caulfield12

Mendick is the type of player who does everything fairly well but doesn’t have loud tools and who almost never gets a shot in the big leagues...we’ll just have to wait and see.

Or Alcides Escobar...whatever they do, they can’t let Engel come back to take Leury’s spot. Hopefully Cordell gets another extended run of playing time in CF.

Maybe it was bad timing to be listening to Adley Rutschman and his father talking about signing with the Orioles at precisely the same time I found out about the Anderson injury...

Do we get to extend the rebuild all the way to 2021 if Anderson is out for a long period of time...with rehab theoretically extending into next season?

That’s even MORE bad luck considering how they ended up after getting outed as frauds.

For a long time, Jimenez was in negative territory. Of course, he got the biggest contract in team history. He probably will turn out to be a lot like Carlos Lee...with more homers. A really really nice player to have, but not a superstar in the modern game where you need to be able to run and throw or hit like JD Martinez.

So I guess we get Leury at SS? I guess that can show off his positional flexibility to play the position capably for 7-10 days. Hope they don’t try to use Rondon there...of course, this probably means more Adam Engel in CF, haha. Or Alcides Escobar.

Just shocked to come back 45 minutes later to see the back of the bullpen up to its normal tricks...

Narvaez for Colome was 100x more controversial...

At first the name that came to mind was Shields with our pitching problems. A hit, realllllly?

NOT being they key missing word...instead of the double negative, what’s the worst thing that could possibly happen?

Jerry Krause, lol? He already gave up the baseball scouting gig, didn’t he?

He’s heading for a 30+ error season again...with his talent, that’s unacceptable. 20-25, fine.

Didn’t Hostetler claim that Walker was the most polished college hitter after Madrigal in that draft class?

Rule? Unless they need him to pitch out of the pen with Davidson and Leury gone...

Uh-oh. Collins looks to be headed for a Ventura rookie year hitless run...at least he got that homer out of the way early. 0/10 since then with oodles of K’s.

Moncada with six game hit streak, 879 ops. Who’s the one who was saying how Rondon was going to be so good all offseason?

Jimenez had yet another ball an average MLB left fielder gets to? Watching Avi, Palka and now Jimenez...at least we’re setting a baseline for terrible outfield defense, so there’s that.

There’s a lot more to think about and definitely more pressure/stress in an environment like last night at Fenway than just sitting on the bench and watching as a DH...or going back and forth from the clubhouse to watch video. That said, if he needs to be protected against all LHP...he’s probably not the prospect they argued would have gone 1-1. Of course, veteran managers will invariably protect rookies against especially tough same side pitchers, Ozzie and Ventura were no different in this regard. They're still doing the same with Moncada three years in...unfortunately, Price can now largely pitch around him. Probably Jay will bunt the runner over and Moncada will be walked again.

Doesn’t want Collins to take the golden sombrero vs. Price probably. in other words, they care more about protecting him psychologically than supporting Fulmer at this point.

Maybe trading Jay and Escobar as a package deal today gets you...Alex Call or Jake Elmore?

http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id/33984/yoan-moncada Moncada has a 725 ops against lhp so far this year. In other words, he’s no longer Jose Valentin. Jon Jay from 2016-2018 is 690 vs. lefties and a not exactly robust 721 vs. rhp over the course of well over 900 at bats. Whether he’s arguably better than Tilson or Cordell is debatable, but Moncada needs as many PA’s as possible against lhp. All they will do is pitch around him at that spot in the order, so it’s not really helping him.

Except there’s two things that number doesn’t take into account...his defensive abilities (especially range and arm) and his ability to impact the game on the basepaths. He’s actually quite similar in so many ways to Javy Baez...minus the 3-4 years of swinging out of his shoes at every pitch that goes by. (Ironically, taking Baez or Contreras away from the Cubs might be our best way to stop them, assuming they won’t be able to afford Bryant and Rizzo, too.) He’s hit a ton of balls this year that missed being a homer by less than a foot or two...for example, one hit right off the new screen in RCF in Colorado that used to be a homer for the previous 25 years. He also gets a lot of infield hits by pure speed and hustle, like Avisail Garcia two years ago. You finally have to consider that PetCo was never a great hitter’s park and his age as well. So, sure, there’s a lot of luck involved, but exit velocity and foot speed/hustle also tend to find a way to create more luck. He’s not a 1.000 ops guy at age 21, but 825-850 is still going to have a huge impact for the reasons outlined above.

It’s still back to 2004-2005 when we have to hope the exact perfect combination of veteran additions will put us over the top. Prior to that, we really lucked into Contreras (Yankees desperate to get him off the roster because of his failings against the Red Sox) and had the trade pieces and family connection with Guillen to bring Freddy Garcia on board. Without those two moves....KW’s perfect offseason in 2004-05 and the formation of the best bullpen in Sox history wouldn’t have even gotten us past the Indians.

At this point, bringing in Bumgarner or assuming Greinke’s salary would be similar moves, too. Or believing Cooper can fix Wheeler because the Mets are so messed up, etc. Assuming the White Sox are going to sign Cole, Ozuna and Grandal, on the other hand...well, we went through that this past offseason. Rick Hahn had the absolute worst timing with this because it feels like 75% of the true impact players in these next two classes are already off the board after signing extensions, unfortunately. There’s also probably 5-7 high impact pitchers with 2-3 years remaining on their current deals...but we just don’t have attractive enough horses to deal beyond our our four current Top 100 milb players. Finally, the international market has been pretty much a dead end since Robert.