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2023 Spring Training Thread


ChiliIrishHammock24
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This was in the Tribune today explaining why only six Sox spring training games are being televised (while the Cubs are televising 29): "The disparity is jarring, but according to sources at NBC Sports Chicago, there just isn’t a big enough demand for Sox spring training games. So the station prefers to give Sox fans a taste of the action to whet their appetites instead of a daily serving."

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19 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

This was in the Tribune today explaining why only six Sox spring training games are being televised (while the Cubs are televising 29): "The disparity is jarring, but according to sources at NBC Sports Chicago, there just isn’t a big enough demand for Sox spring training games. So the station prefers to give Sox fans a taste of the action to whet their appetites instead of a daily serving."

WTF else is NBCSC showing on a March weekday afternoon?  

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21 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

This was in the Tribune today explaining why only six Sox spring training games are being televised (while the Cubs are televising 29): "The disparity is jarring, but according to sources at NBC Sports Chicago, there just isn’t a big enough demand for Sox spring training games. So the station prefers to give Sox fans a taste of the action to whet their appetites instead of a daily serving."

Such a loser mentality this franchise has

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4 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Ultimately yea, but I'm sure the Sox could do something to change that decision, including straight up buying ad time during the games, right?

I mean they could, but if this is a business decision by CSN, it won't be popular, but they are right.  Ratings crashed last year.  Interest in the Sox is at a low.  It feels like trying to have things both ways to say we are upset and not going to games, but also they should cover all spring training games.

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Just now, southsider2k5 said:

I mean they could, but if this is a business decision by CSN, it won't be popular, but they are right.  Ratings crashed last year.  Interest in the Sox is at a low.  It feels like trying to have things both ways to say we are upset and not going to games, but also they should cover all spring training games.

I agree, if it made sense to run the games, they would run them. Interest in the Sox has waned. The poverty mindset of this franchise is entirely self inflicted. Win more games, sell more ads. Sell more ads, televise more spring training. Televise more spring training, create more Sox fans. Create more Sox fans, create more revenue.

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Just now, chitownsportsfan said:

I agree, if it made sense to run the games, they would run them. Interest in the Sox has waned. The poverty mindset of this franchise is entirely self inflicted. Win more games, sell more ads. Sell more ads, televise more spring training. Televise more spring training, create more Sox fans. Create more Sox fans, create more revenue.

There is a whole lot of truth here.  Do I want the games on?  Sure.  But I can't waste energy on this one either.

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1 hour ago, MiddleCoastBias said:

All of those things can be true. But when the club is actively saying how great he's preparing, he's got a great eye for, ready to compete for the OD job, and just overall pumping his tires, it looks pretty suspect if we then send him down for the minimum time to retain that extra year of service.

If he doesn't break camp with the team and stays down through July, that's different. But the way the team is making it sound, he's going to be the RFer sooner rather than later, and keeping him down for service time reasons is going to be pretty transparent.

The way I see it it's his time. He's had plenty of experience from his time in Japan. Even with all the rust from not playing much in the last year he came out guns blazing and even got better in AA in Birmingham, a bad place for Sox prospects in the past.

Once he switched to RF in Birmingham he racked up 7 assists in RF in only 32 games. That's an absurdly high amount of assists in so few games. You can say any player or prospects has issues because even very good players getting on base 35% percent of the time are still not getting on base 65% of the time. You can focus on the weaknesses to get better, but lets not downplay their strengths and he has plenty of strengths.

He's also about 24.5 years old and once you reach your mid 20's you start to lose the feeling of a prospect and get into the "it's now or never time" to show what you got. Plus in order to try and mitigate teams trying to gain the extra year MLB provides Prospects Promotion Incentives (PPI).https://piratesprospects.com/2022/10/breaking-down-the-prospect-promotion-incentive.html

"In order for a team to qualify for the PPI program, they must roster a qualifying prospect long enough for the player to accrue a full season of service. Going into the season, a qualifying prospect must still have their rookie status intact with 60 days or less of service and be included on two of the three Top-100 prospect lists from the following publications: ESPN, Baseball America, or MLB Pipeline."

These incentives also apply to Arbitration eligible players and, if you recall, Cease got around an extra $2M for finishing 2nd in the Cy Young voting.

Colas qualifies having made the Top 100 in both Pipeline and Baseball America which to me is quite an accomplishment given the fact the odds where stacked against him coming in being an older prospect dropped into A ball to start the season when these prospects lists focus more on the younger players, Colson Montgomery for example. Although Montgomery deserves his high ranking it still is just opinion based and he has a much longer way to go to prove those opinions correct.  Colas is knocking on the door barely a few months after making the lists despite the Sox slow playing his rise. That decision only led to more doubts among the people who do the rankings and apparently some fans because his time in AAA was so short .

So I wouldn't exactly call him a Fringe Top 100 guy. I'd call him a guy who impressed a lot of people but given how the rankings work perhaps they needed to see more. But I really don't know what else he could've done. The main thing is he hit LH and RHP equally well and fielded his position very well. His walk to K ratio wasn't good and he's been working on it in the off season but I'm pretty sure his main goal was to show his skills with the bat and in the field and he did that amazingly well. No one comes to the majors a finished product.

There's really no reason to take Colas' defense out of the OF unless you plan on putting Marisnick in RF against lefties and Sheets against RHP until they deem Colas ready.

Even if the service time manipulation is transparent Colas won't win a grievance. More than likely wouldn't even file one because he'd lose even if he had a red hot ST and was still sent down. He has built in disadvantages because it took him so long to get to the states in the rankings and among fans.

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4 hours ago, Chick Mercedes said:

Yeah, it’s far from an uplifting spring, but sans the normal state injuries parade, its gosh darn a different spring so far.

I guess I just disagree. There are issues and big ones.especially Clevinger and the health of Liam but at least in the Liam situation Liam is such an upbeat and yes uplifting guy. He is providing inspiration to his team mates and fans alike that given a life and death disease he's out there with his teammates when he can be. I don't know about you but that's something to find joy in.

Plus if TLR and injuries were the demise of 2022 we no longer have neither of those things. We have a LH savage with a strong arm providing the most hope for RF in a long time.

I spent all off season whining. That time is over at least for a month . It's a long season where I can start griping at any time but I suppose I just find it disturbing that this place is mostly joyless.

I knew a long time ago  what it seems like many just discovered, that JR doesn't care about winning as much as we want him to. If that has created so many Eeyores so be it, but it's not the end all be all of my fandom.

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dont know enough about broadcast rights and the likes, but id think the biggest expense would be jason/stoney and their contracts tied to calling the games? I'm sure it costs a fair amount of money to broadcast live and have a normal crew out there, but I'd think it can't be that much to run a broadcast via NBCS or even YouTube. Find whatever the pain point is and reduce it. do a minor league type broadcast for all we care. try out new announcers. I dont really care how its done, but get it done?

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54 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I spent all off season whining. That time is over at least for a month . It's a long season where I can start griping at any time but I suppose I just find it disturbing that this place is mostly joyless.

I knew a long time ago  what it seems like many just discovered, that JR doesn't care about winning as much as we want him to. If that has created so many Eeyores so be it, but it's not the end all be all of my fandom.

Yes, the best thing about spring training is it heralds the glorious time of year when the offseason sport (layman speculation about baseball) gives way to the regular season sport (actual baseball). It's super exciting for most fans.  Though I've learned that it can be discomfiting for the more self-serious prognosticators among us to be reminded that they don't know s%*#.

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3 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

This was in the Tribune today explaining why only six Sox spring training games are being televised (while the Cubs are televising 29): "The disparity is jarring, but according to sources at NBC Sports Chicago, there just isn’t a big enough demand for Sox spring training games. So the station prefers to give Sox fans a taste of the action to whet their appetites instead of a daily serving."

Let me guess, this came from Paul Bleed Cubbie Blue Sullivan.  

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2 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

I mean they could, but if this is a business decision by CSN, it won't be popular, but they are right.  Ratings crashed last year.  Interest in the Sox is at a low.  It feels like trying to have things both ways to say we are upset and not going to games, but also they should cover all spring training games.

50% of the ownership of CSN is listed under Jerry Reinsdorf. So yeah, it does fall back at least a little on the Sox.

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