JoeC

That’s what I was hoping. says a lot about a guy (or the manager) when a veteran OFer can’t play RF for a “contender,” so they trot out Sheets and Vaughn in his place.

Moving Pollock to whose natural position in RF?

Also depends on his relationship with the leadership core and the rest of the coaches. Just make people “hate you less” enough to get buy-in on your direction. Could work well enough for a season or two while we are in “the window.” Would end in disaster eventually, so there’s always that intrigue.

I was hoping it was more of "they would use Tony's day to sneak others under the radar"

I'll go a step further. We need a guy who'll look at a player (eye test), look at the analytics (numbers test), and work with coaches to figure out what's going on with the guy's swing, mechanics, approach, scouting reports, etc., then work to fix the guy.

AJ's always been that kid on the playground who gets into fights but never actually throws the punch. And when the teacher asks the kid who threw the punch why he did it, the explanation would inevitably come out sounding dumb like "he laughed at me!" My money is on Pierzynski being punched, probably by someone like Pollock.

...and once they find this person, HIRE this person. It shouldn't need to be said, but it needs to be said with this org.

Which post made no sense? Perhaps I can clarify for you.

That will fix one league’s worth of players and not the other…?

By your same logic though, we should also avoid AL guys.

His huge claim to fame in my eyes was the resurgences of Gio and Rodon. Not sure how much he helped in other ways

I would think that an injury like this is, for a pitcher, pitching while hurt vs. pitching while injured. Playing while hurt = painful, but can be overcome. See: Abreu, Jose. Playing while injured: see: Robert, Luis. Probably one of those "if you can play through it it won't get too much worse - just will be more painful" situations... and then you get the surgery as soon as you're sure your season is done anyways.

I’d hopefully have been disappointed at the time of the managerial hiring, before it ever came to that.

Again, I see that post and see it as a Sox issue, not an AL-NL issue It’s like getting horrible diarrhea from eating spoiled food and blaming the horrible experience on the toilet.

It works for a reserve player, sure. But for $5.5M a year? Nope. And to pay that player every f'ing day when it's clear to literally everyone (including the player) that he isn't producing? Nope. Leury circa 2021 is / was a valuable piece on a winning ballclub as a role player. Leury circa 2021 is / was never going to be an everyday player on a team with playoffs in its future. Leury circa 2022 has a .500 OPS... which is 98 points lower than Zack Greinke's career. My issues with Leury are: 1) he played too damn much 2) he is overpaid, given what his role should be

I don't care who stays or goes, as long as it is 100% the new manager's decision.

Grindiness is an immutable quality. No such thing as "over-the-hill." He came directly from the NL though, but that's another good poiint. At what point does an AL player become an NL player?

Also, at what point does a player cease to become an NL player and become an AL player? If the player is laundered through an intermediary AL team, does that make him an AL player? If so, how long must the player be on that team?

Clearly there's no way to know for sure. Better stick to signing aging past-their-prime AL players just to be sure.

I hope it’s something other than “practice swinging a bat one-handed.”

Sorry - can you enlighten me on what makes NL players ill suited to play for the Sox? Is it like coming over from Japan where players have to adjust to (slightly) larger baseball? Are there additional immunizations that are required in coming over from the NL, thereby diminishing their abilities once they've crossed the border into the American League? If your take is based on "NL players coming to the Sox haven't worked out," AL players haven't really worked out, either (Alonso and Encarnacion, just off the top of my head for recent experience).

While RH has made bad decisions, the issue I have with Reinsdorf is that it's clear that the buck DOES NOT stop with Hahn. It sounds like Hahn had no say in the managerial search, and some of the acquisitions were TLR's call. That's why my plan, if I were JR, would be to either fire him on the spot, or to give him 2 years of complete control and autonomy. If the situation isn't turned around 180 degrees in 2 years, fire him.

I'm still a Sox fan and proud of it. Will criticize the f*** out of them, but I proudly drink out of a GRF cup in the office, wear a Sox hat around town (even when they're getting embarrassed by the Tigers), and have various sox paraphernalia at work, surrounded by Detroit and Cleveland fans.

Yep. Also, who is the “they” you speak of? The GM, or the GM’s boss?

I laughed audibly. I expect an apology for my wife yelling at me for waking her up. This. If the manager and GM aren't aligned on roster construction and overall strategy, then I feel like it's just another case study in inefficient organizational management. Whoever is actually in charge needs to have his / her / their philosophy congruent with what is being taught all the way down the organization. Furthermore, what is being taught / preached down the organization needs to be congruent with what it takes to be successful as a baseball team (not this "you worked for 15 years as a personal janitor to the assistant to the traveling secretary, so you're being rewarded with a position of baseball significance" thing that JR does). Naturally, the coaching staff needs to buy into whatever the GM has in mind, which should naturally be congruent with what the manager's hiring and teaching would also align.