SpringfieldFan

Seems like elite pitchers these days are far more likely to have serious injuries requiring surgery than the previous generation, and yet the pitchers of old used to throw well over a hundred pitches a night, and sometimes with four man rotations. I wonder what’s up with that.

This may be the worst team in a generation or maybe just ran into a hot TB team, I don't know. The one thing I know for sure is that when you are going good you are not as good as you think and when you are going bad you are not as bad as you think...

Granted, its the trophy that matters in the end, but just throwing this out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_all-time_Major_League_Baseball_win–loss_records Sox all time W-L% = .504 (i.e. a "winner"), ranking 11th out of 30.

Overly naive and simplistic, but I would offer a generous bonus if he signs before the weekend is out, and let him know if he doesn't sign he loses the bonus *and* starts seeing the contract offer get reduced every couple days he remains unsigned after that. ...and then move on SFF

Let’s just hope that it doesn’t play out where the Sox do sign Machado, and then he spends April struggling to hit .230, everyone blames the cold and promises he will heat up with the weather, but in the end just struggles through the whole season. That seems to happen with high profile acquisitions - Moncada...Frazier...Dunn...

The high profile free agency market has become, for all intents and purposes, an eBay auction where the only real action happens in the last couple of minutes. There is no “buy me now” button. I don’t think it has any bearing on any team’s position. My take, if they offered $250M (or whatever) for Machado and he turns it down, so be it...as long as the Sox commit said $250M to field a winner, wherever that is.

I can't help you there. I just had waffles.

https://www.google.com/search?q=syracuse+chiefs+cap&rlz=1C1NHXL_enUS813US813&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=RmIMwSzXmvD9hM%2CWHogieW4ksYOjM%2C_&usg=AI4_-kTTnHl54p7AAmJmOeVP-aM208Hg9g&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1zLvt_fffAhVQMawKHffLBLoQ_h0wE3oECAUQBA&biw=1209&bih=499#imgrc=RmIMwSzXmvD9hM: ...Reynaldo played with them in 2016.

This all has the feeling of a few years back when some were thinking we were going to sign Cespedes *and* Gorden. There were folks spoofing Rosenthal's Twitter name and "breaking" fake news, we were all up deep into the night refreshing the feed, "Rabbit" had almost enough inside information to suggest a signing...ahh good days, good days!

If I were Manny it would be in my interest to have and meet a deadline. At the amount of money we are talking about, even the slight risk of getting hurt walking across the street before a contract is signed isn't something I want to be toying around with.

I don't know, there is still a much brighter future now than during those endless 90 loss seasons in the 70's with "stars" like Harry Chappas, but somehow it just seems like those days were a whole lot more fun. SFF

I wasn't there in person, but this was my biggest Harold memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIC5w-iCk_c&feature=youtu.be&t=83

Wow, a crafty righty who can hit the low 90’s. You don’t see those every day. /sarc /kinda

IMO white socks just don't look quite right on a white uniform, but I get that not having them doesn't make sense given the team's name. They did address this in the red pinstripe era. At that time they wore red socks (stirrups then), but due to the fact that there was another team called "Red Sox", they had the team logo itself embroidered (in white) on top part of the red sock. Interesting compromise there.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 18, 2017 -> 04:46 PM) You don’t even need to go back that far, we just did it with Kahnle. Hasn’t always worked though, Massett and Aardsma were misses. I’d say it worked for Bobby Jenks as well.

Anyone paying attention to the home/road schedules? It seems to have gone unnoticed but the Sox odds have quietly improved by that alone recently. For quite a while, the Sox had played far more games on the road than at home, especially compared to the Phillies and Giants. However, in the last couple of weeks or so, that has flipped and the Sox have now have played three more at home. Check out the total games home vs away so far: CHW 71H, 68R PHI 65H, 75R SF 70H, 72R It isn't insignificant that now the Sox must play more games on the road than the others, especially Philadelphia, who will be getting ten more home games than road games down the stretch.

Very relieved to see they are ok. I have to wonder, after probably seeing his young career flash before his eyes, is there any chance Yoan will become more tentative on similar plays in the future? I would guess not, at least I hope not.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 28, 2017 -> 10:43 AM) Those 2 straight #1 picks for the Nationals have worked out pretty darn well, even with no WS appearance yet. And Detroit - 2003: 119 losses --> 2004: #2 pick Verlander --> 2006: World Series.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Jul 28, 2017 -> 09:38 AM) And that's where the problem arose. Now we just have to trust the same organization to rebuild. When these prospects hit the big league club, will they put the necessary pieces around them or will we be back to square one? Only time will tell. I agree with this. The good thing is that the pendulum is moving again. At least we are not mired in the mediocrity of 75 win teams with absolutely no inertia towards anything different. We will suffer through some awful major league play but have the opportunity to watch it all get built from the ground up. There is risk but if it pays off the satisfaction at harvest time will be tremendous. Lets hope the organization will know how to work with the pieces, have a philosophy through all levels guiding it, and thus make the process sustainable.

Vests again would be ok, but they should be made and worn like Clemente's or the young Reggie Jackson's. There is a difference. -SFF

I can see the case both for and against this change but I am a purist and prefer the IBB stay as it is. As boring as those 4 pitches might be, the game is still going on and things, even odd things, can happen. Baseball is great because for all the calculus, probabilities, and rules, it is also quirky. Lets not make it more formulaic than we have to.

I wonder how long it will be before someone proposes the 10 run rule in the pros as well.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 01:06 PM) Seems like the fight wasn't his fault based on all publically available information. Not to excuse or defend him, but I just got a flashback to a time when *another* 100+ flamethrower from Texas retaliated by throwing punches at a player.

I thought this was an interesting tool to gauge the competence of the front office. Is the problem one of poor scouting and development, or is it in giving up valuable talent in ill-advised trades or to FA, or is it a combination? This metric says that if the Sox had kept all their drafted talent, it really wouldn't have made much of a difference in their record. That tells me their scouting and development is MEH, their trade strategy is MEH, and how they approach FA is MEH... http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-th...r-they-drafted/

Thinking back to the nightmare of 2013, at least then it seemed the pendulum had finally swung as far back as it could before heading the other way. Now it just seems the pendulum is dead. SFF