CentralChamps21

I just don't think Eloy and Vaughn in the same OF is viable. Poor Robert will be running non-stop every game. You just rotate days off for Eloy, Vaughn, Abreu and Mercedes with Vaughn filling the spot of the guy getting the day off.

I understand getting Hamilton one of the three games in the series in CF, but Leury is better vs LHP than RHP, so he should have been starting one of the other two games and not this one.

https: //twitter.com/DannyParkins/status/1392582812990115846?s=2

I wouldn't classify 4 hits and 3 walks through 4 as "dealing" but the Cubs have choked with RISP to keep the score at zero.

Indians and Cubs have combined for 0-11 RISP, 1 GIDP and 9 LOB through 3 innings.

Was looking at these ranking in more detail, and the Sox are one of only 3 teams that is above average in offense, starting pitching and relief pitching. Other two are Red Sox and Yankees.

Montreal, with the A's moving to the East, Blue Jays to Central, Royals to West. I think the big challenge with any of the US sites mentioned is well-established fan bases for other teams and trying to win fans over. Montreal is a clean slate. The best option is to let the A's move to the South Bay, but the Giants aren't going to get on board with that.

My understanding is that the area around Roosevelt/State was not all built up back at the time and could have fit a stadium + some parking. That would have been a great spot.

Watching MLBN Quick Pitch and they just declared Oakland and Boston as co-best record in the AL. They need to check their math.

Before the season started, I was a huge proponent of batting Grandal 2nd because he sees a lot of pitches and has a good OBP. However, you've got to at least hit a little bit if you're going to be that high in the order so I definitely wouldn't put him there now. I think Madrigal is the best choice because, like Grandal, he sees a lot of pitches and has a good OBP, albeit by singles instead of walks.

With 7 inning doubleheaders and Kopech able to start, the Sox are better constructed for doubleheaders than anybody else.

I don't think the location is an issue, there are more difficult places to get to, but the sides of the outer shell were too narrow to fit a proper modern stadium. The Bears had to create something very weird and unsightly and still have the lowest capacity in the NFL.

I would put Boston just below Oakland as the best matchup. Oakland has the worst pitching vs RH hitters of all the contenders.

Even more insane is that teams keep throwing him so many pitches outside the zone. If I were a manager, I think I'd tell my pitchers they'll get fined every time they to to a 3 ball count on Grandal.

Despite being #1 in run differential, the analytics sites are not bullish on the rest of the season for the Sox. Fangraphs predicts a winning % for the rest of the season of only .526, only 11th best in MLB, winning the division by 4 games with 87 wins. BP predicts a winning % for the rest of the season of only .500, finishing 3rd in the division behind CLE and MIN, 1 game behind the 2nd WC.

Engel is back in a couple weeks. If you're going to acquire someone, it needs to be someone who can play CF almost as well as Engel and hit much better than him or it doesn't make sense, and I don't see that out there right now. Vaughn is looking good in LF and apparently Mendick is a RF option. One of Lamb or Hamilton will be gone when Engel is back, and if you can marginally upgrade the other without giving up anything of value, that's the move to make.

This is just perception and perhaps the data does not support this, but Rodon seems to be beating hitters in the zone more often than the other starters. It seems as though the other starters rely more on swings outside the zone to get strikeouts and weak contact.

https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/chicago-bears-headed-to-arlington-heights-mayor-says-everything-remains-possibility/

Sox are only team that is > 0.5 runs better than average at both. And Detroit . . . wow.

4 out of 6 against the Twins over the next 10 days will knock them far enough back that it will be awfully hard to recover.

Don't know if it ever got confirmed, but there was rumor that the ball was going to be "de-juiced" this year. Anecdotally, there have been several times where off the bat I thought something was a homer for sure and it ended up being a deep flyout.

Right guys, right positions, wrong order.

To this extreme though? Have the Sox really faced 18 TOR arms in 31 games? Also, the relievers coming into those 13 games facing huge deficits are shutting this offense down and these are essentially mop up guys.

There was a lot of back in forth in the game thread last night about the proficiency of the offense. One side pointed out that the Sox are currently 5th in MLB in WRC+, 3rd in fWAR, and 9th in OPS. The other side pointed out how often the offense has looked utterly inept. It turns out that both sides are right. I did some digging and there are 13 games where the offense absolutely blasted a starting pitcher (+ 2 relievers who replaced injured starters early). In 38 innings against those pitchers, the Sox have scored 69 runs, for an average of 16.3 runs/9 innings. However, in the rest of those 13 games plus the entirety of the other 18 games, the Sox have scored only 86 runs in 223 innings, for an average of 3.5 runs/9 innings. The Sox are only 5-13 in those other 18 games. This explains why the Sox offense doesn't appear as good as the numbers look, and it explains why the best run differential hasn't produced the best record. Two of the best hitters in this lineup are out for a long time, and nothing can be done about that, but the run the starting pitching is on is not likely sustainable for a long time, so this offense is going to have to find a way to produce against more than just the worst that opponents have to offer.

Such an odd move to bring in a new pitcher to walk Grandal.