southsider2k5

https://theathletic.com/2683411/

In other bad news...

So the Leury injury has finally happened. Wonderful.

Also this

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2021/06/03/mlb-injuries-2021-baseball-season-increase/7510128002/

A lot of this will be decided by Yermin Mercedes and what the MiLB OFs have to do with it. If Yermin recovers, he probably plays himself into another year of DH. I If not it makes it easy for the Sox to use mostly Jimenez and Vaughn at DH and LF, with someone else playing RF. If these kids can step up for an OF spot, they have an opportunity if Mercedes fails, but more work to do if he doesn't. I wouldn't look at Jake Lamb and Brian Goodwin as future options as at least one of them, and maybe both, will be losing their jobs and roster spots in the next month or so to Luis and Eloy. Their 40 man spots will loom large as the team tries to reconfigure the roster for both of them.

His career OPS in the 2nd half is .898.

I feel like Vaughn has played himself into a long term OF job. He's even shown enough arm where I could see him getting some run in RF.

The White Sox are out here getting Twins fired.

Honestly all that is happening here is you are making the case for why Jake Burger finds a new home at the trade deadline for someone who does fit this team as it is currently constructed.

I am not positive that Moncada is a defensive up grade to Mendick or Garcia. I would tend to rank them Mendick, Leury, Moncada defensively. If Burger really can handle 2nd defensively HE is the guy you move there.

I think most of that is fear rhetoric from the NCAA. In my view, there are only so many slots. Kansas still only has 13 scholarship slots. There aren't a whole lot of people who were previously playing at a mid-major who could have played at a Kansas type of a school, so this really isn't going to affect them. Not many guys are turning down Wichita State for Kansas now, let alone a Southern Illinois-Edwardsville type of small school, so what changes there? Small schools have always had small budgets anyway, so that won't change. Maybe a top guy at a small school gets a small endorsement deal, while a guy at Kansas gets a new Mercedes, but that kid from SIU-E was never going to turn down Kansas anyway, because Kansas wouldn't have wanted him. Maybe I am totally wrong, but I see this as already built into the system the NCAA created, so I don't see it changing much, except the kids actually getting to profit from their own skills.

If he is healthy? Absolutely.

That's fine with me. These kids are a multi-billion dollar industry. Let them get a taste of it legally.

A healthy Adam Eaton has a role on this team. An unhealthy one is a waste of a roster space. IF he is 100%, and not rushing back, he can help.

Fair question.

I have always thought that, but it he always seems to figure it out anyway.

In six days, Vaughn has gone from a 38 to a 51 OPS+ against righties. In the meantime, MR OPS+ Brian Goodwin has gone from 216 to 123, even after his homer last night. The day before he was at 101, or his career average, on a .747 OPS. This is why you don't only bank on current stats, but think of player histories and how much room they have to get to their ceilings.

This is the same thing he has done for 7 years.

For the most part that is already true, but those teams still have the same number of slots.

I can't bet against Abreu.

If that team had been under this decades playoff rules, they would have made it as a wild card.