TheFutureIsNear

If I haven’t seen your other posts I would think this is 100% sarcasm. Sadly, I know you’re being serious.

I hope I’m wrong too...and in fairness I don’t think McCann is a bad player that doesn’t deserve to be on the roster. I’m just in no rush to extend him and would prefer he be in a backup role. I have a hard time ignoring sample sizes and the fact that the only 1/2 of a season McCann has been a plus hitter in he had a .408 BABIP. However, I don’t think .260/.320/.400 is unrealistic....I wouldn’t bet on it though.

Obviously it’s too early to tell for almost all of our list, but I think it’s a pretty damn good list of talent if you ask me. The biggest thing is going to be top of the rotation starters...if Kopech and Cease aren’t what we hope (or at least very close) then yes, we could be in some trouble. Realistically a team needs like 12 impact players to make a serious playoff run. 3 starters, 3 bullpen arms (1 LH), and 5 hitters. Obviously the rest of the team has to be at least serviceable, but I don’t think we are too far off from that path of a great core 12 already. But again....at lot still left to prove with our players.

The point of a rebuild is to amass as much young talent as possible. Later trading some of that talent is pretty common place. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with the Sox looking to trade prospects for a piece that will get us over the top sooner rather than later. Yoan TA Kopech Gio Robert Eloy Cease Madrigal Vaughn Thats the young (hopefully all) elite talent we tanked for. That’s a great core...now the franchise should be using any and all resources to add as much good and proven talent around them as possible. Jerry opening his wallet in free agency is obviously a huge part of that, but it doesn’t have to be, and nor should it be the only way we add talent.

I hope they aren’t too worried about specifics with any position. Assemble talent and figure it out from there. We aren’t nearly close enough to anything to be that picky.

Not trying to be a dick, but how on earth do you think the small sample size of a hot 1st half outweighs the other 1000+ AB’s of his career? He’s not pressing, he’s just not a good hitter. McCann is still under contract next year, no need to do anything with his contract. C is a position we should be looking to upgrade, but if the opportunity doesn’t come up there’s worse things than having McCann as a starter.

Ozuna- semi high profile bat that fills a need and will get fans/media talking without breaking the bank Moreland- LH, good fielding 1B, above average hitter. Makes sense to pair with Jose 1 of Wheeler/Odorizi/Keuchel- The front office isn’t going to give Cole huge $ despite how bad the team needs him. Saving face on a serviceable and recognizable 2nd tier SP for lesser $ will help Decent reliever like Hector Rondon/Brad Brach- steady the pen in front Colome with a reliable vet. Should be relatively cheap To me thats the very obvious/easy off season for the front office. Not saying it’s the best, but it’s pretty straight forward and safe. If they are less aggressive than this I’m going to be very disappointed...again

We need good hitters. JD Martinez is a good hitter. Of course we should be highly interested. Any thought about anything else is non sense

A whole lot of pickiness going on in this thread...we haven’t had a competent lineup in years and we are apparently most worried about plus D and handiness? Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand the importance of defense...but can we just get some good major league hitters please? Compile talent and figure out the fine details later

I’d just bite the bullet and pay up for ozuna. Like it or not he’s the closest thing to an impact player this organization will pay up for. We will likely have to overpay for what he’s actually worth, but it won’t be a crippling mega contract...the $ has to be spent somehow.

Considering the fact that the Sox haven’t sniffed the playoffs or played a meaningful game since Jose has been here...I’m going to say this is a stupid argument. Wake me up when Jose actually steps to bat in “clutch” situation.

Anybody who thinks we are signing Cole is just in flat out denial at this point

If the front office can’t figure out how to get a DH with an OPS over .800 we are a lot of trouble. Im sure you and I both were penciling in the likes of Beckham and Dayan into the starting lineup for years to come...are Madrigal, Vaughn, and Robert really good prospects? Of course, but many really good prospects have failed. Eloy and cease have a long way to go as well. Trust me, I’m optimistic about the future myself, but just resting on what’s already in the organization thinking everything will work out just fine is craziness. We should be looking for upgrades outside the organization at a lot of positions, 1B/DH being 1 of them. I’ve said before that Jose isn’t a bad player and if we end up circling back and giving him a 1 year deal I’m fine with it. But to lock him up for 2+ years thinking we are set at any position is bad management

Are people giving McCann a lot/all of credit for Gio turning into what he should have been all along? Because other than that I see no improvements from our pitching staff to rave about how good McCann is defensively. Reynaldo hasn’t taken a step forward Nova has been worse than his previous years for most of the season Cease has struggled No one else has been useable... McCann’s 2nd 1/2 offensive #’s reflect his career...so what are we really talking about? I’m not saying he’s not serviceable enough to keep on the roster for next season. But extension and penciling him into future lineups? Hell no.

I’d bet $ that if I looked up post histories of most of the people that are talking about extending McCann are the same people that were penciling in the likes of Delmonico, Palka, Yolmer, Covey, etc into future lineups. Absolutely 0 reason to touch McCann’s contract with a year of control left

So we should be happy with an average/below average player because the rest of the lineup MIGHT be really good in 2 years? Not trying to improve the team to the best it possibly can be because we have prospects coming is just craziness and a great way to never get out of the rebuild. Some of those guys you listed are inevitably going to fail.

Can I choose to let all 3 leave? I’ll honestly be surprised if any of those 3 are anything better than league average...I hope we are shooting for better players if we are planning to seriously compete for a WS in the next few years

I guess the part we disagree on is any team with World Series aspirations being happy with a slow footed DH that barely maintains an .800 OPS. Like I said earlier, if other options are exhausted and we can’t find a better hitter we can certainly do worse than circling back around and keeping Jose. Jose is in no way a bad hitter...I just don’t think he’s much (if any) above average for a player with his skill set at this point.

Why skip over his slg%? And we are talking about a 1000 AB sample size...at some point it’s not luck and he is what he is. No? Are you really going into next season thinking that a 30+ year old hitter is going to buck a 1000+ AB trend and go back to what he was? Hell, if you really want to be honest about Jose...add his ‘16, ‘18 and ‘19 seasons together and you have a slightly above average 1B. Those seasons are rapidly adding to the seasons where he has been really good.

Can we all just agree that Jose is in obvious decline, but is still a slightly above average 1B/DH? Therefore the front office should be looking for an upgrade, but if not able to do so circling back and signing Jose to a cheap 1 year deal is perfectly fine... Reasonable middle of the road opinions are possible...

Considering the fact that I don’t think the $ will be spent well regardless, yes I’d have no problem slightly overpaying for Machado. I mean what’s the alternative? Save the $ and sign more middling vets for cheap? I’ll take Machado unless you’re telling me we are signing Cole, Rendon, or some package of players like Ozuna + a 2nd tier SP like wheeler/Odorizi. But I have about 1% hope any of the later will happen, so yeah, I wish the front office/owner had the balls to pay up for Machado instead of that bs cop out offer they made to appear like they really tried.

7 legit prospects in my opinion...ending in Collins at #7. Not saying no one else can or will hit as good players, but as far as a decent bet to help the team in a significant role in the next 2 years, that’s about it. Really not a whole lot of wiggle room when you think about our roster. And also makes it hard to make trades.

2021 we still need to add from outside of the organization: -top of the rotation stater -Well above average Starting RF -Closer/really good RH bullpen arm -Good defensive catcher to split time with McCann that isn’t a black hole in the lineup either -RH platoon to split DH with Collins And that’s not even considering how many prospects/unestabliahed players we need to count on being good players. Some are going to inevitably fail or at least take a full year in the majors to work out their flaws. 2021 roster in a perfect world C- McCann/Free agent 1B- Vaughn 2B- Madrigal SS- TA 3B- Moncada LF- Eloy CF- Robert RF- Free Agent/Trade DH- Collins/FA/Trade SP- Free agent/Trade SP- Gio SP- Kopech SP- Cease SP- Lopez/Dunning Backend of bullpen= LH- Rodon and Bummer RH- Free Agent/Trade

Harvin Mendoza Lency Delgado Benyamin Bailey Ronald Guzman Albeit very far away, but at least there’s some intriguing young talent to come after the big name prospects. I Suspect most of the 14(ish) through 30 prospects on the upcoming list I won’t think will have a shot in hell at being big league contributors. The top of the list is nice of course so I shouldn’t complain too much, but I feel like our overall depth is lacking for being multi years into a rebuild. Not much trade depth at all to be aggressive with. Good thing we didn’t have any international $ to spend or anything ?

How do we organize a bunting intervention for Ricky?