Jake

Collisions aren't prohibited by the rule but the runner is supposed to slide if given any opportunity. If runner "unnecessarily" collides, he's out.

I don't seen much point in sending Quero down until Teel returns. Can just ramp up Romo's playing time for the moment.

From MLB: "The catcher is not permitted to block the runner's path to the plate unless he is in possession of the ball." Emphasis mine. Their guidance further notes that runners are expected to slide and to slide towards any lane provided them by the catcher. If the runner is not sliding to avoid contact they are given less of a presumption that they were blocked.

I was under the impression that if you have the ball in your hands you can block to your heart's desire

I've always struggled to anticipate how New York judges catcher blocking rulings.

I guess it's a little difficult to say whether he touched home, but if he did then I think he's safe.

He's safe IMO

Hays looked at the 1B coach kind of like he thought the coach made him do that (which is plausible but I don't know whether it really happened)

I assume they believe Hays is completely healed and just want to be cautious with his effort level. But it also wouldn't completely shock me if Hays might not want to be completely forthcoming for fear of his hurting his market value with a long time spent on the IL.

I know Hays is going to take it easy running the bases due to the injury, but man his gait looks terrible.

You never need to tell Soxtalk twice!

Big Dumper Brooks Baldwin the hero!

He had a 30+ pitch inning in each of the last two starts. Sox philosophy with young pitchers seems to be that once a single inning's pitch count gets that high, you're playing with fire the rest of that game. And I don't know exactly how consistent this is from team to team, but I know the Sox are far from the only ones who are starting to focus on the high-pitch inning as a big injury concern.

In Vargas, Sox have a 26 year old under team control for a long time who is actually hitting. Maybe someday he has to get moved due to his limitations or due to getting closer to eventual free agency, but I wouldn't be making moves based on any of those other infielders until they actually get here. If Billy ever makes it, and I sure hope he does, it could realistically be in Vargas's free agent year. The most optimistic take on Caleb is that he could arrive as soon as next season but for now he's striking out at a 30% clip in A-ball so again I'm not eager to start moving one of the few bonafide major leaguers to make room for him yet. Roch hasn't yet been drafted, but I don't know what a realistic timeline for him will be. I assume the Sox will want to test him at least a little bit at the minor league level in 2027 (what happens after that would depend on the result of the "test"). These things tend to work themselves out. My gut feeling is we won't find ourselves lamenting how the Sox compiled too many good players.

The data on player aging is brutal. I think the data would honestly make it hard to justify giving a long contract extension to a player who you already have under contract through his age 28 season. Almost every skill is on the downslope for a typical player by that age when they aren't juicing. Of course, Mune may not have a typical age progression and/or he starts from such a high point that he's still worth the money even when he's begun declining. That being said, a good agent for Mune would start the conversation at the 14 year, $500M deal given to Vladimir Guerrero at the same age. I'd be arguing that the NPB track record clearly carries over and therefore it would be a bargain to get a superior player in Mune at the mere $500M given to Vladdy. Of course, I don't see another 1B getting $500M anytime soon, but that's what I'd be asking for as his agent. Mune already got a nice big paycheck for 2 seasons so he's not risking ending up on the street or anything if things don't work out on the playing field going forward. So he might as well ask for...the moon.

Well, Acuna's being dinged not for true lack of range, just for not making as many plays as the statistical model expects. His non-catches have been on plays that were rated as pretty easy. Somewhat interestingly, he's caught every non-routine ball hit his way so far (but he hasn't had many challenging opportunities). I expect with a little development and larger sample size, he'll end up at least average by these metrics. If his batting outcomes meet his expected ones, you at least have a useful little bench player thanks to the baserunning and positional versatility.

Dog booty cam coming out of the break

lol so he skips the minors and gets killed in the majors, so they quite reasonably send him down to A-ball where he dominates. This season they have him skip the rest of the minors and he gets killed in MLB again??

Remember opening day last year when the Angels left a pitcher out there to die during his MLB debut? What the hell was that about anyway?

Gio had some warning signs of his own in the numbers last year. I wouldn't have been upset if the Sox gave him the same contract they gave Kay, but I have a feeling he was asking for much, much more.

Oh yeah I remember well how diabolical those plays can be at around that age level. I feel like my practices back in junior high were like 40% practicing the various 1st and 3rd scenarios. Only for nobody to do the right thing when the games happened...

Can't remember the last time I saw the out made at home on a throw-through like that in a MLB game. Maybe because I watch the White Sox too much.

Better learn to speak LOOGY-ese buddy

Yeah it is what it is, the White Sox are trotting out pretty putrid offenses over the past couple years and if you have anything short of a fantastic reliever you're going to see a lot of painful outings for whoever is asked to defend a bunch of small leads. Last year, Jordan faced higher leverage situations than anyone on the team and did fine even if that meant on numerous occasions it didn't go well. This year it's been bad so far and we'll just have to see how it goes but he still doesn't really stand out to me as a very important problem with the team. Sox can hand over the third-best-righty-reliever duties to Tyler Davis or Wikelman or whoever but it's small potatoes IMO. FWIW, this year Seranthony leads MLB in highest leverage appearances. He deserves scrutiny as a highly paid veteran but he's also had a pretty tough set of circumstances to pitch in. But again, in his case that is exactly what the Sox paid him for even if a better team wouldn't so constantly be holding on for dear life. He was down a full mph today with worse movement on his pitches than normal so I wonder what that's about. I'm frankly not super worried about him though.

I cannot believe I visit the thread putatively about Tyler Davis and Lucas Sims but somehow the first thing I see is people arguing about the Luis Robert trade. I beg of everyone to please contain that pointless conversation into its own thread 😭