chw42

His numbers with RISP are actually better than his career slash line. It may be easy to remember somebody not coming through in certain big situations, but that doesn't mean they straight up suck when guys are on base.

He's worse than Madrigal. I don't think Nick would ever hit .260 with a .290 OBP.

Yeah the lack of shifting this year became very evident against the Astros. How many up the middle ground ball hits did we give up to left handed hitters in this series alone? It had to be close to 5 and a lot of those came in big situations.

I think what people might not have taken into account when looking at this matchup is just how good the Astros hitters are in the postseason. Even when they were absolutely garbage last year in the regular season, they turned it on in the postseason and took the Rays to game 7 in the ALCS after being down 3-0. Correa, Altuve, and Bregman in particular have all been there and had massive success in October and they were all instrumental to the Astros winning this series. Tucker was also their best hitter in the regular season and he was hitting 6th or 7th when he probably should have hit 2nd in the order.

Just to note, the Sox were top 10 in defensive value last season under Renteria. We basically had the same position players this year and ended up 17th. Could some of that be missing Robert for half the season? Maybe, but we also didn't have Eloy in LF for 100 games. Also, a lot of the negative value on defense came from Zack Collins being the worst framer in baseball. That being said, UZR does not take defensive shits into account and the Sox went from being middle of the pack in shifting last year to being in the bottom 5 this year. The Sox also went from being 2nd in DRS last year to 26th this year. I do wonder how much of this variance is due to the 60 game season last year though. Even last season, I don't think I ever considered the Sox to be a good defensive team outside of Luis Robert making some crazy catches in center.

So we'd be replacing Madrigal with a much worse version of Madrigal? Fletcher basically didn't do jack shit the entire 2nd half. Every time I watched him play, he would ground into a double play.

Scherzer might actually be possible since JR refuses to give pitchers long deals. Him being 37 probably means no team will give him more than 3 years. He'll probably get almost $100 million for those 3 years though.

Well then he'll fit right in with this outfield. His statcast numbers were pretty solid this year so he is a strong bounceback candidate.

Atlanta was probably a lot better than their record since their run differential was actually really good. They were probably more like a 95 win team than an 88 win team. Their pitching got hot at the right time late in the season and their deadline moves actually worked out. They did all of this without Ronald Acuna.

The Brewers also didn't really have any competition for the division in the entire 2nd half of the season, much like the Sox.

The fact that Leury Garcia had more XBH than the core 6 is telling.

What's funny is they threw him all sliders the AB before.

I think the only XBH from a RH all series was from Andrew Vaughn of all people.

JR should see the tide turning in the city. Cubs are gonna be ass for a few years and the Sox are gonna be the best team in the city. Unless COVID somehow gets worse, attendance will go up next year. The payroll needs to increase accordingly. If we go into next season with more or less the same team, it's not gonna work. We'll be sitting here in the same spot next October.

The Rays were in almost every game. We weren't that close in 2 and got blown out in another.

They did but they acquired all the wrong pieces.

Duncan being involved in our lack of shifting absolutely needs to get canned. Let's be honest he's only here cause his dad is Tony's friend. Menechino has done some good work with Robert, but our inability to lift the ball became a huge issue in the playoffs and it really was something I harped about in the 2nd half of the season.

I had doubts about how we would hit and those doubts were realized for the most part. I did not think all of our starters would totally crap their pants collectively though. At worst I thought we were gonna get swept and at best I thought we could win in 4 if we stole a game in Houston. For 4.5 innings, that looked like it was gonna be possible in game 2.

The Astros cheated in 17 at home and had a better OPS on the road. That argument is bullshit. Them trying to turn it back on the Sox is also bullshit. We weren't the ones cheating as recently as 2 years ago.

I still feel dirty for rooting for them in 17.

I'll never not laugh at him telling Joe Kelly "If I hit a home run I'd be running around the bases". Yes Carlos, that is how baseball works.

Why would they? Seems like he lets them do whatever they want.

Correa is such a b****.

That was 100% on purpose. It's a 3-2 count, he'd rather hit him than walk him.

Correa just said he was sitting high fastball in his AB against Rodon. This team really needs to think about its pitch selection.