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Surprising Alonso was underrated coming into this with Ohtani and Vladdy competing and the massive power of Gallo.

Yea but i like the quicker pace. Less time watching hitter take pitches and waiting for the ball to come down before the next pitch and more HR's with the clock. Just no time to savor them.

Zoinks ! Alonso defending his title with some bombs. 25 with a minute to go . Polar Bear Power ! Salvy Perez has his work cut out for him. New record for Alsonso was it 34 ????!!

Zoinks ! Alonso defending his title with some bombs. 25 with a minute to go . Polar Bear Power ! Salvy Perez has his work cut out for him.

Yea but it still beats Chris Berman no matter what they do.

Yeah his 1st round doomed him . He got in a little groove in the 2nd part but the tying HR didn't count because time has ran out. Story beats Gallo 20-19.

Yea it's a little different and you don't get to savor the really long ones. But I think I saw Story hit one that measured 518 ft. so that's pretty amazing and now it's Gallo to try to beat Story's 20.

Exciting round with Mancini barely beating Olson 24-23 . The balls are flying out of Coors !

Losing Grandal does hurt OBP but the Sox but hurts their power even more. The Astro's and Sox are 1 and 2 in baseball in OBP so losing 1 guy isn't too bad. As of yet they haven't missed Madrigals OBP that much but they do lose a steady bat but not a run producer. The thing that concerns me most is the Sox are 14th out of the 15 AL teams in HR's barely ahead of the Royals and this is with the Sox facing the dregs of their division Tigers, Royals Twins pitching staffs and 7 games against the Orioles too. Of course injuries are to blame for some of it but so is lower than expected HR's from Moncada and the just recent loss of Grandal will hurt it even more. Also the Sox eliminated 12 HR's from the lineup when ejecting Eaton and Mercedes. They have picked up a few recently with better then expected results from Engel and Goodwin but they need better results from the guys in the lineup every day and without Grandal they need to have another regular pick it up or go outside the organization for HR's which is why Escobar should be the pick. If the Sox shock us and go for another position player I'd be happy to add Starling Marte in RF if the cost for Gallos' HR's + OBP is prohibitive.

Good good make your picks. I'm going with Gallo.

Kind of surprised there was no thread for this already. I love the All-Star Game and the festivities leading up to it. I guess the HR Derby is tonight so I turned on the MLB. app on my TV that I use to watch the Sox games and there is a program on from T Mobile leading up to the HR Derby and I just watched Hunter Pence talking to Castellanos and Tatis, Jr. on who they thought would win the HR Derby and where do they think the farthest HR will land. Also saw Peyton Manning and Big Papi roaming around the field. I am like a kid in a candy store when all the best players in baseball despite the opt outs are gathered all in one spot and looking froward to seeing the 4 Sox All-Stars perform with finger crossed . Should be an epic HR Derby in Colorado with Ohtani, Gallo and Vladdy , Jr. and the others. Trevor Story could be the favorite since he is used to the elevation but Ohtani is the #1 seed.

Arizona has played 46 games against the Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Mets, A's, Brewers. That's more than 1/2 their games against some of the best pitching in baseball. Escobar has 20 HR's on the season and he would be cheaper than Frazier. That's all you need to know.

I don't think it's negative or ridiculous at all. I know all the young talent we currently possess . Yes the Sox guys are so good they are in the majors now but it's not like I am the first one to say the Sox had a top heavy Farm System. Anyone who's been paying attention to the Sox farm knew this. And that's facts are as I presented them during the rebuild about trading Int'l money away and spending money on Manny's friends. I didn't even go into how they have only in the years few years upgraded biomechanics and analytics because it would ve taken a lot more research and a much longer post to support my claims that the Sox didn't make changes fast enough to make the talent on the farm deeper nor simply didn't care about it enough judging by the Machado fiasco and trading away money. i know there are a certain amount of very positive posters who don't like negative posts but if you objectively look at the ownership of the team and see the results of so so many top 5 payrolls it always ends the same way. No sustained success. Feel free to trust the Sox to do the things you fully expect them to do. I won't call your post overly positive or ridiculous. I love the Sox and am enjoying this season very much. That's why I want the Sox to win the World Series this year when the talent level is in all likelihood at the peak as far as a balance between pitching and hitting. You won't find me in game threads complaining about every decisions TLR makes or the lineup. I keep my eyes focused on the big picture and what to expect in the future from indicators from the past. Apparently you trust JR . It's not like there has ever been any sustained success. It's always been one and done despite you pointing out the obvious to me. I am optimistic for this year but cynical for sustained success. You can believe in Santa Clause if you want to but it's not ridiculous if I don't.

They seem related to me after reading what Atlanta had to say about getting Eaton.

I'm trying to understand your post. You rightly point out the starting pitcher issues for the near future and even go so far as to say that any weakness puts the Sox in the barely over .500 territory. Yet you ignore your own knowledge by saying the Sox can't trade a lot of farm talent to go all in. What if "this rebuild and all the associated pain for a decade" actually does turn out to be "2-3 years of pleasure" because the bottom ranked farm system doesn't provide what's necessary to continue the sustained success we have been promised. Then we only have Jerry's pocketbook and the ability of Hahn to make good trades to sustain the window . You will reap what you sow if you trust JR and Hahn to guide this team to sustained success. We were told repeatedly by Rick Hahn that the goal of the process was to ensure the White Sox “were competing for multiple championships.” https://ontapsportsnet.com/2020/02/10/defining-success-for-the-white-sox-in-the-competitive-window/ Wouldn't it be better to go for it by trading that talent to help the team now ,when we have the pitching ,rather than wait until we no longer have the pitching ? The Padres built a great farm system and have made a lot of trades but they had a plan going back to 2016 on how to build the farm. I'm not sure the Sox ever had a plan to build the farm. Sure they built the farm by trading Sale, Eaton and Quintana but a plan outside of that , one to go hand in hand with sustaining success never seemed to materialize. We still saw them trading away international, money and taking gambles on other teams rejects like Palka, Skole, AJ Reed and others like most teams do. They didn't invest in players to try to flip them for more international money or minor leaguers. Instead they invested in friends of Manny Machado to try to lure him to the Sox. Does everyone conveniently forget these wonderful plans to sustain the farm system ? I'm going to give you links about how the Padres did it and when they started it and sustained it. Maybe no one reads them but it doesn't sound like how the Sox have done it at all . The Padres had players graduate to the majors and traded half their top 30 prospects yet still had the 6th or 7th ranked farm system https://www.mlb.com/news/how-the-padres-rebuilt-their-farm-in-9-months-c193571200 https://www.eastvillagetimes.com/comparing-padres-rebuild-cubs-mets-astros/ https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/a-j-preller-and-the-san-diego-padres-have-built-a-monster-farm-system-01dm2y62b3mn https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/padres-join-excellent-company-as-no-1-farm-system/ https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/yu-darvish-trade-grades-padres-cubs/1m9d0eavxu9tk1uybp77g50i0a https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2020-12-28/padres-farm-system-blake-snell-trade-luis-patino https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/story/2021-02-10/padres-farm-system-baseball-america-rankings-mackenzie-gore-cj-abrams https://friarsonbase.com/2021/02/10/padres-farm-system-ranked-seventh-best/ https://friarsonbase.com/2021/03/18/padres-top-prospects-farm-system-rankings/ The Sox did a good job of getting good minor league talent for good major league talent with good contracts. But did they ever get a superstar by trading someone who sucked with a big contract ? That's essentially how the Padres got Tatis, jr. from the Sox a measly 6 months or so before the Sox decided they didn't have the brains or wouldn't spend enough money to find a way to win without tearing it all down. Don't worry if the Sox miss the playoffs next year and Keuchel sucks maybe Hahn can trade him and find the next Tatis, Jr. Good luck with that.

I was just about to post this since it was also mentioned in MLBtraderumors today. Good news. Thread title change time ?

You could find dozens of posts from plenty of people who said if he isn't going to play every day then send him down. It was pretty apparent he wasn't going to play every day because that's what was happening before his recent stretch. There was one highly respected poster who said he has been our worst hitter against RHP by far and that his solution to play him every day was counter-intuitive . That seems like a lot of people to me. I wish it was possible to make people understand that the way he's been handled has been good for his development. If you play him every day maybe he feels the pressure to do well. By sitting him you are managing the person, not the top prospect with the expectation of greatness on his shoulders. It's the human factor. Let him know he doesn't have to be great right away , slow the game down, observe, learn. Call it fatherly or grandfatherly but it's more about learning at a slower pace ,encouraging him, letting him know they believe in him and that sitting him isn't a punishment just a way to observe to learn along with participate to learn. That's all I ever wanted.

Yes I have written so much that I am constantly surprised that I still have people acting like I said I wanted him getting only weak side platoon AB's. Even now you say I have written more words then Hemingway about how "Vaughn wasn't the right guy for this team " yet you did not you quote one of my many posts on Vaughn to reach that conclusion. Truly odd that when I ask people to do that so I can have something to response to that is accurate they don't do it . I don't like being known as the guy who hates Vaughn because that was never true. All I ever thought was that like any other player who was struggling , that he should be benched once in a while against RHP instead of playing every day. I actually thought people were expecting too much from him with so little minor league experience. I think LaRussa has done a good job with matching up guys throughout the season with the many injuries. If we always listened to fans Leury, Lamb, Goodwin, Hamilton would all either have been DFA'd or never used. All I ever wanted was for Vaughn to get good matchups, a good balance between facing LHP and whatever RHP the coaching staff deemed fit for Vaughn to face.

https://ouresquina.com/2021/cuban-reunion-at-mlb-futures-game/

Not to mention but while in the rebuild they dumped international bonus pool money a couple of times too. Sox Machine Article from 11/1/2019 https://www.soxmachine.com/2019/11/01/white-sox-continue-shedding-international-money-while-rebuilding-for-some-reason/

Not sure what that means or even if I should care but sure I'll take the bait. Sox have played 89 games , Vaughn's played in 75 of them If I have replaced him in the lineup 12 times I've done very close to what the Sox have done ( 14 times not in a game). Even if you didn't literally mean 12 times you came pretty close to what's been actually happening. The most parroted voices on here said" if you don't play him every day send him down". I never understood that. Keep facing MLB pitching , sit down every once in a while against guys with nasty sliders, keep the confidence level high and hitting well against LHP, keep learning and observing , slowing things down, getting input from coaches and keep making adjustments. The good ones figure things out.

You don't need long term options for every position unless you are drafting it or paying big money for a guy like Bryce Harper you just feel lucky to get a short term guy to perform above average for a couple of years. The Sox have a good amount of long term options which is why I mentioned those guys. Lots of teams win consistently using short term guys and catchers who can't hit very well but call a good game , frame well and have good technique blocking pitches. Most trades you make are for short term guys as are the usual space the Sox operate from on Free Agency.

You are a bad manager when you have a bad team. You are also a bad manager when you have a good team but every lineup, every pitching change and every time you sit a superstar or a hot prospect is questioned. You are only a good manager... well never in today's day and age when everyone has a platform. Only in retrospect when you manage a long time and every day decisions are forgotten and your teams keep winning because of a talented front office acquiring talented players do you know you have a HOF manager. That's why the winningest teams in baseball history like the Yankees and Cardinals top the list of HOF managers.