caulfield12

Sosa apparently has the better arm. Yolbert’s is fringe for playing SS everyday, more of a natural 2B.

It’s not beyond a paywall. I don’t subscribe to The Athletic or have any free articles remaining…but the whole article is available to anyone who clicks on it for whatever reason. It only happens here in China that the whole thing downloads when normally it only shows the first paragraph and then it starts fading where you can’t read any further…? Just assumed that happened because it was so out of date.

What do you do with Grandal if he can only catch 100ish games at that salary and you make Eloy the full time DH? He’s not going to be easy to trade with one more year remaining on his deal and one year older…? And you’re not going to make Jimenez the weak side of a platoon like some thought should happen with Vaughn/Sheets to start the year?

Not so sure Correa, Seager, Story or Baez would be saving us…but whatever is wrong, it’s spreading like a disease across the entire infield. And even seems to have followed Sheets, Vaughn and Leury to a lesser extent wherever they play on the field.

Josh Naylor not being good enough to hold down a starting spot in SD is certainly affecting the White Sox right now.

That would take an intervention of sorts. Even if we put our best defensive lineup out there.... Pollock in LF, Robert, Engel in RF, Moncada, Anderson, god knows who at second, god knows who at 1B and Reese McGuire at C....we still have no way to play Vaughn/Abreu/Grandal at DH simultaneously. Just not sure how you can get considerable defensive improvement with our current roster unless you play Adam Engel every day in right. And then we still have a conundrum with 2B offensively and defensively, and Abreu's defensive slump/malaise at 1B. How in God's name is this team going to suddenly improve defensively in season with this particular coaching staff and manager? Moving Anderson to second in the middle of the year will never work. I guess you can promote Yolbert Sanchez to play second, but that's going to put so much pressure on the offense to carry the bottom of the lineup. Not that Harrison is doing much to help the team, either.

They didn't have an eight game losing streak. Only the 83-79 Cardinals of TLR (two eight game streaks) and 1953 Yankees (lost 9 consecutive in early July) still managed to win the World Series.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1591320-how-important-is-team-defense-in-winning-world-series-championships This one has pretty good information in general...but covers more of the previous decade in MLB. By the way, that previous 2018 Phillies' team from the OP finished 80-82 and in third place, missing the postseason.

https://theathletic.com/447974/2018/07/27/how-bad-can-you-be-on-defense-and-still-make-the-postseason/ Adjusting the bar a little bit, there have been 27 teams to finish a season with a total of minus-60 Defensive Runs Saved or worse. Three made the postseason.

Yeah, I just looked him up again and noticed he was still hovering around an 800 OPS entering tonight...would have thought he'd already be down in the 650 range after a hot start.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/team/_/view/fielding/table/fielding/sort/errors/dir/desc We're tied with the Pirates for most errors in the majors and lowest fielding percentage. Basically, the Top 6 (or bottom, if you look at it that way) along with the White Sox are ALL pretty bad teams, in general. Additionally, you have the Diamondbacks, Athletics, Nationals, Orioles and Rockies. None of those teams are going to make the post-season.

Maybe TLR got too overconfident due to your unflinching support...?

?

Juan Disgusto and Salome Barojas probably can't even stand watching this Sox team game in and game out. It's too infuriating.

Or the VV game if they have to avoid yet another sweep against CLE with the Yankees looming on the horizon... And here I thought they lucked out missing Bieber and McKenzie this time around.

They were 13th in the AL coming into tonight, but have the potential to be much much better if Bieber can recover his Cy Young form. Crazy thing is not so long ago they had Kluber, Bauer, Carrasco, Clevinger and Bieber across their starting rotation.

Please change thread title to "Michael Kopech is disgusted."

Or a certain resident of 1600 Pennsylvania who uses that phrase 22 times per speech. Ny the way, poor Michael Kopech, can't buy a single win with a sub 1.00 ERA!!!

This has always been true every single season but one!

Of course their Rule 5 guy shutting it down. We don't even know what that draft is anymore it seems.

Not concerned at all...staring in at 1-11 vs. the vaunted AL Central with the Yankees coming to town. Seemingly half the team is hurt. But onward and upwards to 109 victories. But yay team!

SIGH. Knew it was coming.

Is he still awake? someone give him a Red Bull or No Doz.

To add insult to injury, Indians' announcers asserted we shouldn't be able to claim two consecutive playoff appearances because of weird and abbreviated 2020 Covid season.

So just two injuries tonight? Not bad. It would be good to at least keep injuries under the error total on a nightly basis.