almagest

That’s a real funny looking ground out to short, Andrew

I feel like that was only his most recent start. Has he had more control problems than that?

I like Smith, but Caglianone is looking really good

I haven't played baseball in decades and even my eyes lit up seeing that meatball

League average offense is bad for a first baseman for sure. He's also not a good defender there (and a disaster in LF), so he should probably be a DH, where his offense profiles even worse. He'd need to be about .100 OPS points higher over his career average to be worth playing.

Drafting a first baseman that high was always questionable, but industry consensus was that Vaughn was absolutely going to hit in the majors. You're not wrong, though - you pay your scouts and draft team to avoid super costly issues like these. Missing on a top 5 overall pick is an enormous failure, especially when some pretty good players were taken after him.

If the rumors are true about Vaughn not being receptive to advanced data and not wanting to change his approach, then there's no hope for him and I put little blame on Sox player development for his failures. He's probably the biggest disappointment out of the rebuild for me, because at least Moncada and Eloy showed some promise before injuries crushed that. Vaughn has been a sustained wet fart since he came up.

Eh. He's gone on heaters like this with the Sox before. He's also being well protected as a platoon bat, and his underlying stats aren't all that different than his time with the Sox. He's just hitting more line drives and less fly balls right now. I'm guessing he'll be back to the Gavin we all know by the all star break.

I know you can never have enough pitching, and the Sox are really good at developing lefties, but I am so worried about the offensive future of this organization. Maybe drafting for need isn't the way to go, but another starting pitcher at 1-10 if there are any near equivalent offensive prospects there would be a mistake.

Taylor is the guy you pinch hit for. Yeesh.

Vaughn with a ground ball hit! See, I knew that groundout to second instead of short was a good sign

Still a helluva start. Probably should've gotten him out of there once he walked two, though.

Hey Vaughn hit a grounder to second! Progress!

In 2024, the Sox were 27th in O-Swing%, 14th in Z-Swing%, 18th in O-Contact%, 20th in Z-Contact%, and 4th in pitches seen in the Zone%. In 2025, the Sox so far are 7th in O-Swing%, 12th in Z-Swing%, 26th in O-Contact%, 21st in Z-Contact%, and again 4th in pitches seen in the Zone%. So far they're much better at not swinging at pitches outside the zone, average at swinging at pitches in the zone, worse at (as in they make more) contact when they swing at pitches outside the zone, and about the same at contact in the zone and in how many pitches they see in the strike zone. Overall, some positive trends, but the lack of talent means teams can fill the strike zone against the Sox and they can't do a whole lot to punish that.

Like I said, this is a talent maximization strategy, but you still need talent to maximize.

https://x.com/haffball7/status/1909609219793314222 Guessing Ryan Fuller has something to do with this. Good stat with some promise, not leading to a good outcome yet though. This is a talent maximization strategy, but you still need talent to maximize.

You might know better, but I'd guess the offers were complete trash or required the Sox to absorb a lot of money, which they won't do. If they had a solid offer without a lot of money going to the other team and Getz didn't take it, then that's a big mark against him.

Stop me if you've heard this before, but... Andrew Vaughn hit a ground ball to short.

Lopez is missing center cut on the fastball and Sox can't do anything with it. They might as well sit fastball and hold on anything with a wrinkle.

This is a pretty good one - just plausible enough to be realistic, and not a HUGE trade to instantly make people suspicious.

Doesn't really matter in a 9-0 game, but whether this is interference or not Slater better not do this again

I'll give the Brewers a break because the Yankees were using these:

Also I'm sure they'll bounce back as this roster has some talent, but this Twins team looks straight up not ready for the regular season.

I guess I can get behind this team scoring a ton of runs, then nothing, then a ton of runs because it's a surprise what will happen every day!

So far the Knights can HIT.