Jake

We were stupid for getting him work in a blowout game a couple weeks ago, now we're stupid for not getting him work in blowout games

I thought Sale did not look sharp in the 8th

BTW, somebody needs to get drilled for Lind shooting his helmet like a basketball on his way to home plate

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 19, 2016 -> 12:34 AM) And having a mediocre fastball He's never thrown hard, but his fastball is generally quite good because of the cut action. Looked very straight tonight though, probably due to the layoff. The poor command has been consistent throughout the year though

Walks finally catch up to Robertson, though some better pitch framing wouldn't have hurt

Nice to see a complete meltdown going on in the game thread

Main thing to take away from Morneau's stint is that he hasn't struck out much at all. That means he's not getting blown away by live competition.

Ranaudo makes much more sense than Turner and IMO more sense than Fulmer

Another way to compare the heights of our draftees to some kind of known standard would be to look at the average heights of the rest of the draft.

In Greg's defense, the Shark trade had loss all over it from the start

Big difference from last year's team: at the break last year, the Sox position players had a cumulative -3.1 WAR, by far the worst in the league. We also had a team 76 wRC+, worst in the league and by far worst in the AL. This year we're 26th in position player WAR, so it isn't as if we're setting the world on fire, but the bats are not so far from league average and the kind of leap necessary to push us into the playoffs isn't nearly as far-fetched. If Morneau is a 110 wRC+ bat at DH and Abreu returns to 2015 form (not an amazing year by any stretch) while everything else more or less holds steady, you're not far off right there. Have a couple things break our way and we're not unworthy.

Of note, regarding Anderson's defense: Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) gives him a +3 thus far, on the strength of Runs on Plays Made (rPM) with 0s for Runs on Good Fielding Plays (rGFP) and Runs on Double Plays (rGDP). That's a good pace and matches my eye test that he's making most of the plays he should, doesn't look the best on double plays, and hasn't completed any real eye-popping plays. Revised Zone Rating which is computed a bit more transparently also likes him. It's simply a percentage of the time he makes the play on balls hit into the zones that a shortstop fields at least 50% of the time. He's .830 on this metric, which is 6th best among SS with at least 100 innings. UZR gives him an overall 0.6, which computes out to 3.7 over 150 games. Not "oh my god" good, but good. This is another stat that is relative to the average SS, so being above is a good sign. All of his value in UZR comes from not making errors, while he is slightly negative (-0.3) in both range and double plays. This is in basic agreement with DRS, though it's a hair more conservative. I think most of us like him from the eye test as well, it's definitely a far cry from the player that just a year ago many still wondered whether he would be good enough to spend any MLB time at the position. You can see some of the roughness around the edges, especially with footwork on double plays, but he exudes baseball talent on defense IMO. He's been surprisingly sure-handed on routine balls and you can see flashes of that big range and playmaking ability. I'm not sure whether he's truly an above average SS or is benefiting from the kinds of opportunities so far, but he looks like a real MLB SS and perhaps a good one in the long run.

The main thing about what the Sox are doing—IMO—is little to foul up the long term. I continue to strongly doubt the benefits of a full-on, let's be the worst team style of rebuild, especially for a franchise like the Sox that would seriously lose revenue without at least a little bit of hope. The payroll is in good shape looking forward, you have some nice core pieces and your veterans aren't particularly expensive. Tim Anderson, Carson Fulmer, and Zack Collins are all guys to get excited about. We've been conservatively building the team and I don't see anything wrong with that. I think if there was a big, bold move to make that would really take the team a big step ahead, they'd make it. But I sure haven't seen it available. Heyward? Upton? Alex Gordon? Cespedes seemed to be the worst fit in the offseason but is the only one hitting in the actual season. In the end, it turned out a CF would have been the best fit in the first place. We brought on Frazier and Lawrie at very little expense and nobody is stopping us from flipping them at the deadline a year from now if things aren't looking up. To me, this is the kind of approach we had when we won the WS. The 2005 team was filled with question marks and the direction of the franchise was unclear. But we kept those core guys around and tried to bring on extra talent without mortgaging the franchise. It worked out. Maybe that was just a fluke and it shouldn't be a model for the future, I can't say.

Yeah a best case for us in the anti-Cubs crowd is they gut their system trying to add this year but don't ultimately get a ring.

I suspect if you drop the one abysmal outing against KC from his non-save stats, those would look good too.

While I've enjoyed watching them struggle, I still see no reason to bet against them as divisional champs at the least.

FWIW, it was not an ordinary 5-0 situation. There were at least 2 men on and frankly I wouldn't have been comfortable staying with Duke or bringing anyone else short of Jones in for that situation.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Jul 9, 2016 -> 04:54 PM) My wife just won this Oscar Blues Yeti Hopper 30 in a raffle at the liquor store. This thing sells for $400. We are also fans of Oscar Blues, and have been to both of their breweries in Colorado and North Carolina. Wow, sweet deal. Love Oskar Blues

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 9, 2016 -> 11:01 AM) I thought he was on a run of some good starts ?? Sorry about the confusing wording, I mean Ranaudo is on a run of bad starts.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jul 9, 2016 -> 06:43 PM) While this is true the fact remains that by WAR Scott Carroll is less than 3 ganes worse than Chris Sale. I just don't buy it. That's because in the case of Scott Carroll part of his value is the fact that he hasn't pitched that much. The more the two of them pitch, the bigger the discrepancy gets. This is not to mention that WAR very nicely handles the case of a guy who pitched just a couple innings–he can't do much either way in such little time. It's a counting stat, not a pure prediction of whether Scott Carroll or Chris Sale would be better given the same amount of playing time. It's like saying "I can't believe Tim Anderson is only 2 RBI better than JB Shuck." Well, you need some context to decide what it all means, especially playing time.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 9, 2016 -> 12:39 PM) I totally forgot about the trouble between Rondo and Wade. Wade supposedly injured Rondo on purpose and the next season Rondo clothselimed Wade in a game. Good luck with that Fred. When you cheapshot as many people as those guys have, it's probably hard to hold a grudge over one in particular

Due to a mixture of injuries and inadequate talent, the most immediate and most realistically fixed problem with the current team is the worse half of the MLB bullpen. Importantly, I see no reason to believe this can be fixed up internally. Let's start by identifying the definite major leaguers who belong on the team: Robertson (3.22 ERA, 10.7 K/9, 5.0 BB/9) Jones (2.54 ERA, 9.0 K/9, 1.6 BB/9) Duke (2.73 ERA, 10.7 K/9, 3.6 BB/9) Jennings (1.67 ERA, 5.7 K/9, 4.5 BB/9) Albers (5.17 ERA, 5.7 K/9, 3.4 BB/9) Then we have the guys who are arguably not MLB players but are in the MLB bullpen: Beck (MLB: 8.10 ERA, 6.8 K/9, 9.5 BB/9) (AAA: 4.47 ERA, 6.4 K/9, 3.2 BB/9) Ynoa (MLB:4.32 ERA, 11.8 K/9, 5.4 BB/9) (AA/AAA: 3.90 ERA, 7.8 K/9, 3.9 BB/9) And their potential replacements, who IMO still fit the bill as non-MLB players: Tommy Kahnle (MLB: 6.23 ERA, 4.2 K/9, 10.4 BB/9) (AAA: 3.00 ERA, 12.0 K/9, 4.0 BB/9) Matt Purke (MLB: 5.50 ERA, 7.5 K/9, 6.0 BB/9) (AAA: 4.34 ERA, 7.7 K/9, 5.8 BB/9) Scott Carroll (MLB: 11.57 ERA, 7.7 K/9, 3.9 BB/9) (AAA: 5.27 ERA, 4.5 K/9, 3.7 BB/9) And I'll list some plausible callups who haven't been used yet: Brad Goldberg (AAA: 2.37 ERA, 8.3 K/9, 4.5 BB/9) Blake Smith (AAA: 5.01 ERA, 10.0 K/9, 3.7 BB/9) AAA is virtually devoid of players who have a good walk rate, good strikeout:walk rate, and ERA. Blake Smith, who is apparently a converted position player, is as close as it gets but has a poor ERA (5 home runs allowed). Goldberg has had a consistently high walk rate in the minor leagues. Kahnle has a high walk rate in AAA and has had obscenely high walk rates in the majors and minors previously. Purke has had a consistent problem with extremely high walks. Carroll's walk rate is okay, but he's never been able to strike people out and gets hit hard consistently. And it's worth just listing the root of the problem, injuries: Petricka (60-day, likely out for season) Putnam (15-day, taking long shot at avoiding season-ending surgery) Webb (60-day, out for season) All we're left with are the shots in the dark of Carson Fulmer and Zack Burdi. Fulmer has >5 BB/9 but that has gone down to 3.73 BB/9 since the beginning of June and an 11.8 K/9 in that same period (9.3 total). There's a chance he could get the job done, but he is so wild in and outside the zone I seriously worry that he'd have to go through another painful break-in period in MLB. As far as Burdi goes, he's allowing an 1.100 OPS against and neither the walks or Ks look especially good yet. He might just put it all together in a snap, but waiting on it for this season is a fool's errand. At this point, if you could just clone Albers and Jennings you'd probably get 1-2 extra wins down the stretch. Ynoa shows some signs of being serviceable, so maybe he can stick around. Beck's stuff has been impressive, but he has no idea where it's going. Purke and Kahnle have looked absolutely clueless. I don't see any great reasons to make room on the 40-man for Goldberg or Smith. Please, KW/Hahn braintrust, get us a mediocre reliever so we don't have to run some of these guys out there.

Anyone else a little unsure that Fulmer is going to not just s*** the bed in MLB? I know he's on a run of a few bad starts, but Ranaudo seems like the option fro a spot start to me.

MLB.tv is usually 30-60 seconds behind so I never bother

I've always enjoyed the derby and the timing element made it all the better.