GreenSox

I'm cool with Lambert. Yea, he's not that good of a pitcher, but he's a long-time farmhand and it's good that he gets some ML pay during this lost season. Probably not the guy for extra innings though.

Unfortunately, the Knights remain a complete basket-case; 6-20 in the 2nd half, did I read?

Diekman had a negative fWAR in Boston when Hahn traded for him. But yes he was more negative in Chicago than in Boston. Katz may be a problem, I don't know. But I do know that Tampa and the Dodgers (and probably most of the league) have a much stronger supporting analytics staff that can provide their pitching coaches with state of the art information on which to make adjustments and decision. And I would think that situational lefties and older pitchers who have lost a couple of ticks, can really benefit from analytics. It seems to me that the Sox pitchers waste too many pitches. That's probably on the coach to at least some extent; but also something that analytics might be able to help clean up.

Well, Ozzie managed players well for many years. So this "culture problem", whatever that is, probably wouldn't have happened. The WS was won with pitching, defense, and homers. But once Ozzie got more say into personnel decisions, the team started to decline. Ozzie wanted to transform the team into slap hitters who could run and bunt, with defense secondary. And he didn't really care about OBP from his slappers either. Pierre, Erstad, and, of course, Jerry Owens over Quentin. He loved Wise - sub .300 OBP = leadoff hitter. 08? Sox won the division that year despite Ozzie.

Seems like they are doing more of these types of deals in the dawn of the 3rd Hahn rebuild than they did in the 2nd. Should at least get some relievers out of it.

Pedro racking up another seasonal series W.

OK, they announce that they have no official plans to announce SoxFest. Do they have official plans to have SoxFest?

This for keeping the team amply supplied with Trayce, Grandal, Elvis, Shaw, etc. so that the Pedro isn’t distracted with the burden of player development.

Yep. Same thing he said on MLB radio.

My only reservation about dispatching Katz is that he uses analytics to some extent. That's an island in this org. But the Walks from our pitchers. Yikes!

I seem to remember most people realized the obvious: that a starting pitcher coming off of a 4.9 fwar season had more value to the team or for trade than a 33 year old reliever. But whether posters did or didn't, how in the world could a baseball GM believe that the reliever had more value?

How would Hahn know whether or not someone napped in the bullpen?

And Hahn is right there with him in terms of general managers.

It was a strange interview. Steve Phillips was asking him basically what went wrong considering the Sox were able to trade 6or 7 players and teams had interest in several others. Grifol gave the standard “I’m not making excuses, but” and then blamed injuries and the difficult schedule; and then not responding well to the poor start. Phillips then asked if he would use the last 2 months to develop young players and he said that he was trying to win games, not develop players; they develop in the minors.

Why not let TA play some OF - a change of scenery; it could put his mind on other things and help him get his head squared away He's so athletic that he'd probably be darn good one.

Same reason that Trayce Thompson is on this team. If not Naquin, if not Trayce, someone like them. Why haven't they cut Grandal? Oh they probably will if or when Lee is ready. All the same reason

He'll be up, if Trayce falters (or continues to falter). As Pedro said during his bizarre interview with MLB radio, this is not the time for player development. The schedule sets up for them to get a lot of wins the last 2 months.

My goodness, this is 10 years worth of gibberish in one interview. This really struck me: "it [team culture] was something we were upfront about for the last several weeks, something we feel we've been in the process of addressing, both at the trade deadline as well as since Everyone that was traded, except for Burger and Graveman, were on expiring contracts. But the reason that they were traded was because of their effects on culture? The expiring contracts were coincidental? So Burger was bad for culture? That's too ridiculous to be believed. Okay, maybe Graveman fits that bill (although I haven't seen anything that suggests he's a problem). And notice who he didn't blame: Grifol and the coaches. Or himself. Is it fair to point out that Lynn, Kelly, Middleton, and Graveman, the apparent alleged bad-culture dudes, were signed by Hahn?

Thanks for the Reds correction

Seasonal series. We've lost series to the Mets, Phillies, Marlins, Reds, Pirates, Cards, Giants, Dodgers, Rays, Jays, Orioles, Astros, Rangers, Angels. We've won against the Braves and Guardians

This is our second series win of the year. By my count, we are 2-14. Take 2/3 from the Yankees and we’ll pocket series win #3.

I'm cheering for a big last 2 months from Grandal, Andrus and Thompson. They need to show that they can lead us to contention next season. As Pedro said this morning, the last 2 months are not for player development.

There’s a good reason why they’ve had all of these managers. They keep hiring bad ones they need to be fired.

But when you don't have a decent farm and when young pitchers are a rarity, the cost of rental trades is particularly high.

Yea. Hahn's sounded like a press secretary (although, he always sounds like that). I suspect that Harold's info was accurate - sounds like he's finished. But will KW join him?