mac9001

I do feel to some degree they're doing him a disservice by not letting him focus on a single position. If you let him play 100 games in center he might actually prove he can be defensively valuable. He's probably the fastest guy on the team and his athleticism is vastly underrated.

I don't think there's ever been an MLB team that said we have to much depth up the middle. I'm still not convinced we have any regulars on the current MLB roster that won't just fall off a cliff. As impressive as Colson was last year I'd be equally unsurprised to see a 40% K-rate next year as I would a 30+ HR season. The other guys could all put in 70 wRC+ seasons and make these decisions relatively easy. If they just keep drafting short stops with the first 3 picks for the next 3 drafts I'd be fairly content with the strategy.

I don't doubt the stuff. I've seen video, looked at numbers. I believe in the stuff. But dudes who manage to throw strikes for a few months for the first time in their career while at high A ball don't leave him with feeling like this works out. I would have taken every dude with a big time fastball in the R5 draft. Take 5 of them, if even one works out it's a huge win.

If the outcome of Taylor becoming a starter (ish) is 1 less bullpen arm or a few more losses that's a price worth paying. The Sox are still going to be really bad this year, if it gets us to a place where Taylor can throw 150 quality innings next year, I'm totally in favor. But the more sensible plan would be to just sent him to Charlotte for 2-3 months and let him build up to be a 5 inning guy then use him out of the pen in the 2nd half to limit innings.

I'm not saying Taylor is one of your 5 starters, he's the opener for let's say Cannon and you let Cannon pitch the rest of the game if he's keeping it competitive. With how quickly guys are getting pulled I'm not sure this doesn't reduce the bullpen load.

I don't see why you couldn't make Taylor a 3 inning opener. If he makes all 33 starts you're at 99 innings with a plan to get him to 150+ the following year.

I'm sure Paez isn't complaining as he'll be collecting a MLB salary, but his command likely would have brought him to the bigs eventually on an appropriate development timeline. Now we're gonna take a guy from high A ball and likely try to stash him as a innings eating clean up reliever? He's obviously going to start eventually but at this point in his career and given the Sox starting depth (even if it's not quality depth there's real depth there) how likely is he to get any starts? I feel like our 2nd R5 pick is likely just waived by end of spring, but I kinda feel for the guy a bit because this probably wasn't the best move for his development. I almost feel they should limit the MLB R5 draft to players in AA/AAA and if a guy below AA is drafted they need to be placed on the 40 man and must be rostered at AAA. The R5 fee should also go up substantially.

You have to figure a prospect who's value is derived almost exclusively based on his command is going to have a very fragile grip on their prospect ranking. You're almost always looking for an excuse to downgrade because they don't have the luxury of having a bad season (or missing it due to injury) and their rankings are based entirely on the performance.

I like Pallette, he might even eventually have a MLB career. But he hasn't demonstrated the level of command one would require to succeed at this level. If you're willing to claim guys on waivers and make multiple R5 picks there is no shortage of dudes with stuff that lack MLB level command. We have 3-5 guys on the system right now have have legit big league stuff, but don't have anywhere near the command to succeed. If you just keep recycling these guys eventually you'll hit on one or five. Pallette should have been given a chance last year as it was time to recycle half the bullpen. I don't really have an issue losing a guy like him because they're fairly replaceable, but if you just keep the 40 man loaded with these dudes that show no progress or have demonstrated elite levels of failures then what's the plan? Wheres the strategy? If you're gonna just fill the 40 man roster with garage and let it rot you might as well do it with your home grown garage, at least there's sentimental value behind it.

1) I presume the Sox will be high on that waiver list 2) If (when) he's walking everyone there is likely not to be much of a market for his services

Pretty high probability that Palette is walking 6-7 per 9 in the bigs and he's back in the Sox system by mid season. He may find his way into a MLB bullpen eventually, but his command still needs a lot of work.

If he can't find success in the rotation you can hope the stuff plays up in the pen and you're still not paying him a lot. Now we need two more like just like this to have actual depth (even if it's poor depth).

My point was if you did put him on the 40 he'd be eating up a spot most of the year without likely having any real shot at pitching at the MLB level. Even as a rule 5 if you stash him on the 60-day eventually you'd need to with roster him or return him and having him get some innings in at the MLB level just to keep him as a R5 pick seems like a stretch for most orgs. Logically managing his R5 status probably isn't worth the hassle of picking him.

There's almost no way to take a guy like Adam's to get his 60 days in on the active roster. This is probably an example of a scenario where the rule 5 process would not benefit the player (except for the paycheck part). For him this season is just about getting some innings in to compete for a MLB roster spot in 2027. Also, since Adams was not on the active roster he wouldn't be eligible for the 60 day DL. Thus you're taking up a 40 man spot for most of the season for a guy who likely has no chance of pitching in the bigs this season.

Unless you plan to make two R5 picks you might as well protect the fringe dudes. But I do feel even if we have a dude taken pretty good chance they make it back by year's end. But honestly, leaving dudes unprotected is less of a head scratcher than Davitt getting added. I would have bet every house on my street that dude makes it through.

I feel like even if Pallette is taken he probably gets DFAed at some point during the year and comes back. Adams is worthy of a R5 pick, but not sure if brining him out of the pen makes sense and that's probably the only way you're keeping him on a MLB roster all year (when he eventually returns). But given the absolute waste of space on our 40-man there's zero excuse for not protecting him.

You'd have a hard time convincing me Schwarber is the best use of whatever funds they may have available. This team is 2 years away from being 2 years away. Schwarber is going to be massively overpaid to DH, we need to spend Schwarber level money to just fill the roster with replacement level players that actually belong on a MLB roster.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching a minor leaguer pitch as much as I enjoy Shane Murphy. When you get a hit it's on his terms, I honestly can't talk myself out of a scenario where he's really damn good pitching to major league hitters. Him and Thorpe both have a similar trait in that hitters never seems to be comfortable in the box. When Thorpe was on he kept hitters so off balance that the contact just didn't amount to a lot of damage and I feel like Shane has that but with better command and a wider arsenal of pitches. At this point I'll be shocked if he doesn't have a long MLB career and you don't need to out up 5 WAR seasons to make a lot of money as a starter. You can just pile up innings and still makes tens of millions.

I don't hate the idea of making guys earn the playing time at the big league level, but there's probably two guys in the rotation less deserving of innings.

Can we please just cut Clevinger and move Gowens to AAA?

I know Shane Murphy won't get any prospect love and he's probably going to be lucky to avg over 90 mph on the fastball but my God I've never seen someone dominate with command like he has this season. I was super impressed with Thorpe last year and his ability to get hitters to induce weak contact was elite, but Murphy might be even better. The lack of stuff may limit his big league success but all it takes is like 3 innings of watching Murphy pitch and you can't help but think this guy is going to find a way to get hitters out at the big league level.

It's hard to make a convincing counter argument for why he shouldn't. Decline in velocity/overall stuff, major command issues and there's at least the suspiciouon of an underlying health issue. Since they're sending him to the AFL he's probably not hurt, but that just makes the regression even more concerning.

I've always been stumped how a 6'6" dude only gets 6'2" extension (24th percentile). He has velocity but doesn't use his huge frame to deliver the ball. Would have assumed they would have worked with him to get some additional extension. It's probably the main reason his fastball gets crushed.

Love this years draft. I was very disappointed with last year's picks and just felt the the whole draft was on gonna fall on Bonemer's outcome. Feels like they left this draft with a lot of bullets in the chamber. People were already discounting Lodise and Shelton at short but were playing Colson and Meidroth (with Gonzalez 1 level away) there now so it's not like there's a high bar to being a ML SS with the Sox.

He'll probably hit better in Charlotte. With dudes like him they should just push them to Charlotte. I hate how much trash we carry in Charlotte, at least let's carry our homegrown trash.