JUSTgottaBELIEVE

Great. Grandal at DH tonight. Problem solved.

I imagine Moncada said he felt good yesterday too.

Yet he’s catching a guy two days in a row coming off a back issue. Why is Grandal not at DH and McCann catching tonight? I think you said yesterday that games against the Cubs don’t matter as much as games vs the division, which I agree with. So why not ease Grandal back in against a non-divisional opponent?

Starting to wonder if Ricky has something against McCann. He’s 3/7 lifetime vs Hendricks. Grandal and EE are a combined 1/10.

Madrigal should start at 2b but Mendick should play 50-60% of the remaining regular season games as well. He should spell TA, Moncada, and Madrigal on a regular basis (let’s say one start a week for each of those guys on average) to keep them healthy heading into October.

The White Sox lead MLB in team WAR at the near mid-point of the season. Many laughed at the thought of the 2020 White Sox being the 2015 Cubs but that’s what we have here. A team that is already extremely dangerous but hasn’t even reached their peak yet with so many young players still finding their footing.

I hate defense? How so? Mazara isn’t a gold glover in RF. And you keep talking like Castellanos is some slouch at the plate because he has a “low” ~345ish OBP over the last 2+ seasons (not a SSS) and refuse to acknowledge a 130 wRC+ bat in RF would do wonders for this team.

Stop it

So glad to see Grandal proving me wrong. Hell yeah!

Thought they were all night games. That makes a little more sense now but I’d still catch McCann tonight and Sunday with Grandal as an option at DH on Sunday after catching tomorrow.

So you’re playing Grandal three games in a row coming off back tightness? If you’re sitting him one game this series, why wouldn’t it be tonight? Cubs next two starters are righties and far worse matchups for McCann and better matchups for Grandal.

Must be that gut feeling again, a hunch if you will

Hendricks and Darvish the next two games and he starts Grandal tonight. Also, Keuchel pitching who’s had a strong repertoire with McCann so far this season. I don’t understand what goes into some of these decisions. Truth is probably not much thought at all. “Oh Grandal is healthy?!? Shoot let’s get him back in there!”

Ricky just can’t help himself. Simply brutal

And I’ve already explained this but I’ll say it again. I was a proponent of extending McCann last year and then signing Castellanos to play RF. My position is quite simple really. Obv that ship has sailed but it still irritates me, much like the Sox missing on Harper the winter before still pisses me off.

Yea, Castellanos and his 158 wRC+ and 0.9 fWAR this season would be such a terrible fit for this roster.

I fully agree Mazara sucks but what better options do the Sox have? Unlike RF, the Sox have another viable option at catcher.

Why are you making excuses for the organization to have gone through two winters with a glaring need in RF and to not address it with anything more than “stopgap” Mazara? Why are they turning a blind eye to a position that has haunted the team for 2+ seasons now? And by the way, despite the huge bust that Wellington was the Sox have pretty much rated league average at catcher by WAR over the two seasons leading up to this one. You don’t want to look up how they’ve rated in RF.

Well, Bryce Harper was the magical RF solution. You want to talk about the perfect fit, he was the guy. But...if we’re giving them a pass on that brutal miss from two years ago then I’d have preferred Castellanos over Grandal last winter if they could only afford one. Despite Castellanos shitty defense, he’s still a 3 WAR player. Meanwhile, this is what the third straight season the Sox have run out a negative WAR player in RF?

Have you seen what the Sox are running out in RF? And this team is still short on starting pitching. Ultimately, starting pitching wins in the playoffs and right now the Sox are barely scrapping together 3 quality starters on a consistent basis.

The part I disagreed with was the first sentence of his post. That was his opinion.

Ive been wondering the same thing. Not for one moment this season have I felt like damn Grandal is stealing strikes for these pitchers and helping them out a ton in comparison to McCann.

So you’re willing to trade McCann and open up the very real possibility of starting Collins at catcher in the playoffs if Grandal’s back issue lingers into next month?

Yep. It’s convenient to talk SSS when it doesn’t support one’s position but then ignore it on the flip side. For this season, people need to stop getting hung up on SSS. This is a 60 game sprint. If McCann continues to outplay Grandal over the next 4-5 weeks, you have to start him at catcher in the playoffs. Maybe Grandal can DH if EE is still struggling. And I should add that there’s not much the Sox can do about the Mazara situation outside of a trade next week. They don’t have an obvious replacement like they do at catcher (Engel is a nice 4th OF and all but he’s not an everyday RF).

McCann is gone after this season. There’s no sense in even discussing anything different. Regarding this season, they absolutely should hold on to him and not trade him next week. Thankfully, if they had any thoughts of trading him earlier this year, I’m certain those thoughts are now long gone.