CaliSoxFanViaSWside

My opinion of Soxing it up is much more broad. More like Murphy's Law with Murphy in charge.

Still focused on the hype. You bolded that part of his post and I mentioned his other points and you continue to ignore them lol. You are a piece of work.

I try to stay optimistic on the window because I am not always right . However I have never seen it lasting as long as Hahn's "decade of dominance" and multiple championships" BS he throws out there. Sox are gonna Sox this up. Covid, bad trades, work stoppage , front office , owner or w/e other natural disasters happen.

It's not wrong. You picked out one little thing he said about the hype and ignored his other points that are right. He won't play more than Eloy in left. He won't play more than Abreu at first and if he continues to hit RHP badly he's the weak side of a platoon at DH. Can you dispute that ? There is a lot of hype here on Soxtalk especially last year. It's gotten to be a little less now that more people are more aware how bad his defense is and his late year slump combined with how he hit in RBI situations made people a little more critical of him.

My whole point was the Sox don't have time to screw around with Vaughn's growing pains when there are currently stronger options. It's not about thinking how great he will be it's about how good is he now when it comes to winning games. I want to keep him but right now I have no idea if Jerry is going to keep opening up the wallet unless the Sox rid themselves of Kimbrel and Keuchel or even Grandal as shocking as that might sound.

Tigers think they can win the division next year. They played very well against the Sox and they can smell blood in the water. Our best SP is gone. Keuchel was bad. Kopech is still in on the job training. Hahn made the Sox worse at the deadline and may make them worse again because he works for Jerry who may decide "fuck all the players" again .

Saying a player was bad is not hate. It's perceived as hate when so many fall in love with a player before he ever accomplished anything except being a great college hitter. He is slow and gets bad jumps. Sure he catches most everything he gets to but that doesn't make him a good outfielder. That's where everyone who thinks he passes the eye test screws up and he gets bad jumps so it never looks like his routes are bad . His future is not in the OF. I want him to reach his potential and be the special bat that so many think he is but how do you give him enough playing time for him to do that when the Sox probably will be looking for more LHH and Sheets hits RHP way better than Vaughn. Winning games is the priority . I don't know what your definition of holding your own is but on a team gunning for a Championship the Sox need more than what he produced last year and better defense. He had 1 very good month offensively after he was abysmal for the 1st 2.5 months then finished just as bad as he started. So he was bad 75% of the time and got tired at the end when everyone was upset he wasn't getting enough playing time ?

Basically if you have ever thrown a curve you know how it works. A good curve ball is thrown with an amount of finger pressure and snapping the wrist. This will impart some amount of side spin and backspin .Basically the mound is just the right distance from the plate for the spin to take effect. While it spins the minute it leaves your hand it takes a split second for it to react against the air surrounding it. The same thing applies on a batted ball going to the opposite field or a golf ball when it slices. Now it obviously takes time to perfect the pitch and pitchers do experiment with different ways to throw it to find whats best for them as far as release point and the amount of break and when it breaks, that feels best for them and can be delivered with the most consistency. Some pitchers can throw a curve a number of ways with varying amounts of speed and spin. I'm sure you have heard the term " a get me over curve or fastball", Or a big breaking curve as opposed to a sharp or late breaking curve. Usually the difference with those are the speed the pitch is thrown. Slower curves will break earlier and has a bigger arc because they take a smidge more time to reach the plate so the spin takes effect earlier. I don't know if I truly answered your question. A pitcher who throws them well and with consistency has put in a lot of hours playing around with the pitch in every way possible. Lower seams and slicker balls make it even harder which is one reason so many pitchers started using spider tack besides the obvious reason of getting more spin.

Don't see how this is any different than any other year in baseball history. There always have been and always will be the "haves" and "have nots" in baseball based on the amount of money you have to spend. It's better now than it was from the 1920's to the early 60's when the Yankees just dominated everybody. Once the draft started Yankees couldn't just buy up all the talent from around the country.

High as opposed to what they would have got for him at any other point in his career. Now he's got MLB AB's and crushed RHP which is much better for teams than a RHH who crushes LHP. You could make an argument that they would be selling low but that's only if you think he'll have the opportunity to get even better with the Sox which is unpredictable. What I would really like to find out is how teams are viewing Vaughn vs Sheets. Vaughn's age and pedigree have a lot to do with his value but Sheets being LH and hitting the amount of HR's he did in limited PA's are strong points in his favor. Vaughn in 5 AB's and Sheets in 12 AB's both had a nice post season. Vaughn with a double and Sheets with a double and a HR.

We could obviously go round and round with these discussions involving, Vaughn, Sheets, Eloy and Burger. They all are potentially very good hitters who are lacking defensively. How much of the future do the Sox sacrifice for the present because of payroll ? Vaughn lost AB's to Sheets because of his struggles with RHP. How often can they play Vaughn unless he improves significantly against RHP when you have a bat like Sheets. Gavin's stats hitting against RHP are almost as good as Vaughn's against LHP in just about the same amount of AB's. Vaughn is 2 years younger than Gavin but in order to make the playoffs again how do you play Vaughn more than Gavin against RHP when Vaughn had a .618 OPS and Sheets .900 ? How do you play Vaughn more than Eloy in the LF ? It seemed pretty obvious that the Sox will play Eloy in left despite his injury history there. We can debate all day who is better defensively in LF and not come to any definitive conclusion.

I don't think the Sox are going to spend very much. I really think we see trades. I also think they will keep a close eye on Rodon.

Yea that's garbage. No need to be punished because you play a certain position. Figure out a better way to grade defense. CF is the easiest OF position to play. It does however require a very fast individual usually for the best results. Why should corner OF be graded more harshly because they have to deal with more spin on the ball and slow down when getting too close to walls barely outside fair territory.

I don't think Yoan had a good year "with the bat" . I think he had a good year "in the batters box". HIgh OBP which leads to a .787 OPS but the slugging of .412 was bad. He was also terrible against LHP and on the road. Clutch stats: With 2 outs and RISP ,. 345 SLG. terrible, Late and close .276 SLG terrible, Tie game .335 SLG. terrible.

Eloy had a good rating for the short amount of time he was in LF +2. Vaughn was a -3.

As if the Sox are only talking about Semien. Conforto ,Corey Seager, Max Scherzer, Marcus Semien, Kris Bryant, Nick Castellanos, and Rodon are all Boras guys .

That's really only one position and that's relief pitching. It's been Hahn's biggest weakness playing with draft picks , FA's and trades on the most volatile position in baseball but the least expensive . Right now I'm just looking for a sign of anything other than going through the motions. I don't know if the Sox were at the Verlander showcase. I don't know if they show any interest in Andrew Heaney. I know they had no interest in Rodon. Meeting with Boras about Semien is most likely Boras being in the same place at the same time so getting it done as quickly as possible to tell the Sox he wants 8 yrs $200M.

This is my thinking from the MLBTR article: Of course, given the stage of the offseason we’re at, it’s safe to assume that virtually any team with a modicum of 2022 postseason hope and/or any actual money to spent this offseason was at least present to gauge Verlander’s readiness. As Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom asked rhetorically when confirming his club’s presence at the showcase (link via Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe? “Age might affect the term you consider, but if the present ability is there, why wouldn’t you be interested?” If the Sox were there you would think it would get out in the press. That's how big league teams do things to let their fans know they are still interested in winning. So far I haven't seen any signs they are interested in anything .

The Sox also want you as a fan to rationalize that the Sox know more than us about his season ending medicals and they were afraid he would accept the QO knowing that he is unhealthy. There's posturing going on with both sides. The Sox dug themselves a hole with the Kimbrel salary and they are at 33 on the 40 man roster. Looks to me like a lot of salary concerns .

Yea I'm at a loss here. Any confirmation that the Sox were at the Verlander showcase. I mean why wouldn't they be?

I don't think anyone is saying it's proof ,it's just more in line with the side other than yours that the Sox should've extended the QO, Carlos has to prove to other teams he's healthy . It's as simple as that. Some of us think he very well may be healthy enough to have made the offer. A lot of other teams are making offers to guys who didn't throw 99 in their last game or didn't even have a last game in 2021. Sure those guys have better track records than Los. Big deal. The track record you should be concerned about is 2021 when Los looked like the best pitcher in baseball for 1/2 a season and did not end the year on any kind of injured list. That's enough of a track record to make the QO. What is this the little league ? Real MLB teams do it.

Exactly which is why the Sox should've offered Rodon the QO and taken the draft pick when he refused it.

If my pessimistic side really take hold of me what I see coming in the next couple of months is the Sox reducing their 40 man roster even more by doing their best to rid themselves of Keuchel and Kimbrel with guys like Lambert, Foster, Burger , Sheets, Romy Gonzalez, Zack Collins, Zavala, Mendick and Mercedes thus reducing the 40 even more looking to give up more players than they get back reducing payroll until things get resolved with the CBA. Jerry has never been know to be player friendly and if he continues this he will surely not care how it hurts the Sox chances to stay competitive just as he didn't care in 1994. Other teams may end up signing guys like Tepera while the Sox do close to nothing. Supposedly Boras already has a meeting set with the Sox on his free agents according to the last tweet I saw above.

I do too. They should have offered him the QO. I don't see any reason to try to get into Boras' good graces however. I'm not sure there is a way to do that. He's all business. At least offer the QO and get the draft pick. The Sox have to be all business too and get a draft pick when they can. It's not like helping Carlos's market by not attaching the draft pick compensation would get them in Boras' good graces. On the other hand, my pessimistic side is telling me that the Sox were actually being all business and Rodon actually accepting the offer would've meant more guys on the payroll when they are bracing for a strike and probably prefer less players under contract. They just didn't want to take the chance he would accept. Isn't the 40 man roster at somewhere around 33 now when you count their 4 free agents and the guys they outrighted to the minors. I fear that all this was a precursor to how they will do business before and during a work stoppage. Others here thought he'd accept it and I would've been fine with that. Rodon pitched like a true ace for peanuts until he ran out of steam which most of us saw coming because of the limited innings he pitched in the previous 2 years. There's always going to be questions about his health but his last game was encouraging and if he was just fatigued and not truly injured he showed me more than enough to think what he did is sustainable. One year of a true ace for $18.4M isn't much of a gamble financially especially after what he gave the Sox in 2021.

Being one of the older guys I don't think you're being pessimistic at all. Of course I would say that because It's been my biggest fan fear since they started the rebuild and then Covid came along. I've been predicting the disaster scenario of over a year that Covid and a work stoppage and the owner and front office not being able to finish what they started with built in excuses. I've basically called it "Sox Gonna Sox" which just means they have been one of the worst franchises in baseball throughout their history and and I really haven't seen that much lately that encourages me. Of course lots of people have hope that Jerry and Rick H. can pull a Championship out of this mess but I've seen this coming for a while. Now it doesn't make me enjoy following the Sox any less. To me it's just a game by game experience and I tend not to get upset at final results because if that's the case it's pretty discouraging to think of 1 championship in 100 years.