almagest

Hopefully the art of "hitting big home runs against the White Sox" translates to helping the Sox hitters.

I wish I could go back in time to 2017 and tell myself not to bother with this team

That's different than being competitive with those signings. That's admitting you're a bad team going nowhere and trying to fill your lower minors with a few lottery tickets by signing guys who you hope can rebound enough to be interesting to a competitive team at the trade deadline.

I see Garfien's podcast continues to be meatball central. None of these signings makes the team better, and you already have basically an entire team you have to see massive improvements from, so adding more "what if"s to the team does nothing except waste money.

Vaughn may have even ended up a "meh" factory with more time and development, who knows. At that point he'd just be a bust and not a top "boy you sure screwed that guy up" candidate. With a real right fielder we also don't notice his failings as much because so much of the offense isn't keyed on him posting a >130 wRC+. The Hahn/KW era is so mind-boggling. My main encouragement right now is hoping Getz and Co. couldn't possibly be this short-sighted.

And they rushed him for basically no reason because DH and 1B were already well-covered with Abreu, Eloy and Yaz. Sticking him in the outfield is one of the dumbest possible decisions they could make, but it had to happen because Eloy got hurt and all they could muster was a can of coffee to play RF.

Crushing loss for the Rangers. Yeesh.

You would be incorrect.

I do not get these obsessions with utility infielders/outfielders. They're almost all directly interchangeable and are the literal last component you worry about when building your position player roster.

I had to stop listening to the Soxtalk podcast. They recognize the same problems we do but their solutions are almost always meatball level. Justin Turner is 39 next year and is due to fall off a cliff any second. In fact, he would almost CERTAINLY crater once signed by the Sox because that's what happens to this team. Even if he's good there's no way you can trust him for more than a year, and then you're right back where you were. It'd be smarter to keep Eloy for one more season and see what he can do - Turner posted 2.1 bWAR last year so it's not like you need some amazing performance from Eloy to get to the same level, and Eloy has potential upside that Turner just doesn't at this point of his career. I also laugh about replacing Elvis with Merrifield. They're almost the same player with hitting, but Merrifield plays left field instead of shortstop.

There are definitely some people who like/want him.

I also don't get the desire to get Merrifield. He's not good. They'd be better off giving Sosa a shot.

Oh man I forgot all about pitching. Best options to me (they ain't getting any of the non-reclamation guys, but this is what I would like). Go for 3 of the following for SP: Aaron Nola Sonny Gray Blake Snell Jordan Montgomery Montas/Giolito/Flaherty as your reclamation projects RP I would mostly roll the dice with in-house options. Maybe pick up a few anchor types: Reylo Ryne Stanek Shintaro Fujinami (if you can help his control) Phil Maton Jordan Hicks

You're right. The drop off to Merrifield as the second best option is pretty steep, though.

The FA list ain't great. This is about the best I can come up with: SS - TA option 2B - Jorge Polanco RF - Teoscar Hernandez + Jesse Winker platoon C - Mitch Garver for offense or Martin Maldonado for working with pitchers Run back Moncada, Eloy, Benintendi, Robert, Vaughn

I am very much enjoying watching Baltimore's pitching melt down.

Angling for a contract from the Astros, eh Lucas?

Hell of a finish to the Phillies/Braves game. Kind of don't blame Harper for gambling and being aggressive but that was a colossal mistake. Meanwhile, Dodgers pitching looks terrible.

Orioles pitching getting hammered.

Boy I bet the Phillies are mad they spent all that money on Bryce Harper! Oh, wait...

Jays didn't come to play either.

Tampa just doesn't look like a playoff team. 0 runs in their last THIRTY postseason innings.

I just can't look past that last drive and the Broncos being so bad on defense.

Yeah I'm not at all saying Fields is the main reason they lost. It was a complete team effort. What I'm saying is I think that even with a competent team and coaching staff he won't be enough to get them playoff wins.