caulfield12

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/19/sport/los-angeles-dodgers-ice

Robert sacrifice bunting is new.

16th at his position....in the majors. Smith is the better story, Vargas #2.

Nearly half the NBA’s franchises, a whopping 14, have changed hands since the 2011 collective bargaining agreement. That has given way to monumental television rights deals, and it has become more than trendy to own an NBA team. It's become very smart business. The average NBA franchise value is $4.4 billion, according to Forbes in November. The $10 billion number will only increase that, as well as the expansion that’s expected to kick off pretty soon. When you think of that golden era, only the Reinsdorf family remains with Jerry and son Michael running the team. And it’s very doubtful, if not impossible to see the Reinsdorf family — with all of their investment into Chicago’s West Loop over the last 20 years — selling the Bulls. They're still a cash cow. https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/the-lakers-are-being-sold-by-the-buss-family-for-10b-marking-the-end-of-an-era-235841579.html

Montgomery's Bonemer Jeral Perez

Orioles were up 8-0 over TB. Now they're down 12-8 with two more at-bats to go in Tampa. https://forum.orioleshangout.com/topic/57340-june-18th-orioles-vs-rays-rogers-back-on-the-bump/page/45/#comments Now on page 45 of the Game Thread, the comments are pretty amusing from a White Sox "been there, done that" perspective. "On June 15, 1925, the Cleveland Indians led the Philadelphia Athletics 14-2, then 15-3, and finally 15-4 before the Athletics scored 13 runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to win 17-15." "The Athletics (then Philadelphia Athletics) were leading 13-2 in the bottom of the 6th inning against the St. Louis Browns on Jun 17, 1936, and ended up losing..."

It's as likely as any...can't imagine any possibility of Clevinger being traded before the deadline, but stranger things have happened I guess. There's also Martin Perez, perhaps he'll be traded in anticipation of him returning at some point in July/August.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45532575/2025-mlb-mock-draft-20-kiley-mcdaniel-predicts-first-round-picks

Braden Montgomery...but he doesn't have that level of speed/defense/dynamism in the outfield and on the base paths.

Clevinger is, unfortunately, close to fighting his way back to Chicago. Dalbec/Vaughn combo the middle of the order now for the Nashville Sounds...at least they can collect ex-Sox players in that city, if not an actual franchise.

"The Brewers acquired him in exchange for pitcher Aaron Civale, signaling a strategic move to potentially revitalize his career. Vaughn, a former first-round pick, has struggled with consistency this season, but the Brewers see potential in his hard-hit metrics and hope to help him regain his form." says AI Vaughn has never had a “great” or even “very good” season. He has, however, been consistently average since reaching the majors back in 2021. His OPS+ has bounced between 91 and 111 every season of his career save for this one. He’s hit at least 15 home runs every season of his career except for this one. Vaughn hadn’t ever been 49 OPS+ bad before this year, and probably won’t be that bad going forward. This is supported by the fact that Vaughn has objectively been really unlucky this season. His expected batting average is .249, with an expected slugging percentage of .461. On May 1, a couple of weeks before being sent down to Triple-A, Rotowire ranked him as the second-most unlucky hitter in all of baseball. Home runs aren’t everything, but Vaughn’s worst home run total in his career has been 15. That’s more home runs than Ernesto Martinez Jr. has ever hit in a season in the minors. Vaughn was a 21-year-old college junior when drafted. The White Sox looked at that profile and (incorrectly) assumed he’d be ready for the bigs instead of looking at his stats. On top of that, Chicago put Vaughn — a slow, defensively mediocre first baseman — in the outfield to start his career. That’s not how you develop a No. 3 overall pick, even one who was seen as “high floor” at the time. When you look at Vaughn as someone whose development was botched, the trade starts to make more sense. Vaughn is a former Golden Spikes Award winner as the best player in college baseball. He was a third overall pick. He has talent, talent that — per his Baseball Savant page — is still translating to the big leagues. Vaughn is around the 80th percentile in hard-hit rate, barrel rate, and exit velocity this year. That’s something to work with. Vaughn was already committed to play at Cal, and watching him, it was obvious he’d be a high draft pick someday. I was lucky enough to play with other future major league draft picks, but Vaughn was freakishly talented — the most well-rounded, natural hitter I’ve ever seen at the youth level. I can’t speak to his work ethic. However, if what Tyler Osik says is true, it makes sense to me. Vaughn, from the little I saw, was certainly talented enough to sleepwalk into .250 and 15 home runs. https://www.brewcrewball.com/2025/6/14/24448663/the-case-for-andrew-vaughn-brewers-commentary-first-base-discussion-analysis Last three paragraphs have nice nifty little summary as well.

Did they even get the concession stands opened...? JR will be pissed he couldn't end it after a 90 minute or so delay.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?stats=bat&lg=all&type=8&season=2025&pos=3b&team=0&qual=120&pagenum=2&pageitems=30 If you cut it down to 120 PA’s you get Vargas as 16th out of 39 possible players. So still essentially your average 3B across thirty teams. When the definition of mired in mediocrity is your very best position guy, you still have a LONG way to go as a team.

Thats just Getz’s strategy to have “great” veteran-led outfield defense…pitchers that throw up in the zone and mostly pitch to contact except Smith.

Current 51-111 pace Fangraphs says 54.5-107.5 Split the difference you get 53-109

If you go back to the Top Ten list...Braden Bonemer Meidroth arguably are the only three players that have increased their value these first three months. Vargas ofc as well but already a semi veterans in terms of overall experience. Teel feels a bit neutral for now. Almost every single pitcher has gone in the wrong direction, gotten hurt, etc. Oppor I guess increased the most out of the Top 20ish group.

5/7 against Detroit and KC fooled everyone. Seemed like a sign or indicator of forward progress.

Not knowing what they have in Sosa Baldwin or Elko by the end of 2025 is just completely illogical...

Baldwin just isn't a legit 1B candidate...look at his NCAA numbers in terms of being a SS and MLB career OPS of 571 in nearly a half season of at-bats, that's 2025 Luis Robert, Jr. territory https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/220117/

But that will cost JR an additional $4000 per day per roster spot...

They need to figure out the ideal places for Vargas (probably 3B), Meidroth (arguably 2B, then SS), Baldwin (2B or CF), Sosa (probably 2B because he doesn't have the offensive profile for first)... Then you have the issue with Quero/Teel and whether or not Teel does have the hitting profile for 1B/DH. If you're not getting much pop from Meidroth at SS, then you absolutely need to get power from 2B, IMO. When you start looking at the NL and AL All-Star competition and how deep that position is across the league. Just not sure that Sosa is THAT guy at second base, most posters at this point would probably argue against him being on the "next Sox playoff team." They're still talking about Colson as if he's going to show up at some point this season and take SS away from Meidroth, but not sure that's going to be fair to either player, and then Montgomery's going to push Vargas off 3B to accommodate Colson in the middle of the MLB season (to be fair, he did player there SOME in the AFL last year)????? Birmingham kills Sox hitters, Charlotte kills the pitchers and inflates hitting numbers...not sure how likely an affiliate change is to happen with the travel expenses saved by putting the three teams together in North Carolina.

Is Capra the pitcher more effective than Capra the hitter? That's the existential question.

Bonemer...maybe.

Of the team, lol? We've only got another 2 1/2 seasons of this to go, lol. Then we'll magically be competitive heading into 2028, somehow.

It's impossible to hold 3 PA's against Baldwin when he feels that if he does poorly he might immediately be benched...thus, he ends up pressing and trying to do TOO much. Meanwhile, how many at-bats have we wasted on Capra and Amaya so far this year, with zero future payoff on either of those two guys?