Look at Ray Ray Run

LOL his wikipedia page already updated with: "Thomas Wade Brennaman is a former American television sportscaster."

The end of Thom Brennan's career. ?

Plus, neither Stone or Jason do this: ? RIP THOM

I don't care what anyone says, stone has gotten so much better than he already was with benetti instead of hawk. Stone teaches me things still which is awesome.

but he never once tested positive. doesn't make a lot of sense to put a guy on the IL for precautionary reasons because of coming in contact, and then remove him from there before the incubation period even ends.

This has been said ad nauseam in this thread, but Grandal's back is acting up and the Sox play a day game tomorrow with Giolito on the mound. The Sox would prefer McCann catch Giolito I am guessing; given Collins' history catching Dunning.

Guy was put on the IL like 2 days ago because of COVID concerns; how the hell have they proven in two days that he wasn't infected? It can take up to a week or two lol. This just screams "we were doing the right thing but now Robert is down and we don't want to start Gonzalez."

I've never seen something like it in my life to be honest. Hosmer telling the other team he'll tell Tatis he was wrong to. What an embarrassment both TIngler and Hosmer are; Tatis should have laughed in both their faces. Tingler tried to backtrack off his comments yesterday after he took all the heat. If I played for him, I'd never listen to a word he had to say ever again. The ONLY thing I ever expected from my coaches was to have my back publicly.

Makes more sense for McCann to catch Giolito tomorrow.

I thought Engel was on the IL but he's starting in CF. I'm confused.

I usually evaluate managers based on how their players receive them and interact with them. All the other stuff is just icing on the cake. I certainly don't think managers win or lose anywhere near as many games as some here do. If you read game threads, more than half the losses are Rick's fault and not the players who didn't execute.

Anderson misses games because he's on the IL though; Moncada misses games because he's sore. There's a big difference.

Stop the presses! I agree with Jerksticks for once. What I will say is Renteria is a terrible game-day manager. It's hard to argue he's misused the bullpen given their numbers though, and I don't know shit about the locker room to ever criticize a lineup decision. That tweet by Tim Anderson yesterday said everything you need to know about Rick Renteria and why his players love him: https://twitter.com/TimAnderson7/status/1295736401720414209?s=20 I don't want to get too caught up in it because it was the first time in my basebal life that a manager took the side of the opposing manager over his own guy, but the Sox love Renteria and it's because he always has their back. Every single day, and he allows them to speak their mind.

Moncada is always sore. Guy is great but he's a bit of a pretty boy; not that I wouldn't be if I were him lol

I don't think you could argue, using eyes and data from the last 1+ year, that Jorge Polanco is more valuable than Anderson. Not a knock on Polanco at all. Tim's plate discipline numbers this year are very positive.

Amazing how quick he goes from load to ball.

As a former jon gray stan, there is something very wrong with him right now. Velocity is way down and he's not getting any swing and miss.

Gio has been fine honestly for a back end guy.

They certainly helped, but I always like to think the player is the one who put the work in. This team in general is a glowing endorsement for the new drafting and PD team, even though some Sox fans would never admit that: Mendick Anderson Engel Burdi Foster Heuer Marshall Robert Collins Cease Dunning now It's hard to argue with the PD being trash anymore.

Someone let Tim know about this level of disrespect! He'll love it. And yes, the HM thing made it so much worse for me. Robert and Moncada in the top 20 for sure.

I said last night two things really stuck out to me; 1. Anderson moved his feet in every single at bat; sometimes pitch to pitch based on the count. That is understanding how you're being attacked and pitched on another level. Most guys aren't moving around that much in the box. 2. The home run he hit; I went back and watched it frame to frame. Anderson didn't even move his hands towards the zone until the ball was 6-12 inches in front of the plate. That's hand speed you just don't see everyday; it's truly remarkable. It's hard to see, but look at the still below: He doesn't even bring his hands and bat forward until the pitch is basically over the plate. There are probably only 5 guys in the game who can react that late; which is exactly why he dominates now. He sits on off speed the entire game and reacts to fastballs because his hands are so quick. Almost no one else can do that; that's why he crushes off-speed stuff.

I've always really enjoyed Fangraphs trade value series - it's an interesting look into how some insiders value players. Every year there's someone left off that feels a bit off, but I can never remember a time where a guy was left of the list and the HM entirely, who was as good as Tim Anderson is. First, Fangraphs technically have not added the final 20 - but Tim Anderson is not one of them. There are only two spots left for people who were not on the list last year, and I think it's all but guaranteed those two editions who are in the top 20 are Robert and Flaherty. That means Tim Anderson didn't make the top 75 most valuable assets in baseball but Paul DeJong and Jorge Polanco did. That doesn't make much sense to me; there's no chance I'd trade Anderson SU for DeJong or Polanco and it's not because I'm a Sox fan. Tim Anderson is signed through 2024 for under 10 million per year (47.5 total), and the last two years are team options. Everyone in the game knows that growth, development and improvement is not linear - last year there was doubt about Anderson's BABIP being sustainable. I read multiple profiles stating that his BABIP would regress therefore his overall offensive game would. I wrote an article about this, and posted some of the thoughts here previously, but the jist of it was; if Anderson can improve his power output, continue to cut down on the strike outs, and improve his walk rate just slightly, the BABIP regression would be negligibly felt, if at all. What has Anderson done this year? Grown his power even more than I thought, lowered his K-Rate for the FIFTH year in a row, and improved his walk rate. What we have seen is a still inflated BABIP (416) because he's destroying the baseball (54% Hard hit rate via statcast and 71% hard hit rate via batted ball!!!) and he never hits IFFB (4%), but his batting average is a lot closer to his BABIP (380 to 415) than it was last year (330 to 400), because his power has spiked. This means even with regression to his BABIP, Tim is still a 340ish hitter this year with huge power. What do you say, Tim Anderson has to be one of the top 75 most valuable trade chips in baseball does he now? https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-trade-value-21-to-30/ To read more from the series, click above.

Assumptions? It's literally what he said. You shouldn't listen to your coach if he tells you to do something that isn't in the best interest of winning the game and scoring more runs. I used the throwing at a kid example because that happened to me. Playing in summer college ball, had a catcher make a spectacular play on us at home blocking the plate with his left leg while stretching for ball that was thrown up the first base line and sweep tagging the helmet before our guy could swipe slap the plate, it was a crazy good play. Our coach was pissed that: 1. Our player didn't truck the catcher (in a summer college league game lol) 2. The Catcher didn't give us right away to the plate. So he tells our SP to drill the catcher who is due up second in the next half inning. Our pitcher basically tells him to fuck off, and gets removed from the game. Four of us never put on the jersey again that summer and left the team. That guy is a coach of college baseball to this day. Coaches can be morons just like anyone else. Saying to ALWAYS listen to your coach is absurd. He can be in control and in charge without acting like a dictator authoritarian who dictates your every move. I've never in my life seen a coach throw his player under a bus to defend the opposing team. Many pros are saying they've also never seen that happen. It's inexcusable for him to have thrown his best player under the bus for hitting a grand slam. Period.

He didn't start doing that until recently either. In his first taste - when he was bad - he walked 6.7%. Even his first full season he walked 10.5% of the time. Robert is sitting at 7.5-8% right now.

I doubt much gets done at this trade deadline at all; if something is done, it's for future pieces but even then there's just additional risk this year.