mac9001

My issue with Hahn and the Sox in general is they always take a half assed approach to going all in. I think the Lynn trade was the type of move you make after you've already added a quality arm. Kimbrel would have been the perfect move (given the cost) once you've added an impact bat. If you're going to give away two quality mlb ready assets like the Sox did then leverage the farm and upgrade everything you can and we absolutely could have found a way to expand the deal to include Bryant. I would prefer when you make moves like this it was part of a larger more aggressive strategy.

Lopez didn't look too bad, somewhat perplexing how he's been so awful in Charlotte.

After thinking this over I think what displeases me the most is giving a take sign on 3-0. I don't give a fuck about unwritten rules, I want my guys trying to win every game by 20 runs. No mercy, no letting up, swing at 3-0 every time.

His primary problem at the plate is making weak contact on bad pitches. He's small and he expands his zone way more than he should. Hopefully his approach matures, he starts looking middle in and actually puts some muscle into the swing. He should take one solid wack each AB before going into slap mode.

The ball had an exit velocity of 90 MPH and a launch angle of 30 degrees. Last year that was an out 92% of the time, a HR 3% of the time and a double 4% of the time. It's probably fair to say that's on out for the vast majority of LFers in baseball.

He's topped out at 94.8.

Oddly enough if someone had asked me to pick the least likely player to fall to TJ surgery I think Cordero would have topped my list. Just something about the way he went out there with the short sleeves and big guns made the dude seem invincible. I really feel for the guy and hope he makes a full recovery.

These are awesome, thanks for sharing.

I've always been somewhat perplexed by significant infield shifts. If you're going to put the 3rd baseman at SS on me I'm practicing my bunting down the line at third and taking first base every time. I probably only need to that that bunt down twice in a season to completely eliminate the shift.

The Athletics' James Fegan had Rodon sitting 93-94 and Lopez at 92-93. Mentioned Lopez was throwing a lot of curveballs that he was tipping and getting crushed. Lopez specifically mentioned not trying to throw hard and focus on command. Personally sounds like Lopez is taking the right approach. Work on your delivery and command and the results and velocity will probably be there.

I hope Lopez becomes the clear favorite. I think they only way we get a productive season out of Rodon is out of the pen. Get a solid 50 pen innings and I'll be thrilled with his season.

Kade has a pretty legit curve. He gets a few of those over for strikes and he'll have him self a nice MLB career.

I still struggle to understand how it all fell apart so badly for Hansen. I saw him pitch in 2017 and was convinced the dude was going to be a stud. The way hitters reacted to his fastball made him seem completely over powering. I was hopeful the transition to the bullpen would get him back on track, but its not looking good.

With so many guys getting pulled by the 5th now its a nice luxury to have guys like Kopech, Crochet, and maybe even Lopez to throw out there for 3 innings.

There's certainty on overinflated confidence in some of our hitters. Moncada and Robert are the epiphany of high risk. Anytime you're dealing with a young hitter with a K-rate north of 30% there's a very high probability his major league tenure is tentative. Both those guys needs BABIPs north of .300 to produce at league average. There's obviously a lot of celling and projection with both those guys, but don't fool yourself into thinking they come with high floors. The probability of failure with both those guys is a real concern.

I feel really good about our likely DH production. It just seems we have enough internal options where somebody will step up and produce. I feel significantly less confident about the back end of the rotation.

If i had more confidence in Cease I would love this move. But personally I don't think anyone should view Cease with any more then the slightest of margins ahead of Lopez. I felt we're one solid rotation arm from solidifying the rotation and this move didn't fill that hole.

If Rodon embraces a pen role he can still make some decent cash in his career. But for his sake I hope his starter days are over. I felt $4m for a potential impact bullpen arm was a fair price to pay. My guess is he just wasn't onboard.

I think it's safe to assume there's nothing "done" at this point. If it's a matter of just signing some paper work it would have leaked by now. If the Sox are truly this far along with Cruz it's because they have something in place to solve the rotation. The Sox have a habit of doing things half-assed. If you're going for a ring, be aggressive. Spend some money, cash your prospect chips in and go all out. If you're going to move Vaugh or Kopech it shouldn't be to fill a rotation hole. It should be part of an aggressive strategy to add impact players to the current roster. I'm hopeful that's the case here. If we're going to sign Cruz but not addresses the rotation it will again prove they lack a coherent strategy and just makes moves in isolation.

I'm not convinced you get Burnes without Kopech or Vaughn, but I'm far more convinced if we were shopping Kopech or Vaughn the target would be better than Burnes.

Just a gut feeling that Q is maxed out. I feel like Richards is probably pushing 98/99 out of the pen.

I like Richards over Q only because I think he could also be an impact arm in the pen. He seems like a guy who could dominate an inning if he was solely focused on throwing 20 really good pitches. If you get 100 IP in the rotation and use him in the pen down the stretch we get to fill two needs half way at once.

If the budget is $15M I'd rather spend 100% on a pitcher than say a 10/5 split. Go get the best SP with all the budget money left.

I wouldn't spend a dollar on a DH. Spend it on starting pitching and fill DHs ABs internally. I'm content with Leury at DH if we can get a solid vet SP. Between Eloy, Yermin, Vaughn, Collins and Abreu we can fill DH ABs.

Ironically Dylan and Dallas have very similar strike throwing profiles. They both avoid the zone, they see heavy contact in the zone, they don't throw a lot of first pitch strikes or generate a lot of swinging strikes. So while I don't necessarily disagree that command it what's holding Dylan back it's clearly possible to be successful with his level of strike throwing. In the end if you're going to have success you need to generate value with your fastball and that's where Dylan is falling short. The main reason being his fastball has poor horizontal movement. He was 40% below avg in 2020 and 76% below avg in 2019. I don't see command overcoming a more fundamental issue of his fastball being straight and hittable despite the velocity. Additionally he was getting crushed on his change up. Just like the 4-seamer his change up lacks any h-movement. He's clearly not deceptive enough on the delivery and the velocity difference alone isn't fooling hitters. His change is effectively a low 80s meatball. The good news is he did improve quite a bit on h-movement in 2020 over 2019. Pitch Value /100