chitownsportsfan

I mean his floor is he blows his arm out in ST and gets paid 63 million to pitch 100 innings for them. It's a pretty big gamble, a team like the Astros that has maybe one or two years left in their window sure, but the Sox? Eh, doesn't make much sense imo. Not with the opt outs taking any trade or surplus value upside away.

Paying the Ron Tax to start the new year. Wish ignored users wouldn't show up on my threads as well.

The problem with Kelenic, and this has been true ever since his first MLB season in Seattle, is that he's incapable of playing CF and is in fact a below average corner player as well. He's -16 runs below average in a corner for his career. It's fine to pencil in 240/300/400 as a cromulent CF or even an above avg corner OF, but being below average puts so much pressure on his bat. Very similar profile to Beni imo. Kelenic has a much better arm but their sprint speed and range metrics are similar. Beni was objectively pretty fast when he was in his mid 20s according to statcast, but has fallen off to below 50th percentile in his 30s. Kelenic, either through injury or just premature aging, was a horrific 19th percentile in sprint speed last year. He was 70th percentile just a couple years ago. Something has sapped his athletic ability. And because this is a forum and not a court of law I'd speculate he was a juicer in his late teens and early 20s and for whatever reason has stopped. A shorter guy carrying 200 lbs that "naturally" as a teen isn't usual. I'm not sure there's any there there, which of course is why he's basically a NRI at this point in his career. For a former 6th overall pick that's gross. Maybe it lights a fire under him and he finds that stroke and athletic ability again. I highly, highly doubt it. He'll probably be cut in camp imo.

I'd rather put 2 million into Pacific Rim scouting than burn 21 or so million per on a guy that is probably a 2 WAR SP. Certainly at this point of the rebuild. Not saying the Sox will do that, but this wouldn't have been a good deal for the Sox imo.

boras is a wizard. Horrible deal for Stros. All downside no upside.

Maybe the shrooms were that good.

Cuba really that hard up?

Yep. Not only does he stink on the field, he's a crap team mate. Nobody in Seattle liked him, they just tolerated him for a while. When he had the cooler incident nobody stood up for him and everybody just said it was a moronic stupid selfish thing.

Harold was a dick shitting where he ate. Good riddance. And his scouting sucks. Maybe he's great at selling cars including to JR...

I don't see any Lopez comps as mentioned up thread. His deliver is smooth and effortless and while he's not a flame thrower he can sit at 96 for the first few innings with his fastball and mixes in some pretty damn nasty what I would call slurves and straight changes. He's probably just like a 4th starter but hell we need those.

This is one of my favorites but hard to find outside of Japanese grocers: I don't drink a ton of Sake as I prefer it heated and don't have an ideal method (I'm sure Japan makes one I should look into it) but it really is a smooth way to get buzzed. Nothing like eating a bunch of fresh fish and washing it down with a hot sake. Japan does sensory things well.

a culture of shame misaligned with Japan’s competitive integrity Chicagoan's too to be fair.

The unbuttoned oxford with the blazer is such a douchebag look and one he shares with Hahn.

Yea I kinda just feel like this is the "we had a seat at the table" headline. Saving face is big in Japan.

Headline: Sox Sign Imai as Cubs Fans Scream Itai

It's cold AF here and dark. A warm summer evening with some brews and baseball sounds nice.

He has such a noodle arm for a MLB corner guy. Him and Juan Pierre are the worst I've seen on the South Side but at least Juan had some range even as a 30 something.

JR:

he had .2 fWAR and a wRC+ of 103. He's like a 1 WAR player at best at this point with no future here. I'd rather give 100% of his PA to someone like Brooks. He's also a butcher but he's also got some pop and is 25 with some development left.

It's remarkable how bad he is in a small LF at G-Rate. He is mildly useful as a bat, but his terrible LF defense means he's a 1 WAR player at this point.

"people ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball: I tell them I stare at the screen and argue on Soxtalk."

That the consensus #1 on 12/26/25 wasn't the consensus #1 on 12/26/24 is an odd thing to fixate on imo.

Much better Sox X-Mas this year, Merry Christmas to all.

Another example of a "poor" team spending money and a reliever at that. I don't think the public finances are accurate.