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8/24 Games

BamaDoc

By BamaDoc
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ptatc Grand Master

ptatc

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, SoxBlanco said:

Hoping Hagen can stack another good outing on top of the last one. Get some momentum and confidence building to close out this season. 

He's going to the AFL so he's season will be extended somewhat.

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Timmy U Grand Master

Timmy U

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Lodise has been fascinating. Started ice cold. Was featured as one of the high-round disappointments in a BA podcast and this week has been on fire. Righty swinging undersized guy who has no track record hitting with wood and who probably profiles at 2b, so not my kind of profile. Still, nice to see him hitting.

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Jake Grand Master

Jake

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18 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Shades of Royce Ring and Aaron Poreda.

Hopefully not...

To be fair to Hagen, I think there's a lot more to like with him than those two guys. Has shown far more aptitude at missing bats than either of them. Ring showed up with control issues out of the box in a relief role and stopped striking people out once he reached AA. Poreda is a guy I don't think would have been much-liked in today's game because (I suspect) he was a guy with high fastball velo but not able to make people miss it. Smith has serious problems throwing strikes but the foundation of the slider + fastball is extremely strong too. If he can stay healthy he has very good odds to at least be a useful relief pitcher. Here's hoping he can straighten out over the offseason...sometimes I think you have to just get a heavy dose of guys not swinging at your stuff when it's out of the zone before you really find the desire to fix yourself.

FWIW, the Carson Fulmer comparison is more interesting to me. Of course I'd say Carson simultaneously had worse stuff but a better college track record. I don't know if Carson ever could have made it even if he was coached up perfectly — baseball is hard — but I always felt like they really hurt him by promoting him out of AA. Carson showed serious command problems that weren't being appropriately punished by AA hitters much like we're seeing from Hagen Smith right now. But then Carson had 3 good starts in a row in July and they promoted him to the majors where he immediately gets lit up out of the bullpen. Then he spends years languishing in AAA where he never figures out how to stop walking people. Sox don't seem like they're keen on making that same kind of mistake with Smith, who I think has to start next year in AA unless his AFL and spring training production is stupendous.

I'll note that the thing I'm glad they didn't do with Hagen Smith, they did do with Noah Schultz. Hard to understand exactly what they were doing, given that Schultz walked 5 in his last AA outing (which, to be fair, was scoreless and he allowed just one hit). I'm a little more open-minded with how Schultz is being handled simply because command issues are not something we've seen before with him and I'm allowing for the possibility that there's more than meets the eye with him.

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almagest Grand Master

almagest

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Posted
3 hours ago, Jake said:

Ring showed up with control issues out of the box in a relief role and stopped striking people out once he reached AA. Poreda is a guy I don't think would have been much-liked in today's game because (I suspect) he was a guy with high fastball velo but not able to make people miss it.

Guys drafted right after Ring:

Denard Span (28 bWAR)

Jeremy Guthrie (18.5 bWAR)

Matt Cain (29.2 bWAR)

 

After Poreda:

Rick Porcello (18.8 bWAR)

Todd Frazier (25.8 bWAR) was early in the supplemental round, but I'll count him since the Sox picked Poreda 24th.

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caulfield12 Grand Master

caulfield12

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On 8/26/2025 at 1:39 AM, Jake said:

To be fair to Hagen, I think there's a lot more to like with him than those two guys. Has shown far more aptitude at missing bats than either of them. Ring showed up with control issues out of the box in a relief role and stopped striking people out once he reached AA. Poreda is a guy I don't think would have been much-liked in today's game because (I suspect) he was a guy with high fastball velo but not able to make people miss it. Smith has serious problems throwing strikes but the foundation of the slider + fastball is extremely strong too. If he can stay healthy he has very good odds to at least be a useful relief pitcher. Here's hoping he can straighten out over the offseason...sometimes I think you have to just get a heavy dose of guys not swinging at your stuff when it's out of the zone before you really find the desire to fix yourself.

FWIW, the Carson Fulmer comparison is more interesting to me. Of course I'd say Carson simultaneously had worse stuff but a better college track record. I don't know if Carson ever could have made it even if he was coached up perfectly — baseball is hard — but I always felt like they really hurt him by promoting him out of AA. Carson showed serious command problems that weren't being appropriately punished by AA hitters much like we're seeing from Hagen Smith right now. But then Carson had 3 good starts in a row in July and they promoted him to the majors where he immediately gets lit up out of the bullpen. Then he spends years languishing in AAA where he never figures out how to stop walking people. Sox don't seem like they're keen on making that same kind of mistake with Smith, who I think has to start next year in AA unless his AFL and spring training production is stupendous.

I'll note that the thing I'm glad they didn't do with Hagen Smith, they did do with Noah Schultz. Hard to understand exactly what they were doing, given that Schultz walked 5 in his last AA outing (which, to be fair, was scoreless and he allowed just one hit). I'm a little more open-minded with how Schultz is being handled simply because command issues are not something we've seen before with him and I'm allowing for the possibility that there's more than meets the eye with him.

Fulmer just never seemed to get back that same explosiveness he had at Vandy.

Or maybe a pedestrian 92-94 mph with a deceptive delivery just didn't work with mlb hitters.

And/or he seemed to lose his confidence once he started to get hit around and couldn't recapture that pinnacle.

Crazy thing is that's he still been pitching quite a few times in the majors in 2024-25...so points for  resiliency and not giving up on the game despite all the adversity he experienced.

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