nrockway

but why is the question "why didn't we get a superstar back for a some objectively mediocre players?" Vargas is seemingly better than any of those guys and is also under contract for a while. I dunno why you don't think he's a promising player. the current pace is still like 3 WAR, is that not, at least, "average"?

Vargas's WAR this season: 1.7. Those other guys combined: 0.7. what r u scratching your head about, Fedde has a 5 ERA and is expiring, Kopech doesn't play and is expiring, and Pham is just some guy

Don't think we'll get to see Shohei pitch this series. Too bad.

still had a better Sox tenure than Joe Kelly.

I think he's a good speaker. So was Hitler (lol sorry). I dunno about "nearly as bad" because I don't think he's terrible, and your statement seems to imply you think he's still bad, just not so, so bad. maybe we're on the same page, ewok pelts. Unfortunately I think Schriff doesn't know s%*# about baseball and has barely tried to learn about the sport and has nothing interesting to say about it. You can sort of follow a trend in my posts where I started off very pleased with him, excited by the hire, I like his goofy calls ("la pantera" is very funny), etc.; then his charisma wore off and you have to listen to the guy talk about baseball 100+ times a year (if you dare subject yourself to that much Sox "baseball") and he has no real insight into the sport beyond asking his booth partner, "what do you think about what just happened on the field? and does it have something to do with vargas's swing change?". As stated, I think he could be a really good announcer (to the extent that there is a single good one. we might just prefer silence), but he isn't at the moment. Maybe he will become one. 60 grade prospect? I think media was really unfair to him his first year for the wrong reasons, though he is a gaffe machine. He should've known how to pronounce "Veeck". Didn't care for Benetti either by the way, the guy thinks he's a stand up comedian and is constantly trying to show people up for not understanding references to Ovid's poetry or xWOBAcon or whatever else. Schriff just shows people up for not knowing Spanish when he doesn't know it either.

I love that Verlander was getting hit hard but gave up 1 run on a sac fly, and 2 nobodies come in and give up 4 runs. This was the inning to watch apparently lol inevitably.....I think my stream is behind, I thought you were speculating.

I step way for like, a minute, and suddenly this game is blown wide open. The Sox definitely play better when I'm not watching.

Which sentence?

I think it would be shortsighted. What, they don't wanna pay his contract next year? They tendered Vaughn whose ceiling is only marginally better than Robert's floor. For less money, sure, but who else are they paying next season? You can't carry a $20mil contract in the hopes that he performs like the $30mil player (or whatever) he has shown he can be? He isn't a "salary dump" like Benintendi is (Benny might actually be tradable next year though if he can keep up his 'ok' play). It isn't a "cut your losses" situation IMO, I just think we're not going to get anything for him at the moment, we might get something back in the offseason if he can return to form, and if he ends up somewhere in between, he's still a good player and a valuable contributor at a defense-first position for the remainder of his contract. If he ends up as a .650 OPS player and retains his defense and base stealing, that's still a good player, just maybe not the 5-tool superstar we might've hoped Robert would be. It would be a shame to trade him for a lotto ticket and he accumulates 30 WAR over his next contract for a different team. Feel like they should've traded him a long time ago and now we're just stuck with him. He's still an elite defensive center fielder which is a rare thing to find; if he can even hit like Michael A, that's probably good for 3 WAR. Who are we going to replace him with? Brooks can't play center field. As far as I can tell, there isn't a single one in the system. Maybe one of these shortstops can play the position. If they move on from Robert, I'd hope they get a lefty bat for CF though. I was thinking about Cristian Pache the other day...I thought that guy was gonna be so good. If we're looking at Syndegaard, I'd look at him too lol.

it was raining at the ballpark? I've been out all morning hoping for a cloud or two...it's oppressively hot. feels great though, skipped over spring and went straight from 30 to 100.

The story that keeps on giving. As stated once or twice before, I was seated a few sections away in left field because I thought LuBob was gonna hit a homer that night and I was gonna impress my date by catching it and giving it to a child. Instead, Cease gave up like 7 runs in 4 innings and future Sox legend Ryan Noda hit a bomb. Anyway, I dunno what the team or police should've done differently. Announce that there's a shooting and the game is canceled? Seems like a good way to get more people hurt as they make a mad dash to the exit to avoid being the next victim of a mass shooting. The only commotion I noticed was an "enhanced security presence" and I just assumed some drunken fans got into a fight with each other which seems to happen at every other game I go to. Hope there's some resolution one way or another. The "fat teacher" theory is objectively funny and very American (overweight, armed, paranoid), don't necessarily love the fear-mongering theory of "it was teenagers who shot a magic bullet that defied gravity, went through walls, took a couple turns, and was perhaps guided by a remote control". If angsty teenagers had access to this technology, society would've collapsed by now.

G. Taylor rocks. Love they kept him out there for both innings.

he's supposed to be, like, an expert base runner. he isn't considered 'good' at much else. yet taylor's responsible for two of the most notable base running gaffes we've seen this year.

just 74 pitches through 6. how about a complete game??

gotta keep the stellar bat in the lineup...might need someone to sac bunt.

The fabled Flo Rida concert...they've been hyping it for months and it's finally upon us. if I never have to hear Stoney say, ironically, for the 30th time, "oh yeah, his music is my favorite, it's just swell" I can die happy. or at least be annoyed about one less thing. I always liked that one "get low" and that his name is florida and he's from florida but it's also like he's just going with the flow. wordplay, innit.

Maybe we shouldn't do that. Maybe we shouldn't refer to human beings as "waste products" either. It's dehumanizing in a similar vein as this loser fan's actions; it doesn't make you better than him, it makes you akin to him. Don't understand the specificity about public education and parents either...how would you even know to make this baseless assumption? Yeah, it's totally, like, his math teacher's fault from a decade ago he got drunk and made a public fool of himself.

Schriffen is great about this sort of thing IMO. He has clearly tried hard to ingratiate himself to the city and seems to understand that baseball is “more than a game”. He gave some spiel on Jackie Robinson day about his work with kids and it struck me as genuinely inspiring and thoughtful. Most of all, it was well said (well written prose he was certainly reading); and I just wish he could apply that energy and passion to his day job. Because he’s really bad at it. I’m listening to the radio or other teams’ broadcasts this season. He seems like a good guy, just really bad at announcing baseball. I think the ‘nuts n bolts’ so to speak are there, just maybe not the passion. The Andrew Vaughn of announcers.

I think it might depend. Half a season of Giolito and Lopez returned Quero, a top 100 prospect who appears to be a pretty good player, as well as Ky Bush who I think can still be a pretty good starter, he definitely has talent if he isn't walking 1 guy per inning. That was a rare situation though, a sad attempt to impress and retain Ohtani, and both of those pitchers have a clearer track record than Houser. I don't think you're getting back a top 100 prospect for Houser, but there are plenty of teams who will desire starting pitching if they think it's the difference between the playoffs or not. Or if they're the Dodgers and all of their pitchers are permanently on the disabled list (playing for the Dodgers is arguably a disability in and of itself). I think you can do better than a lotto ticket, or if it's a lotto ticket, I like Eddy's suggestion of a Jordan Walker type player. Although I personally like the Cubs glut of outfielders, I don't know how they have room for both Alcantara and Caissie if they decide to re-sign Tucker, and they could probably use another pitcher or two. I'd really like to get Alcantara somehow.

Its Willkomen!! Blew the shutout I guess, but “welcome” to the team.

Clint "Imelda Marcos" Frazier. That's a lotta shoes. Anyway, pretty funny and thoughtfully put by him. the first post-Sock s%*# talker that talked his s%*# the correct way. Grifool and his staff clearly commanded no respect and a lot of those players were, in aggregate, very toxic. Very disrespectful to just be on your phone when somebody is talking to you, to not know your coach's name, to evidently threaten the manager...but why weren't there any consequences? I suspect Rick Hahn is a giant wimp. This year's team is hard to watch but much more likable all around, even more so now that Vaughn and Colas are gone (if only the same was true of Clev). The coaching staff seems competent, or at least they don't appear to be staving off a mutiny

Being the dh isn't "switching positions", it simply isn't a position. If he didn't want to play first base or dh, he should've played better defense at third base. Bregman is also hitting better this season. It was inevitable he'd move to first base and he already got paid so there isn't a financial incentive for him to play a more challenging position. If it's about racking up stats, you rack up more WAR playing 1b than dh. This Devers saga is weird. The guy being paid hundreds of millions of dollars to play a game, it's not like it's an unreasonable request to...stand near a base and sometimes catch the ball as its thrown to you. Diva behavior. I think it's funny when things don't work out for the Red Sox though. Remember when they had Mookie Betts?

aw shucks, why didn't matt thaiss, a guy i will never think about again, return a superstar in a trade?

right, but he was initially on the Mets, then selected by the Phillies and traded to Tampa Bay. Tampa put him on waivers and the Sox claimed him. Unique path to be sure. It's a different situation than Shane Smith who would've returned to Milwaukee if the Sox 'waived' him. The question is simply: do the "Rule 5 rules" even apply to him? I stated it was my opinion that he's doing well and the MLB team "needs" him, I'm just wondering about the rule. At the same time, I'm speculating if it isn't better for future purposes when the team is actually good to try him as a starter. I think so, but maybe being a reliever for a terrible team doesn't preclude one from being a starting pitcher in the future. If they 'could' send him down, you wonder why they'd try to do it for Clevinger and not Vasil. You wonder a similar thing about Grant Taylor, but he might just straight up be a reliever.

True and I suspect you're right that that has been the pattern. I was wondering if they could stretch him out in Charlotte, but: 1) the MLB team relies on him to a great extent and 2) my question, is he technically a rule 5 player and can't be sent down? He took a pretty interesting path after the draft, got traded then DFA'd by Tampa and didn't immediately go back to his original team. Then as I understand it, we picked him up off the waiver wire. Dunno the 'letter of the law' on this topic, but it seems like an interesting grey area...whether or not it's in his/the team's best interest to send him to Charlotte. Either way, glad he's on the team.