chitownsportsfan

pretty confident to throw a changeup there 3-2, it was a good one he just got a piece.

My balls ache now, fug. How does that happen anyways? Or do I even want to know...

I'm in agreement see my "the path to 81 wins is 15 WAR between ______ post upthread". SS2K laid out a realistic (if optimistic) path to 15 from those guys as well. I mean if Eloy comes up and is fucking hitting 300/350/560 in June and is on pace for 6 WAR that path gets a lot clearer...

Overall tho the club is hitting 248/310/435 in the 2nd half, good for a OPS+ of 102 with a BABIP of .310. The primary improvement from their 1st half line of 244/303/402 has been power, not BABIP. They've also improved their K/BB ratio as a club, so they are putting together better ABs. Pitching wise the club went from a brutal 1.76 K/BB ratio in the 1st half to a much healthier 2.46. BABIP against has dropped from .297 to .270, so some luck there but some of that is no doubt the much improved defense. Outscored 196-200 in the 2nd half, but hey, the improvement is real. They were outscored by over 140 runs in the 1st half.

The Sox have sold quite a few spring training tickets the last month. Thing is, imo, if they were smart, they could have sold a lot more.

Lucky and good was the formula in 2005. It's a good formula. It worked for the Royals as well. If you're good, you put yourself in a position where bad luck won't kill you and good luck might just push you over the top. Hopefully the Sox will be there starting in 2020.

Both things are true: the club has played a lot better post ASB and they have had some good luck.

What, we can't get a probable?

Yea agreed, Rodon especially has me concerned. He's getting by on strand rate right now. That's not sustainable. That said, he's also not reporting any pain or missing time after pitching for a few months coming off shoulder surgery, so there's room for his stuff to improve if he can build arm strength and stay healthy.

No kidding. I wonder how hard they shopped him tho.

Yea who knows. Was last year a fluke or will teams open up the pocket book a bit? It does seem, especially in the AL with how the season has gone (basically have 1/2 the league tanking) that the budget tightening last winter was smart. Nobody was catching Houston, New York, Cle and Boston. Maybe this year more teams will feel closer to contending and will spend.

Love it, nice to see the guys having fun here in the latter part of the season. Well paid pros sure, but also humans that want to enjoy their work environment.

One year 15 million with a 18 million club option for '20. Who says no?

Yea hopefully comes in closer to 2 million than 5. I"m all for signing Brantley, there's no future in Engel and Robert and Basabe and anybody else that could play CF is a long ways (2021 at best) away.

They will tender Yolmer and he's eligible for his first real pay increase, are they really going to pay him 5 million to be a backup? I mean, I probably would but will the Sox? Or maybe they really do see him as the utility guy that gets 300-400 PA and is a swiss army knife defensively, covering three IF positions and possibly a corner OF as well.

Yea...Avi Garcia is the definition of a 1-2 WAR player. He had his one fluke year where he was able to stay health and productive and find every hole known to man, and from here he'll go back to being a guy that hits 270/320/430 and plays a mediocre RF and gets hurt for 40-60 games. His salary and age don't align with the Sox' anymore so yea, let him go. At worst you dropped a market value marginal starter.

When you lay it out like that he's an obvious candidate for a non tender.

Good question, have to see how spring shakes out but I'd be fine taking a flyer on a lefty hitting 1B if anybody is out there to kick the tires on. My preference would be to see Palka and Davidson in a pretty strict platoon at DH. Davidson can play 3B in a pinch hopefully Palka could play some 1B. That said, I think you'd run into some roster construction issues having that many DH/1B types. We'll see, maybe they just try and dump one of those guys for a lotto ticket prospect.

Def appreciate the optimism, we'll see. Interesting tid bit on Yoan.

81 wins next year would probably mean that between Eloy, Jose, Avi, Moncada and TA you get about 15 WAR. Not sure that's realistic.

Best part of this run is the young pitching driving it.

I'm so fucking ready for Hawk to be gone. And this is from a 35 year old guy who loved him for over 20 years. The world has passed Hawk by and he is a shell of himself as a broadcaster.

Cooper's philosophy has always been, for a guy with a good fastball, and that's about everybody in MLB now -- first pitch fastball strike. Then you work from there. Obviously starters will need to work in their off speed stuff but everything starts with good fastball command getting you ahead in the count. Kopech so far has really executed that plan to perfection even though he hasn't had great off speed stuff outside his first start. Hopefully he can continue to work in more off speed stuff and pitch off his fastball.

god damnit.

he's the man.