Jake

Incorrect. That's Merrill Kelly money. Starters cost so much money on the open market. I'm not saying Castillo is some big surplus value, but a short term FA deal for a starter will cost a ton for a guy who will not excite you much.

Dodgers are hamstrung in multiple ways with respect to building up prospect capital but they are simply very good at baseball talent evaluation/development so everyone gets to be mad at them.

I am very anti-pitcher in the sense that I'm never into heavy investment into pitchers as they tend to be unreliable due to injury. HOWEVER I will also mention that pitchers do not reliably hit the aging wall the way position players do. So I think it is perfectly logical to see this season's dip by Castillo and fear the worst, but pitchers are also more apt to bounce back to career norms in their mid 30s than hitters are.

IDK, but he does have a pronounced platoon split (albeit at a similar level that he has always had)

To me, nothing jumps out to explain the decline from last year to this year. He lost some heat on the heater a few years ago but it didn't have an immediate effect on his effectiveness. K rate finally dropped last year but he held up okay. This year it caught up with him. Stuff models not seeing a big change in the recent past. I notice his arm angle has ticked down a little bit, but not enough that I'm convinced it means anything. Although this has unequivocally been a down year and not a good season, there's really no metric or projection that thinks he has "deserved" a 5 ERA or will continue to have an ERA so high. More like low to mid 4 depending on your metric of choice. That's still worse than he has been before. The most predictive single stat for future ERA is SIERA which is 4.39 for Castillo this year. His slider isn't getting whiffs this season like it generally has in the past. The shape and velo seems about the same as before. Might be losing deception for one reason or another. Or he's not locating well enough. I'll be curious whether Getz or someone else in the Sox org has anything interesting to say about what they've been seeing besides "this guy's a horse, look at the back of the baseball card"

Just clarifying I meant that Noah and Fedde might share that rotation spot.

Well I meant Fedde/Schultz sharing that spot

On April 11th, Castillo threw the first and only cutter of his career. I like to think this is what caught Brian Bannister's eye. (It was probably just a badly released fastball or something)

Wouldn't shock me if the Sox keep Noah around and/or possibly sorta play matchups with that spot in the rotation.

I've got a group of Seattle friends who are all convinced that Castillo is going to be better in Chicago. And they don't care about no stinkin Boston Smith

Big Game Luis??

My first reaction is that I don't hate it, most of the risk here is the money. You're more or less buying low. He's been pretty effective right up until this season. There's not an obvious dropoff with his stuff that explains the dropoff in productivity. So maybe the brain trust has an idea how to get him back on track.

This season and next. Vesting option for 2028 if he throws 180 innings next season.

Sox are taking on money and therefore some risk. Didn't really give anything up, but you better be right that Castillo's bad year is just a blip rather than him losing the battle to Father Timel

Now it makes sense. Somebody really wanted Jones...

It was very weird as it seemed like the Nashville bench coach came out to stop the game, called over the Charlotte manager, people were looking at lineup cards, then they had Nolan Jones leave the on deck circle and replaced him with Korey Lee.

Nolan Jones out of the game.

Nashville broadcasters think somebody on Charlotte is getting pulled for roster management reasons. Unclear what's up

Why did they bring Hagen in for one batter, lol

More or less a coin flip game that you lost. Probably outplayed them by a smidge. Oh well.

If you have any wind blowing out, that one goes out

Baker is good but I don't think he's 1.49 ERA good.

Hell of a play to finish things off.

Little weird that Richards isn't throwing his changeup.

Misplay by Everson I think.