Jake

For the record, while I'm firmly on the "promote them when they're ready and don't sweat the service time" bandwagon, I find Luis Robert to be a tricky case. No past track record of success, has shown some history of contact/patience issues, doesn't have a lot of experience in general. He might be ready now or he might be in for a very rude awakening if he's moved up now. I don't know.

I suspect we'll see Vaughn move at the pace Kris Bryant did. Split time between A- and A+ in draft year, start year 2 in AA with a promotion to AAA mid-year if all goes well.

I can see how if the Sox had evaluated Madrigal to be basically ready for AA to start the year, him having a nice little run like he did is probably as good of a pretense as any to move him up. Although his season numbers aren't way different from last year, he has hit for more power (not to be confused with actually hitting for power) and has importantly greatly reduced the rate of ground balls.

Madrigal's final 17 games in Winston-Salem: .313 average, .385 OBP, .448 SLG 3 2B, 2 HR, 9 SB 1 CS 7 BB (1 IBB), 2 HBP, 1 K

I do think it might be more of a benefit for Robert to play against the non-juiced balls in the bigger ballparks for a while. I worry about how the juiced balls in AAA might cover up some flaws in a player's game.

Most 1st rounders don't get a single WAR. If he's a MLB regular it's a good pick

Move him up as soon as he can face MLB pitching without it hurting his development. There's more than service time at play here. We need him to be good as soon as he can be good.

So when is the Super 2 deadline?

I think at this point he had a run of terrible luck and either because of it or some other reason he's become totally lost up there. The truth is likely that he saw his bad numbers early and got inside his own head instead of sticking with the plan that had him making quality contact. Now he's making his own luck and it's not good.

It's like he had to leave Reynaldo in for 3 extra batters to prove that he hadn't forgotten to get somebody warmed up

Easily the worst managing decision(s) of Ricky's time here. Reynaldo had backed his way into an acceptable 5 inning start but there were already signs that he was losing it at the end of 5. Nobody getting loose to start the next inning and we let Reynaldo throw more pitches than he has in his career (I presume) to give up 4 more runs for god knows what reason

Surprisingly little discussion of Madrigal's bomb here. I was ready to be disappointed when I saw it on video but I was actually surprised he could hit a low liner out of the park like that.

I mean I get it but to anyone paying attention, Ross Detwiler is going to be a hell of a message too

Robert is basically a big game away from having great-looking numbers in AA. I'm not sweating anything at all with him right now.

Honestly for our current situation I don't know how Hahn can say they can't find anything outside the organization when James Shields is sitting at home. What's the difference between him and Ervin Santana, besides the fact Shields would be way better (not a high bar)?

Some of the beat writers were suggesting on Twitter that Ricky basically told Yoan that if he had a big day he'd get the next day off

I don't hate the idea of taking Abrams. I suspect the big question on the Sox's minds is what the power potential is. This has to be the hardest thing to project with a beanpole 18 year old. Kid has high upside as a defensive player and not a lot of risk — worst case is he's a 2B, CF, or he fills out and plays 3B which hopefully means he's finding more power. Seems like his hit tool is not terribly risky...very unlikely to end up struggling due to contact issues. Needs development, but he's not super raw, just young.

I don't find that analysis to be very compelling. It's clear you shouldn't be bunting every time you get a guy on, yes. But as another poster said, it also doesn't deal with whether bunting increases your chances of scoring *a* run, which sometimes is the more pertinent question (and I don't know, maybe it doesn't increase them!). You also have to consider several other factors: How good the hitter is Qualities of the upcoming hitters Quality of the opposing pitcher What other things might happen besides a sacrifice bunt when you try to sacrifice: The bunt fails and you get the lead runner out, the batter fails and strikes out, the batter walks, the batter gets a hit, the fielders commit an error, etc. Those things may very well generally combine to advise against bunting. But just looking at the aggregate run expectancy statistics is not convincing to me as an overall indictment on bunting.

I've never heard anyone say Burger's re-injury cost him that much time. More like 2 months, I thought

Would like to hear more explanation on this one

Someone should be fired for letting Rondon go out there

I wonder if the swelling has prevented them from getting good images of the elbow and/or good manual tests of the ligaments and muscles involved

Players often need to play in MLB to be ready for it. Let him take his lumps now rather than at a time where the wins are really important.

It will be interesting to see who we turn to for his spot in the rotation, Cease or otherwise. I suppose Covey is the most likely candidate.

Let the record show that Statcast pegs Abreu's xwOBA at the highest of his career so far this year* and the quality of his contact in particular thus far is easily the best he's ever had. *which excludes his rookie season as it was pre-Statcast