CentralChamps21

What I expect the lineup to be: Anderson 7, Robert 8, Abreu DH, Grandal 2, Vaughn 9, Sheets 3, Pollock 9, Garcia 4, Harrison 5

Sox got their Adam Engel in the 19th round. Not sure why Seattle had to use a first round pick on theirs.

Wouldn't Moncada out of position in LF be better than Vaughn out of position in RF though?

I'd leave Burger at 3B and move Moncada to LF.

Just want to give props to Mendick for that 2 out single that turned the lineup over. He actually had the 3rd highest OPS on the team entering today. History suggests he won't sustain it, but I'm good with riding him at 2B as long as he stays hot.

So, we had the ridiculous conversation about having either Moncada or Burger play 2B when Moncada is back. Now that Eloy is out for a while, would either of them be better than Vaughn in LF? Vaughn really needs to be primarily a 1B/DH and in LF only sparingly.

Vaughn's HR was a 92 mph fastball right down the middle. Abreu, Anderson, Grandal would have fouled it off.

VAUGHN!!!!!

Let's go Vaughn. Get it done.

I'd take him over Bummer right now.

Jose needs to eat that one instead of getting out of the way.

It was, but a catcher trying to beat out a bunt is a questionable strategy.

BURGER BOMB

I guess Cease pitching minimizes the effect of having 2 DHs in the outfield.

As someone who was there last night, I can't imagine it being any more uncomfortable to be there just because it's a little bit colder.

I think this line of thinking gives too much credit to the FO. They screwed up by not giving it to him. I'm 100% on board with not matching the Giants offer, because it's $4 mil more for this year and if he has a monster year he opts out and if he doesn't you're on the hook for the 2nd year.

Does everybody think that the universal increase in guys on the IL is going to be a thing going forward or is it more due to three abnormal seasons due to COVID/lockout? The reason I ask is that going forward, it might be worth discussing increasing the 40-man roster to 41 or 42. Some teams literally don't have live bodies to bring up, especially since some 40 spots go to guys that are nowhere near ready for MLB but had to be protected from Rule 5.

Mendick has an OPS of 1.089 the last 7 days. He's filled in just fine. He's making a case to stay up instead of Burger when Moncada is back.

Maybe they need to have a theme song about continuing to believe to something like that.

Copied from the end of last night's game thread:

Losing is a disease, as contagious as polio.

I find Jason and Steve to be very entertaining together, and I also think Jason is very good on college football games for ESPN. Interesting that Jason made a deal with NBC. They are moving Mike Tirico from ND to the NFL and are going to need a new guy to do ND games. Could this be a path for him to that job?

I honestly felt like the Sox were trolling me last night. Cold and windy, manager puts a guy with a .346 OPS at DH, the pitchers walk 11 batters, the hitters making bad swing after bad swing, and two more errors. Burger and Foster are the only guys who looked like they were trying. I got fed up and went to the car when the 5th-6th runs scored. My friends followed about 20 minutes later. I've been trying to write this off as just a bad stretch compounded by injuries and cold weather but I'm worried that it's something more.

I wouldn't expect the pitching coach to be DIRECTLY involved with defensive positioning. I would expect the pitching coach to tell the rest of the coaching staff what mix of pitches he expects the starting pitcher to be featuring based on the lineup he's facing. I would expect someone else on the coaching staff to take that data to determine defensive positioning.