SoCalChiSox

I'd bat Mercedes 4th, as regardless of platoon issues, he's clearly our best power guy right now, even against righties. Moncada should be back at 2 I agree. Grandal 5. Robert 6. Eaton 7. Vaughn 8 and Madrigal 9.

That might be worse than any lineup RR put together. Just indefensible

Regression hitting hard. Not a surprise

I think they may do that if he is still struggling when the minor league season starts because he wouldn't get a ton of benefit at the alternate site. He needs to get at bats in AA or AAA against higher quality pitching than he did at High A. Its a tough adjustment for any rookie but if you missed a whole minor league season and only played against High A earlier, its really unfair to expect him to seamlessly adjust to major league pitching. Thats very unfair to ask IMO. Its a testament to him that he was able to still put up good OBP in the majors.

Colome was performing well above his expected numbers so he was a candidate for regression and it looks like that's exactly what is happening as he is struggling so far. However, we've blown several games now and Hendriks isn't carrying his weight. Its unclear to me why a team that has a limited budget would blow most of its wad on a closer when there's a good amount of variance year to year in relievers so I'm trying to understand the why behind it.....i mean besides the fact that we have an old school manager that hijacked the power structure from the FO , thinks its 1990 and insisted on his Dennis Eckersley, even though this team struggles hitting any halfway decent RHP and we just so happen to play RHP a little more than 70 percent of the time.

Why wasn't Hendriks pitching?

Its unlikely we will see Hendriks in a "non save situation"...

I agree that he would be vastly inferior to Engel in the field but he needs experience in the field because he is gonna have to hold down that spot until Jose retires, even if he sort of sucks at it, since Eloy's bat is too important to risk ever putting him in the field again.

Poppysox, did Nellie Fox have an error every other game? Asking for a friend.

Old school thinking leads to old school results.

I'm not sure they can beat anyone without both TA and Eloy with the bullpen being far less than advertised.

I wasn't aware that Minnesota was 1-3. I thought they were 2-1 but maybe I'm wrong on that.

Sure there is. Its called the budget.

No excuse tonight. We should have won all three games so far. So much for the supposed best bullpen in baseball. Get it done and it shouldn't even be particularly close.

Why do I get the feeling that the failure to add some extra runs there will end up killing us later

Straight up Savagery!

Collins isn't gonna see much time at DH at this rate. Yermin is just savaging.

And an OBP north of 360.

Why would Zack have to miss 3 days? Because they are gonna pitch lefties or because he will backup Grandal?

Good point. I'm not sure i trust Carlos to stay in shape after he gets paid. Boras prolly got on him this offseason to get serious since he is gonna be a FA. If he gets a long term deal, he has no incentive to stay that way at least not until the point he gets to be a FA again. And I doubt the Sox will seriously pay more than one pitcher and they would go with Gio over Rodon any day, although they may be priced out of Gio even if they make a real effort.

Can't they still use the QO on him if he has a great year?

Robert prolly should bat 5th this year if thats the case.

He already said Eloy might be a month ahead of the original timetable, ie 4-5 months rather than 5-6, so its not that.

Yeah I just now saw that too. Maybe Lynn?

Gio would be a much bigger deal than Vaughn.