CaliSoxFanViaSWside

No idea why they didn't just keep pounding Flowers up and in with the fastball.

You can spin it any way you want to. "Increased spending on analytics ." Is that supposed to impress anyone ? Do you how much they spent ? Do you know how far behind the rest of the league they are ? "Increased modernization" ? Where ? Show me . Did they add another minor league team . They have 7 minor league teams which is as little as there is in baseball when other teams have 8 or 9. If they are supposed to have wave after wave of talent from the minors how do you develop it using minimum resources . Minimum teams , minimum staff , and trading their surplus intl. FA money every season for the last 2 or 3 seasons. Sorry if I don't remember .May have been in the penalty 3 season ago but still could ve signed guys to $300,000 contracts Is that how you add talent to sustain winning ? "Willingness to spend a lot of money, something they hadn't shown in franchise history." Actually the Albert Belle contract was the biggest at the time. They supposedly came in second for Tanaka. Yet the Machado contract put in stipulations that safeguarded the Sox against player injury while KW whined "All he had to do is stay on the field" for an aging player which isn't that easy. That's a serious offer ? They did the same thing to Frank Thomas basically with the diminished skills clause. He has to keep repeating himself because guys like you and others are apologists for the teams failures. But rest assured he is not alone in the way he feels and if I had to guess I'd say the board is split pretty evenly on believing that this rebuild will result in multiple championships or sustained success. So now the issue is extensions which everyone thinks is a great thing which Yoan said. But what did the extensions for Eaton, Sale and Quintana lead to besides a good start to the rebuild ? Did it lead to any winning season ? Playoffs ? Sustained success ? Keep blowing smoke up everyone's ass and there will be those who have every right to tell you that you are full of it. I get it you don't want to hear his negative responses but his posts are a lot more truthful than yours and your belief in the current Front office and ownership. Excuse the rest of us who are in "prove it" mode.

This is how I feel as do others judging on the likes on your post. Hahn has locked up guys in the past and it led to nothing but a bunch of stiffs free agents, Same old methods same old results. Nothing new nothing unique.

Sounds like what I've been saying about Gennett for about a month ,OF and/or supersub , and often repeating myself. Welcome aboard.

Then we agree on that regardless of our differing opinions on Anderson. I'm just not ruling out Moncada back to 2nd base because of Madrigal like you are. Positional versatilty is a good thing. Whatever helps the team maximize the finite payroll I am in favor . Gregorious probably a better fit payroll wise than Rendon but the Sox can afford Rendon if they chose to go after him and still afford starting pitchers too. Rendon is also the much better player.

Agree to disagree.

Finite meaning limited or having boundary so yes the Sox have finite resources. Did I miss something ? Or are you just nitpicking again to avoid focusing on the bigger picture like is your way of doing? Even with finite resources they can sign a Rendon and 2 $20M a year starting pitchers.That would equal about a payroll increase of $70M for 2020 . That's doable.

Lol well I followed your post by saying it was a great idea and that good teams like TB ,who possibly have the most limited payroll in baseball, have used positional versatility to their advantage along with a great analytical department. Those are 2 areas that the Sox are not great at and I knew there would be plenty of opposition to it. It might be crazy to some but those are areas that need to be explored fully. I don't care if it's your superstar to has that positional versatile or the 2nd best player or 3rd best etc but the Cubs had a high quality player like Zobrist when they won the WS and the Astros had a high quality guy like Marwin Gonzalez when they won the WS also.

Yeah I don't like using a Boras shill as some great source of information on what actually happened.

Oh so the Nats moved Rendon what a novel concept and he just happened to become one of the best 3rd basemen in the majors . But yet Moncada shouldn't be moved to the OF or back to 2nd base because it might just so happen that it would improve the team greatly. But sure lets keep talking about the finite resources and for a team with a ton of payroll space. After all it's not about winning . I too like Madrigal but let's not pretend he is a sure thing and if Moncada becomes an OF or Rendon plays 3rd and Moncada OF that still leaves room for Madrigal at 2nd base. Plus they could still upgrade the pitching if Rendon was the only expensive position player they go after .

I think he was asking for the word straight from Moncada's mouth not your opinion.

So talking about inane you are all for moving Anderson the established star at SS to the OF ( and for the record I would be too because it MIGHT be for the betterment of the team) but you want Moncada who is clearly the best player on the Sox to stay at 3rd because he played well there 1 year and crappy at 2nd base for 1 year. A year that his hitting was so bad it couldve affected his fielding for Madrigal a guy who hasn't proven anything yet. I am not saying my ideas are the best course of action. My thinking is the Sox have to be flexible if they want to create ways to make the most of their payroll when we all know payroll concerns are among the things that will hurt the completion of the rebuild. You know its a big picture kind of view not tunnel vision

Winning matters more.

No need for an infielder when he just happens to be the best position player available and would make the team much better ? I know pitching is a huge need and I really don't think RF and C or DH are positions we have to throw much money at if you can get some versatile guys like a Gennett to provide depth at 2nd base OF DH,1st base . So yes pitching should be a priority but to say there's no room for Rendon is crazy talk.

Maybe you 're not moving him again but I would . And you didn't answer one of my questions .All you did was call Maddon an idiot and give a mysterious answer for why Baez was moved.

That's also an option if changing positions is something he'd agree to which is the biggest consideration when signing him. If he won't but would sign as a 3rd baseman then you move Yoan.

Was Kris Bryant the best player on the Cubs playing multiple positions ? Ben Zobrist on TB ? Was not Javy Baez a 2nd baseman until the Cubs had problems with Addison Russell ? Do the Sox want to win ? If so positional versatility is an option to be explored. Do you think his hitting is tied to what position he plays? Do you know for sure he wouldn't be a good OFer ? Do you know for sure that because of one season each at 2 different positions that he is really better at 3rd base than 2nd base ? Is it feasible that being a bad hitter last year affected his fielding at 2nd base ?

Look MoanforYoan knows I have come down on him hard also for being overly negative but that hasn't stopped us from having decent baseball discussions. ANd yes the market has been shitty for FA's lately so you are right there. There's really no telling who get's what offers at this time. But Moan is far from the only one on the board who keeps thinking FA's are going to be more expensive than they end up being. MLBTR runs a whole website talking about who is going to get what and from who and every year people buy into it.

What he wants is besides the point. The main point was to explore positional versatilty more like TB does do to create payroll flexibility. For a board that prides itself on modern thinking that idea is used to great advantage by a team like TB . If the Sox keep crying about future payroll obligations whenever they miss out on a FA then start acting more like a mid to small market team and do something that's been around since the moneyball era to diversify how the payroll is used.

Thank you . I think Abreu belongs at DH but multiple data points as you say suggest he is not bad. In support of my 5 yrs of 100 RBI's stance I also brought up the sabermetric clutch stat which is WPA and leveraged index, a stat none of those guys seem to know anything about or choose to ignore by making witty ( and i use that term loosely) comments making fun of RBI's by comparing them to antiquated medical things. It's just the last resort when you can't support your case with your baseball knowledge. Baseball discussion good. Being a jerk bad.

Cheaper is not necessarily bad when a guy like Dickerson has an OPS+ of 125. It's not ideal that he doesn't have a lot of AB's but if he did and still had that 125 OPS + then he probably wouldn't be cheap,The guy has a career .502 Slg. and .829 OPS and 119 OPS+. In his 200 AB's this year with 2 teams he has a .300 BA .341 OBP .555 Slg. .896 OPS and 128 OPS+ .

I love these ideas Why ? Because I have been saying Rendon is a target if we just move Moncada back to 2nd base which is where he always wanted to be anyway considering Cano was his idol. I never thought of Moncada playing RF but I like it. There's your left handed power hitting RF'er. I know most people will hate the idea but one aspect of exploring market inefficiencies that doesn't get a lot of play with the Sox and the board doesn't seem to like it either is POSITIONAL VERSATILITY. One of the best organizations in baseball Tampa Bay uses it a lot and so do the Cubs. The Sox, not so much. But if the Sox are going to act like a mid or even small market team then they need to act more like the Tampa Bay Rays. If they are always going to cry poor when they fail to sign FA's then start acting like you know how to use positional versatility to create payroll flexibility.

Lol OK I'll try another narrative. How bout this one ? The Sox seem to come in 2nd an awful lot when they supposedly offer big money to FA's. Machado and Tanaka come to mind . Sorry if I can't remember more. You of all people shouldn't be arguing to have faith in the FO . Even Hahn said he gets it why people don't trust the Sox front office doing things they don't usually do.

Oh interesting . Does he have decent speed for a 1st baseman ?

I was pretty high on Bumgarner before his 2nd half resurgence but I'm starting to agree that I'd be mildly shocked if he left the NL.