Look at Ray Ray Run

There's a lot of great pitchers that work deathly slow - Lester and Price to name two. It sure is nice to have a fast worker who is good.

26 swinging strikes for Lucas tonight. That's really good. Scherzer had 33 during his 20 strike out game and he threw 15 more pitches. 26 might be the most in a game this year. Not positive how many sale had in the 17k game.

Lol why wouldn't he be? Guys pitch both ends of DH all the time.

Thank the rain in the forecast during his 5 inning CG.

Must he incorrect reporting. I'm guessing it was Lucas high school English teacher who came up with the idea and deserves full credit.

No. I'm sure theyve scouted countless high school kids at this point. It's certainly not Abrams or Witt.

I don't think they drafted a reliever or closer based on need.

I mean... when did the Sox ever draft based on need? The fact that their version of the best player available actually sucked and wasn't that doesn't mean that wasn't the philosophy ha.

Think maybe we're talking about a different conversation; I heard him mention this yesterday and thought he was talking about this year. I could have misunderstood though.

Seemed like it was a high school kid from what he was implying - he talked about going to a game, and having heard bad things about his relationship with his teammates possibly. Then they saw him the entire time and not a single teammate talked to him or high fived him or anything like that. He was a hermit in his own dugout and the Sox said they will pay on him for that reason. Would love to know who they were talking about.

No one is a fan of doing that, which speaks volumes to how damn good Vaughn and his bat are. No one wants to take a RH 1B this early, but Vaughn is so good that everyone wants to take a RH bat first. People underrate what Vaughn has had to overcome to get this type of prospect status. I tend to always want the guy who has to overcome a lot of bad stigmas.

I broke my wrist as a kid. I remember when I took the cast off my wrist was half the size as when I had put it on. Baseball is all hands and wrists. He broke it less than 18 months ago.

Wrist. Injuries. Destroy. Hitters. The Sox knew that when they drafted him. He'll absolutely fully recover but wrist injuries can destroy your swing for over a year.

Ichiro hit the ball a long way in BP but Ichiro did not play with power at all so it really didn't benefit him.

India has arguably been worse than Madrigal so far and Madrigal was coming off a wrist injury which can take a full year+ to fully recover from.

Jorge Polanco may be the best player this season so far. The twins arent going to play at this level all year I don't think. Reylo shuts them down tonight is my thought.

If you're taking something off of all your pitches to try and get them over and you're still walking 5 guys per 9, I dont know what to say. I do agree that does happen though. Also, even if that was the case your peak velocity would not change at all - just your average velocity. Giolitos peak velocity was down every bit as much as his average velocity.

I will say, raBBit didnt you delete a bunch of posts when you were wrong before? I find it ironic. I will always take my licks and own up to being wrong about something... if you aren't one of those people you probably shouldnt throw stones from inside your glass house.

It was bad because his velocity was down 5 mph, his breaking ball lost 4 inches of vertical break, his slider was one of the ten flattest in baseball and his change up had nothing to play off of with a dead fastball. You continue to insinuate that giolito had good stuff last year and it was everything else that let him down when his stuff was complete and utter trash. I'm just going to agree to disagree because once we start going down the anti-analytics path it just becomes a waste of time as you're not going to change your mind or thoughts in regards to that regardless of how much evidence is presented. Enjoy your holiday weekend. His stuff was no longer there because he was not pitching the same way as he did when he was in A ball. Tools can look amazing against lesser competition - happens all the time.

I'm not under rating anything. It's important, sure, but physical tools can cure a lot of mental issues. If he was a mental case throwing 97 still (last year) with the same slider hes found this year then he's first or second year trevor bauer - 4.3-4.5 ERA with 9ks per 9 and flashes of brilliance. Or he's javy Vazquez. Last year he was the worst pitcher playing major league baseball. That is not as simplistic as his mind wasn't right. Nothing was right. I agree fully he was mentally broken as much as he was physically broken, but you seem to think his issues were 90% mental when they just weren't. It would be like me blaming my MVC failures on being mentally unwell.... no, people were just a lot better than me. Sure, failure brings you down but if you have the tools physically you will be bailed out plenty of times.

Absolutely and I'd argue he's still a bit too emotional for my liking. It's ok because things are going well, but he still wears it on his sleeve a bit too much. He's young, exuberant and excited as hell so I understand... but composure is so much more important for a pitcher than a position player.

I think its safe to say I played baseball at a higher level than 99.9% of the population but I dont use that crutch very often if ever - maybe to talk about locker room chemistry and leadership and things like that... but when it comes to evaluating changes and etc within the game, much of that is science and mathematical. As I noted, the change in his repertoire was analytically driven and likely as much of a driving force towards his improvements as anything else. His stuff sucked because mechanical he was a disaster. Your mind doesnt decrease your fastball velocity.

Heck if you predicted this pal, then a hat tip to you. I have no problem being wrong about things. That's life. Only way to learn and evolve is to be shown new outcomes and possibilities. I appreciate when I'm wrong - no better learning experience than being brutally wrong.

Playing baseball at a high level does not make one an authority on the mindset of all baseball players at all imo. Idk why but I am not a fan of that line of thinking. You are talking in simplistic childhood coach speak. Giolitos problems went much further beyond one or two pinpointed issues. Giolito was too emotional, sure.. but his stuff sucked. I am not sure why you dont want to accept that his stuff sucked. It just did. Not a single pitch he threw last year even graded out as average.

Swinging strike rates on strikes does not change statistically based on command. For example, robbie ray generates a lot more swinging strikes on strikes than Kyle Hendricks. One has horrible command but really good stuff (ray) and the other has great command with below average stuff (Hendricks).