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We still don't know what Robert is capable of. This year his approach has been different. Maybe Menechino told him the same thing he told Vaughn, concentrate on being a .300 hitter. Has that hurt the HR power ? Maybe ? Of course HR's are down all around baseball with the different ball. MLB has to find out what they want to do and quit fucking around with the ball and pitching rubber. It's hard enough to assess your talent without screwing with all that. With all that in mind perhaps Menechino had the foresight to just tell guys like Vaughn, Mercedes and Robert to get the approach better and use your hands more if your bat is quick enough to make those kinds of adjustments. It can be sustained even if you don't have a penchant for taking walks like it has with Timmy or Madrigal if you are willing to go the other way and sacrifice power.

Thank you . I am very far though from having an opinion on his defense. All I can say is he hasn't hurt the Sox so far but the more he plays the OF that will come as it does for even the best OFer's. I would imagine he will below average or even well below average in the OF just based on sprint speed, which will limit the amount of good plays he can make and those will pile up as he plays more and more. My hope is that he plays the majority of his career where he belongs at 1st base. It's nice that in extreme circumstances he has been versatile enough to cover LF .

Right now there is a long way to go before we have to worry about who sits between Yermin, Vaughn , Eloy and Robert when Eloy and Robert return. 1st off in your scenario who plays RF and who plays LF ? Either Vaughn or Eloy will have to change positions. Eloy doesn't have the arm for RF and has never played there except when he was possibly 25 lbs lighter in the minors. Vaughn has never played RF . So many scenarios can develop between now and then and we will certainly get a more accurate reading on Vaughn's defense by then. We have to see how Engel hits when he gets back. Will Yermin and Vaughn keep hitting ? How will Robert look when he returns .No need to argue about it any more now. Let's let it play out and see. I still don't get your point about the injury being caused by a proper lack of stretching or conditioning rather than sprinting. He has to sprint in the OF and on the bases . That type of injury is likely to happen from sprinting.It is more likely to happen if you are poorly conditioned. You are not going to get a major injuring from jogging if your flexibility is affected by poor conditioning or stretching. Those injuries happen when you are giving max effort .

I wonder when he told Vaughn this. Hit the ball hard work on getting the BA/OBP up because with his approach and power he is certainly capable of sustained offensive production that will help the team without that many HR's. Drive the ball ,get some doubles and the HR's will come.

I understand Vaughn passes the eye test because he hasn't botched anything yet. The way Statcast and Baseball Savant grades OFers is using a 5 Star system that uses Outs Above Average . For the sake of a shorter explanation I'll ignore the 1 and 5 star catches since the majority of OF are not going to catch a lot of 5 Star opportunities while most will catch 1 Star opportunities. Eloy for his career is a -14 and ranks 258th among OFers with at least 100 opportunities to make 1-5 Star Catches (OAA). In 3 Star Catches he has caught 7 of 19 or 36.8 % playing only LF . For context I'll use Leury Garcia and Adam Engel , 2 OFers with greater speed and jumps. Engel has caught 44 of 47 3 Star opportunities for a whooping 93.6 % and a Career OAA + 48 . He is ranked 8th among all OFers in OAA with at least 100 opportunities. Leury Garcia is 22 for 28 in 3 Star catches 78.6 %. His Career OAA is 0 . His rank among those OFers with 100 opportunities is 144th . It's too early to say how Vaughn would eventually grade out as an OF because he is far from having 100 opportunities. For Vaughn I had to lower the amount of Opportunities to 25 so his overall rank will include a lot more OF's than those with 100 opportunities. He has had 1 opportunity to make a 3 Star catch and did not make it . He has had 1 chance to make a 2 star catch and made it. 2 chances to make 1 Star catch and made them both. His rank among OF's with between 25-49 chances is 268th. Even when his chance to make these types of catches increases he wont become better he will become worse because of his lack of speed. His OAA is -2. I know Buxton's latest injury and Robert's were both the same kind of injuries (hip flexors) while sprinting to 1st base but telling me they didn't happen playing the OF is splitting hairs. You sprint playing OF and you sprint running the bases. It could have happened doing either. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/catch_probability?type=player&min=25&year=ALL&total=5

I'm not exaggerating at all. 2 of the best speed 5 tools guys in baseball Buxton and Robert can't stay healthy and you want Robert to do even more than he has been doing. Having Vaughn and Eloy both in corners with Robert in CF is not the kind of defensive OF i want in the playoffs or long term. What you are expecting from Robert is the exaggeration especially after the injury.

I have an example of a guy who can't stay healthy running around. Oh yea it's Luis Robert. Pretty funny how you ignore all the running that comes from hitting and stealing bases.

Laughably naive take unless you were being facetious.

Errors are not the same as being slow. Yes he is competent but that's a lot different than covering the ground necessary to make catches down the line or in the gap that faster OF's can get to. Any athlete, even the best ones wear down over the course of a long season especially one's who aren''t used to playing 150+ games per season . That applies to Robert. Remember Robert at his best is also a base stealing, turning singles in doubles and doubles into triples type hitter. That's a lot running and sliding and he hasn't proved he can stay healthy doing all that yet for long stretches. I get a little concerned that some fans expect so much from guys like Vaughn or Robert . They are not super human.

We all get what kind of speed and athleticism Robert has. We want defensive competence in the corners because it's just better for the team and better for Robert. If you have some speed in the corners Robert won't have to wear himself out covering for defensively challenged corner OF's. Robert hasn't helped his rep as being injury prone so the less diving and covering for slow footed OF's the fresher he can stay. He is the last guy on the team I want worn out when the Sox are in the playoffs. It's bad enough covering for 1 OF who is slow or defensively challenged, 2 would be terrible, even if it appears that's where the Sox are headed this post season barring any major trades.

20 seems high for Vaughn. Would be great if both Yermin and AV could reach 20 but with the ball not carrying, the warmer weather may not yield the results in power we are hoping for. I'm going to set the over/under on HR's for Vaughn at 13 and for Yermin 19 . The season is already 1/5 over.

I don't think he still counts as a rookie does he ? I'm pretty sure he has lost his rookie eligibility.

Having good hands helps and I have noticed he compresses his stance too, makes himself shorter .

My prediction is we see everyone where they are supposed to be tomorrow .

Down 0-2 down 6 runs a guy like Cruz might. I mean look at it again . He didn't move a muscle.Likely was expecting a waste pitch or a breaking pitch out of the zone like the high sliders he was swinging through earlier or a curve in the dirt. He already had a couple hits up the middle.

Are you angry at Mercedes because you didn't bet on him to win ROY ? Would never have expected you to say replace Mercedes with Abreu !

I doubt Cruz cared much at that point down 0-2, down 6 runs. He made no attempt at it .He probably just said to himself down 0-2 probably will throw a ball and if he aces me IDGAF.

He's got a way to go to catch up to other rookies as best rookie on the Sox and about 10 guys ahead of him for Team MVP. If Vaughn can have a Mercedes like month he'll catch up fast and he'll definitely have to start hitting HR's.

He also eliminates the leg kick and doesn't really stride either. He just transfers weight back foot to front foot.

LOL what else is new ? Plenty threw in the towel on the season after the Robert injury . Tony's Boys Don't Quit ? The Rookies did pretty well Mercedes, Vaughn and Madrigal combined 3/8, 3BB, RS and RBI while Crochet got the Sox out of a jam in the 6th in a 3-3 game and picked up his 1st MLB win. BP did a great job , Abreu HR, Tim 2 hits , RBI . Eaton getting going again after playing hurt for a while 2 hits, RBI. Grandal with the 3 run bomb after the Sox fall behind 3 -0. Beeee utiful !

The Rookies kept doing their thing today. Yermin 2/3, BB, RS, Vaughn 0/1, 2 BB, Madrigal 1/4, RBI and Garrett Crochet with his 1st win as an MLB pitcher by pitching .2 innings to get the Sox out of a jam on a pop fly and a K in the top of the 6th when it was still a 3-3 game !

I'll go with Mercedes since he's already got a big head start but quite a long stretch to go also. Hard for a reliever to win ROY but if Kopech's innings can be managed well enough he has a chance to be the Most Valuable Rookie among the Sox rooks if he get's moved into the rotation late in the season.

Yes but also to let a semi new poster know it's available so he can access all our minor league affiliates daily since some newcomers may not stray from Pale Hose Talk or use everything Soxtalk.com has to offer.

https://www.mlb.com/video/greg-s-list-top-rookies?t=mlb-network This is a video of Greg Amsinger of MLB Network Top 10 Rookies . 3 Sox players are on the list, Mercedes, Kopech and Madrigal and we also have Vaughn and Crochet as rookies doing well. It's going to be quite interesting for rookie of the year. It will be a hard choice just to pick the Sox ROY when all is said and done this year. Have at it. Pick the ROY and if you don't think a Sox player will win it, pick the Most Valuable Rookie you expect from the Sox when the season ends. If anyone knows how to embed the video here it would be appreciated

Don't Cease , get it get it !!