Jake

I don't really see a fit on the current Sox team. Who doesn't love a bat, but you have to consider that this is not Frank Thomas. He might not hit well in the short time he would be with the team. So thinking about the things you definitely won't get — contributions on defense or on the bases — I don't see the point. Very decent chance that he makes you worse. If Randal Grichuk died, I'd be more open-minded.

It might be, but I have to wonder if it's partly just a way to make him (and maybe themselves) feel like they are keeping him in a premium position. I'm not that optimistic that even if he has a natural knack for the outfield, that he'd actually do a good job for a CF even if he might do decently in the corners. At least on the timeline that we hope his bat pushes to MLB. My own projection (which counts for nothing!) is that he's probably going to land in the corner OF until I get further info. So if he looks like not-a-disaster in CF, we're on track.

I think it's possible that they have no idea whether he can be a good outfielder, but they may be pessimistic about his ability on the infield which could lead them to evaluate his other options. I don't know how pessimistic they are but I feel pretty confident that they doubt anyone will ever call him "good" on defense in any of the infield spots. So pair that with what currently feels like a crowded MLB infield and you want to see if he can run down a fly ball. I take it as a slight vote of confidence on his foot speed which reportedly is measuring up better than people expected. It's a nice tool to have for a novice outfielder.

This is Milwaukee Brewers starting 3B Andrew Vaughn you guys are talking about??

I think there's a serious chance to Taylor gets run down so I think Will has to take some risks to try to keep him out of games. Pitchers who fail to execute are going to put managers in difficult positions. I think Will did just fine with this one. A bunch of guys went out there today and didn't do what they were supposed to. You run out of buttons to push and you still need to compete tomorrow.

Sometimes these guys just suddenly find the release and become kind of unstoppable. Sometimes they don't though.

The Hagen Smith Experience

Should have gone with Cannon.

Colson just needs to avoid chasing 10 pitches in hopes of avoiding that one take

Winn? More like lose!

Colson's back

Romo PR hit live on the air right now

There's an ethical strikeout for Colson. Laid off the bullcrap and got beat by good pitching. I can live with it

The timeline of Colson's season is mostly just a mixture of slow start that was immediately countered by an even hotter streak and then he just kinda hung in there for a while around league average production. Then around the beginning of July the productivity starts dropping almost uninterrupted and it hit bottom around the first week of August before he started to slowly climb up but never getting back to the old holding pattern of ~league average. So there's a few things that change around the same time of the productivity drop: the whiffs started increasing and his launch angle went up for what I'm sure are related reasons. He just started missing the ball. I'll note that his xwOBA did not drop until a couple weeks after his actual production had begun dropping; if you want to say there's a mental element, you wonder if a bad run of luck affected him negatively. There's a change in his attack direction (how much the bat is angled towards pulling at point of contact) but the timing doesn't match anything very clearly and it's been inconsistent. Bat speed consistent. The up/down angle of his bat fairly consistent. A couple things that jumped out: his chase rate jumped and never came down starting around mid-May. Initially, he was still hitting well enough anyway. But I think this change in his approach might have been the beginning of his troubles. The other thing that jumps out is there is no slump against LHP. Always beware of small sample sizes, but he really is a different guy against them and I think it is probably because they can't easily exploit his weaknesses. We've always known he has a couple holes or more gently put, soft spots in his game. Slow stuff low and in is very hard for him to hit. Hard stuff up and away is likewise a problem. And he hasn't hit them even when he's going good. So the simplest thing to say about Colson is that it's important that he at least makes pitchers hit those spots in the zone because he is utterly hopeless at even just staying alive when he chases those pitches. He tended to chase the breaking stuff low and in from the get-go, but it has increased as of late. And his tendency to chase the high and hard stuff has seriously cranked up. Pitchers have noticed and have greatly increased how often they are throwing those two pitch + location combos. Since the beginning of the season, RHP have nearly doubled the rate at which they are throwing either high+away heat or low+in breakers. Sometimes they are missing the spot, giving Colson an opportunity to hit it or take it for a ball. There are probably sometimes they are missing the spot according to my definition but still basically hitting it (like high-middle may work nearly as well, IDK). A lot of the increase is driven by pitchers not saving it for 2 strikes and starting to just attack his weakness from the jump. I hesitate to simply call this phenomenon a case of him being "figured out" because I think part of the reason pitchers are doing this is because he has become much less disciplined against these pitches. Why? I don't know. And then the last ingredient is clear to many of us watching lately: He hasn't hit the meatballs as well lately. We saw that AB last night, for instance, when he got two bad misses over the middle that he fouled back before wiping out to more slow s%*# in the dirt. The at bat terminates with a happy ending if he just kills the mistake.

I don't have a strong opinion about that one. It's only slightly less old school than "keep your eye on the ball". I think it's a swing thought that helps some guys sometimes, but I suspect that too much pull is more of a symptom than a cause for Colson.

Last night was the first time where I thought it looked like he was just throwing away his plate appearances due to his head not really being in the game at all. I don't mean it like he wasn't putting forth effort or anything, but in the sense that he looked like he really had no idea what he was doing. Made me wonder if he's the one about to go on bereavement leave.

I think we can finally put the idea of Shane pitching in MLB again this year to rest.

I probably don't need to look back to the middle of this thread because I know you guys all saw this coming

Just from birds-eye view it looks like the teams have played about even (maybe both bad)

Looks like the only pitches approximating hittable were the backdoor sliders and that's kinda how they work by definition (hitters rarely swing at them). Of course you had some chasing that you hope could have produced more mistake pitches. Colson is really the only one who had bad chases though from what I see.

Looks like Fuentes pitched his ass off

Pitch was a half inch outside the zone, no challenge?

Can't tune in because I'm at work and technically in Braves territory. But this made me LOL

FanGraphs BaseballThe Derek Hill All-StarsNo player has — and I’m going to need you all to come with me here, this is a risky neologism I’m about to coin — outkicked his clutchverage as much as Hill.

That's the one I've been waiting for that just makes you say wow