CaliSoxFanViaSWside

What I think doesn't matter. Opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one. I'm not in the loop on these things. What does it matter if the Sox have or haven't discussed an offer with him. He isn't coming here.

Yes it is. You're on the clock to win a world series . You got a free agent without many suitors who wants to play on a contender, likes your coaching staff, actually wants to be here, who is open to some kind of oddly structured contract, and the Sox, who tell you all about multiple championships and the money will be spent, look the gift horse in the mouth because JR can't spend more than last year because the poor owners lost so much money .

If it was written in stone by the hand of God for our leaders to lead us to the promised land it would be news. But it's not . Most still expect him to start in the minors for the extra year.

Also Madrigal and a better Robert whose upside is better than anyone on the team. Hopefully Moncada can get back to where he was and we still haven't seen the best of Eloy either. Anderson could get better too even though some expect some regression. But judging by the last 2 years and the Oakland playoff series where he got 9 hits in 3 games he's still got some upside at 27/28 years old.

Assistant Director, Player Development: Kenny Williams Jr.

You know how subjective rankings are. Any evaluator can rank a prospect who never makes it to the majors. Happens all the time. They rank on skills that include hitting and fielding for position players. The older a guy gets and the more he DH's that removes half his skillset that would get him ranked. I'm not sure if Future Sox ever had Yermin in their top 30. I think MLB .com ranked him purely on how well he hit in AAA when Robert was putting up the great numbers there to justify his ranking which had always been high based on skillset. He also had the big signing bonus . Yermin had nothing on his side. Bounced around the low minors, independent ball. When no one believes in you coming from down that far purely based on hitting skills and some ability to catch is actually phenomenal. The younger guy will always get promoted before him. But he persevered. He stayed healthy and just kept knocking the cover off the ball until he got noticed. I don't know how bad his catching is. The little we saw in the spring the last few years didn't look bad but it's too hard to tell with seeing so few innings. He's not a full time catcher but he could easily handle 3rd catcher and DH. I do remember he looked terrible at 3rd base but so did Vaughn and Vaughn didn't look so great at 1st base either. But Vaughn had the big college years, high draft choice, scouts raving about him as one of the best pure hitters in years. Yermin has done more as a hitter at higher levels then Vaughn but Vaughn is an MLB top 30 prospect and Yermin can't even make the Sox top 30. Either one is highly over rated and the other highly under rated or perhaps a little bit of both if all they are is DH's.

That's a great comparison. Nordhagen was a rookie at 27 and for the next 6 years put up pretty good numbers for the Sox. He didn't take many walks but his BA was .290 , 110 OPS+ and .761 SLG for his Sox time and had good pop. He was a DH/C . He even pitched 2 innings in 1979.

Well I like this Hawks team. Very competitive so far. Lankinen looks amazing so far. The PP is clicking. Despite the lack of talent I'd say they actually have better play makers but not finishers. To me that's the main reason the PP have been looking good. They've had very pretty passing plays on the PP resulting in goals and better play around the net.

The thread was a nice premise but getting anyone to try to stick to your rules was an exercise in futility. People have their own agendas and ideas on who they would have kept in the previous year because if you are the GM then they figure they were the GM in previous years with the benefit of hindsight and doing things like keeping McCann over Grandal when that is a silly idea. Sox needed OBP and a strong LH bat and stability . It's why Grandal was signed. McCaan provided none of those things and certainly not stability unless your imagination magically makes him forego Free Agency when it will be the one time in his career to enter the market with good seasons behind him. They also got to see McCann have better results catching our ace and Giolito somehow becoming a worse pitcher without McCann is terrifying to them. All with Grandal on the roster to provide him rest and ideal situations to perform. The hindsight in that thinking is 20/20. No one knows how McCann would have played as the No.1 catcher without Grandal around. I was McCanns biggest supporter on the board when they got him and when after his 1st year performance people still hated him citing his numbers dropping in the 2nd half even though he put up career numbers offensively . That hating was just more agendas of people who had said he sucked when we got him trying to justify continuing the he sucks message. His hitting in 2020 solidified that the changes he made were real and now all of a sudden McCann was as good as if not better than Grandal to the people who were having problems with Grandal. Even the Sox, who started off with 3 catchers ,abandoned that idea which meant McCann would now get less AB's because of the full commitment to EE at DH. Renteria had to go so I will agree with you on that but not for the reason you said. I had long arguments with lots of people saying the same thing you did. Renteria panicked and he panicked the team. I'm sorry but it's just not true. The Sox were just not as good as many thought they were. I assume that you mean by he panicked because he took out Dunning in the 1st inning. The Sox had a 3-0 lead after 3 innings with a pretty well rested BP. The Sox lost because they had no 3rd starter, the BP had to absorb the Crochet injury and then they sucked and the Sox hitters blew a lot scoring opportunities . That loss was squarely on the players and an unfortunate injury. I don't see how anyone can say they lost the game in the 1st inning unless they also make up an imagery scenario where these highly paid professionals panicked and mass hysteria ensued amongst the hitters and pitchers as if a gunman was spraying them all with bullets and they were frozen with fear.

I Know you'd trade Madrigal in a heartbeat but it isn't ridiculous to say if Madrigal and Crochet both stay with the Sox Madrigal likely means more to the Sox than Crochet in the next 2 years. If the Sox could have moved Crochet to help the team but insisted on Madrigal as a centerpiece instead I think they made a mistake.

I don't care about that at all.

Isn't Callaway the guy who didn't like Bauer ?

If the PECOTA stuff is to be believed those numbers don't exactly look like playoff numbers so Fuck Pecota.

Surprising they give Keuchel such a bad FIP . He has had only 2 seasons his whole career with an FIP worse than 4.41 and one was his rookie year and the other was the short season with Atlanta. They must be highly conservative giving 2 semi older pitchers like Keuchel and Lynn so much regression coming off very good seasons.

They have Madrigal with a higher OPS than Robert which is pretty hard to believe. However it did happen last year as I pointed out a while ago. But over a long season theres no way that happens. Robert would have to hit like he did when he slumped last year for multiple months. I think there's a good chance he moves forward in a highly positive way this year. It would help tremendously.

Vaughn will be 23 in April . You hold him down for a year and he's 24 next year. It's time to start seeing what we have. He was supposed to be one of the best college bats in a long time. You can't keep delaying him because of Covid and not getting Minor League AB's. The Sox trust what they saw of him in Schaumburg enough that its reasonable to assume he's going to get a lot of AB's this year. You have superstars in the league putting up great number by 22 yrs old and younger in some cases. He needs to face MLB pitching now . And I say this as a guy who has always cautioned against expecting too much too soon for Vaughn.

I think your thinking on this is correct . I don't think there will be a pitcher in all of baseball to pitch 200 innings in 2021. However I am thinking that 162 games being played is a long shot at this point in time. In the unlikely event all 162 are played I'm still not betting on anyone reaching 200 innings.

This is reasonable.

Just looking through the last full season in 2019 . I really couldn't find anyone who fits a low batting average with .380 OBP and near .500 Slg. Acuna was .250 , .406, .581 but that's .156 difference between BA and OBP which is super high. I'm thinking high OBP guys might have .100 difference between BA and OBP so to get .380 OBP you get .280 BA which I wouldn't consider low. Others below .250 couldn't come close to .500 Slg. So what I'm saying is if Vaughn is going to have a .380 OBO and near .500 Slg. he's going to also have a pretty decent BA . Grandal in 2019 .246, .380 , .468 again a large difference between BA and OBP of .134 which I think only the elite walk rate guys get and I guess .468 Slg is your definition of close to .500 ? Mine might be .480. Just saying I'm not expecting Vaughn to have an elite walk rate , nor a .380 OBP nor a close to .500 slugging. But I sure hope he can live up to your expectations. Also I'm confining my comments to just his 2021 numbers ,as the OP asked, not in his prime.

Did anyone in baseball do that last year with a low batting average? Seems kind of hard to do.

Just think of 100 being league average and every point above it as 1% above league average so 130 would be 30% above league average . It's a stat for how good you are offensively taking a lot into consideration, the more power the more you get on base the better.

Anyone that wants to go for the 130+ club, there are a lot of openings.

Gotta go with Balta here but I will vote for the 100-110 wRC+ just because I'm hoping he isn't a total wreck.

I like rosy. Sure I'm pessimistic on ownership but never on the players. To get enjoyment you have to say I'm not afraid of this or that. Such as I'm afraid we may be overestimating the young bullpen arms because they only pitched in division. Screw it . Or I'm afraid Moncada will never return to that 2019 year. It could've been a career year. Being a long time baseball fan those thoughts creep in your head but no sense worrying about them. As a whole the team will play well a lot. Hope they win a World Series. If not it was a long shot from the get go but we should be in the mix. JR gonna JR. I can't let him get me down too much.

Vaughn I can see the Sox trusting to get AB's. They didn't even seem to want Mercedes or Collins getting AB's in 2019 or 2020 so expecting it in 2021 seems a reach though without McCann it's more feasible . We'll see if the Sox sign a catcher.