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Him doing well against crap RHP is what I would expect in a normal development. 1st step coming up from only A+ and a year at Schaumburg is struggle against pretty much any RHP. Step 2 : Start hitting the bad RHP with authority and cutting down the K's. Step 3: Develop into the Vaughn everyone hoped he could be . I think the Sox have handled him well this year.

Plenty of relievers out there who are going to be traded who are better than our bottom 3 or 4 guys but you know the Sox aren't going to trade for more than 2 relievers and maybe they just go with one. Just like before the season many were stoked about our young group of relievers in a short season But as is often the case relief pitchers and young pitchers are an unpredictable lot. There's really no way to know if a reliever who had good stats in the 1st half will continue to put up good stats in the 2nd half. When the Sox do trade for relief pitching I'd like to see them go after guys who have pitched in the tougher divisions in baseball and put up decent stats facing good teams. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out if the Sox put their analytics team to good use.

It's not asking too much at all

Exactly. Vaughn is maturing as a hitter and so is Engel as odd as that sounds for a 29 year old. Slowly but surely he has figured out what works best for him. Just need another guy in the lineup every day who consistently hits HR's from the left side and some BP pieces. I'll take a 3 run bomb over just about any other hit.

We are a diverse group of individuals with different expectations , wants ,needs and knowledge. Can't please everyone all the time. Trying to group us all as "this board " is folly good sir.

Maybe they just watched him in practice turning the DP and decided it wasn't worth it or having him nimbly perform ballet to avoid contact wasn't a good idea.

Is this just you trying the reverse jinx. The guys who have been saying that and giving positive emojis for statements like this have gone down in flames recently.

At the moment not very highly apparently according to Longenhagen and the bulk of them are still in the low minors. Our #6 prospect Adolfo has little value because of injuries and the short period of time the Sox have to make a decision on him. I don't know if Future Sox has made an updated evaluation of our top prospects since February and if they have it isn't pinned on the Future Sox section of Soxtalk nor do I see it on the Future Sox website . I would trust Future Sox more on the ranking than MLB.com who do have an updated list that includes Rutherford and Luis Gonzales but not Burger who I would personally rank at #1. Cespedes has a chance to be a fast riser but most of the pitchers except for Stievers will have a long climb to reach the majors or become ranked in the top 100. Pitcher Norge Vera probably will be in the Future Sox Top 10 but hasn't even started his pro career yet. Most of the best position prospects are also in the low minors and not sure where they rank in the top 30 since I can't find that from Future Sox. Edit. The updated version of Future Sox list will come out after the trade deadline.

Why does the sky having to falling or be called panicking just because you want to win the World Series in a year you could win the World Series ? If we trade the few attractive trade chips we have from the bottom ranked farm system we will still be at the bottom . How many of them to you think are going to help the Sox in 2021-24 ? Most of the truly attractive pieces are in Kanny and some like Sheets and Burger are already here but certainly are tradable assets. Anyway I hope your optimism that Lynn and Rodon can be retained and your faith in Jerry is rewarded and I don't think if you are disappointed I will come back and say I told you so. Perhaps one of us will be man enough to remember our conversation and say "Hey you were right" but it might take till after the 2024 season to know it. I think the odds are on my side since winning a World Series is always a long shot anyway no matter what you do with JR in control. Maybe we both can be right and the Sox can sign just enough rentals without giving away the best of the limited amount of what you would call our best prospects this year and still make the World Series.

And Gallo shouldn't even be called a big ticket. 1.4 years of him but unfortunately even that seems like a big ticket to the Sox. Texas is just going to screw themselves with him like they did with Lynn.

Yeah I know I've heard the top 10 stuff before many times but somehow it's always tied into attendance which is what I meant when I said the Sox operate on a year to year basis. But the results with producing consistent winning teams shouldn't always be tied to attendance but it seems to still be that way. If the fans and Covid and the impending strike are going to always give JR an out for not spending money then you are just carrying water for him by believing the extended run stuff. He will always have an excuse to deal with middle tier free agents who flop just as much as they succeed and tems that lose more than they win. I suppose next you will be telling me the Sox had some great years in the 90's that didn't produce World Series winners either when the best chance at winning in the 90's was sabotaged by Jerry in 94. You can't run a team financially on a year to year basis based on fan attendance and then tell me to believe you when you talk about sustained winning especially when you sabotage the farm consistently over the years.

Pitching wins championships. You can get by having a defense 1st catcher and strong positions players at most of the positions with a good balance of left handers and right handers. Usually the best pitchers cost a lot of money. The Sox got 2 of the best for as cheap as possible but only for 1 year for each of them. Jon Lester, Verlander, David Price, Kershaw, Scherzer, Strasburg all cost a lot for World Series winning teams. Pitching will always be the key to winning year after year. The Sox already have many very good positions players when they are healthy and the best is yet to come from Vaughn, Eloy, Madrigal and Robert .

I'd rather watch this team make a serious run at the World Series this year than count on Jerry to reload the starting pitching staff or count on 2 of Giolito,Cease, Kopech or Keuchel to pitch as great as Rodon and Lynn have this year.

Caused Jerry to go cheap ? When hasn't he been cheap ? What you fully expect and what will happen could be 2 very separate things. I guess the difference between us is I don't see trading prospects from a bottom ranked farm team to supplement a very strong contender as going all in . It's just doing what needs to be done like all teams who are serious about winning do.

The main problem as far as I see it is that the Sox still operate on a year by year basis and will not do what the other rebuild World Series winning teams like the Astro's and Cubs did to win the World Series. Nor will they trade for big contracts or spend like the Red Sox, Dodgers, Astros or Cubs did. They also did not focus on the farm system right at the beginning of the rebuild like they should have and the result is in a barren farm right now. The Cubs signed Lester and Heyward to big contracts and then traded for Chapman and then Quintana to try to extend their window. The Astro's traded for Verlander on August 31th to barely make him eligible for the playoffs by the Sept. 1st deadline. I don't think there is an August 31th date any more for trades is there ? The Astro's after winning the World Series traded for Gerrit Cole and then Zack Greineke. Somehow Houston still has a system with more talent than the Sox. Oakland and Tampa Bay make the playoffs a lot , haven't won a World Series but also still maintain good farm systems. Boston signed David Price to a huge contract and also signed JD Martinez to a big contract. The Dodgers spend money everywhere so not much sense talking about them. The point is it wasn't me who chose to go all in this year it was the Sox when they traded for Lance Lynn since they can't afford trading or signing anyone with a big contract. The farm system is now a wasteland and will take years to build it up again. They also got extremely lucky with Rodon. They got to this point without really spending much. The Sox talk about sustaining success but they will not get as lucky as they have with Lynn and Rodon every year when they need to fill holes. I don't think it's asking that much to get a few rentals and some relief pitching by parting with a few pieces from the farm and a little bit of salary for less than half a year . I have no idea if they are interested in Marte, Schwarber or Gallo but they should be. I wouldn't even call Gallo a controllable guy . He's 1.4 years worth of a player. Texas can ask for the moon for him , like they did for Lynn but eventually all they are doing is lessening the cost for him or risking an injury the longer they keep him. The only thing that will extend the Sox window is finding a way to actually spend money on pitching like all the other World Series teams have done but the Sox appear to be incapable of doing that. I guess we will see eventually with Rodon , Lynn and Giolito. I don't see what difference it makes whether the Sox are the worst farm system or the 2nd or 3rd worst.

Wondering if we see more of Moncada at DH to give his throwing shoulder some rest and play Burger more. Might help getting more power from him but how long would it have to be to get that result or if it would help with the power outage at all.

The Sox bullpen has pitched the least amount of innings in MLB. So if you think our situation is bad look at every other team.

This is pretty much what I've said all along yet one of my fav. posters @Chicago White Sox thinks I am ridiculous for wanting to use the farm now on this year but would not engage me in discussing it. I did not think the farm would be all that helpful in any future window and 2021-24 was the window that @Chicago White Sox specified to me. I don't really see how our opinions differ all that much. The low low ranking does not shock me at all. I will say however that luckily trades aren't made based on Longenhagen's rankings. I highly doubt the Sox ever take on salary. I mean they were tapped out just the last off season which was essentially why the Sox ended up with Rodon. JR might be OK with taking on players remaining salaries for whoever they trade for (somewhere around $10M plus the prospects) but there's not going to be any taking on a bad contract to lower prospect cost . Why should there be unless you don't think there are enough prospects in the whole system worth Escobar and some relievers ?

He's a less than 1/2 season rental. These teams are just playing stare down to see who blinks 1st.

The guy with the most seniority on the roster and my Adopt -a-Prospect extraordinaire !

Way to go Goody ! 2 hits off a lefty. HR off the righty.

I hope Timmy All-Star goes out there between innings with a Sharpie and signs that ball for that poor kid.

Ryan , Aaron weird how I said Aaron since I am way more a baseball fan than a historian . But after all I am an aging boomer

You and your 3 thank you emoji's post aged well.

Yea 1st base has plenty of opportunities for disaster maybe more so than LF.