KBX

Oh, I guess he is vainly anti-big-business in a more consistent manner than I thought. It doesn't matter, however, because Bernie is what I said he was. Anyone who thinks a sitting senator genuinely and meaningfully opposes corporatism is not 'informed.'

Ever since that one dude mentioned on the radio that the Sox are not looking for a RF that came to a halt.

In baseball it's useful and baseball is pretty much socioeconomically inconsequential. But where is Bernie when it comes to Google and 'Meta' and many others? Nowhere. Because his larger aims of 'global social democracy' and Zionism hinge on this authoritarian corporatism. It's not surprising he would posture as a trust-buster with something trivial like major league baseball.

Plate discipline, Robert and Vaughn. (O = outside the zone; Z = inside the zone) Robert: O-swing% 44.5%; O-contact 56.5%; Z-contact 86.4%; Swing% 61.5%; Contact% 73.6%. Vaughn O-swing% 32.1%; O-contact 61.4%; Z-contact 90.0%; Swing% 45.3%; Contact% 78.0% So Vaughn chases less, makes more contact outside and inside the zone, and swings less overall. If Vaughn pans out he'll probably be a moderate walk guy and high average guy. I think these two will be the best hitters on the team. Let's be outrageously bold and say Vaughn is the best hitter on the team by the end of the year. More Robert / Vaughn comps BABIP: .394 / .271 EV: 91.1 / 91.0 Barrel%: 12.5% / 10.9%

Everyone is kind of mediocre this year. So this could be the break we need. Like in 05.

I think this team will hit 200 home runs, 900 runs scored. It'll have better pitching than its ranking come October.

Imagine paying a few mil in taxes in a year. I'd want to play for the Rays. No state tax, air-conditioned dome, no fans to deal with.

How does Rios fit into this?

It's dangerous if you're neurotic and afraid of emotional distress

- Sheets hits 28 home runs, dates a Hooters waitress or modern equivalent - Kendall 'ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a' Graveman is a source of stress for many of us - Kopech throws a gem in October - Kimbrel is dealt for Trevor Bauer

Link?

Hahn is just so bad. And fired. He's bad and fired.

I believe they will pay the guys who are really good bets. Others, no. The first example is Abreu. If he doesn't retire after this year, we may have two very affordable 1B/DH types in Vaughn and Sheets who approximate Abreu's historical production. I wouldn't expect him back if that happens. With Giolito, Moncada, TA etc, it will depend on the circumstances. This is not an org that regularly gives us nice presents in the winter months, but they're not fine with paying guys market rates when it makes sense and fits into the larger picture of things. Models have no ability to predict the maturation of young stars coming off injury-ridden years. As I've said before, we could have at least 5 major breakout years from certain guys and it wouldn't be the least bit surprising. No model is gonna predict 6.5 WAR from Robert, or 40 homers from Eloy, or CYA-vote-getting years from two of our starters. But again, it wouldn't be shocking for us. This just where we are as a franchise, which is good — it means a lot of potential for steep development curves and a lot of surplus value. I don't necessarily disagree if assessing the situation in a vacuum, but I think it's obvious that he's operating in a way that ownership approves of. This is not an org that is committed to excellence. Winning, yes. Excellence, not really. And they are not 'cheap' tout court, but they clearly are in certain ways. The payroll is indeed high, but it's high due to short-term deals in low-competition markets. There's a cheapness there. I have said this org is cheap and have gotten corrected, but yet why on earth would we be wanting for a true RF for any other reason? It's nothing to harp on and shout from the rooftops, but there is a Sox way of doing things that has been consistently observed for as long as I've watched this team. They are not committed to excellence per se, and that type of commitment is often fundamentally irrational on some level, or at least in certain ways. Given the same circumstances, it would be a Dodger or Yankee thing to sign Conforto, but it is an inefficient move from a dollar/WAR standpoint. Even with Conforto, we still need a lot of things to go right to win it all. The most rational thing to do — which is not equivalent to saying 'the best thing to do' — is play the young guys who will approximate Conforto's output and save money over that time frame. This also leaves room for other needs forthcoming, which may be more urgent than RF. And I expect that they will address those needs in some way, either a 'very Sox-like' way or a more conventional way that pleases the crowd here.

I don't get that either. Vaughn has already been badly impeded with his developmental curve, and he me may just that much of a natural hitter than he can adjust to MLB pitching while skipping almost all of MiLB and being forced to play out of position. He needs to be swinging a bat every day whether it's here or in Charlotte. Moreover Vaughn can probably fake it for a year in the OF but Sheets probably can't, and if neither one is traded, you'd really hope that both become legitimate power hitters that can give you surplus value as various guys retire/regress/leave via FA over the next 2-3 seasons.

The possibilities with all these guys with another year under their betls... Robert, Jimenez, Moncada, Vaughn, Sheets on the offensive side, then Cease, Kopech and Crochet plus the bullpen in general on the pitching side all makes it pretty exciting for me, that is to say more exciting than the offseason has been frustrating

They needed to turn the score political because we had a very normally governing republican president? I'm not a supporter of any mainstream politics but Trump hysteria was just that. Nowadays a lot of highly irrational, unreasonable people are taken seriously. Sports audiences in particular tend to be politically in the middle if not center-right, and if the corporate radio monopoly was pragmatic about things, you wouldn't have all that stuff that's not demographically appropriate. Should Nike's politics be taken seriously? Should we be talking about their stuff on the radio when we're trying to enjoy an inherently apolitical sports escape? Nike claims to believe in social justice, whatever that means to them, but they make cheap clothing with slave labor overseas and always has. Nike uses Kaepernick to gain exposure, and Kaepernick in turn adopts this personally enriching political standpoint in order to recoup the millions he lost by going downhill as a quarterback. This kind of contrived corporate morality is not necessarily worthy of anyone's time.

There's room for that in the 4 and 5 spot in the rotation. You have two young flamethrowers who need to be stretched out for next year while also being important contributors this year.

On paper they haven't done anything, but it's not like there's no hope. We have a lot of that. But seriously, Vaughn has to be more of a major league hitter this year, and Engel is a fine depth guy if he can stop getting hurt. If multiple OFers get hurt at once for the second year in a row, I mean there's no accounting for that for most teams. That can't happen. I think by this point 88 and 74 have been made aware of that and will try to be smart.

I think Conforto goes to SF. They need him worse than we do.

I wonder if Kimbrel for Bauer was discussed before Bauer's leave was extended to April 16. Discuss.

In all honestly there is probably a good moneyball type strategy in the bullpen realm simply given the nature of the game today. But I suspect such a thing is not being done on that kind of a strategic and analytical level within this org. Rather one thinks that they are simply compensating for the phobia of bigger deals by trying to gain a competitive edge in the less competitive area of free agency. d

This offseason is right in this org's wheelhouse. You can't expect different FO behavior until ownership changes. You also can't switch teams. They have the team precisely where they want it to be — in contention, but not committed to winning it all costs. They're committed to winning but not committed to excellence. Excellence may happen through good fortune viz through a lot of overperformance/excess value coming from the young stars on the team. I'd say it's rare that the team with the best offseason ends up winning it all. Sometimes you see it with TOR in 93 and during the NYY dynasty. There are many more examples of teams not getting it done but winning it all anyway.

I just started checking in with the Score for the first time in maybe 12 years. I used to like B&B just due to the drama with callers. Aside from that, it was the only show where there was some analytical ability on display. Nothing has really changed with the Score except it has gotten a bit worse in quality. I always liked radio and hope it stays around. It's nice to have the shared ephemeral experience of radio rather than the utterly lonesome podcast and not have radio at all. - I noticed this same thing you mention with Bernstein. He has a less masculine intellect now that he's paired with a woman. I'm not sure if that's conscious or unconscious. He used to be really aggressive with callers and now he's upbeat more often and doesn't seem to know that much about sports. No one on the station is a really good mind for sports analysis. No one is criticizing the Sox front office. There's just something fundamentally missing. There was a Black Jack interview with Parkins & Spiegel and he said a lot of controversial stuff but they had either no interest or no ability to push back on him. I like Black Jack a lot because he doesn't care. He wants to push buttons but no one has the will to match. Bernstein couldn't handle that interview because he's too shrill and histrionic on any topic that he thinks is objective. These guys, by contrast, were too nice. They were just 'there.' One would like to hear meta discussions about baseball and get the feeling that it was consequential in some way. - I wonder how Rahimi got that prime job. She has a bad sounding voice and the charisma and speaking talent of a producer, not a host. She'd be better in the Abbattacola role. I was surprised to learn Abbattacola left sports radio. - I didn't know there was a Bernstein and Goff show, but the old clips indicate it was just social justice stuff non-stop. In the 2000s I remember it was no politics allowed. Occasionally, Dave from Westmont would say something about Bush and he'd be cut off. Then in the Trump era it became a political station. - Back in the old days I liked Holmes a lot, but he's just bad now. He's a little bit political but overall just bad. Listening to the Score for a little while makes me want to say 'bad' a lot I guess.

Conforto could re-sign with the Mets but not play in any of their home games. So you could just pay him like 5 million to play when they travel to red states.

We need a new type of contract offer that's based around guys being ineligible to play some games due to local vaccine dictatorships.