Black_Jack29

Yo-yo!

Holy smokes, an effective bunt!

For teams that can effectively bunt, that's a good idea. For the Sox, though...

Pisses me off that Nova is probably going to take the L in this one.

Madrigal and Jay, but that won't be for a while.

Meh, that may have caught the edge of the plate. Alonso needs to foul that off.

Yeah, I hadn't considered pitchers for some reason. Probably because the Sox have been pretty good at developing them for the most part. Position players, not so much. It seems like they didn't develop any between Rowand and Anderson.

The Sox sucked for most of Hawk's broadcasting tenure. The difference is that Hawk got really cranky about 10 years ago, especially with regard to the umps. Other times, he'd just sulk and not say anything. He also began going overboard with the Hawk-isms around the time they won the WS, to the point where he became something of a caricature of himself. So, yeah, it's hard to be a good announcer when you're so emotionally invested, but Hawk changed a lot as he got older.

I feel your pain. Who was the last who didn't, though? Frank?

Nice effort by Eloy

He's competent, but not that great. At least Hawk was great in his prime (1990s). I'd rather listen to Farmer do PBP.

Engel is a career AAA player masquerading as a ML utility outfielder. There are a lot of good defensive outfielders who can muster a .600 OPS.

Hopefully it's not pharmaceutically enhanced this year.

Agreed. If they have nothing left to prove in the minors, it's best to let your young talent take its lumps in the bigs for a couple of years. I remember watching Mike Hargrove and John Hart run a bunch of talented-but-green Indians players out there in the early '90s. And, man, they struggled. Until they didn't.

Dude's 22. Expect some growing pains for then next year or two.

I had wondered why the Sox drafted Madrigal last year. After watching Moncada at 2B last year and at 3B so far, it makes sense now.

Palka is fine as a DH. Problem is many of his teammates are better suited to that role as well. Rather than leaving him at the bottom of that godawful river, it might be interesting to see if he's worth a young middle reliever at the deadline.

Kudos to Nova for pitching out of that mess.

I imagine he'll move to 1B once Abreu is gone. Watching him run is painful.

It's like watching a Little League game.

Wow, Palka is worse defensively than I imagined. Looks like Jose Canseco out there.

I figured there was a 30-40% chance that they'd sign him. And that's only because the FA market has been so weak this winter.

I posted this in another thread. I wouldn't necessary assume that this leaked $250M guaranteed offer was authentic. There's no documentation or transparency at all in the FA negotiation process, yet people take leaked info like this at face value for some reason. Consider the possibilities: (1) The Sox's front office leaked a fabricated $250M guaranteed + $70M possible offer to try to convince the fans that they really, really tried. (2) Machado's agent leaked a fabricated $250M guaranteed + $70M possible offer to try to get other teams to up their offers. (3) The Sox's front office made a legit $250M guaranteed + $70M possible offer after Machado's agent revealed San Diego's $300M guaranteed offer, knowing full well that Machado would reject $50M less in guaranteed money. Now consider that JR has never given a contract greater than $68M to a single player. But now we're supposed to believe that the Sox made a serious $250M offer? That doesn't make sense to me. What makes more sense is JR spending $50M+ on past-their-prime players to round out the 2019 roster. And that's exactly what he's done.

As a guy who was all in on Albert Belle back in '97 and '98, I can stand having a jerk on the roster if he's an elite offensive talent. But given that I never believed that JR would make a serious offer to Machado and care more about the development of Jiminez/Moncada/Kopech/Cease than anything else, I'm more fine with Machado being elsewhere after reading that.

Bingo. There's no documentation or transparency at all in the FA negotiation process, yet people take leaked info like this at face value. Consider the possibilities: (1) The Sox's front office leaked a fabricated $250M guaranteed + $70M possible offer to try to convince the fans that they really, really tried. (2) Machado's agent leaked a fabricated $250M guaranteed + $70M possible offer to try to get other teams to up their offers. (3) The Sox's front office made a legit $250M guaranteed + $70M possible offer after Machado's agent revealed San Diego's $300M guaranteed offer, knowing full well that Machado would reject $50M less in guaranteed money. I agree that the 7/175 offer may have been legit but, given JR's long history as a cheapskate, the idea that JR was going to give any player a $200M+ deal just doesn't make any sense to me.