CaliSoxFanViaSWside

I meant in terms of perhaps getting Canning or making a trade for a young MLB ready arm not the retreads. There's giving guys runway like Acuna , I'm just not sure that runway includes the ability to keep 2 guys for a full season who last pitched in A+ . That's miles of runway.

Guess that depends on how Paez and Alberto look so can carry a lot of guys in ST and if those Rule 5 guys just dont make a great impression they both might be returned. Even if Paez is already in the Sox Top 15 prospects its extremely difficult to make the jump from A+ for either of those guys.

I recently watched the Jeff Torborg documentary, A Wonderful Baseball Life ,made by the same people that brought you The Last Comiskey 3 part series on Youtube. It's so good along with Part 3 of the Last Comiskey which focused on the incredible season the 1990 Sox had in the last season of Old Comiskey park with Torborg as manager. Your meme about having a chance reminded me that the 1989 young Sox team was 69-92 and then under Torborg in 1990 won 94 games before eventually falling short of the roided up Oakland A's. So many fun memories and stories . The giant jock strap hanging from the LF upper deck was hilarious ! If you ever get cynical about culture, hearing about Torborg and the 1990 Sox might remind you that a good clubhouse along with belief and talent can go a long way. Just visit the Last Comiskey channel on youtube for some great Sox content celebrating some good times. "It reminds you of what once was good, and can be again". - James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams.

I watched it this morning. Always nice to hear from the new guys.

Benintendi isnt a prospect so no reason to use him at in an argument whatsoever. Anderson vs Colson comparison has to do with projecting Colson's less than half a season with a full career of Anderson. Colson can certainly regress, stay the same or even get better at some parts of his game and regress in others. Pretty easy to see a bright future for him . Or you can just refuse to see it. That was what your original post was about. Then you used 3 examples of players with speed and defense whose careers were models of flashes of greatness but overall wouldnt even get them in the Hall of Very Good because of injuries. Are your arguments now that you can see it because you used 3 poor examples and the Sox still have some prospects that havent graduated to MLB (Bonemer, B.Montgomery) yet and also havent even played a game for the Sox ( Carlson) or even drafted yet ( the 1:1) ? Can't count on Murakami as a core piece because he is a unique young player who many teams didnt want to take a chance on because a Schwarber outcome is strictly a 1B/DH and seems pretty unlikely . It was unlikely in the Cubs mind for Schwarber to be what he became when he was nontendered. There are people all over the country who can " see " very good futures for a lot of the rookies from last year and rookies of the future Sox. I don't think I went out on a limb to think they might end up with some pretty good players who's careers can eclipse the 3 examples you gave just by staying on the field and reaching some of their upside. 2026 will help or hurt. That's the nature of the game. Schwarber was 27 when the Cubs non-tendered him. Colson was a great prospect, then a bust , now MLB Network ranked him the 88th best player in the game based on 71 games. I understand baseball is a very difficult sport to predict the future and what we "see" can just be based on how we interpret probability ,ability, projectability or our level of belief that since it's the Sox, so fallability is certain. Edit: Caulfield respectfully, you should probably not use your memory of TA if you arent going to fact check what you say to glorify him. No doubt his flair appealed to many fans but he did not win Multiple batting titles , he won 1. He also never stole as much as 30 bases let alone 40 when you said "30 to 40". I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were just remembering wrong rather than exaggerating to make your point seem stronger.

Caulfield are you being purposefully deceptive ? You're a longtime baseball fan. You know very well that Moncada quickly lost any speed he had and defensively he failed at 2nd base. Tim Anderson may have had defensive tools but was an average at best defensive SS. Robert and Moncada were great prospects who ability was severely tarnished by their availability. Of course there are a lot of other ways to measure players. Health is a very key factor . There is much more emphasis on OBP by Getz. Moneyball has been around a long time. Moncada was the only one who could take a walk of the 3 you mentioned. So consistently available above average play over a longer period of time is a way to " turn out better" since somehow a seasoned baseball fan such as yourself has trouble seeing it. Of course power plays a big part. Having 4 or 5 guys who can consistently, year after year hit 20-30 HR is better than a few who couldnt stay on the field long enough to show it. Most of the new group just finished their rookie years and for most not even a full season .As you mentioned there are more (hitters and pitchers) coming including the 1:1 . So just try using a little imagination and projectability and it isn't so hard to see. It's not like you gave examples of consistently good players. They were sporadically good at best. And Moncada's best season came in the bouncy ball year when career years abounded.

Welcome to Tox-Talk 😉

2nd week in March is right in the middle of the WBC so no Murakami, Ohtani, Teel, Dominquez, Antonacci, Mead, Will Smith, Yamamoto, Edwin Diaz and a couple others from the Dodgers that you likely wouldnt care about missing them.

Wasn't Verlander so meh.

When are you expecting him to be called up ? And to play where ? Dependent on a Sosa trade ?

But Baldwin you project for some kind of offensive and defensive breakout so dont you think some of his OF time comes in CF to add to the cumulative WAR total ?

Murakami isnt likely to accumulate too much WAR but 40 HRs would be great. Maybe 1.5 - 2 WAR .I don't see how Acuna could cancel it out. He should be like Robert in that his defense and baserunning nets him a some WAR . I doubt he'll be a negative WAR player. Berroa is already throwing and there's some minor indication that he hit 102 already if you saw the post from @Autumn Dreamin. No one's said he could ready opening day. That seems ambitious but if he really is throwing that hard already maybe it's not so ambitious. But who knows if that clip of him throwing and the little comic character Berroa with a voice bubble with 102 in it in the bottom left corner was just a joke.

I think I didnt make myself clear and it was a minor point of contention any . But in a previous post you put your own personal O/U at 75 wins. Btw best to use a number like 74.5 so you don't have any ties. But regardless . I take that 75 to mean that it's your prediction of the number of wins all things good or bad being equal so that you try to get an equal amount of bets on each side of the number. Thats almost 10 wins above the Vegas line of 65.5 so you are more bullish on the Sox than bookies are by a large margin. But you just lowered it to 70 wins so I took that 75 win total that was already bullish all things being equal and figured that now you were talking about extra extra bullish the win total would be significantly over .500 maybe 85-90 wins. Sox would have a lot more, HRs better starting pitching , higher OBP and better relief pitching for full seasons of guys instead of 2/3 , 1/2 or whatever. Maybe we just have a different definition of what the O/U means. Apparently you'd bet the over in Vegas but bet the under in your own O/U ?

You mentioned an awful lot of good things happening with the hitting and starting and relief pitching. If you already think the Sox are capable of 75 wins with only some of those things happening how is it they're barely above . 500 with a bunch of other good things happening ? Are they still trading Slater, Dominquez or perhaps Murakami because they are short term assets and creating a worse 2027 season that now relies on a Braden Montgomery, Hagen Smith, Schultz, Antonacci, Bonemer and if Cholowsky is drafted a quick developmental time line for him now that the core and the BP are more established ? I know I'm just extrapolating it out farther then you did to build a timeline but each successive year needs to have young player after young player succeed. Sooner later you have to spend to keep some players long term. And the international signing period is still a huge question mark until we can development some 16 year olds which may not happen for another 6 years . Tampa Bay as a model is a good start but they are well established doing what they do. Although they have come close , they never got the brass ring at their peak. Now theyre back in a bit of a dip while the money teams just buy their ways out of dips while Tampa Bay gets poached and loses their best people. The top of the pile usually buys a lot of pitching and drafts a lot of hitters. Without a spender owning the team its hard to sustain even limited success even with a strong foundation that develops players because it takes a lot of players to win year after year if you always have to trade away your best guys. Sucks to be stuck in neutral waiting on the new owner but until then would be nice to be above . 500 a few years in a row make the playoffs a year or 2 and still maintain and improve player development. Oh yeah squeeze in a new stadium too. I hope the Pope has a nice long reign.

I think Id rather fantasize that in a competive year others develop to fill high leversge BP roles like W.Gonzalez, Berroa or Paez. Or the starting pitching breaks out among those already with enough innings under their belts along with those position player hitting breakouts you mentioned and some defensive breakouts too from Baldwin along with an offensive side breakout too. The depth would be so much better with unexpected quality results . Maybe some of the other TJ guys besides Berroa can contribute too .

These alternate timelines are pure fantasy. Youre taking what turned out to be a great path for him and saying that another path could have produced the same result now that you know the final outcome. Crochet was not some dominant starting pitcher in college. He pitched more in relief than he did as a SP. His final year he only pitch 3 innings because he missed the opening 3 weeks of the season with a mild shoulder sprain finally made a start and then the season was wiped out by Covid. The Sox only drafted him because he had a big lefthanded arm . Scout were split between his potential as a 1 or 2 starter but knew the high probability to be a high leverage reliever . The problem with the fan fantasy is you're projecting almost every decision made ending up best case scenario and linear development where everything goes right. You nor anyone else explains that part of their "argument". It just magically happens. Whenever I see this opinion ( not just by you) I never see a fan give me a timeline of this fantasy such as Crochet spends his 1st 3 years developing in the minors building up his arm and innings and does not ever need TJ surgery and is never hurt or is it he still needs TJ surgery but when does it happen ? He never has shoulder sprains or forearm tightness or mechanical issues ? What year does TJ happen ,his 1st 2nd or 3rd year in the minors ? Does his body then handle the surgery and rehab the same way it did after he was named opening day starter in 2024 ? Does he develop the cutter in the minors without Bannister's help since Getz didnt hire Bannister til Sept. 22, 2023. Or does the rebuild never happen because this magical version of Crochet result in the 1st rebuild having sustained success ? Or maybe he's still in the minors developing when the 1st rebuild collapses. When does he succeed as a starting pitcher ? Is it still in 2024 ? So they dont trade him because now he has 5 more years of eligibility only now there's no Teel , Braden M., Meidroth,W. Gonzalez. So do we then not end up with the 1:1 pick ? How does his presence alter our other draft picks ? These fan fiction scenarios of a perfectly linear development with every decision along the way turning out with the maximum amount of service time with Crochet ending up the same dominant pitcher is just silly. You might as well write baseball comic books with multi-verses where every Sox player is a super hero.

Or something went very right with Newcombe as a SP. Not likely at his age given upside wishcasting is easier with guys in their mid 20's, but just giving another version.

I think Getz has done a great job not rushing guys. Schultz, Hagen,Braden, Oppor should all get more minor league time. It wouldn't surprise me if McDougal gets 1st crack at the 26 as a starter . Vasil, Newcombe,Burke, Cannon , maybe Davitt in the mix for starting the season in the rotation . Highly doubtful any rookie pitcher makes starts unless its Paez and I expect Thorpe, Sandlin or Davitt will get starts before Hagen, Schultz or Oppor . Depends on how Thorpe's AAA rehab assignment goes. With Thorpe you get the feeling he could dominate the minors in his sleep before he got hurt more than guys like Schultz and Hagen who have better stuff. If either one of them finds very effective 3 pitches with command is when we see Crochet like dominance. Command though is very elusive.

I think its easy to generalize about the spending and youre probably right but Im not talking about a trend. I'm talking about this specific year before the strike . It's a few days before pitchers and catchers report. While I havent invested the time to compare FA signings last year to this year there seems to be a lot more "name" players still unsigned. People talked about why Murakami got what he got and why it was a good signing. If I told any Sox fan he'd 49 bombs this year like Suarez did last year they'd be ecstatic. Suarez , who had a 3.8 fWAR also, signed for 1 year $15M . I realize. he's coming up on his age 35 season . I also reslize his OBP was .298 his wRC+ was 125 and SLG .526 . Suarez must be thinking wtf do I have to do to get paid after that kind of season. Youd think someone wouldve happily given Suarez 2 yrs $40M which was basically what Murakami got counting the posting fee.

Statcast has some flaws too. It still needs a decent sample size. We often just look at the numbers but forget about how big the sample is they are grading. I used to constantly tell people that despite Andrew Vaughn's adequate LF rating his 1st year in the OF that he was much too slow for that assessment to mean anything going forward. He caught what he was supposed to catch and didnt botch fielding hits. But there is batted ball luck for fielders too and he didn't get a lot of difficult chances and once the sample size got bigger we'd get a more accurate read. And we did. No one with Baldwin's speed should get a 4 out of 100 in Range like we see on Baseball Savant. We saw him look bad on some routine stuff. Reading flyballs off the bat takes time. Doesnt seem like he's spent too much time in the OF in his life. If his bat develops like we saw in the 2nd half of the season and the reps improve his range his upside is high 700 or low 800 OPS. At that point it'll be his defense that determines how high his WAR can get. I don't think his arm will rack up assists so he'll have to improve his defensive fundamentals. If everything works out he's our future Leftfielder with Braden M. in RF. Venable has already said to keep an eye on Baldwin early in the season at Soxfest.

If anything can be gleaned from the owners actions this off season they're not in a middle tier spending mood . Plenty of guys not getting contracts as big as expected. Could be bracing for an extended lock out.