caulfield12

Can't wait to see some new/legit bullpen faces like Ian Hamilton...although he still has a ways to go.

Guess we jinxed the bullpen by posting that stat update on ERA since April 24th...

Social Security won't go broke...but some politician/s at some point in the future will cut the benefits by 20-30% and blame past politicians (undoubtedly of the opposite party)/profligate government spending and waste and argue there was no alternative. According to all the predictions, this should be around 2030, although the Trump tax cuts might have pushed the crisis up to the 2026-2028 budget cycle. Of course, those same politicians won't be willing to give up their platinum health care and retirement packages funded by taxpayers.

Realistically, who are the other candidates? Jordan Stephens? Guerrero and Adams are falling off the map. McClure or Henzman are more likely to end up as relievers, from everything out there in the media.

Kudos to Yolmer for having an OPS one point higher than Abreu's...

Get the bullpen up. Good thing we're not paying on a "per call" basis for using that phone line or Cooper would be bankrupting the franchise.

Well, this has pretty much been a disaster. Sigh. Hope we can get two solid starters out of Lopez and Dunning and call it a win, but it's not the slam dunk this trade looked on the day it was made...Washington should know their talent better than anyone.

94.4 on that force out is one of the best fastballs he has thrown so far this season... Well, this is pretty much textbook on how NOT to shut down the opposition the inning after your offense gives you a significant cushion!

Got dinged up on the slider...not the best location.

That was a badly-needed strikeout on a FB...terrible situational hitting by Moran.

Trade 'em Nate Jones...

Wow. 51 pitches to get through that inning. 29 minutes from top to bottom of the inning. PS. I don't think we can catch the Orioles for 1st pick. Imagine after they trade Machado's offense away...and Bundy can't even record an out against KC? Giolito has been 91-93, touching 94. Most consistently at 92-93.

I'm not sure that Delmonico will ever look better than his first 6 weeks in the big leagues last year. Guess we'll find out. Selling on either guy is an unlikely proposition. Might as well see what we have.

Palka seems like one of those classic streaky hitters...it would be nice if he or Delmonico could at least be average fielders/average hitters rather than plus hitters/minus defenders. In the overall scheme of things, though, it probably won't matter.

Battle of two progressives in Ohio https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/politics/cordray-kucinich-ohio-progressives-already-won/index.html

Arrieta and JD Martinez move the needle a bit, but not enough to get past 72-74 wins. It would also wipe out a significant chunk of our future FA budget...around half?

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/mickey-callaway-perfect-person-fix-matt-harvey-article-1.3946339

Looks like some combination of Giants, Mariners (maybe), O's (maybe), Reds (speculated) and White Sox...Rangers seem to have lost interest, according to reports.

At any rate, just like you keep your best prospects at SS and CF as long as possible, the same principle applies here with catchers.

Maybe they're going to let Miguel Gonzalez go and slot Harvey in to see if they can leverage any value...? Probably wouldn't come to the Sox to commence career as a closer/bullpen guy.

WHO IS THRILLED TO DUMP ABREU? One thing we wouldn't be thrilled about is watching Jake Arrieta and JD Martinez take up $200 million in payroll space and then age into oblivion when we actually needed them to perform in 2020...hamstringing our ability to add the (young/er) talent we really needed at that critical juncture. We tried that in 2011. In 2014. 2015 (Samardzija). 2016 (Frazier). ETC. ETC. ETC. Greg, imagine the price of hot dogs, sodas, beers and burgers if you had an attendance bump to 20,000 per game (from 16K) but nearly doubled the team payroll...?

Fine, but Arrieta would be completely fried by 2020, when we REALLY needed him to be the 2014/15 version...and which is never coming back. Would seeing the current version of Arrieta encourage more attendance? Well, what did Shark do for that? Or even Chris Sale? Moustakas is still going to be available next offseason (and I was one of those advocating the same thing, signing Moustakas and Dyson to man CF for two years while waiting for Luis Robert)...this year, he would have prevented Sanchez and Davidson from getting playing time, and then still would have left at the end of the year in all likelihood. JD Martinez was never going to come to Chicago unless we hugely overpaid for him...compared to what Boston eventually ponied up. Once again, our offense would be better (as it stands, we're around 16th or MLB average) but you're investing a lot of money in a player who won't be really important until the second half of 2019. http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/boston-red-sox/j.d.-martinez-8690/ Basically, you'd be paying Martinez $70 million for 2018/19/20, with him moving one year away from his true prime each year you advance his contract. Then you'd have him for $38.7 million for 2021/22, when he'd be useful but also clearly declining at age 33/34. Is there any guarantee he's not another more powerful version of Melky Cabrera? It would have taken $115-125 million to find out. And we have a better/cheaper version of Martinez in Eloy Jimenez at AA already. The problem with the 2018 team, more than anything...is pitching (both starting and bullpen) and defense. Let's say you now have a 72-78 win team, but what does that actually do for fan interest? PROBABLY NOTHING. AT ALL. Meanwhile, you've committed 1/4th of your future FA spending/payroll for a player in Martinez who will be replicated by the eventual production of Jimenez, Burger, Sheets and Adolfo at a fraction of the cost.

Hitters can always DH or learn 1B later down the line. It's better for the Sox (and trade value of those 2 players) to keep them all at catcher as long as possible. Otherwise, we're just producing more 1B/DH/LF types, which are a dime-a-dozen. With Collins' resurgence, the odds of drafting a player partly due to positional need are taking a hit. But that's entirely dependent on internal scouting reports about their catching abilities/projected improvement. Plus, Bart and those two won't intersect on the organizational chain because Zavala's going to be turning 25 later this season and they're going to push him and eventually Collins up to Charlotte before the end of this season.

And what would you have done to make them a playoff team in 2017, 2018 or this year, if you had inherited the 2016 team at the end of that disappointing campaign (after starting off 23-10 and sacrificing the top SS prospect in baseball for James Shields)...? Even if you bumped the payroll up by $50 million, it's not a sure thing you get a playoff team...except having the ability to do it in hindsight. Even teams like the Royals, Cardinals, Rangers, Red Sox and Giants have struggled to plug gaping holes in their major league teams on a consistent, year-to-year basis through Free Agency. Adam Eaton and Jose Quintana would be depreciated/depreciating assets. The two best players we have produced (fWAR-wise) in Escobar and Semien are still on other teams. You take back the Thompson/Frazier deal, well...you have Trayce Thompson, Montas and Micah Johnson on your roster. That won't help you much. Keep Tyler Flowers? Well, that would have worked out "okay" for one year. You want to sign Shark to a long-term extension? Good luck with that one. You'd still have a team with a core of Abreu, Sale, Tim Anderson and Rodon...and not much else, but an absolutely TERRIBLE farm system. Your rotation would be...let's see, MiGo/Shields/Rodon (injured)/Shark/???. So let's see you spend $50 million in that 2016-17 offseason FA market without the benefit of already knowing the results. The problem is no GM can be right more than 65% of the time on FA's, and the actual success rate ($$$ to fWAR production) is a LOT lower than that, many (are/have been) better than Hahn in this area but still not even a break-even proposition.

That's what happened to Dunning the second half last year (getting hit hard the second or especially third time through the line-up). He was dominant with his stuff (primarily fastball) early on but struggled to put away hitters with offspeed stuff or when he got behind in counts as the opposition hitting improved with advancement through the system. Dunning reminds me of Fulmer in a sense that he has a VERY GOOD fastball, but it's not a dominant pitch at the major league level. Hopefully ONE of them makes it as a 4/5 starter. The other joins the bullpen parade. Scout said he was 90-91, T92. Threw a lot of breaking balls for strikes and whiffs, but a lot more sharp contact in the second half of his night... The curveball note is encouraging...velocity seems a BIT down, normally expect him to be 92-94/95.