jacksonianmarch

Pedroia knows how to hit. He might not have the power he once did, but he can generate an OBP out of the 2b hole. He does have value, but it doesn’t match his AAV. That being said, Nunez isn’t exactly an iron man either. You will need both players to perform this year. Depth is an issue beyond Nunez and injuries do happen. Don’t write off Pedey just yet

It’s game 1. You don’t ride Sale through 100 pitches for the first turn or two. Do you want Sale to dominate the first half then tire again?

He’s a 1b or DH playing LF. Imagine what Papi would have looked like in LF

You guys are funny. It’s just one game of 162, even though it is opening day. Already a manager thread on day 1.

Didn’t get to watch, but I’m sure I would have loved it!

Yeah, that’s awesome. Stanton and Sevy are all we need. 1-0

Swihart’s value isn’t as a catcher. The Royals are expecting to try and compete, but they know they don’t have the goods vs Minnesota or Cleveland. They’re not going to deal anything of value for a catcher they won’t need come the end of May

Severino vs Happ. Should be fun. Unfortunately I miss the first two days, but here’s to hoping murderers row shows up for Sevy. 1. Gardner LF 2. Judge RF 3. Stanton DH 4. Sanchez C 5. Hicks CF 6. Gregorius SS 7. Drury 3B 8. Walker 2B 9. Austin 1B

Not for long. I think he’s a GM candidate in waiting. Maybe as soon as next yr

Btw NtN, my plan is to retire in NC or SC by the water.

Your lineup needs to stay healthy. I get your optimism, but Martinez puts the sox in the same ballpark as the Yankees offensively, but NYY have the depth to overcome injury outside of their big 3. The sox depth outside of their starting 9 isn’t strong, especially with Nunez pressed into starting duty at the outset

The craziest this about our pen is that we aren’t limited to our big league roster. We’ve got arms in the minors with velocities only surpassed by chapman. If Acevedo gets converted, his velocity could match Chap’s. Kid is topping out at 102 as a starter

What’s done is done. With the DL stint, he’s out for April. If things shake out well for you guys, you won’t need him. Does he have options remaining? You’d almost be better off optioning him and keeping him stretched out. I know rules are different with knuckleballers, but IIRC, he throws his pretty hard. Hence, he’ll need to be worked up to handle a start rather than Wake who could just throw til the cows came home

Austin will hit lefties. Walker has been a consistent offensive producer his whole career. The combo will produce. I just don’t think they’ll produce like a healthy Bird can

Our 2009 team had the highest payroll of any team to win it at the time (maybe sox 2013 passed them? Not sure). Do I care when I remember whipping Pedro and Matsui clobbering the ball in the WS? Not a bit. If you guys win this year, you won’t hear about how “it must be nice to spend so much” from me. Albeit I do like the irony that your team is the highest spending by a TON. We’ll right that next yr

So it looks like Austin will come north with a bird on the shelf. I didn’t understand his demotion from the beginning as Austin has 1B, COF, and emergency C and 3B capabilities. Also, he absolutely bludgeons left handers and if we look at matchups, the Astros best pitcher the last 5 yrs is lefty and if your rotation stays healthy, you’ll have 4 in your rotation. In the division, Happ, Snell, Banda are also slated to start as well. He’ll see a fair amount of PT as the lefty masher alone. He has shown in the minors that he can hit righties, but he hasn’t been healthy enough to get the chance vs righties. My hope is Austin shows enough in his (hopefully) limited time as the 1b to stick and stay at least on a platoon basis. Austin isn’t that far from being a top prospect before a wrist injury almost ended his career. He’s back now and should at least make his presence known vs you guys. The only good thing about Bird this time is that they aren’t removing anything big or anything that has been there for his life. Bird was born with os trigonum and they had to remove that an tighten up his foot, aka a reconstructive surgery. This is an arthroscopic (presumably, unless too much scar tissue) procedure. He should be back in the bigs by 8 weeks, but with his health history (back, shoulder, now two foot surgeries) one can never be certain. Reminds me a lot of Nick Johnson

With cap penalties as they are, the current model doesn’t allow for ridiculous over expenditures. You guys cannot keep up this level of spending, so your touchy feely side can align its chakras within the next few seasons. In the end, nobody gives a s*** about what you spend, only about who holds the trophy

I liked Flores as he was coming up. He was dealt to SEA because we didn’t have room for him in the OF and he suffered a pretty nasty injury there and hasn’t been the same

Not much similarity. Bobby V was a total dick to everyone. Boone has been the opposite. Boone is trying to be a players manager. Bobby V was brought in a disciplinarian after the chicken and beer fiasco

20HR in 300 career at bats there genius. Also, his April 2017 was so disastrous that it pulled down his career numbers. He’s a top notch hitter without top notch health.

I did leave the health caveat for Bird, as was appropriate. I do really like Austin as well, I just want to see him hit righties at the big league level. I have no reservations about his ability to hit left handers.

You can’t deal him. He’s got insane power with a brittle body. Hopefully this is the end of the foot issues, but spurs develop due to trauma and removing that os trigonum likely led to this. My hope is, this should be pretty minimally invasive and he can recover well for the middle of the season. We are built for this, though. Austin can play 1b well and he was as good if not better of a prospect. Austin was also limited by injury early in his career too. He’s healthy now and maybe he wrests this away from Bird, who knows.

Better than last yr. this is a spur, so it’s more removal of debris than repair or removal of a functional bone. Either way, the more they enter the joint, the more scarring and stiffening he ends up with. He’s a wild card going forward. Neil Walker’s signing looks even better now.

The sox might have the ace battle won, but our rotation is deeper

I predicted 192 wins between the sox and yanks. I think the Orioles will be a bit better this yr with Cobb anchoring the rotation and Tillman returning to what I’d expect to be better results. The Jays are a wild card since Stroman is currently out and Sanchez missed time with injury, but their top 4, if healthy, will be really good. Their offense, OTOH, will leave a lot to be desired. I see the Orioles as a .500 is team with 80-85 wins. I think the Jays could be as good as a 90 win club if all breaks right (and it already hasn’t with Stroman down) but could be as bad as a 70 win club if things go wrong again. The Rays are going to be absolutely terrible and will likely lose over 100 games. They’ve dealt off Odorizzi, Souza, Dickerson and Longoria. They lost Morrison to FA. They added some prospects and the ghost of Denard Span. Their rotation was decimated by injury after dealing away Odorizzi. If the Jays are abysmal this yr, the Yanks and Sox will push for 100 wins. If the Jays stay healthy and contend, then that’ll be hard. You rarely see the 2016 NL Central or 2017 NL West occur with 3 teams making the playoffs. Eventually you start beating on each other and that 100 win Mark requires dominance basically throughout.