MiddleCoastBias

Eloy-related: Yankees keeping Jay Bruce. This leaves Tauchman as the odd man out and possibly easier to get via trade.

Man, how pissed must Gavin Sheets be? Picks up an outfielder's glove after he sees he's super blocked at 1B (by heir-apparent Vaughn) and that we have no outfield depth, wants a chance to expand his game to crack the roster. Opportunity comes and this is his shot! Nah, Sox give that to Vaughn too with literally zero experience out there.

Yes and no. Eloy has been trying to get better in the outfield and part of that is just Robert letting him catch balls instead of robbing everything. It sounds like the plan with Vaughn is actively "everything to your left is Robert's", though maybe that's meant to be tongue in cheek.

There's been a lot of doom and gloom in here so I don't want to add to the pessimism, but this not only exposes another DH/non-outfielder to greater injury risk, but you're also explicitly asking Robert to cover more ground and expose him to more risk. It's like if you have a sore foot so you start shifting your weight and favoring the leg for too long, you're going to tweak something somewhere else. Just nervous that Robert is going to feel more pressure to get to more balls and he's going to get hurt too. Backing off the ledge now, I know they're athletes and we can't just wrap everyone in bubble wrap.

Fangraphs loves him because he genuinely does a great job receiving the ball, framing pitches, and stealing strikes. Where I have issue with his defense is after the ball is put in play. Seems to continually make boneheaded mistakes during a live play and forgets how to catch the ball. Where's my defensive runs saved stat that shows him botch plays at the plate? I'm not advocating for him to be traded, I'm just not ready to anoint him as some defensive god when he continues to make the same mistake. Parts of his game are lacking. If that's just a focus issue, fix it.

Oh man, Benetti asking TA if he's ever played catcher on the broadcast interview. Which one of you monsters paid Benetti to ask that? He's. Not. A. Catcher. ?

I swear I've seen Grandal mess up a play at the plate where he can't catch a ball half a dozen times, so frustrating.

Meanwhile, fantastic defensive play by Madrigal on the diving stop. Great to see that.

Oh man, this delay between Stone and Benetti is going to be so annoying today. Sounds like Stone is on a few seconds delay so Benetti ends up talking over him in the feed, and then there's a long pause after Benetti speaks before Stone picks up, and then Benetti is speaking over him again. It's got to be an issue with the sound truck.

You acknowledge that we already have one of the best at SS in Tim Anderson, so it doesn't make sense to use assets (money or trade) to replace "one of the best" with ... another of the best. Use those assets elsewhere if you want to be a splash and play in the "big boy league". Let someone else blow their load on the shortstop battle while we look to upgrade areas that actually need upgrading. Just seems too lateral of a move to me.

Reynaldo Lopez optioned to alternate site, not breaking camp with the team.

Holy cow, Eloy. Holy cow.

I know this is a "dream" trade that probably (definitely) will never happen, but even with that caveat it seems like a Nintendo trade. That's a whole lot of shakeup moving the entire infield around, plus moving one of the faces of the franchise to a position he's never played, just to get another SS. Teams don't reshuffle 3+ player's defensive alignments to sign a redundant position piece. Doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

Billy Hamilton DH'ing for the White Sox in a ST game is almost as good as Jimmy Rollins DH'ing a regular season game. I guess give him a few ABs so the team sees him live, but he's exactly who we thought he was at this point in his career. No real point giving him a look here.

Really cool stuff, akin to custom hockey goalie masks. Not allowed in games yet because the higher-ups in the league office love tradition, but I can see this being an easy way to grow the game and let players express themselves. There's a huge marketability opportunity here - let's hope the capitalize on it.

Agreed. Gio has publicly said "I know what I'm worth" on multiple occasions and has given the impression that he intends to get it. Not that he's out there as a mercenary scraping to get every penny, just that he knows he's good and deserves a fair deal - no discounts. For that reason, I've thought he's the least likely to sign, given what you said about questioning JR's willingness to do that. Would love to be proven wrong here, though.

Grabbed another one, stealing that low strike 3 for Bummer there as well. Great inning by Bummer K'ing all 3 batters he saw.

Benetti and Stone on the call as well. Getting the gang together!

Ump huddle for a rules discussion on a pickoff play, two runners on one base. It's spring training for everyone, folks

I think when hitters know that he's got that wicked curve in his pocket and it's back in his arsenal, we'll see fewer people able to just sit dead-red on him.

Good to see using that curveball we saw last year in the 'summer camp' or whatever Spring Training 2.0 was called. Looks like he also has Giolito's little leg kick on his follow through when he's upset with himself missing his location, kind of entertaining.

I know you allude to the risk on the low hit rate on high school catcher draft picks, but does he look like a kid that will actually stick at C? Or is this like one of those situations where he'll be drafted with almost the expectation that he'll be moved to those other positions? Kind of like a poor man's Bryce Harper "we'll try him at C until he shows he can't" type thing?

Precautionary for an abdominal strain for Robert. Hopefully nothing.

Lineup. Seems like we've been going either "good lineup, minor league pitcher" or "minor league lineup and established pitcher" in our outings