Jake

I thought the pitch missed watching live, but it barely scraped the zone.

FWIW, Elko has the biggest wOBA vs xwOBA differential in all of AAA. That is, he hasn't struck the ball nearly as well as his stats would suggest. Dalbec on the other hand has good underlying metrics. Might just be that simple.

Montgomery strikes out in 2 of 5 ABs, so I refuse to give him any credit until he can combine some hitting with sustainable K rate even on a single-game basis.

Honestly, I never thought Frank was very good at the job — in the sense that I didn't think he gave great baseball analysis — but I still liked to see him nonetheless. Not sure if the Ozzie drunken comedy routine can sustain for 162 games, but we shall see.

Weird game in that it ended up as a comfortable win but I spent most of it feeling like crap and the part where we went ahead wasn't enough to undo the prior bad feelings

Is it too much to ask to want to never see Jake Amaya in the lineup ever again? Granted, the alternatives on the active roster are all quite bad as well.

I figured part of emulating the good organizations is shredding the elbow of every pitcher who comes through your system and just overcoming it through sheer numbers

I personally probably wouldn't make it so structured since AFAIK Shuster isn't really stretched out to get to more than a couple innings, so you can just go by feel with however Vasil is doing. Wilson can be in that mix too/instead, depending on who you trust and whether the team is in the game when Vasil comes out. Plus the matchups I suppose, although at this point the bullpen is trending towards "oops all lefties"

I don't think Shuster is stretched out. Wilson's MLB performance so far this year makes me not particularly interesting in giving him a shot in the rotation right now. Vasil, assuming he's stretched out, seems like the most logical choice and I think he should be in a position to have a little more than full rest for Perez's next start. FWIW, I had noticed Shuster's improved K rate in AAA. Not totally sure what's responsible, including just sample size fluctuation. But he has changed up his pitch mix a bit, reducing 4-seamer usage in favor more use of a sinker, which he barely used in MLB last season. Even in reduced use, his 4-seamer is getting hit hard in AAA as it did in MLB. But his changeup...wow. He's always been described as a guy with a good changeup but not much else, but his changeup is not getting hit at all in AAA. Per Statcast, it's generating an 81% whiff rate (!!!). I've never seen anything like that. Again per Statcast, it is dropping ~10 more inches than last year's changeup while keeping the same basic horizontal shape, velocity, and spin rate. Kind of interesting.

50% strikeout rate in that game. More important metric to me. Especially since that homer was a real softie, per Statcast.

My crazy idea is to just not play Jake Amaya.

Outman could only be considered as 40-man roster depth. He might give you some production, but he also may not, and even if he does you know he's basically already in his prime year so it wouldn't last long.

I kind of assumed the Sun-Times was going to mostly get out of the covering-the-Sox business. If they decided to bring in a new beat writer, that's good news.

Not clear to me that this represents new information rather than sloppy reporting. I assume they're using Ishbia's recent purchases as justification for the valuation, is all.

Happy for Chase although the speech from Sergio Santos is a little funny given that he's managed him for ~10 games and he's talking to Chase like it's his son

Well they didn't just think it, they put him out there! Which is probably most relevant for the current discussion, lol

Sox have three regulars with an xwOBA above league average: Vaughn, Thaiss, and Sosa. Sending the only young player of that trio to the minors for a sidegrade would be crazy.

I recall hearing Getz on a TV broadcast arguing that Meidroth can handle SS defensively.

I'll admit there might be a contradiction in "to prevent injury, make a guy run fast when he already played a game earlier and then got on a plane and missed out on proper warmups"

I'm finding it not that obvious who leaves the 40-man to make room for Jankowski. If it were me, I'd just cut bait with Clevinger...but I don't think that's what will happen. Maybe things are far enough along with Varland's elbow that he could go to the 60-day? Not sure...

Seems like nobody bothered asking Venable post-game about whether he thought Tauchman was playing at less than 100%, whether he considered a pinch runner, etc.

I'd say you have to send him if he had even 30% chance of scoring. If you have any shot at a run there you go for it rather than bank on this team producing another hit.

Honestly, I don't really blame him for not going back. He was going to be pretty far from the base by the time he realized what was going on and you were going to need to deal with the other runner going back too. Basically by that point you're toast and just hoping the throw goes to the backstop

Right now, I don't really see the point in talking about Getz being fired. On the terms of his hire, he basically cannot be evaluated (of course we can litigate his hiring but it's pissing in the wind). All that being said, I do wonder under what conditions might Getz be fired? I don't see any realistic way he gets heat this season, even if another record gets set. Could he be allowed to let the team be just as bad next season? It might be hard to avoid if you stipulate that the Sox be a bottom 3 payroll. For now, it feels like all he has to do for at least the next couple years is not have all his acquisitions completely and utterly flame out in the minors and avoid any serious drama in the clubhouse etc.

It's a player with some history of good play, who has shown some signs of being back to that old level, and is currently on a minor league contract in extended spring training. Nick Maton is your everyday DH, the team is batting under .200. Do not overthink this, nobody is blocked, dudes are getting hurt every day, and it's a long season. This is a chance of a solid player who you might flip at the deadline if things go well and a hedge against having to play Tristan Gray or Bobby Dalbec or something.