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For sure. The Cubs offense is bad enough that he'll probably play some DH against righties and Mervis will play first. I don't think the Dansby Swanson pitch included a photoshopped Eric Hosmer trying to pick one of his throws out of the dirt. If Mervis doesnt turn into a player the decision to not extend Rizzo looks pretty bad

1 year 700K for a guy projected to have a 110 wRC+ is a low risk low reward move. The cubs first base options last year were awful and they need some lefty bats in the lineup. Worst case this puts the Cubs 700K closer to the tax. It's not as if the bottom of the 40-man roster is crawling with talent

Pollock had a .902 OPS last year in 283 PAs against RHP. This seems like more of a coaching issue

Hoyer saying that this was a buyer's market and Hahn saying it was a sellers market is amusing. I have no doubt that the Cubs and Sox had discussions on Happ and/or Contreras. The fit was there for both teams. I think there may have been some fatigue from the fallout from the Kimbrel deal for the Sox (not that it worked out for the Cubs) as well as the Cubs feeling that they didn't want members of the "core" on the Sox.

Agreed. Im a Sox supporter to of course (I’m here) and don’t want Montgomery, Colas, or Vera moved for anyone that isn’t a star. I love Happ as a player and a personality but he would’ve been a non tender candidate last year if the cubs were close to the tax. Reynolds is a much better version of Happ

As a cubs fan, I would go for that in a heartbeat. Colas is legit

How sweet would it be if he pulled a reverse Adam Dunn

What a joke. Great managing Tony

Lance Lynn is hot garbage

I follow the minors pretty closely and my general thoughts are that the system is somewhat depleted and might be the worst in the league, BUT, there are a few things that have broken right for the Sox this year. By and large, they are the important things too. The downsides are that there aren't too may exciting prospects knocking on the door of the majors and that the system is very shallow talent wise. Fangraphs, which is not the be-all-end-all but still, has 28 Sox prospects at a 35+ or better. Minnesota has 40, Cleveland has 48, and the Cubs have 49. 35+ is probably a fair cut off for what could be considered a prospect and the Sox are about an entire minor league team short. This is largely because the Sox drafted guys like Vaughn, Madrigal, and Crochet that were meant to be early contributors to the system. Part of it is from some of the trades last year with guys like Horn and Pilkington for big leaguers. The Sox have also gone for the big fish in IFA (Colas, Cespedes) instead of getting a smattering of 20-100K signees. The drafting hasn't been particularly great either and the sum of that has been a shallow farm system. The positives are that the important guys in the farm have been performing for the most part. Colson Montgomery has a .900 OPS (147 wRC+!) in Low A as a 20 year old. He's 6'4 205 already so the shortstop thing might not happen, but seems like a guy that can crack a Top 100 list soon. Wes Kath has a 100 wRC+ in Low A as a 19 year old but has been hitting above average since May 1. He's been striking out too much, but not being overmatched in Low A is a win at this point. if he can build off of a solid May and cut the K rate a bit this season will be a win Bryan Ramos came into the year with some hype and has done nothing to curb the momentum. He is in High A and a 123 wRC+ with some pop as a 20 year old. His K-Rate of 16.4%is particularly impressive and he could be getting a taste of AA by the end of the year. Colas was a bit of a wild card considering he was out of professional ball since 2019. He's been slightly above league average in A+. but will be a fun follow for the rest of the year as he continues to get his timing back. Cespedes has been a mixed bag. The good news is that he has hit for some power this year and I've heard some good things about his defense. The bad news is that he has a 27% K rate to a 2 % BB rate. That does not sound like something that would be welcomed in the Sox lineup. I havent event gotten around to the pitching, but as you can see there are some rays of hope among the top of the org for hitters. It'll be interesting to see if any of the younger pieces get moved to help the 2022 Sox to compete. It would be a bold move that would really put the heat on Hahn and TLR

Pretty impressive choke in the 9th for my Cubbies. More than anything I hope that TA's injury is mild enough to allow him to win the batting title (also the division)

The Sox should consider picking up someone from the Cubs as a depth piece. The Cubs are about to have some serious 40 man issues with Alzolay, Bote, and Heyward coming back and have a lot of bullpen depth. Someone like Chris Martin would be a good fit. He’s been solid so far and has playoff experience including the WS last year.

What's awesome about Liam is that he has the mental toughness to close out games even when he doesnt have his best stuff or isnt getting results. He has a 2.4 WHIP and is 4/5 in Save situations. The Velo is still where it needs to be so I'm not worried hell get back to his usual self. Kimbrel's fastball is down a MPH since last year (1.4 MPH since 2020) which makes me a bit less confident that he will outperform his metrics this year

I said this on the other threat regarding Vaughn but I'll say it again here. The Sox should not trade Vaughn unless the return is absolutely silly (something like Montas + Murphy + Pache) despite the obvious need for pitching. Montgomery or Kath? Sure. Those guys are in the next wave and the Sox are in a title window. Jose Rodriguez , Sheets, or Burger? Fine. They'll all likely be solid big leaguers but wont be part of the "core". This would very much be like trading Eloy for Quintana. If you're going to trade a future star like Vaughn it should be for a Scherzer type player. "Cost-Controlled" pitchers are somewhat overrated in my opinion. You can easily lose an entire "cost-controlled" year to TJ and unlike hitters, the decline of pitchers tends to be much steeper than hitters. That isn't to say that cost-controlled pitching isn't extremely important/valuable, but the price to acquire it makes it a huge gamble. I would much rather see what the Sox have with Cueto and let Lopez cover some starts until Gio and Lynn get back. The offense is going to bail them out of enough games to make it worth just waiting and seeing how bad the need for pitching is. A package around some of the lesser prospects should help get a guy that can tread water in the meantime should the Cueto experiment blow up. I'm all for picking up a player to keep Gio, Lynn, and Cease fresh and to keep Keuchel from reaching 160 IP. Trading Vaughn to get Montas after not even offering the QO is inexcusable. Look at what the QO is doing to Conforto's value (combined with his shoulder). Im not sure teams wouldve staked the money AND a draft pick on Rodon, but I digress. The point is that I dont think a team competing for a world championship should trade a top pick and likely franchise cornerstone for a 3 starter (albiet a very solid one). I would rather pay for a top flight rental that'll be a Game 2 starter behind Gio.

Him and Vaughn can have a group therapy session

This just absolutely sucks. I pretend to know a lot of things but won’t pretend to know whether this actually is a dislocation or something less serious. Vaughn is a guy the Sox absolutely cannot trade. If the Sox sign conforto and have to keep Vaughn in AAA for a bit to get him regular Abs before the playoffs so be it. Learning a new position (on a few weeks notice) while you’re getting your first taste of big league pitching is an impossible task. His ability to hit at/near league average while guys like Kelenic took months to adjust was impressive. He never made excuses and worked his ass off in the field to make some serious improvements throughout the year. The hitting fell off big time, but that is somewhat expected considering what he was asked to do. Watching his hitting stroke in ST made me realize that he’s so close to making the jump as a hitter. Vaughn will be a plug and play first baseman for the next decade I would bet the house on it. The exit velocity and plate discipline combo is elite. He has a ton of value as a first baseman so the outfield experiment should be over. Even as a righty first baseman I feel confident that the Vaughn is the third best player in that draft behind Rutch and Witt.

I think Villar is actually a perfect fit for the Cubs. Hoerner and Madrigal are injury prone, Simmons can’t hit, and Wisdom is prone to slumps against righties. Happ is the only other lefty in the lineup (Heyward doesn’t count) so he’ll get a lot of play. I would take the over on 400 Pas between 2B, SS, and 3B

My hope is that he’s closer to a young Hideki Matsui as opposed to Kosuke. This is the first thing I’ve been excited about Cub wise since we signed Yu Darvish. I’ve been following Japanese baseball avidly since Kosuke and have even been to two Japanese World Series. Conforto is probably a better player and the draft pick compensation isn’t a concern for a team in their window like the Sox. Conforto makes much more sense and I’m hoping the Sox get him and trade for Castillo

I'm usually less doom-and-gloom then most here (largely because I like the Sox and don't love them like you all do, but I cant really understand what Hahn is doing. I'm a little late to this discussion so I'm going to go back a bit. I didn't like the decision to not send Rodon a QO at the time and it obviously looks like a poor decision now. "Worst" case in extending the offer is that you have a guy that finished top 5 in the CY voting back for 1 year 18 million. More likely than not, he would've rejected the offer to try and get a little more security in a pitching-poor free agency. The Sox are not in a position to be turning away Comp picks at the moment. Beyond that, we have no idea how Kopech will hold up getting stretched out without a true off-season. If the money was the issue, then why choose to pick up Kimbrel's option. If the plan was to sign Kelly and Graveman then why pick up Kimbrel's contract unless you were sure he had surplus value. I hope I am wrong and that Hahn has a buyer for Kimbrel out there. The problem is that the buyer needs to come before Castellanos, Schwarber, and Conforto go off the board unless JR is willing to sign off on approaching the Tax. I'd be curious if the Sox wouldve been able to pick up Winkler on the cheap if they could pick up his contract. The Sox are still by far the best team in the ALC and it's not like the rest of the AL has gotten better. I just hope there is a Kimbrel trade / Conforto signing coming to make this make more sense

I think a decent compromise would be to allow shift changes in the 7th inning for at least this year. That way it speeds up the game while giving teams and players and off-season to see how it affects certain players performance. The exxagerated shift basically ended Mark Teixeira's career. 2003-2009 BABIP .308 2010-2016 BABIP .246 The hard contact % and spray charts were essentially unchanged. Of note for the Sox is that Grandal faced the 4th highest shift percentage (94.3%) of players with at least 200 PAs. Grandal had 16 left handed plate appearances without a shift so it's hard to know what the impact on him would be.

I figured Ramos would be around 20 considering ZiPS has him as a 3 WAR player in 2024 with 31 Homers in 530 PAs. I can't wait to see what he looks like this year when he's (hopefully) healthy. I was hoping Fangraphs would include Ramos on their "Picks to click" in 2023 list, but no such luck.

I like both of the lists posted, although I think Burger at 19 is way too low especially considering that there are 15 more DH spots to fill. I think this system is pretty top heavy with a significant drop off after around 10 or 11. I basically put them in these categories: Long-term Upside Bats: Montgomery and Kath Its way too early to make any sort of predictions for these two, but they were highly regarded picks that did nothing to dampen the excitement. An aggressive and optimistic schedule for these two would have them up in 2025, so these two will be part of the next wave assuming they arent moved in the more immediate title window Short-Term/ Decent Upside: Colas, Cespedes, Rodriguez and Ramos These four have some pretty solid upside and can possibly contribute by the end of 2023. Colas' readiness is pure guesswork at this point, but he was successful in Japan as a 20 year old which is impressive. I watched Cespedes a few times last year and thought he moved very well in the outfield. Cespedes might be a decent barometer for what we might expect from Colas after a year out of competitive baseball. Yoelquis showed impressive power and speed but the K and BB rates were less than ideal. I can only imagine hell improve after getting some reps last year. Rodriguez had a break out year last year and may been the long term answer at 2B. As said before, ZiPS LOVES Bryan Ramos. Ramos is entering his age 20 season and despite never playing above high A, ZiPS has him as a 0.8 WAR player next year which is hugely impressive. What prompts the all caps LOVES in the previous sentence is that ZiPS has him as a 2.9 WAR player in 2024. Szymborski is releasing his ZiPS top 100 prospects next week and I wouldnt be surprised to see him included considering hes projected to be a near all-star at 22. Lower Upside bats that are ready: Adolfo and Burger Neither figures to be an all-star but both could be a big factor this year. Burger is a tier above Adolfo and is more of a "prospect", but I can see either playing a role in 2022. Adolfo needs baseball to start back up more than anybody because he needs to make the most of his spring training audition. Pitchers with something to Prove: Kelley, Thompson, Dalquist These three were probably the biggest disappointments of the minor league season last year. Kelley pitched 23.2 innings last season between Kanny and ACL with a 7.61 ERA and a 2.11 WHIP. Thomspon also split time between Kanny and ACL and had a 5.99 ERA and 1.68 WHIP over 73.2 IP. The plus side with Thompson was that he had 78 Ks and that he finished the season on a strong note with 2 scoreless starts (9IP combined) to end the year. Dalquist pitched exclusively in Kanny and had a 4.99 ERA and 1.72 WHIP over 83 innings. He struck out 79 but walked a pretty disappointing 56 batters. He also only gave up 1 homer despite a relatively high fly ball rate (he had a 5.94 xFip The positive on each of these guys is that they were young for Kannapolis and that Kanny was a tire fire last year and nobody really succeeded. Theyre also all prep-guys that lost a year to COVID so it isnt too big of a surprise that they struggled. If they dont make a step forward this year, the worrying can begin. High Upside pitcher : Vera I couldn't put Vera in the same category as they guys above him, despite not taking TOO much stock in his DSL dominance last year. He's probably on the same timeline as them, but I think at this point his upside is just way more believable. He is 6'4 200 with a rocket arm, multiple quality pitches, and by all accounts a very repeatable delivery. All of that suggests that he can stay a starter and can be challenged in the next year. Despite a lack of a consensus top 100 guy (or really any top 100 guy) the Sox are not your typical 30th ranked farm. The upper levels are very weak pitching wise and the Sox are pretty tapped out on upper level hitting prospects beyond Rodriguez and Burger, but there is a good core of under 20 talent in the system. With some success in the draft and IFA market the Sox could be back in the middle of the pack sooner than later. I could see pathways for any of Montgomery, Kath, Ramos, Rodriguez, Colas, and Vera (outside chance of Cespedes) to make the top 100 in 2023. Vera and Ramos have the most helium and Kath and Montgomery have the prospect pedigree working for them. Colas and Rodriguez are guys that are probably inside most evaluator's top 150 and are a good season away from being bumped up.

Thats a W for the good guys. For those concerned, I think 5.5M a year falls into the supersub category of spending. But it's a nice chunk of change for a guy who had made 11 Million over the past 9 years in the bigs.

I think the Field of Dreams game got the home run balls

Soxtalk the only place where you get hundreds of comments in minutes complaining about signing a guy who was worth 2+ WAR last year before any financial details come out. I love this place