chitownsportsfan

A legit asshole on and off the mound. We avenge Caleb tonight.

I'm fine with Lackey or Roch at this point. Both seem likely to be 4-5 WAR players up the middle and that's all you can ask.

advanced stats are part of the reason the body type of chase is even in MLB. boston didn't draft and develop him because he had a 5 tool ready body. comps on race are a running cliche and joke in sports, lighten up a bit man.

yea that's a good description guy they ID'd, figured could handle a quick promotion and is thriving. def a big win so far for the FO and us fans. FV 45 value for both chase and ant looks low now. I think both guys are like 50/55 if you want to get deep into the scouting grade s%*#. In my world both would be like 1.5 to 3.5 WAR types.

First up we'll do Sam Antonacci, who god bless him, is looking like at worst a super utility guy, most times a rare, valuable plus bat that can play 2B and corner OF. He started his college career with Heartland Community College a D2 school, promptly racked up a POTY, transferred to Coastal Carolina, slashed a fun 367/.523/.504 and was drafted in the 5th round by the Sox in the 2024 MLB Draft. Preseason, he wasn't that highly regarded on most Sox lists, but was noted as a high floor guy by Fangraphs in their writeup, which had him 11th: Our friends at Future Sox had him 9th in the org, with a similar profile while noting his excellent stat cast data from the minors:* Ok, enough about the past: Sam comes in with .8 fWAR in 208 PA. ZIPS figured he'd be a decent bat out of spring, projected for a 99 wRC+, but so far he's exceeded that modest projection with a 119 wRC+ and perhaps has been a bit unlucky with a xwOBA of .370. ZIPS has reacted and rest of schedule they think's he's good for a 107 wRC+. Sam is the def of a "spray hitter" with a pull percent of only 33.3%, middle 40.1%, and oppo 26.5%. He does a great job avoiding popouts, at only 4.3%.** Sam destroys fastballs, he's 5.6 runs above average already. That's his bread and butter and if you can hit fastballs, you can hit anybody. Eye test wise we see this, he's a very wristy hitter and that allows him to really see the ball "deep" compared to guys that are full go big lower body load, eg Colson Montgomery. But this analysis is mostly stat focused so we'll get back to that: FG has him down for -3.8 runs in the field, which sounds bad, but is fairly benign for a rookie convert. For example Vaughn was -28 his convert year and Sam isn't going to approach that. Let's look at his statcast profile: 78th percentile spring speed is excellent: FG has him for -.1 runs below average on the bases, which makes sense given he's been picked off a bunch and done other stupid stuff. He's fast, but he needs to be a bit smarter to fully unlock the value. His rolling xwOBA has been closer to league average or slightly better the last two weeks, but 50 games into his career, he's an elite bat to ball guy -- really no two ways about it. Things can change, but usually when a guy passes the eye test and metrics test like this for even a couple months when the regression happens they will figure it out and Sam has an athletic profile that belies his relative unassuming appearance. The arm grade surprised me but makes sense and that will play at 2B. Who could you comp Sam to? I see some Ray Durham with less pop (for now). Ray had a long and productive career, I'm sure Sam and us fans would love 2/3 of that 34 career bWAR for Ray. Or if you want a white guy we'll go with rich man's Craig Grabeck. ______________________________________________________________________ *Good job guys **I'm going to make up a new stat here, it's gonna be called "BIF", which is barrels to infield flies / popups. So far Sam has 11 barrels and 8 popouts so by my math that's a BIF of 1.375. For comparison, Mune has a BIF of 1.92, Vargas has a BIF of 1, Colson has a BIF of .49, Quero has a BIF of ∞ despite only two barrels he has not popped out. Is it a useful stat? Maybe? Someone smart could run some regressions. It certainly is a good ratio for how tolerable a hitter's ABs are from a watchability standpoint Gonna try and do one of these every off day for next couple months. NORTHERN SOUL, THE INTENTIONS - DON'T FORGET THAT I LOVE YOU

I suspect most teams would look like this over a certain period of time. We've had bad luck with injuries and we've gotten nothing out of LA which is how a lot of clubs keep their staffs fed I'd wager. It's cheaper to invest 250k in some 16 year old over and over again than pay some 3rd round college pitcher his signing bonus, and the latin kid has a helluva lot less mileage on the arm and the rest will be in a pro environment.

Well written without going into purple prose or hyperbole, super rare in today's media environment.

Ty Bob, I never try and stop learning about the CBA -- John Schriffen.

Gross on many levels. Overpaying for a rental would be the dumbest thing we can do. That's the sort of thing Hahn would do or KW and would end up gutting the upper minors just at a time when we needed reinforcements from the Farm. We'd get a comp pick when he leaves, but that's hardly enough carrot.

I don't know about godsend, but any live arm with any history of success we can use. We're at least one SP and a setup guy short. He was awful before he got hurt, so who knows if last year was a fluke but we don't have anybody else really blowing up his spot assuming he's ready to go in 2 weeks. Could send one of our billion lefty relievers down or DFA.

Fangraphs thinks Chase is a perfectly cromulent starting 2B, projected for another 1.4 fWAR 70 or so odd games. I get what you're saying with his profile but there's zero reason to trade him right now. He has turned himself into an above avg defender at 2B and in today's MLB you don't need much more than 250/330/350 to be a solid starting middle IF.

Ah, mock draft season, the most useless "no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy" type stuff.

I just don't want Gonzo to turn into Semien 2.0 where we give up a guy too early thinking his development is over and we have others anyways.

FRP bust all the time and TINSSAAPP of course. It's not the end of the world getting a setup guy and a 4th starter on pre arb deals out of a couple, your scenario would be fine. Smith I get the handwringing a bit given who was drafted behind him, but yea, not something to really fret over given where the big club is at right now.

Gonzo can go back down to Charlotte and stop his arb clock once Mune is back. That's fine. He just got a nice pay pump for 6 weeks or whatever and now he knows he close he is and what he has to continue to work on. Worrying about solid players getting traded or having to be optioned is a GOOD PROBLEM.

T-6th in position player fWAR at 10.3 with Braves. wRC+ is 7th at 105. Defense picking up now -.5.8 below avg which is good enough for 10th. 17th in fWAR for pitching. 20th in FIP. For individuals we have two guys T17th in fWAR, Vargas and Colson, both with 2.5. Very impressive first 2/5 the season for those guys.

We'll see, I think they can be more cautious the more they win, so yea.

that's pretty dope, knew that song but never knew the album.

That's the dumbest thing Sox related I read on twitter today and time to just mute that idiot on my own feed. Good lord.

Oh s%*# I didn't know you were in Charlotte. We did a college boy's reunion down to Ashville last year (had to travel to see the east coast guys this time), saw a bit of Charlotte airport I guess. That Sierra Nevada brewery near Ashville was awesome, what a grounds. It was a bit sad how much of the flood damage was still there when we were in September. Hope they can get spared this storm season along with Florida.

I'll go ahead and too my own horn, figured with the off day for travel Teel would be playing Tuesday. I also said 3-5 rehab games and back in Chicago possibly on the 22nd. We'll see.

Vasil and Baldwin would both be useful. Oh well.

need to find a matt thornton.

yankees are banged up too. we catch them at a good time.