almagest

At least it wasn’t a double play!

Walking the lead off hitter at the bottom of their lineup is a great way to start the 9th with a 4 run lead

I love when Houston makes dumb plays

Bunting in front of Amaya, eh

“f*** Altuve” coming through again

Leasure man

I love Quero

One of the only things Soxtalk is united on is "get that bum Vaughn off this team".

His defense is improved but he still makes boneheaded plays. He's definitely not going to hit 2 WAR as a DH because he doesn't have the hit tool for it. Maybe as a utility infielder/LF (assuming he gets enough playtime), but even then I don't think so because he makes such poor swing decisions and isn't a guy you'd bring in for his defense (that's Rojas). I also don't think "maybe an alright utility infielder" is a role you prioritize. You can find those guys for cheap anywhere. I hope he discovers how to not swing at everything and makes me look like a fool. I just don't think it's likely.

I'd be fine bringing Fletcher back up and replacing Tauchman to see what he can do. I don't disagree that's how you handle over 30 players on your roster when you're rebuilding. I'm saying Sosa has a terrible, likely unfixable flaw in his approach and isn't one of the guys you'd do that for.

Rojas had 2 years before that in the mid .700s, he was much better in 2023 after being traded to Seattle (.720 OPS), and he still put up 2.2 bWAR last year due to his defense. Slater was looking decent before his injury and was much better after moving to Baltimore last year. He was also a pretty consistent ~110 OPS+ guy for SF in 2021-2023. Assuming Tauchman comes back from his injury alright he should be able to post a 100 OPS+, which when platooning with Slater is just fine, and much better than they'd likely get from Sosa. I also think you're discounting how BAD Sosa's chase rate is. 1st percentile means he's either worst or second worst of the 168 qualified hitters in MLB right now. He'll never be any better than he has been if he doesn't fix this (probably worse), no matter how hard he hits the ball when he's actually swinging at barrel-able pitches.

Cost control doesn't matter if he's not good, which in over 600 ABs he hasn't been. He'll need to hit better than a .650 OPS with bad defense to keep a starting role, even over injured 30+ year olds on 1 year deals. It's not like his advanced stats are that great, either. If his BA and SLG lined up with the expected numbers on Baseball Savant he'd be solidly productive (probably a mid .700s OPS), but there's not a lot supporting that in his batted ball data. He doesn't barrel a lot of balls or hit them hard, likely because he swings at literally everything - 1% on chase %, and that's been a trend his entire career.

Man I just can't put Sosa in that group. He's at almost the same numbers he finished last year at (after being hot for the last month of 2024 or so), so it's not like that hot streak carried over. He also seems to make a completely boneheaded play once every other game. I'd rather play him than Vaughn or any of the other complete stiffs on the roster, but he's the odd man out once Tauchman, Slater and Rojas are back.

This damn stupid trade, not really even trying to sign Harper, and trading Tatis are the top 3 most infuriating White Sox moves in the last 20 years.

All joking aside, getting Tauchman and Rojas back plus working Elko in and this team starts to approximate a major league offense.

This division can be had. Detroit only 11.5 up. That's nothing this early.

And here's one of those games where the Sox score a ton

Meidroth must be a pain in the ass for other teams

Vargas is my new crush

"Good job of adjusting by Vaughn" - no, stupid job by the pitcher doing nothing but throwing cutters off the outside corner. Go up with a fastball for Vaughn's usual K swinging at those, or go in with a cutter and get a weak grounder to SS.

Oh good. Vaughn.

Flyball would've scored Baldwin if Sosa could have done anything productive

Can't count on Sosa

Nice job by Burke there. Would be nice to not sweat out every inning and need the pitching to be perfect because they can't score any runs.

That was a pitch to drive to right field Luis.