Southwest Sider

All in all though it is important to keep an eye on stuff like this. If Rick Hahn really wants "sustained success" and a "critical mass of talent", then he will need to stock up on prospects like these. They need to have Paddy identify the talents before anyone else and get commitments. That is a massive competitive advantage for organizations.

Good article, I think maybe there was a typo where Laz RIvera was given an age of 22 and then later in the article an age of 20. Threw me off at first haha.

Gonna need zero from Reynaldo and the bullpen if the Sox are going to win with that lineup. There's 2 free outs in that lineup in Engel and Rondon. There's 2 nearly free outs from Sanchez and Castillo. Their lucky rabbit shoes are going to need to be in full swing for them to get hits. Jay can hit but even if he does he is surrounded by trash. Garcia hit, Moncada XBH, hoping Abreu doesn't have another suck game and McCann not in full regression mode yet is all we have. I could easily see the Sox maxing out at 1 run today.

Barf. Hasn't this guy been given enough plate appearances? If he has shown he has the propensity to hit just enough, he'd probably be an adequate player.

This is fine, and it's not like there's a 100% chance he'd be disgruntled being held in AAA for too long. Not everyone will think like Kris Bryant does in these scenarios. Is KB's agent Boras? If so, he has the baseball whisperer in his ear, which could be contributing to his mindset. Nevertheless, I still think they need to call up Robert soon. They called up Moncada during his AAA struggles... if a player is going to absolutely dominate AAA he should be called up as well. As for service time, we can cross that bridge when we get there. Many players, for whatever reason, love playing here. I have few doubts the Sox would be able to keep Robert around long-term should they want to.

Call Robert up. If he is who we think he is, and he refuses to sign any extensions, the Sox will have no choice but to pay him a fair market value contract as his FA gets closer and we won't have to worry about him leaving. I know, I know, this is the Sox we are talking about and cheap Uncle Jerry, but I highly doubt they'd let one of their own walk if he was one of the best players on the planet. No team is that stupid. You simply cannot play the service time game here. It gives the player an incredibly bad look, especially if he is OPSing well over 1 into next year. You're burning good faith with the player by keeping him down. Look at how disgruntled Bryant was. He had every right to be disgruntled, and now it's highly likely he's going to go to FA instead of signing one of those now popular fair market extensions some players got last offseason. Plus, at this point, Robert has to start learning how to beat the best. It really doesn't seem like he has much left to learn against AAA and AAAA pitching.

I'd still rather watch Tilson than Engel.

May be time to bust out a draft pick tracker as the tank continues.

Don't know much about Smith, but can't really complain about dumping Anisimov. I had hoped for a lot more from him, but I don't really know why.

On a perfect pitching staff, Giolito to me seems like an awesome #2 or perfect #3. Aces are just so rare. But hey, it's true, aces do struggle too. Look at Sale this year. If nothing else, I think Giolito is still perfecting the repeatability of his delivery, and polishing the mental side of his game. If he doesn't lose any of his stuff, he will be perfectly fine.

The whole running into Collins at O'Hare was ridiculous. If you're gonna make up garbage, at least make it believable.

It is

Now that you guys mention it, it is a quite strange .... but that would only be if a deal was imminent.

Jon Jay... man I'll be happy when/if Robert takes his at bats away. He's a nice player but he should be the 5th OF on a contender.

He was fine. Balls were not hard hit.

Herrerra getting fucked by bad luck. Sucks.

This post.

I think most probably feel this way, but I was kicking around the idea of starting a thread about that and seeing how everyone feels about it.

Meh, I'm not a GT ruiner like some around here, so I'd hope my frustration with Reynaldo would be less annoying to others.

Also, wow, you really showed your true colors with that post. /sarcasm

Different strokes I guess, but I think it might be a lot more fun to go to a baseball game in Japan or Central America where the crowd is full of life than the USA. Being a part of the Oakland noise is probably great fun for the fans.

Haha you had this post ready to go.

I understand where you're coming from, but in a way I kind of like how they interact with the game instead of being the usual lifeless crowd that doesn't make any noise unless something happens or the big screen tells them to.

Freakin Reynaldo. Here we go.

I really need to see a great 2nd half from Lopez. He can start today by keeping the A's down and getting us a W.