JoeC

...you do realize that minor league contracts are basically zero risk, right? I've never understood the gripe with minor league signings / spring training NRI's. Super low risk. Even this org isn't stupid enough to sign non-prospects to block the development of actual prospects.

Well, hopefully this works. Can't say he's not trying at least. ? I do notice a difference in his landing from 2020 to 2022, and the 2022 landing seems to have carried over to the above video.

Analytics should impact both player acquisition as well as in-game strategy. One of our major gripes as a fan base last year was the horrible decision making by the coaching staff. Analytics hires like this, to me, show that we’re going to change that.

Don't make me answer that.

Not if we do a salary dump swap for an overpaid reliever in return.

To me, the owner's responsibilities are: 1. Hire the right staff (executives) who will make the right baseball decisions. Get the right leadership in place. 2. Give the baseball staff the resources ($$, namely) and autonomy to make the right decisions. Let the leadership do their jobs. To me JR has failed in these regards. The constant "promote within the family" mentality undercuts objective #1. Objective #2 you can make maybe make an argument for, but the fact is: This team is being out-contract-spent by the Twins The Twins have now committed 9-figure deals to 3 players I think of off the top of my head (Mauer, Buxton, and now Correa), whereas the Sox's largest contract is $75MM JR has shown to insert himself into lower-level decisions to undercut his own executive staff Hiring of a manager Refusing to pay top dollar for pitching after shelling out for Jaime Navarro The results are that, in 41 years of owning the team, he's brought home 1 World Series championship. He's brought home 1 AL pennant. If it weren't for literally lucking into the greatest basketball player who ever played, he'd have 1 championship in 78 combined years of sports ownership.

Or sprinting??

No. That said, there's a difference between accepting a less-than-a-starter's-production-level performance (in favor of positional versatility) and the absolute trainwreckingshitshow production level that Leury provided. He had a .500 OPS (OPS+ of 42... or 58% less productive than MLB average). For context, Neifi Perez's worst season with at least 100 PA's was an OPS+ of 44 (.564 OPS in 2002). I will agree with you that Garcia was put in a crap position and was set up to fail. I don't blame Leury for that - I blame TLR. TLR kept putting Leury in a position to fail... over and over again, including the asinine decision to hit him #3.

When your main value proposition as a player is your positional versatility, it is expected to be able to position shuffle.

To celebrate, I'm gonna pick seat 10D in Premium Economy on my next flight. Middle seat be damned!

Seems like he needs to get into the confectionary business.

Hiring Tony La Russa sent the worst message possible. Anything beyond that has been just semantics.

Would hate to lose Liam (love his attitude and candor, including owning up to when he sucks), but that's what it takes to get things done... then so be it.

I am OK with a Harrison-type production at 2B next year IF we plug the outfield holes.

He probably included it as part of his legendary "gift baskets" for his guests.

Shows how much demand there is for Guaranteed Rate Field dirt.

Thank you Jose. You are a model of consistency (including when you suck every April), class, and a personification of hustle and grit. I hate you for giving me a reason to cheer for Houston, but I hope you get the ring that Jerry and friends couldn't deliver for you.

...and an ASSISTANT hitting coach? This team's starting to act like it's important to teach guys to do stuff.

I mean, I didn't mean it to be "witty," but thank you. They've taken 2 catchers in the first round (including supplemental first round) in the past 12 drafts. Like you said, the draft is a crap shoot. Drafting catchers is even more of a crap shoot. My suggestion would be to work on developing catchers already in our system. Seems like they are somehow inadvertently doing that to produce adequate catchers, but to your point, it would be nice to develop someone who is an above-average receiver + bat.

…like they did with Collins?

Yep. Years of hoarding 1B / DH types will finally pay off.

Can I be the sarcastic / cynical asshole and unrealistically predict Vaughn + cash for Jose at the deadline?

That's the "put us over the edge" premium that we instead chose to give to our bullpen.

Ditto. My heart cries, but my head agrees with the move