Dominikk85

Both of his pitches have a really good spin rate (2500 each) which is a good thing. Don't know the spin effiency/axis but they spin should help his pitches. He eventually will need his change up but for 2-3 innings 2 pitches are fine.

He doesn't need one but while he has good command his stuff is not super overpowering so I would like an opener taking care of the first 4-5 guys the first time through. Doesn't need that against Detroit and KC but could help against a playoff offense.

Yeah his FIP is well over 5 and his K to BB rate is very bad. He does have stuff but he needs to improve his control a lot. Missing the zone by a bit is ok but he has a lot of pitches that miss by two feet. He needs to work on that in the offseason. I still would want him in a bullpen role for the post season as his stuff could play up in relief.

How about crochet opening for dunning? I think cease has a good future but right now you can't start him with his control issues. Let crochet's power deal with the top of the lineup and then bring in dunning.

Yeah but they also have a super high babip. I .think the sox Power is real but they are 4th highest in K rate and 4th lowest in walk rate in the AL so that OBP part could go down quickly. The sox will have to rely on power a lot which they can do but some table setters like madrigal will help to make them multi run shots.

I think it is great to have madrigal for the playoffs because he will scrap out some hits against elite pitching. The sox can hit homers against anyone but they will also strike out a lot and not get on base a ton so madrigal can get some knocks and make the solo shot a 2 run homer. That adds another dimension to the low on base high K power offense of the sox.

Keuchel's command not as sharp as usual, he leaves quite a few pitches up which is not really his style of pitching.

That pitching staff is super thin, the no off days hurt the sox here. If Hahn would have known he likely would have made a trade. I said it in the game thread already, imo it was a mistake to do nothing. No need to mortgage the future and they definitely should keep their top 6 prospects but why not get a good reliever or a rental package for two 40fv prospects who likely get rule 5ed or become bench players at best? They sox will get more chances but sometimes year 1 of the window is the year you go all the way. RR sometimes leaves guys out who are in trouble and then get shellacked throwing away games but really the staff is so thin that he sometimes needs to keep struggling guys in and just pray that hit a liner at somebody. There just is not much depth albeit the top guys were great.

If he has good 5 years and then falls apart that would be ok, you don't have to re sign him. I guess if fulmer would have 5 good years and then fall apart the sox would have taken that:).

Didn't they try to change sale initially and quickly walked back from that?

I just hope they leave him alone and don't "optimize his delivery mechanics". Sox don't really have a good track record in changing mechanics, for every giolito there are several fulmers.

I think he meant collins as a backup catcher so you don't lose the DH when a catcher gets hurt and the other one is the DH. But the catcher at 1b would solve that too.

EE did sit on the bench a lot recently. I would play EE only against lefties and against righties play grandal first, jose DH and mccann catcher (or mccann 1b and grandal Catcher) because that way you still have an injury replacement in case of injury.

But you also can't really pull him in the second or third here and make it a bullpen game. In a clincher you do that but not in this situation. Here you just have to hope he gets through and otherwise you just lose the game.

Has he always thrown low 90s? Or does he usually throw harder?

I still don't get that. I'm against selling the future but why not get a rental for two 40+fvs you are losing to rule 5 next year anyway? The Rays are doing that super well, they are trading away all their prospects a year before they would hit rule 5 and extract value out of them that way.

Yolmer only got 11 PAs so far this year for the sox, that is just to give anderson a day off. Madrigal just missed on the hit and run. Generally madrigal is missing more for his standards. His swstr rate is still elite at 4.2 but that is twice as high as last year in the minors. Imo that is not a bad thing as it seems to come from an effort to swing harder which is good.

I would prefer to win but it is not worth to burn out the pitching to chase the division. If you can win you take it but better give away a win or two than going into the postseason with a burned out bullpen.

yeah. Doesn't affect service time much unless he gets hurt.

I like it. Really not as worried about service time for pitchers as they can get hurt easily and I rather have them in the majors. Only big risk is the kopech thing happens and he loses 1.5 years of service on the DL.

His K-BB rate is really bad but he seems to have a sustainable skill at suppressing Homers. Ideally you dont want a back end reliever with a sub 10% k-bb rate but he gets the job done. Still I'd rather have him at setup and a closer who misses a few more bats.

The sox have a monster lineup but I'm not sure how both the Pen and the SP would have held up over 162. The pen has been taxed a lot due to the inability of non giolito/keuchel starters to go more than 4-5 innings and there is really no starting depth either to compensate for an injury. The sox have a great future but they need to add pitching either from internal (kopech, stiever, breakout by Lopez maybe) or an acquisition.

Back then cameron was not valued so highly because a lot of his value was tied to walks and defense. Fans just saw a 250 hitter with 20-25 homers and few talked about OBP and nobody talked about defense metrics.

Robert is a much better ballplayer though. Similar plate discipline issues but still overall better hitter and of course a much better defender. Robert has not so great plate discipline but other than that he is not a raw ballplayer, Cuban kids grow up with baseball and learn the game and you can see that with robert who already is a fundamentally sound ballplayer who can not just hit bombs but also run the bases, do the right things in the field, hit oppo and so on. Jackson never became nearly as complete of a ballplayer.

How scary are the yankees with all the injuries though? I think they are getting back Stanton, judge and torres soon but nobody knows in what shape they are or if they are on the DL 3 games later again.