jacksonianmarch

Wheeler isn't a savior, but he is gonna cost you some money. Also pen guys don't grow on trees. You need two pen arms plus the hope that Barnes can find it, DHern can find the zone, and Workman isn't a one year wonder. Your rotation is already set at 4 if you don't tear down and the four guys there aren't very good. Sale is a good pitcher being paid like an ace. Price is a mediocre pitcher being paid like an ace. Eovaldi is an injured pitcher being paid like a #2-3. ERod is a guy pitching like a #3, and will be paid appropriately in arbitration. Add in Wheeler and you'll just add another enigma. Guy with insane stuff who hasn't been able to find it for long stretches outside of the final 2 months of 2018. Expecting your rotation to pitch better is probably somewhat reasonable. I doubt they are this bad. But expecting your rotation to give you more length is a fallacy. You need to prepare your pen as if its gonna work 4 innings a night to preserve leads. Also, nobody wanted Dalbec. DD was sending out feelers to everyone for pen help at the deadline and nobody wanted the sox prospects. The guys you're holding onto outside of Casas are present in every organization. Guys with some ceiling but major holes that limit their future in the majors. Or guys with big time stuff whose proximity or lack thereof lowers their value. Without dealing Casas, you aren't getting a big piece back. The distance between him and #2 is wide

You knew what DD was coming to do. He did it. Hat tip to him. Time to pay the piper

Cashman has proven he won't deal good prospects for rentals, no matter how good they are

Kremer is killing it in AA. Diaz was holding his own as a 22 yr old in AA before getting hurt. Both of these guys have good ceilings and should contribute on the highest level

They’ll rise, but it’ll be a long one. The Sox need the purse strings to open again and they need to develop talent. A Betts trade plus good drafting and IFA signings over three years would improve the farm. After 3 more years (after 2022) Pedroia, Eovaldi and Price fall off the books. If the Sox rebuild and do it right, they’ll contend again in 2023

Sounds like failed micro fracture surgery

The “rocket” ball has less to do with exit velo and more distance travelled. The thought is the ball has less “drag” which wouldn’t impact its exit velocity but would impact how the air slows it down, hence making it travel farther.

Closer by committee cannot be a mishmash of s*** talents. Closer by committee should be that you have multiple solid talents out there and you're going to pick the matchup based on who is gonna be batting in the 9th

He has been. The thing is, the guys with higher exit velocity also have a better batting average than most since harder hit balls have a better chance of landing. Voit and Tauchman are exit velo finds. And Cashman called it when he made the moves. His quote was something like "we identified these players with high exit velocities and think they have a good chance of success." He was right.

If you reset, you're not bringing back Mookie. Why would you allocate $30 mil AAV to a player when you'll be stuck in cap hell with $77 mil AAV attached to 3 underachieving pitchers and a lineup still full of guys making money (or cadaver knee Pedi). It makes no sense for Mookie to join a rebuild either. If the sox reset, then they're going through a rebuild. You don't have the prospects to step in and keep the team afloat should you jettison talent. Let's put it this way. Let's say the sox deal off JDM and Betts while also non-tendering JBJ, Hembree, Leon and Wright. Your 2020 allocations are as follows Sale- $29 mil Price- $31 mil Eovaldi- $17 mil Pedroia- $13 mil Bogaerts- $20 mil Vasquez- $4 mil Medicals- $15 mil Arb players E-Rod- $10 mil Beni- $5 mil Workman- $5 mil Barnes- $3 mil That's 10 players, 9 of which will be on the 25 man roster. Factor in 16 players at $9 mil (league min around $550K) as well and you have a total cost of $161 mil. It gets you under the cap, but that team royally sucks. Toronto would be better. If the sox add no further big league talent, though, 2021 looks worse! The same contracts are in play but ERod going into his final year of arb (ie FA price), Beni goes to his second year of arb (likely 8 figures) and Devers sees his first arb season. If he hits in 2020 like he has this year, he's gonna challenge Mookie's $10 mil first year of arb number. Just on arb contracts alone, you likely see a $20 mil jump. Dealing Betts then re-signing him gives you still a bad team, and one that gets you right up to that first threshold. If the sox rebuild, they rebuild. Betts will be gone. You need to come to grips with that

Yanks took over the #1 spot in runs and runs/game. Twins second in runs/game, but third in overall runs as they’ve played less games than the Sox. Sox dipped to third in runs/game

The last bastion of team building that is about to be turned into a weird draft is the IFA process. Yes, they limited the money, but a lot of these guys stick with the club that tried to develop them. The Yanks have been heavily involved in the IFA arena for decades and the signings of Sanchez, Severino, and Andujar certainly help develop while we were still picking in the back half of the draft. The IFA process is said to be turned into a draft, but not a 30-1 reverse standings order. The plan would be to pick by division with a reverse order of standings then rotate year for year. So 2020 could go ALE, ALC, ALW, NLE, NLC, NLW and in that model, the Yanks would pick 5th in that draft. Then the following year, the ALE drops to last in that order and the ALC drafts first. Weird

This aint finishing today, night gentlemen

Imagine if the Royals get out of this and the game is suspended. The Royals and Sox will be forced to reconvene in Fenway on an off day for a 10th inning tie game

Might be time to stop calling them the AAAA team. We have everyone on this squad under control for awhile outside of Didi and Maybin. They mash

Cubs farm is #29 at midseason. They are a ways ahead of the sox, but they're behind everyone else. They have one great prospect and otherwise lost their depth. My initial comments on the cubs this year were incorrect.

Yes, middle to bottom of the rotation because he cannot lead a rotation when he gets raked vs good teams. I expect his velocity to continue to drop and his style to change, which will be better for him long term, but may make him somewhat unreliable. I know those other guys fell off for a season, but Sale is falling off not because of dumb luck, but because of loss of stuff

That is what I would add in. I'd add IR, which is season ending and shifts the contract from the time of placement into a non-lux tax counting spot. I'd keep 20% of the contract on the books no matter what, but shift a maximum of 80% of the contract into the IR pool. That would free up almost $11 mil for the sox

If the Sox come close to a wild card, Henry would be tempted to make additions. If the Sox lose a home series vs the Royals and then tank from there, it’ll be easy to rebuild

I doubt there's tension because some guys got paid. Let's be honest, professional sports is about guys getting paid and some not. Winner's fatigue? That's a losers excuse. Let's look at the real reason. The sox pitchers died. Price fell off after a good start. Porcello fell off the map and lost his breaking ball. Sale's velocity died. Eovaldi couldn't stay healthy. The only guy producing as expected is ERod. The only guy expected to produce next year is ERod. Sale is never going to be what he is being paid for. He may end up as a good mid to back end starter eventually, but he isn't an ace anymore. Price isn't an ace anymore. Porcello wont be on the team. Eovaldi, who knows.

Gio comes back from injury with a 3-4 day with 2 bombs and 4 RBI

The Cubs won a lot then traded a lot. You have to remember, this was a 108 year curse that they broke. Breaking that curse was worth the build up. Theo took over a bereft franchise that needed a total house cleaning. He rebuilt them then won a title with them. The two trades that I bet he regrets now but not at the time are the Quintana deal and the Chapman deal. Other than that, he developed well and even drafted well. Nico Hoerner is a top prospect even after being drafted pretty late. But he is gonna run into a similar issue when Bryant comes to pay.

No way I offer Didi that. He gets at most a 5 yr $65 mil deal and he can take a hike if he wants to. He’s a major product of YS offensively and we have built in redundancy in the infield

Cadaveric meniscus transplant.

That’s a joint replacement or what the call a Makoplasty. You can’t play professional baseball with a Makoplasty. My guess is they did the micro fracture surgery again.