SoxBlanco

Sounds like Rodon from a couple years ago. Nobody wanted him, so we signed him for $3M. That seemed to work out.

Look at the bright side. At least I’m not Rick Hahn, Yasmani Grandal, or Nick Madrigal.

That’s fair. You don’t consider the baseball IQ side of things when evaluating a player. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I was just curious.

Absolutely.

Of course you didn’t say whether or not he had that. That’s why I asked.

If I had to have a beer with one person from this message board, you would easily be my last choice. You’re such a loser.

Are you taking into account his baseball smarts/high IQ, or do you not think he has that?

LOVE this move for only 3 million, as I’ve been saying all off-season. And we also now have a backup plan at SS in case TA gets hurt. This is a fantastic move.

I think you are reading what he said wrong. He said the PROJECTION is less than what Clevinger got, which is exactly right. $10M is less than $12M.

Yes, the 1/$10M projection was less than what he actually got. That’s what Timmy U was saying.

I brought them up simply as a response to the post that was implying we shouldn’t have signed Clevinger even if we didn’t know about the domestic abuse. He was saying that Clevinger seemed like a bad guy even before this incident, and we should have avoided him because of that. I’m saying that if you always operated this way and avoided players who seemed like they might have character issues, then you miss out on players like AJ. As for your second question, I’m guessing you missed my point, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked that. I’m not saying any teams should sign players who are accused of beating their spouse. I’m saying the Sox shouldn’t avoid a player just because he seems like a bad guy. I have no issue with the decision to sign Clevinger before this abuse issue came to light.

Yes, but using that strategy means we probably don’t ever sign AJ, and might not have that World Series. And no, I’m not comparing AJ to Clevinger at all. I’m simply saying that if you avoid all players who look like they might be a problem, then you could miss out on some solid players. Look at the Patriots. They are one of the most successful franchises in any sport over the past couple of decades, and they love acquiring players like that.

Devin Hester is looking great at WR so far and will definitely contribute on offense this year.

Keep in mind that Vaughn skipped AA and AAA. So the last two seasons were like his AA and AAA seasons, except he had to face major league pitching. His ceiling is much higher.

I feel like there's some contradiction going on with how much a manager can affect a team. The consensus around here was that TLR was terrible and cost us many games. But a lot of people are now saying that even if Grifol is better, it won't matter that much in the win/loss column. And I'm not talking about any individual person here...more of just a general feeling I get from reading several posts.

I think you are missing our point. Wins don’t matter in assessing how good a pitcher performed. But people were claiming that the TEAM wouldn’t have won as many games without the great performance of Cueto, and that simply isn’t true. You said that we “can’t say Cueto didn’t pitch well”, and you’re absolutely right. He pitched great.

Cueto started 25 games last year, and we only won 11 of those games. Yes, he was a fantastic surprise last year, but we didn't win that many of the games he started. If I was the starting pitcher for all 25 of those game, the Sox would have ended with 70 wins. If somebody like Davis Martin started all 25 of those game, the team win/loss results probably aren't much different than what Cueto did.

Haha, you make a good point if it was indeed Leury who was filling in. I'd like to think it would be someone else, particularly when Cairo was managing.

You can't just look at offense. Abreu is undoubtedly a better offensive player than Benintendi, but you need to look at the whole picture. The domino effect improved our outfield defense by A LOT.

Granted we're only 33 days into 2023, but this is the post of the year so far. I'll add one thing: You mentioned that Robert basically missed the second half of the year, but it was actually WORSE than that. He was hurting the team, and the Sox would have likely been better off if he was actually just out the entire second half.

I don't think they need "perfect" health. Somewhere in between perfect health and last year's health (combined with no TLR) would give us more wins than last year.

We are due for a win on opening day. Sox haven't won on opening day since the game where Davidson hit three home runs. That seems like so long ago.

And yet, that player still made the playoffs as the starting catcher for seven straight years (for three different teams). The Grandal signing was a good signing, no matter how much you hate him.

Why do people want Cueto but want nothing to do with Elvis Andrus?

I was talking about Eloy’s comment on not knowing who would be the clubhouse leader.