turnin' two

This. I think he gets wrung up on borderline pitches at a remarkable rate. If he starts to get even just the most questionable of those, it could have a snowball effect.

Looks like Forsythe is not going to the O's based on the latest report and that the Dodgers may need to cut salary in a separate deal. Perhaps an opportunity for the Sox to take him along with an interesting prospect.

... But anyways, that was fun. I can't help but really like Harper.

That is fun to watch.

Turning around that 102MPH sinker for a triple yesterday was something.

Well dammit. This has been a brutal year for injuries on the farm.

Wasn't there reportedly some sort of issues with his medicals?

This isn't the case anymore. While their system was terrible for a while, it has gotten much better over the past few seasons. I believe now they sport something like 5 top 100 prospects and have a system rated somewhere in the middle of the pack.

No. Not even close. Rodon, Lopez, Giolito, Shields and Covey would eat AA hitters alive. Charlotte may be interesting comparison though.

Hahaha. Sorry. I got nothing.

Okedoke.

I think I explicitly commented that it is too many walks. But the aggregate numbers are about what I would expect.

He has been pretty standard since the beginning of May. 3.66 ERA, 57K/59IP, .243 BAA. More walks than you'd like at 28/59IP. Those seem pretty close to numbers I would expect from Q.

Nothing good for Madrigal or Martin tonight.

You were a big proponent of drafting Madrigal right? Even though they already have Anderson and Moncada. Couldn't they hypothetically have the same problem in the middle infield? Not enough ABs to go around. And what about the OF? What if Eloy, Robert, Rutherford, Adolfo, Basabe, Call, Booker, Gonzalez, Walker, Dedelow etc all develop well? It would suck to trade Call, only to have him become good somewhere else. It doesn't matter because you stockpile talent. When you are rebuilding, you stockpile talent in the minors. You can never have enough. I think the Sox would be pretty lucky to get 1 good MLB pitcher out of: Lopez, Covey, Giolito and 1 from Kopech, Fulmer, Stephens, Adams and 1 from Dunning, Hansen, Cease. Why on Earth would you worry about having too much pitching talent in the organization?

Seems weird to give guy crap after he has clearly re-thought his position and changed his mind a bit.

Thanks for posting this, it was quite a good read. With that said, however, that doesn't really sell me on buying in, if anything it just re-enforces many of the same concerns I had listed.

Part of a good major league team is depth. To think that you will get through the season with 5 starters is pretty unlikely, sure it happens, but it would be foolish to plan for that. When this team is competitive, they need to be 7 or so starters deep. Because guys will get injured. Some significantly, some for just a few weeks, either way the team needs to be able to survive. Aside from that, the team will need at least 3 lights out, dominating relievers. Even with the stable of prospects the Sox have right now, they don't have enough to comfortably fill out the staff when you think about injuries, flame outs, and under-performances. Give me more pitching. Always. It is always in demand, always needed. You don't have too much pitching until you have 14 aces on your staff.

While true, in theory, those could/should be happening before he is signed and assigned correct? I guess we don't know for sure, but isn't that wave of promotions expected very soon?

If true, does this seem like a remedial appointment for Walker? Would it only be a brief stop? Victim of to many OFers? I would guess a 2nd round advanced OFer would probably be headed to Kanny.

The South Koreans are the ones that love SEC football right?

Would you have taken Bart over Madrigal? That wasn't the impression I got from you.

It may be tilting at windmills even at the MLB level. As far as I know, they just use the data from the catchers, which would be incomplete. To get a better picture, they would have to overlay the catcher's data over the typical zone for each umpire, as we all know umps have varying zones. Another thing that illustrates the issue with framing, at least to me, is the inconsistency of its leaders. If it were truly a skill, you would expect that the same guys would tend to be towards to top. We know Nolan Arenado is a great defender, and the numbers show it year in and year out. The same can't necessarily be said of framing. If you look at the last few years you will see some head scratching things, for instance, in 2014 Jonathan Lucroy was 5th in baseball in framing. In 2017 he was dead last. That is quite the drop off. But ok, maybe he just deteriorated incredibly quickly. Willson Contreras was 25th in 16, 88th last year, dead last this year. Buster Poser was 1st in 2016, and 23rd in 2017. Alex Avila was 87th in '16, 105 in 17, he is 16th this year. Cervelli was 7th in 16, 100th in 17, and 92nd this year. Max Stassi went 60, 45, 1. Maybe he is really working on it, but that is a heck of a progression. Derek Norris went from 92nd, to 7th to 8th. That's weird. Russ Martin went from 5th to 31st to 8th. Jason Castro went 9,3, 15, 29, which is mostly consistent I guess. James McCann went from 108 to 27 to 110, to 23. Really odd. Now there are some guys that are consistently toward the top, Molina is routinely right around 10, Grandal has been consistently toward the top. Sal Perez is routinely at the bottom, but I'd take him in a heartbeat. There are just enough weird variances to make me doubt the validity of the numbers to some degree. Guys just seem to really bounce around a lot. Someone please sell me on why I should buy in more.

I've always like Robbins. There is just something good about a guy that just hits and hits and hits.

The North Koreans?