Tnetennba

I'm not being negative just for the sake of being negative. Being critical doesn't automatically equate to negativity. I don't have a lot of faith left to put in the FO, and rationally I just don't see all of the IFs bouncing the Sox way. There are simply too many questions unanswered for me to be confident that they will be significantly better aside from excising the massive cancer that was TLR. If that is negative simply for negativity's sake, then I can't help you. I may not share your optimism, but I'd like to think there is some level of objectivity in my views. Again, I hope I am wrong, and everything breaks right, and instead of rehashing everything that went wrong we are celebrating come October. I just can't squint that hard at this point.

"It was clear to veterans like Lance Lynn, who played for La Russa in St. Louis, that La Russa was not himself most of the year. He had little energy. He needed daily naps. His voice was so soft that it was often hard to hear him. " More evidence that he should have never come back. And what an awful awful job he did.

Hey, I hope I'm wrong. If they win 90+ and take the division I will happily admit how wrong I was. It just feels to me that way more has to go right. Again. There are a lot of IFs being counted on, and they haven't exactly had the most inspiring offseason.

Not lose their best offensive player, their 2nd(?) best starting pitcher, and probably their closer for a good chuck if not all of the season? I haven't followed them too closely, but I think they will feast on the Sox, KC, and Detroit enough to have a better record.

Cleve - 90-72 Minn - 89 - 73 Sox - 78 - 84 KC - bad Det - BAD

This feels about right to me too.

Thank goodness for MLB.tv’s away feeds…

Exactly. They are bench bat depth with an option left, which if used as such gives them some value to the team. AAAA guys like them are a dime a dozen, the type of that get exposed when played too much. Penciling them in as anything more is foolhardy except when injuries occur.

Burger has all of 252 plate appearances in the bigs. The sample size is far too small to call him the best bench anything. He could be their best bench bat, but that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement when Sheets, Leury, Seby, and or Billy Hamilton are your bench mates. Burger and Sheets would be quite redundant on the same bench, and as much as I’m over the Gavin Sheets experience, his lefty stick at least plays vs RHP, which they face far more often. Neither provide adequate defense at their natural positions and neither have any real versatility. It’s one or the other and I’d rather choose neither.

It’s probably just more talking to guys that have worked with Grifol and not indicative of him landing a spot on the roster, but part of me does find it curious.

I wouldn't want to inflict such pain on long suffering Expos fans. Can we send him to Houston, Boston, or the Northside??

Too bad the Jays are a much better run franchise than the Sox.

It was always going to. There is no bandaid to fix the fundamental flaws with the roster.

So about that play-in push…

Least bad option of the three?

8-4 LAD. Let the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments commence.

The last half inning was a little rough