3 hours ago, fathom said:

Agreed about not liking Roch at 2nd. Still think he ends up at SS and Colson at 3b. I keep saying that in a perfect world, having 7 of your 9 starters locked in with Mune (1b/DH), Vargas (1b/3b/dh), Colson, Roch, Antonacci (2B/LF), Bonemer (LF/2B) and Teel is an amazing start.

Braden?

2 hours ago, KennyPowers said:

There’s a world where Braden is the best of all of them. IMO

If dude learns to hit the ball in the air more regularly, look out.

4 hours ago, DirtySox said:

I can't imagine what this scenario would have looked like if Hahn/Williams were still steering this ship. Kudos to Getz and his team to being so open and transparent in this process. It's an awesome look.

Yes it's good to see they are open and not super insular. Props to Getz.

This was a great article.

24 minutes ago, CBJ03 said:

They didn't agree on the financials until Saturday morning. They were still unsure about the final price.

Financials have nothing to do with what I’m trying to say. Roch said the Sox told him he would be their pick on Thursday. The first paragraph of this article says the Sox weren’t fully decided as of Friday afternoon. Something doesn’t add up.

12 minutes ago, SoxBlanco said:

Financials have nothing to do with what I’m trying to say. Roch said the Sox told him he would be their pick on Thursday. The first paragraph of this article says the Sox weren’t fully decided as of Friday afternoon. Something doesn’t add up.

"They expressed Thursday night that they wanted me to be the guy, and they knew I wanted to be there, I felt like things definitely got a lot easier," Cholowsky said.

Not that this isn't all theater anyway when you allow this type of "access" in a hyper-insular and competitive environment but it does make this particular detail pretty funny.

3 hours ago, fathom said:

Agreed about not liking Roch at 2nd. Still think he ends up at SS and Colson at 3b. I keep saying that in a perfect world, having 7 of your 9 starters locked in with Mune (1b/DH), Vargas (1b/3b/dh), Colson, Roch, Antonacci (2B/LF), Bonemer (LF/2B) and Teel is an amazing start.

It's amazing they have hit on all these controlled young position players.

At some point things are gonna get crowded as Mune and Vargas get closer to FA and Bonemer and Cholowsky are up.

There's also the Antonacci/Meidroth issue at 2B. With Colson likely moving to 3B due to back issues at some point, there's a crunch where at some point they will need to sell high on someone because there's only so many spots when Bonemer/Cholowsky comes up. Beni coming off the books after next year will help but there still will be a crunch.

With regard to Peters while there almost certainly will be offensive regression, he provides so much defensive value (OAA etc) there's still a good chance he is a long term 2 WAR player there even if the vast majority of it comes from D and given Getz emphasis on premium defenders up the middle even with a fall off offensively I don't think he is going anywhere especially since he will be cost controlled until he hits his early 30s so if they can get a premium defender for a long time without having to worry about an extension, I don't think they are gonna mess with that and it was nice to see them get another potential premium defensive CF in the draft, who even though the bat is a big project, we have many years to wait for that now.

They really have done a great job with the trades/drafting for position players and development. And if Wikelman Gonzalez becomes a key piece of the BP, they could potentially get close to 10 WAR a year from those 4 players in the BOS trade which is insane.

Edited 45 minutes ago45 min by SoCalChiSox

I find it fascinating that people think you can play 3rd base with a bad back but not SS. Last I checked, you can't play baseball with a bad back.

11 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

"They expressed Thursday night that they wanted me to be the guy, and they knew I wanted to be there, I felt like things definitely got a lot easier," Cholowsky said.

Not that this isn't all theater anyway when you allow this type of "access" in a hyper-insular and competitive environment but it does make this particular detail pretty funny.

Yeah, I think “theater” is a great way to put it. I feel like these conversions actually did happen over the past week, but perhaps they recreated them for the ESPN access.

Not trying to knock the Sox for it, but it’s kind of funny. Either way, I enjoyed the article because the thoughts/opinions expressed by our staff were still real.

3 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I find it fascinating that people think you can play 3rd base with a bad back but not SS. Last I checked, you can't play baseball with a bad back.

Worst case scenario he can DH although he would lose much of his value but still there's always room somewhere for someone who is likely to hit over 30 bombs a year from the left side and can also provide probably league average OBP (that's where he was at before this recent slide when it dipped).

6 minutes ago, SoCalChiSox said:

Worst case scenario he can DH although he would lose much of his value but still there's always room somewhere for someone who is likely to hit over 30 bombs a year from the left side and can also provide probably league average OBP (that's where he was at before this recent slide when it dipped).

In my opinion, if anything baseball related is causing the back issue it's his violent swing. Not playing defense.

21 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

I find it fascinating that people think you can play 3rd base with a bad back but not SS. Last I checked, you can't play baseball with a bad back.

I have been wondering that as well. I don't think 3B will be any better on one's back than SS.

3 minutes ago, Bob Sacamano said:

I have been wondering that as well. I don't think 3B will be any better on one's back than SS.

As someone with a bad lower back, playing any defense with a bad back is tough. I've never had issues swinging even with the bad lower back, but defense and base running is always what made it flare up. I think there's less lateral movement needed at 3B so it might be a bit easier on the back than SS, where you have to cover more ground and maybe extend your back a bit more to reach for grounders. I can definitely see Colson's recent bad defensive play on mostly routine grounders as some kind of pain tolerance issue. Where reaching down might bother him and it's causing him to lose focus on routine plays he usually makes.

Edited just now1 min by chw42

4 hours ago, fathom said:

Agreed about not liking Roch at 2nd. Still think he ends up at SS and Colson at 3b. I keep saying that in a perfect world, having 7 of your 9 starters locked in with Mune (1b/DH), Vargas (1b/3b/dh), Colson, Roch, Antonacci (2B/LF), Bonemer (LF/2B) and Teel is an amazing start.

Peters and Braden aren't bad candidates to round out your 9.