Eminor3rd

Nor I. Like I said, you can do a few a year (and they do), but I don't see any way to make it feel like a year-round thing as currently constructed.

The conversion of the field from baseball to concert is a tremendous, expensive ordeal that requires the calendar to line up perfectly to give the requisite run up and teardown time. And even if it's done properly, the field isn't going to be 100% for a while. Even just the booking and management of that type of event is substantial, and it's difficult to justify the staff for that if you're only doing a few events a year. There is, of course, the offseason, but who wants to go to an outdoor concert in the winter in Chicago? The gold standard for mixed-use event venues is Little Caesars Arena in Detroit (well, actually probably Madison Square Garden but obviously that's a different situation), and it works because of how much cooperation exists on the back-end, enabling scale. The Red Wings and Pistons share the arena for their respective seasons, and the concert lineup fills in the gaps the rest of the year. I don't know how many events it is, but I believe it's the busiest arena in the country overall. This is achieved because of the entity 313 Presents, which is a joint venture between Ilitch Sports & Entertainment (Red Wings/Tigers) and the Pistons. 313 Presents owns and/or operates close to a dozen venues in the area, of which Little Caesars Arena is just the flagship, giving them a fairly unprecedented level of control of nearly the entire mainstream entertainment business in the metro. This enables it to carry a huge full-time staff and to benefit from very little competition in terms of other entities that can attract talent. This is the same entity that books concerts at Comerica Park, and, despite all of the scale and advantage, Comerica Park hosts between 1 and 5 concerts a year. Outdoor fields in cold places are just tough to use like that. A new Sox field would need to be a dome or retractable, and it would have to compete with so many other venues in the city.

whoosh. Sorry, missed that haha

It might just be Always Trade Relievers(tm)

TBH, just the fact that it seems someone in the org has strong opinions is kind of refreshing. When Getz was hired, I think we all expected nothing would change, and in the worst possible way. I don't have any evidence that any of these random fringe moves make sense, but I'm willing to at least try to give them the benefit of the doubt simply because of how monumental it is that someone is actually DOING them. Somebody sees SOMETHING in these random players.

Reshuffling every player

It's just like Kenny, except instead of has-been hitters, they're all has-been defenders. This team is going to have like a 58 wRC+ next year.

Lmao Colas.Theres now a full useless journeyman platoon in his way. Wtf did this guy DO to this org? He must have pissed Jerry off somehow. EDIT: Wait I take it back. I somehow didn’t immediately see that this is the end of Sheets in RF. This move is brilliant.

I think it depends how the rough first half occurred. Is it an elevated ERA or BABIP with solid peripherals? Possibly hold. Is it reduced velocity, increased hard hit rate? I'd take the Burnes-ish return.

If the going rate for Burnes is an old, low-ceiling IF prospect, a high-variance project arm, and a (n essentially) second round pick, then it's reasonable to hold Cease for the deadline. Deadline markets tend to increase the value for pending free agents, but there's always a premium for the second year of control. Yes, there's risk, but the Sox have to try to do better than what's on the table now -- and if Cease is healthy and effective, they likely will.

Phenomenal move for the orioles. If this was available for Burnes, there was no argument for either side on making a Cease deal.

You could say “put the ball on the air” or “never try to put the ball on the air,” and as long as you’re speaking in generalities, you’d be wrong both ways. The reason there’s a burgeoning private industry for high-end skills development and coaching is because the actual solution to optimizing your performance is taking a customized approach to your game. Some hitters can benefit phenomenally from a narrow approach, others would be destroyed by it. It would be absolutely foolish to listen to advice from anyone who isn’t considering YOUR skill set when giving it.

Yes paywall? Not blaming the messenger, just sayin

I think the lack of defense/position probably limits his earning cap a bit more than the typical case.

You can’t pick one dude who has a handful of similar characteristics and expect it to be a meaningful comp. Whether it’s comping Mayo to Bryant or it’s comping every right handed hitting 1B to Andrew Vaughn.

1 to 1 anecdotal prospect comps are completely useless, no matter which direction you're arguing in.

He better never get happy OR mad. And enough with the jokes, we don’t need that. But hopefully he’s really funny. The most important thing is he needs to clearly support the team on the broadcast, so he can relate with the fans. But definitely don’t want him to be a homer. He needs to be bold and progressive, but always stay in his lane and never rock the boat.

I was hoping for a little more shove on Grant Taylor

Wow

I mean, we’re already this deep in the “culture over talent” zone, I’m not sure why we’d divert now. May as well see what happens.

I’m not sure their need is as high as it seems at first glance. They have a bunch of dudes set to come off the IL mid season, and the offense to carry in the meantime.

I’m starting to want to hold Cease now. I’m reaching the threshold of hopelessness where I don’t think there’s any path to contention, ever, and so it’s becoming more valuable just to have a fun pitcher to watch once a week. It’s like when you decide you’re just gonna “drive your car into the ground” instead of trade it in while it still has value. I’m resigning myself to having a problematic vehicle for the foreseeable future but at least I won’t have to make payments on it.

I’m not sure we need this one to work out any more than we needed all the others to work.

He’s not a lot like kikuchi, at least when Kikuchi first came over, though. Kikuchi always had command issues, threw harder than Imanaga does. They are both fastball/slider heavy though.

Idk, Yamamoto is a hell of a lot better. Admittedly, I haven’t watched nearly as much Imanaga (because it’s harder for me to get games from his league) as I have of both Yamamoto/Senga, but I’d put Imanaga below Senga pretty comfortably. It’s not a super fair comparison because they’ve got opposite strengths and weaknesses, it Senga’s raw stuff was always undoubtedly MLB quality, whereas there are some questions there with Imanaga. Im also surprised he didn’t get more, just because of the market. But it makes sense that Senga outdid him.