Sleepy Harold

Here ya go, sickos!

I get that he really seemed to like the Sox and enjoy his time in Chicago, but why would he want to come back and play under Pedro Boylen if (theoretically) those are his thoughts about the manager?

Jose Castro, Daryl Boston, and Chris Johnson were let go/left. I'd guess that Castro probably had more term on his deal considering he was one and done, but the Sox don't typically disclose that information for whatever reason.

Young for the class, up the middle talent, seems like an elite athlete, sign me up.

Would you look at that, knowledgeable baseball insider says Cease has great value in the market. Could've sworn the internet said otherwise...weird.

better audio quality here than the NBC feed, but whatever it was that happened seemed quite bad.

It's a truly terrible proposal and I feel dumber for having read it earlier today. Bowden thinking it's good tells me all I need to know.

Tanner Burns jumped out a bit to me when I first read the writeup, wouldn't mind plucking him away.

I don't entirely discount having leaders in the clubhouse, I just take issue with bringing in bad and expensive baseball players to be "leaders" because they're someone the manager can point to and say "see he respects me so you should to too". I think a good chunk of the leadership problems can be pointed back at Pedro for being completely ineffective and not knowing how to do anything outside of being an ass-kisser.

Perez is a bad defender now, so going from old catcher that can't catch to slightly less old catcher that still can't catch BuT lEaDeRsHiP would be very on brand.

Yeah you need to have an open slot prior to the draft. They could always DFA/trade someone ahead of it to free a spot of course.

100%, this was my entire point a week ago when they unnecessarily filled it up

I'm not exactly pounding on the door to get Shewmake's 2023 .705 AAA OPS and .716 (minors) lifetime OPS into the everyday MLB lineup because he just got here, but I get where you're coming from. The placeholders they got are easy to punt if/when they predictably stink, so I don't mind the strategy of having a few of these guys to play with and not immediately throwing a younger dude to the fire because you just traded for him. I don't think anyone actually believes that they think they're going to "contend" for anything outside of a potential bottom five record in 2024. TBH I'm going to be quite surprised if DeJong is still on the roster in June given his recent track record.

TL:DR, yes

Although the placeholders will most certainly stink, making the prospects earn the job over just handing it to them out of negligence/necessity is a refreshing change of pace.

Likewise, put me firmly in the camp of rooting for the 7th (or later) pick for round 1