southsider2k5

Wasn't it nice of Elko to hurt himself so he could stay on the payroll?

They might even be on the right track, but it is a LONG, LONG, LONG track. Even all of the top talent is showing some pretty major flaws right now, or is so far away as to not be anyone to count on for years. We gotta lotta pain in front of it. I would love to be wrong, but I can't even squint and see a best case scenario of mediocrity in the next couple of years, let alone a playoff team.

He's a great defender, not a good hitter. Hit him. What?

What does wanting to be closer to family in New Jersey have to do with any of the rest of this? No one connected to the Wheelers actually ever said any of this.

So Johnson got a five year deal? WOW.

The commands right at the top of the reply window are easiest. Colors are in the A box. It's super simple to use.

All of those guys hitting their peaks, all at once in 2026? #1, I don't buy it. #2, you can only start one catcher at a time, and the Sox refuse to play the other at the same time, which cuts down Teel and Quero into a combo of one player #3, out of that list maybe you get league average-ish peaks out of Meidroth, Sosa, and Baldwin. Maybe. Sosa will lose time because of Meidroth and Montgomery. Quero I feel better about being a league average guy, but I don't think he is going to play enough to put up numbers with splitting time with Teel. #4, the only guys I see on that list would COULD have a plus league average type of career are Montgomery and Teel. Montgomery still has some pretty big swing and miss issues, defense issues, and back problems. Teel I feel better about as maybe an occasional all-star type peak. #5 The pitching staff still lacks front line guys and stability. #6, the pen is still fucking terrible. #7, even if you spend a lot of money, you can only fill so many holes at once.

I mean even if they were willing to spend A LOT, this roster just sucks. I don't see it.

There is no where near enough talent in this org to play .500 ball next year, even if almost everything goes right.

It is noteworthy that things went from bad to worse when they changed his pitch mix.

I remember being on I 57 at Effingham with my dad driving. We watch a semi go from the right lane all of the way across traffic into the median in a jackknife. We got off the next exit and grabbed the first hotel we saw.

This is actually a lot scary than fatigue causing a reduction in stuff. If he is throwing as well as ever, but can't find the strike zone and is getting hit around like crazy as he has moved up, that's a huge red flag that isn't very good. At least if he stuff was down because he was tired, that would make sense. I hope you are actually wrong here.

I would definitely be interested to see this data, especially the YoY stuff.

Yeah, IIRC, there was some kind of sickness that kept him out of a lot of work.

Oh I have been big on not rushing the kid. I don't like them rushing him to AAA while also pushing him as hard as he has ever been pushed. For me those two things don't work well together, and I think you are seeing it. It's like they jumped from first gear to fifth gear without regards for the transmission.

And we all know what sports reporters are worth.

If we are looking at Schultz the big reason for fatigue is this is the first time in his life he is throwing a lot of pitches in each outing, and it is the first time he is doing it on a regular 5 day schedule. They babied him soooooo much the last couple of years, and then they just set him lose this year. Last year the most pitches he threw in an outing was 67. He never went more than 4 innings in any outing. This year 14 of his 15 outings have been over his former career high of 67, with those outing ranging from 70 to 93 pitches in an outing. 67 to 93 is around a 40% increase. The only time he was less than 67 was when he blew for 60 in one of his recent AAA starts, but he did it in 2 innings and he was yanked. The kid has already faced almost as many batters this year in a half of a season (306) as he did in a full season last year (358). It is a big adjustment to go out and know you can let your stuff loose as much as you want, because you don't need to last far, to knowing you want to push up against 100 pitches with it, so you need to have something for the 5th and 6th innings, which he had never seen in his professional career. Him and Shane Smith are in the same boat here. I want to see how the both bounceback next year to really know what we have.

It's actually a great reason to cross your fingers and hope because there aren't a lot of options out there. I could see a team hoping they can improve on whatever it is the Sox have done for Robert the last few years and taking a chance on him.

And what happened to the ones who got hurt?

It's wild to see Manfred claim the players are getting cheated out 9f revenue, but also owners are losing tons of money. If the players share of revenue went up, wouldn't owners be losing more money?

Cool, so you agree their opinions don't matter where it counts.

This is my camp. Trade him to the highest bidder and don't look back.

If any franchise is spending time caring about what the talking heads are saying, they need other jobs.

NOT THE PODCASTS NOOOOOOOOO

I think we all would have felt a lot better about this s%*# show if Tony wasn't in the picture, and someone with some actual baseball success was in charge at the top who has actually been a part of a winning organization.