jacksonianmarch

These are bombs, wow

Tanaka threw a gem last night and Paxton is dominating tonight. This rotation may be shaping up at the right time

Someone is going to pay holt to be their super utility or starting 2b. It likely won’t be the sox

If the juiced ball was to blame, then why isn’t Sandy Leon hitting .340?

Johnson sucks and will only stick with the Sox because the Sox pitching depth is woefully inadequate

Blaming the juiced ball for Urshela hitting .340 is not accurate. If he hit 40 bombs in with you, but a .340-18 line isn’t due to a juiced ball

Yes, Lemahieu isn’t likely to hit .335 next year. But Lemahieu has added power, a higher walk rate and a lower K rate. His career BABIP is .345, so his .355 BABIP is slightly above that. Tauchman and Voit are exit velo guys who know how to hit. They both are .850-ish OPS guys with power and a good eye. Urshela is the only guy who has jumped onto the map and has been completely beyond his capabilities. Maybe he found something? Maybe he’s a .270-15-70 guy next year? Who knows, but we do have the defending ROY runner up behind him at the same position, so it isn’t like we lack depth. The funny thing is, outside of Urshela, no player is doing anything that they haven’t replicated or cannot replicate. Sanchez has a mid .800s OPs and 32 bombs. Been there, done that. Judge has an OpS right at .900. Same. Hicks, his OPS is right around .800. Torres is showing more power than ever, but he’s 22 and likely getting better. Didi is having an off year offensively. We lost Andujar. We lost Stanton. Even if Lemahieu goes to .300-20-80 next year, what we get from adding back the guys we lost should make up for that. Cashman has created a very deep and dynamic offense

I replied to the wrong post, sorry

There’s the rub. We’ve not got two rosters of players that most teams would dream on Here are the position players coming back next year Sanchez Higashioka (Ronnie will likely get a good deal elsewhere) Voit Lemahieu Torres Andujar Urshela Tauchman Frazier Hicks Judge Stanton We got hit with injuries never before seen in terms of finances on the IL and we are still the best team in baseball. We are still 15 games ahead of you. Our pitching returning is formidable as well and best of all, will be healthy come 2020 barring any new injuries Severino Paxton Tanaka Montgomery Crap (you got me there) Britton Ottavino Green Chapman (if he opts in) Kahnle Loiasiga Not to mention, a real top prospect in Garcia, money to burn and an ace on the market in Cole. And Sale is coming off an injury that wasn’t entirely shared and got a treatment that doesn’t have a positive history of returning to prior levels of performance. Heck, Price was supposed to go 85 pitches yesterday, he barely gets out of two innings. Eovaldi cannot finish a year without spending tons of time on the IL. ERod is your guy. Your 5 hole is open. Your pen sucks. And your budget is limited. Tell me how you’re overtaking us?

Yes, the Yanks are a mash unit. A very good, dominant mash unit that has the best record in baseball. And a mash unit that will get healthier this month. Urshela, Severino, Betances, Hicks and even Stanton are expected to return this month. No, I don't think the Yanks are resigned to the Astros taking the top seed. Far from it. How do you justify such a dumb comment? The Yanks are a game up and they're gonna concede? Just moronic What the Yanks will do is tinker with their club and ensure health over record.

My uncle went there. My old man's school didn't have football and my school cut football, so no need to like them. I always grew up rooting for the Irish

Clearly, my hope is you guys try to go for it for another year. With Sale limited or possibly not available for 2020 and Price continuing to decline, your rotation is setup for problems next season. ERod will be the leader of the pack with the hope that Eovaldi can "not suck" enough to be useful. Your offense will be top notch again provided JD keeps his current contract, which I think he will. With the Yanks and the Rays on the rise, the sox would have to add $50+ mil worth of payroll just to compete, which they wont be doing. But where the sox would really suffer is their return. If DD stays on and pays Mookie and goes through another disappointing year, the value of ERod in a deal will drop and you'll be forced to run a retread team out there and watch them get smoked by the Yanks for 5 seasons. It'll be hammer and nail all over again. If I was a sox fan, I would be rooting for the rebuild to start now where the pieces you have will return value

didn't know we rooted for the same squad. The Irish always have talent, but the game in Athens doesn't look promising IMO

So DD, who left the pen entirely naked and who's starting rotation is literally junk, is going to throw premium money at Smith yet not add to his abysmal rotation?

He is out for the season with injury

Yeah, it’s gonna be hard to argue that he should opt out. He’s an absolute defensive liability and that isn’t gonna change which limits his suitors to the AL only. LAA and NYY are set for years at DH. The CWS are not going to be spending. Alvarez makes the point moot for Houston. He’s not getting bigger money from CLE or MIN. Oakland doesn’t spend. Boston is the only place he is gonna get the money and if they rebuild, he’s looking at a big cash loss. His best option is to stay on

I happen to remember Sox fans drooling over Brasier last year and thinking he’d be nails over the offseason. And I kept having to remind you guys that his xFIP was higher and his stuff/command got him banished to the Japanese minor leagues just a season before. He was a pumpkin that was integral in a title run. Expecting him to fill a major role in your pen from day 1 was a foreseeable disaster. Regression was inevitable

Getting a high first rounder doesn’t hurt if you’re rebuilding, especially if you can eek into the top 15. Doesn’t just help the higher first round pick, but absolutely helps with the bonus pool thereafter. And if the Sox rebuild, who do they use to restock their farm? Mookie on a one year deal? He’ll bring back some, maybe not as much as you think. ERod probably is the most useful chip since he’s got two years left. Would the Sox package someone of import to an overpriced faded star to get cash off their hands? Is there a taker for Devers if the Sox can offload the contracts of Pedroia, Sale and Price? They can go many ways, but the draft is the best way to restock for when the rebuild would be expected to complete. Remember, if the Sox draft like s*** and trade for top talents who make an impact, they’ll still have no depth, which is the problem plaguing your team right now. There’s absolutely no pitching depth in the pen or the rotation. That’s the deathknell of 2019 and seasons thereafter

JD looks like one of my old man teammates in the OF in terms of range

The sox are currently tied for 19th worst record in baseball, which means they're in a pretty rough draft position as is. I said a month ago that the worst thing for the sox would be to narrowly miss the POs. They're either better off clearly in it or way behind that. The reasoning is restocking their horrid farm system and tempting fate with the management team. At the time of my comment, being as high as 14th was reasonable. Now, it looks more like a Sept swoon could get the sox into that range, but more likely they're locked in. They're 8 games up on Texas in the AL, so they aren't swapping spots with them. They're 3 games up on the Phillies and 4 up on the DBacks, Brewers and Mets. So 15th is possible if they fade heavily. The bigger reason than team building for narrowly missing is the fact that this could prompt Henry to keep on DD which would mean one more whack at the piñata. This would lead to a FAR higher likelihood that the sox spend themselves into a hole that it could take 5 years to crawl out from.

Oakland has always been a paper tiger when the lights go bright. I’ll take them in a five gamer if it means we have home field throughout. We don’t need to hope for the favorable matchup in round 1 if that matchup means our chances of a title are diminished. I don’t like our chances of winning an away series in Houston.

Here’s where the players have a beef. Previously, the expectation from the players was that they’d be underpaid for six seasons (more like 4-5 now) when they break in then overpaid when they leave. Now, with owners being tighter with their cash, they’re being underpaid until they hit FA then they’re being dragged into what amounts to an almost lost season in their first taste of FA and then get a substandard contract. If owners are going to be tighter about FA, then the control needs to be shortened or the pay needs to rise. They’re right on this

If we were in an actual pennant race, no way he hits the IL. They’re saying he’d miss just a couple days, but they needed a spot for Voit and the pen needed arms with Happ and CC in the short term offing. Now CC is on the IL, so that was prescient. The Yanks need the 1 seed, but they also need to be healthy and going all out for the 1 might leave them further injured, so it’s a tough decision to make. Pedal to the metal or conserve and rest? We’ll need to see.

We’ve seen this before (to some degree). The rocket ball has made this record setting, but we’ve seen AAAA players finding it on promotion only to sink back the following year