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Any opinions on Matt Heidenreich ? I know he's been in the system for a while and is old for the league he's in (A) but he's put together a nice season. Thinking that he starts next year in AA and if he puts together another solid year he gets into the top 30 . Maybe not great stuff but pretty good command ?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 10:04 AM) "Big guy, big reach. Skinny guys fight 'til they're burger." Violation of 1st and 2nd rule !

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 09:44 AM) Glad you folks like the stories. Always appreciated and thanks to Daniel for his help. Have some stuff "in the can" already which will be released when Daniel sees fit including: My detailed interview / conversation with the late Billy Pierce from 2002. Billy talked about how he actually got into baseball, his memories about playing for the Sox and Giants and the people and events he met or was involved in for the seasons he was in 'the show.' And we've also submitted a look at "SportsVision - The Legacy" (remember that?) what it was and its impact on the Sox franchise. Also included are remembrances from Mike Leiderman, one of the anchors of SportsVision. Mark Love the stories but only tells the same old story over and over again. Sox didn't want to spend the money or didn't have the money to spend. Pretty much the Sox epitaph since their inception.

Danks did well but he was getting his pitches up and was laboring. Robin should've pulled him after the 1st 2 Royals got on base. Just say job well done and hope the BP does its job instead of insisting he go 6 innings.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 08:10 PM) I will say that having Bonifacio and Beckham on the bench to go with Leury is a complete joke. The reluctance of the Sox to cut ties with Bonifacio at this point of the season is crazy to me. No lefties on the bench was what I was thinking when I saw Flowers hitting but hell rather see Soto up there to PH.

The Rock finally teed off on one.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 07:58 PM) I can't see him changing his mechanics much, so I'm sure they'll keep him as a starter and just hope for the best. Oh I agree they want and badly need him to be a starter and a successful one.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 07:40 PM) Way more Lincecum-ish than Danish. Fulmer absolutely dominated the best conference in the NCAA. Biggest concern with him, IMO, is his mediocre command. I'm excited about his potential, but I have a feeling his first year will resemble Rodon's this year. L.Ron said earlier Danks delivery is max effort and that could describe Fulmer from what I've been reading and because of that some see him as a reliever. He night need a few years before we see him at the big league level.

That's it, golden opportunity and nothing to show for it just like earlier in the year.

Abreu 2 out of the zone swings . Not smart situational hitting.

Damnit Jose be smart !

Unintentional/intentional walk to Jose ?

Gotta go up the middle or left center Sally

Yes ! Tied

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 06:31 PM) Awful relay throw home by Sanchez. His defense has gotten worse as his offense has improved. I wouldn't call that poor defense , not the greatest execution but Sanchez doesn't make too many throws from that distance usually . And it was going to be bang bang with 2 outs.

Good job by Melky, got rid of it very quickly but Sanchez throw was high.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 06:26 PM) I didn't think it could get worse than Hawk-Rowand...enter Scotty Pods. I liked Hawk /Rowand . Rowand maybe needed reminding he was broadcasting with children listening and wasn't in a bar.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 7, 2015 -> 06:20 PM) What the hell, Hawk just blew off Pods' question to him. This is a shameful production. Pods doesn't exactly have a commanding presence in the booth . Hawk probably didn't hear it as a question , probably as a statement or didn't hear his name which was sort of mumbled.

Danks doing the Bumgarner on the Royals so far.

I swear sometimes I wish hitters had an earphone in their helmet. Don't these hitters know that once Volquez is ahead in the count he's going to just throw junk off the plate? (Abreu/Garcia) . I realize it's more difficult to hit with 2 strikes but damn they swung at crap.

Good job Danks. Volquez is keeping Sox hitters just off balance enough to get some outs on hard hit balls. The Sox will get to him in the next few innings.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 04:39 PM) Gotcha, thanks. Hopefully something clicked and he balls out the rest of the season. If Avi turns it around hitting wise many may point to the 2 consecutive HR's in 2 separate games. I would point to the walk that brought home the winning run as an AB that may be even better. 2 straight IBB to Abreu and Cabrera loaded the bases with one out. That kind of thing tends to piss a hitter off and he's got to have an itchy trigger finger wanting to drive home that winning run. That's just what the pitcher is counting on knowing Avi doesn't take many walks and also hits the ball on the ground a lot. Perfect double play fodder. But Avi ,surprisingly, shows restraint and doesn't offer at any of the crap the pitcher throws . He refuses to get himself out . He realizes the pitcher has to come to him with the bases loaded and he stays focused only looking for a pitch he can drive. A walk with the bases loaded might not be the most exciting way to win but it's effective. If Avi can do that more often , the classic "stay within yourself" he might just have turned a corner. Or maybe the pitcher was wild and Avi was frozen in fear

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 08:37 PM) Robin broke and dislocated his ankle when his spikes got caught in the mud sliding near home plate against the Red Sox. His foot literally was pointing 180 degrees opposite of the way it should. The injury was so gruesome that a woman in the first row of seats fainted. Yes the "White Flag Trade" was an unmitigated disaster for the Sox. Locally even mild mannered columnists like Bob Verdi were savage in their responses. Nationally ESPN's Baseball Tonight devoted almost their entire show that night to the trade. Joe Morgan was extremely caustic berating the organization. Dave "Soup" Campbell the same although not quite as bad. The "Sox Surrender" was the lead story that week in Sports Illustrated. The story quoted Alvarez and Hernandez as saying when manager Terry Bevington (a first rate buffoon) told them they were traded he was "laughing." The move did incredible damage to the organization on and off the field. Sox attendance dropped like a stone the next few seasons and even in 2000 when the team won 95 games, attendance wasn't that great. Fans simply did not trust Reinsdorf anymore. And remember this took place after the collusion issues in the mid 80's which former commissioner Fay Vincent accused JR of being a ringleader and of course the labor issue of 1994 which cost the Sox a potential trip to the playoffs and or World Series. Mark Thank you for reminding everyone of that. If anyone thinks JR has the Sox best interests at heart, think again. The reason for going for it every year is the bottom line. Has been that way and continues to be. When he passes his family and the investors will all make a huge profit on top of the profits they have already pocketed.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 06:59 PM) I think the thought process really went off the rails in the 2014 offseason. Fine, Adam Dunn and the 2011 team turned into a disaster. 2012 was somehow better, then in 2013 we had to begin tearing things down. We moved off Peavy, we cleared salary, we started giving time to young guys. We successfully brought in Abreu, so we started gathering pieces...then the 2014 offseason hit. In the 2014 offseason was where we really blew it. We made so many basic errors, so many flaws in our thought process. That's where we shortcut the path we were on that could have actually worked and could have actually worked at building a strong, deep roster. First on that list is that we couldn't be patient, we couldn't give time for guys to adapt to the big leagues, we knew with absolute certainty that they were ready to go and big leaguers never need time to grow into the league. Avi Garcia was ready right now and we were sure of it. Micah Johnson could jump completely over AAA because we said he would. Carlos Rodon was going to improve our record this season by 10 wins. Then we threw in a nice batch of assuming some guys would develop while other guys never would, because we said so. Phegley and Semien would never develop into anything useful because we said they wouldn't. Bassitt was talented but he's a reliever, guys never improve on their offspeed stuff. But hey, here's a big name pitcher off of a career best year. And the fan base fully bought in, continued declaring in the same breath that we gave up so little for that pitcher and then wondering how we had an organization with so little depth. Then there's the failure to assess risk. Conor Gillaspie and Tyler Flowers were going to be solid players because they had 1 year that showed it. There was no risk of them taking steps back. Abreu and Eaton were guaranteed to have better seasons than 2014. Alexei Ramirez had no risk of getting older and therefore we had to hold him because we can't afford to give anyone time to grow into his spot. Chris Sale's arm is rubber. Then there's the failure to think about defense. And yes, some of the guys they traded away weren't going to help with that, but then we plugged in guys who were no better, and we weren't willing to give guys time to improve on their defense or grow into positions. Then there's the assumption that paying full value on the free agent market is a good deal. That's just a lesson we need to learn, it's flat out not working for us. Or really, most teams - the teams that had great FA spending sprees last offseason are overwhelmingly disappointing right now. So fine, the team didn't have an obvious time to "rebuild" coming into 2014, but then they started the process in 2014 and then short circuited it. They couldn't be patient. They couldn't pass on 2015 and use it as a year to grow some guys up while filtering out the unsuccessful ones. They couldn't give people time to grow into their roles. They went for the big names instead of making sure they were deep with guys who could grow into contributors. They bet hugely on the whole roster taking big steps forwards and in the process, they set themselves back substantially. They had time, they had a roster that could have grown together and then had tiny holes to fill, instead they went for the big splashes, they had to compete right now, full speed ahead and bleep the torpedoes. And the end result is that now we're back to having to fill gaping holes on the FA market and worrying about a roster with little depth and we'll need to rely on rookies and we've got a lot of weak defenders but I'm sure it'll work better in 2016 so let's spend big again. Very good post . I'm surprised you were able to refrain from mentioning Adam LaRoche specifically who I know you had deep reservations on. Even at the trade deadline a ton of big names were thrown around while of course we'd have to give up more minor league depth , maybe even some of the prized prospects. I brought up a cheap alternative for a non big name like Chris Colabello and got some not so nice responses. He's exactly the kind of castoff who could have been had after the Twins said goodbye to him. With the acquisitions by Toronto he might've come cheaply and his splits are excellent for use as a DH or PH with power off the bench. In other words a depth guy with a pretty potent bat. I'll edit this to say I was completely on board with spending the money we had in the off season since I was one of the biggest proponents of trying to get Victor Martinez but I never had Adam LaRoche in mind as a substitute for VMart. Moral of the story: Instant gratification is never quite the answer fans seem to think it is.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Aug 5, 2015 -> 08:21 AM) Based on a pretty extensive track record. There are few exceptions for player decline when moving to the AL from the NL. Players to go NL to AL last season Previous league last season Other league first season Pablo Sandoval .279/.324/.415 113 OPS+ .259/.305/.385 89 OPS+ Hanley Ramirez .283/.369/.448 130 OPS+ .263/.304/.450 104 OPS+ Adam LaRoche .259/.362/.455 127 OPS+ .220/.312/.347 88 OPS+ Emilio Bonifacio .259/.305/.345 82 OPS+ .169/.200/.195 14 OPS+ Evan Gattis .263/.317/493 124 OPS+ .244/.274/.449 96 OPS+ 2013 Shin Soo Choo .285/.423/.462 145 OPS+ .242/.340/.374 100 OPS+ Brian McCann .256/.336/.461 118 OPS+ .232/.286/.406 93 OPS+ Carlos Beltran .296/.339/.491 127 OPS+ .233/.301/.402 97 OPS+ AL to NL Nick Markakis .276/.342/.386 105 OPS+ .293/.371/.369 108 OPS+ Alberto Callaspo .223/.290/.290 67 OPS+ .226/.310/.271 65 OPS+ Jonny Gomes .234/.320/.250 66 OPS+ .205/.313/.319 78 OPS+ AJP .251/.288/.337 114 OPS+ .302/.339/.446 124 OPS + 2013 Curtis Granderson .229/.317/.407 99 OPS+ .227/.326/.388 103 OPS+ Jarrod Saltalamacchia .273/.338/.466 118 OPS+ .220/.320/.362 91 OPS+ I know you're just using hitters as examples but look at Arrieta and Hammels and how they did in the AL as compared to the NL. Arrieta is probably more a case of a pitcher figuring things out though sonce his 1st year with the Cubs wasn't so hot but last year and this year lights out.