Sox may have noticed a trend with his expected statistics such that his season had mostly turned around by those metrics, although the Dodgers beat his ass so thoroughly that it had the effect of strongly bending the curve upward just from the one game. Since mid-May, his worst start by xwOBA was .339 ... other than the nearly .600 xwOBA start against the Dodgers.

One thing that is for certain is there are no teams paying attention to bWAR for player acquisition because they aren't really paying attention to ERA. I think there's probably some diversity as to what exactly they do put weight on. Every metric was pointing towards a little bit of bad luck for Castillo, but whether the luck was a run of ERA or a quarter run of ERA depends on your system. I think there's plenty of ways to feel pessimistic about Castillo without looking at his ERA, although a few ways to see signs that he's going to give you some useful innings.

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Wasn't Smith still the 15th ranked prospect after three or four jumped in there immediately after the draft?

That's now somewhere between the 7th and 10th rated system in baseball.

And still having a hard time believing Boston Smith is actually behind a rehabbing Mason Adams...who was around 11th.

"Grow up" is pretty darned hilarious when the guy's at -0.9 bWAR and almost $25 million...and in the books for next season as well like that's supposed to be reassuring somehow. Control...though. Why would we want control versus payroll flexibility to pick and choose on the open market?

At any rate, embrace mediocrity!!!

Some of these so called experts really struggle in the face of criticism...taking their guess from Crabby Steve Stone I guess.

Smith was going to be 15 for us on FutureSox list that comes out tomorrow. Gabe Davis was 12 and Mason Adams was 13. They have two top 25 prospects in baseball but the system really isn't very good otherwise right now.

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Wasn't Smith still the 15th ranked prospect after three or four jumped in there immediately after the draft?

That's now somewhere between the 7th and 10th rated system in baseball.

And still having a hard time believing Boston Smith is actually behind a rehabbing Mason Adams...who was around 11th.

"Grow up" is pretty darned hilarious when the guy's at -0.9 bWAR and almost $25 million...and in the books for next season as well like that's supposed to be reassuring somehow. Control...though. Why would we want control versus payroll flexibility to pick and choose on the open market?

At any rate, embrace mediocrity!!!

Some of these so called experts really struggle in the face of criticism...taking their guess from Crabby Steve Stone I guess.

I believe James Fox is calling us a bottom third system with all the graduations. Right now, our tradeable system top 30 is like, 5 dudes, and 25 depth and project guys. I kind of think we don't even have the prospect capital to do what the Cubs just did.

I think Castillo is a fine pickup. The problem is Davis Martin and Schultz turning to s%*#.

11 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

I believe James Fox is calling us a bottom third system with all the graduations. Right now, our tradeable system top 30 is like, 5 dudes, and 25 depth and project guys. I kind of think we don't even have the prospect capital to do what the Cubs just did.

I think Castillo is a fine pickup. The problem is Davis Martin and Schultz turning to s%*#.

Bottom 1/3 is the Sox natural spot over most of the last 60 years (c. 1990-2006 excepted).
After 2022-2025, it's absolutely ridiculous not to have more talent than that stockpiled; our major league team isn't that loaded.

2 minutes ago, GreenSox said:

Bottom 1/3 is the Sox natural spot over most of the last 60 years (c. 1990-2006 excepted).
After 2022-2025, it's absolutely ridiculous not to have more talent than that stockpiled; our major league team isn't that loaded.

But man do we love turning starting pitchers into relievers

14 minutes ago, fathom said:

But man do we love turning starting pitchers into relievers

Sadly, in most cases, that's probably the right move. At least there's a chance to get something out of them.
I'm hoping that Taylor and Vasil start next year. Vasil for sure;