school bat that will also rank once he produces at any level. But their true potential remains to be seen, so that's a drag on the overall ranking. Every other system experiences the same ebb and flow, so a #19 ranking has so many moving parts. Colson was dropping, but he just put up 3.3 bWAR in less than half a season. To paraphrase another poster, here, minor league rankings don't win World Series. Players putting up 6 WAR seasons in the majors do.

Again, I'm still not getting where you're going with all this. Yeah, teams need good players to win. Profound.

I can't figure out what's being argued here. I think you generally get anxious over the lack of top ten (in the game) pitching prospects, and you want the Sox to obtain/develop their pitching prospects to be considered best in the game with no chance of failure before you'll recognize the Sox are doing a good job developing pitching. You're not "saying" this, but that's what I glean from your posts. There are currently no pitching prospects in the MLB top ten, and only ten pitchers that rank above Noah Schultz at 40. He got up to 16 on that list but fell back due to injuries this season.

I think this is appropriate:

I think the question is "how does any of this service my 'Chris Getz sucks at every turn' narrative".

Andrew Vaughn taking Chris Getz' lessons and teaching the Brewers how to win:

Miss Otis Regrets she's unable to pitch today.

I get in the weeds with this French 60's pop stuff. This is probably something you want to take a gummy, then really dig it.

Adrian Houser would have been a great addition. But Civale should have probably started one of these games for them.

At least Adam Eaton would get himself knocked out cold.

We'll take that one

Okay, The Franchise Ortiz has got to do something sometime, right?

They're really "Imanaga and Boyd, and pray to not be so annoyed"

do or die tonight

I'm kind of glad for his appearance on the All-Star team. Kind of took some of the shade away from Shane Smith.

I read that if he pitched tonight, he could appear in game 5 on regular rest. different plans, I guess.

Give him a fresh inning to start?