Jose Abreu

A full offseason (or longer, assuming another shortened season) of an anti-analytics crusade because of that Snell decision (which even analytics people don't support) is gonna be super annoying

They tweeted one minute apart. It's fate

From February 2020

Yup- and for the record I was more referring to the last couple of things when I brought this up. His original comments on it are from 2016, but he doubled down on them this year

The only dynamic I'm worried about is La Russa/Anderson

Given the heightened importance of contracts this year, that seems like a huge overpay for a deal with minimal surplus value. That said, I don't see Cohen cutting salary anyway

I would like this but I feel like Madrigal is the exact player TLR would love, bat leadoff, play all 162, etc.

Texas and Georgia are lowkey inching towards Biden which would certainly be something. I think Biden wins, but we won't know that for sure until maybe a week after election day itself. As I expect a higher proportion of in-person election day voters to be voting for Trump, I think the results on the night of will be either in favor of Trump or very close. That will change as the mail-in/early votes get counted, IMO. Of course, it would also lead to plenty of speculation and accusations...

I wouldn't completely hate Vaughn for Woodruff or something, but I just am uneasy with the idea of trading such a polished and powerful hitter to open up ABs for James McCann, who could very easily revert to a league-average or worse hitter

Why should I want to be friends with somebody who thinks I deserve fewer rights than they do? Sounds like a bad friend to me

I completely agree

Yup. Stroman is extremely into analytics and biomechanics himself, but it hardly gets mentioned

That's valid, but (as you acknowledged) we knew that before he was signed, so if it was gonna be this big of an issue, the signing shouldn't have happened. IMO, his pluses far outweigh those negatives, although I understand why people get so frustrated by them. However, what I don't get is the idea that McCann is some polar opposite. He was at the top of the league in catcher's interference errors and, like Grandal, also dropped a routine pop-up.

Counterpoint: Yasmani Grandal is good and there's no reason to actively seek to limit his role

The idea that everyone on the team hates Grandal's guts and wants him gone is hilarious considering his 2020 season was basically exactly what he always produces both defensively and offensively (maybe add a bit more SLG but his offense was still good). If the Sox didn't know that prior to signing him, that's their own fault.

He actually might because even though Grandal and McCann split time, Perez also only caught 32 games

Cool video of various MLB stars gushing over Abreu

He's all the " scientific" aspects of Trevor Bauer but without the harassment scandals

Very true. I just wouldn't frame it as "likely" like I did in the conversation about him vs Robert and Jimenez. But in the 2024-2026 latter half of our window, I can totally see Vaughn putting up .380+ OBPs with 30 bombs and 35 doubles.

I didn't say best hitter on the team, I said best out of the 3 players referenced (the others being Robert and Jimenez). I'm sure he'll struggle early on, but he has the makeup and approach to make an impact fairly soon

I say this as someone who thinks Eloy is the most underrated current player on the Sox, but IMO it's likely that Vaughn ends up being the best hitter out of those three. I just love his swing and power/patience combo

I don't want to put this in PHT because I'm sure the common answer I'd get is 162 with full stadiums, but how many MLB games do you guys think will be played per team next season? The vaccine trials are hitting snags and I doubt that it will be safe for fans to be in stands. Thus, the owners are likely to pretend that they can't afford to pay players for a full 162 game season and we'll have to enter the same song and dance. At this point I'm optimistic that we get more than the 60+ we got this year, but my question is how many more? Will they just play a full season without fans, despite it retroactively contradicting the idea that they couldn't afford to do more than 60 this year when there was room for ~100?

Now this is something of which people should be asking, "how do I explain this to my kids?"

Move one of the best defensive 3B in the sport to RF for a guy we haven't ever watched play 3B?

Thank you. I really don't get how people aren't realizing this. All I've seen is a lot of arguing over Hinch/Cora, but what is being missed is that Reinsdorf seems to have had a change of heart and is actually running the organization (and the Bulls) as it should be.