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Is Medeiros gone yet? I'm guessing he clears waivers and just gets outrighted to AAA.

I can't believe there are this many Ricky apologists in here. He is a trash manager you can keep around when your team sucks because he's cheap. Lineup construction, bunting, "old school" outlook on the game, pen management, rarely steals, stubborn as shit, and on and on. The good is he speaks Spanish and the players like him. We will see if he stops being bad at obvious things this year with an actual MLB roster to manage.

Ahhh true true. I shouldn't have cited the housing in the same way I cited education. My premise was more so related to the buying power of that dollar; the escalation of home prices has been artificial for about 3 decades now as well, but that's for another discussion. The first thing a modern company cuts is middle and lower class people - they never cut the executive wages when the numbers look bad.

I'm sorry that you have the attention span of a goldfish and can't make a thread or find the appropriate place to put it. Maybe you should start dropping more movie reviews in the mlb catch all since they all are the same. Maybe with some more catchy nicknames like KyYlo Ren

You might not like it, but this is what quintessential Boomerposting looks like.

No, he’s definitely not in the minority. 2 years of control does not help the Sox with long-term success and winning.

I’m really glad the Sox didn’t trade Cease for 2 years of Syndergaard.

For the Benyamaniacs out there, he came in at #9 for BA's top 20 DSL prospects. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2019-dominican-summer-league-top-20-prospects/

https://streamable.com/ntge1

By the way, my apologies for not picking up your sarcasm. I agree with you 100%. We have 40 years of data telling us that this is hurting the middle class and lower class of this country, and yet you have vast amounts of middle and lower class earners agreeing with a system that harms them. It is truly baffling stuff. Every single member in the middle class should be for a substantial increase to the national minimum wage - it is by far the most beneficial thing for their continued growth of wealth. It's even worse when you consider I have less buying power today than I would have had in 1970, despite the fact that technology has made things easier and should have increased wages based on the sole fact that technology increases efficiencies. Good discussion overall; I'll cease here as it's not related to the thread but appreciate the thoughts of others. Everyone thinks they're going to be the next billionaire so they don't understand the fact that billionaires really shouldn't even be a thing. Jeff Bezo's pays his warehouse workers like complete shit - as well as his drivers - while being worth more money than he would ever no what to do with. It's much more beneficial to the economy in general for that money to be in circulation. https://www.epi.org/publication/congress-has-never-let-the-federal-minimum-wage-erode-for-this-long/

What? This is not true or accurate. Do not confuse wealth distribution - which was much better in the 60's and 70's - to safe working conditions. Workers have more rights pertaining to discrimination and others; they work in safer environments, and they have more power to hold their bosses accountable for inappropriate and wrong actions... but the distribution of wealth is significantly worse since the implementation of fake "trickle down economics" in the late 70's early 80's.

Short video, but I thought this was pretty neat. I always liked Burr, hope to see him get back to the majors at some point.

yah, but it also shows how far the Sox have come in such a short amount of time when we now have a 40 man roster that is is at least 90% occupied by players that have real value to the organization. Always sucks to lose someone, but it is just another sign that some real progress has been made. I do expect a rebuilding org to gobble Medeiros up, though.

Both were successful executives who are maybe underappreciated because they were part of a now-gone era in team building where aggressive trading and spending were feasible strategies because teams valued players very differently, both from today and from each other. Now, every FO is basically the same and it's basically killed the hyper-aggressive "win now" approach in favor of hoarding as much pre-arb talent as possible.

He was also handed two rebuilding teams. He has never had a major league quality team to manage. I'm not saying he is a good or bad manager. I think the jury is still out. However, in the long run it really doesnt make that much of a difference as I dont think he is need Yost or Mike Matheny and even they could win with good teams.

So Dombrowski can only win because he spends boatloads of money but Maddon sucks because he couldn’t win with a team that’s had one of the lowest payrolls in baseball? Man, the hypocrisy!

Dombrowski has zero clue how to build an organization; he knows how to spend with endless budgets on big free agents - many who have destroyed the Tigers franchise. Then he went to the Red Sox and did the same exact shit.

The White Sox didn't "push" Leyland out. The White Sox didn't push Francona out. The White Sox did push Larussa out. Dombrowski is another complete hack who has no idea how to maintain sustained success.

Difference between 72 and 75 wins is meaningless, but between 87 and 90 could mean the playoffs...so we’ll obviously see a lot more scrutiny of him this year if status quo continues

Sure. Ricky has everything they do, except for the lifetime winning record and World Series wins of course.

The Cardinals aren't going to part with THAT much talent AND taking on a huge contract like that. It's just not the way they've ever done business. The only way is they do surrender the talent but get money/subsidy back from the Rockies.

Well, surely any team in baseball would be interested in Giolito, Cease, Kopech and Lopez...in no particular order. Just part of being a top prospect pretty much since the beginning of time. You have to worry only when they stop inquiring about you, like Carson Fulmer or Dylan Covey.

By WAR this actually looks like it’s easier for the Rays side of it to rack up the WAR than the Cards. Arozarena and Martinez Dhing looks like an easy 15 WAR, maybe 20 over the next 4-6 years? Thats a bunch of WAR to hope Liberatore ends up accumulating considering how young and far away he is. Plus the Rays just snagged a way better draft pick and pool. They can draft another Liberatore in 5.5 months.

The man definitely had someone telling him stuff. He did pretty well. He'll live in infamy here for years.

Really don’t understand this trade for the Rays. They must know something we don’t. I think Liberatore has huge potential. Rays got a very light return.

Must be nice to have competitive balance picks to trade.

Could also be Mookie Betts.

Now if they can just fix the radio team. Ed can stick around and do color, but DJ... see-ya!

Here's one no one will remember (more than 50 years ago): on the radio side, Bob Elson and Don Wells.

Super weird the way this is breaking, I almost have to imagine it's a 3 team situation.

Based on what? The costs of homes and education has escalated significantly since 1970 - even when factoring in inflation - while the minimum wage has not. In 1968, minumum wage was $1.60; that would be worth $11.55 in 2018. The federal minumum wage in 2018? $7.25. That means, even if home prices and education was the exact same in 1970 (it's not!), you had nearly 150% (this is a middle class figure, the number is closer to 40% for the minimum wage class) more buying power in 1970 than you have today. When you factor in the dramatic escalation of home prices an education, you actually had even more buying power in 1970 than the cited 150%.

Saw something on twitter about EE having known Eloy since he was 14. Hopefully, that familiarity leads to a good working relationship and Eloy can pick up some launch angle tips from EE. Eloy's eye with EE's loft would be a sight to behold.

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Kenny Williams: Career highlights and awards World Series champion (2005) Dave Dombrowski: Career highlights and awards 2× World Series champion (1997, 2018) National League champion (1997) 3× American League champion (2006, 2012, 2018) 1990 UPI Executive of the Year 2× Baseball America Executive of the Year (2006, 2018) 2011 co-Sporting News Executive of the Year (with Doug Melvin) Andrew "Rube" Foster Award Lou Boudreau Hall of Fame inductee Signed, Look at Ray Ray Run

*old man shakes fist at sky* This reads like a Rodney Dangerfield skit, The answer to all of your questions is that it makes the ballclub better for cheaper. Also Ted Williams had a launch angle in his swing, he even taught it.

Yep. The Sox HAVE hired new managers. They just seem to always pick the wrong ones. This guy was a new manager and he was awful, yet he kept his job for 5 years.

Which day will the mlb network analysts talk about this one

It's a good thing he hit cleanup

Not singling you out at all, you just had the most recent post rehashing the common Rentería complaints. I’m just curious what the bar needs to be set at for anybody to STFU about him. His lineups bothered me, especially with Yonder, and then some of the bunting was brutal- same obvious complaints as most. But he’s calm with the media and seems to have the clubhouse buying into his style, whatever that is. Everyone has to be curious how he’ll do with a good team- the experiment is all set up. So if he’s successful ENOUGH, however each person measures that, some ShuttingTFU will have to be in order.

Wow - Renteria is now Girardi, Hinch, and Francona all rolled into one. How did the Sox get so lucky?

I'm not nuts about RR's bunting escapades and lineup ideas but today is a new day with a whole different arsenal of weapons. RR has been around professional baseball for 40 years. Do we really think we know so much more than he does about the game. I think Ricky may be a pleasant surprise when managing a good team.

If ya'll like strand rate, checkout RE24. Basically, it measures how a pitcher changes the run expectancy and runs scored between entering and exiting. For example, if you give up a run after entering with a man on 3rd and 1 out, that is penalized less than entering with a man on 1st and 2 outs, because RE24 takes into account what the expected runs scored of the offense would be. It is still flawed - the expected runs that the model is based on only takes into account what bags are filled and how many outs there are. However, it addresses a problem with strand rate, which is that not all the scenarios of how a RP can enter the game are equal. Since strand rate is usually calculated from a pretty small sample size of outings, it is certainly possible that the degree of difficulty for those outings was demonstrably different. Last year, Steve Cishek was pretty decent with a 6.31 RE24, 46th out of qualifying RPs. This was down from his 3 previous years of 9.24, 14.72, and 10.72. FWIW, RE24 supports the perception that Bummer was a dominant fireman last year: he had an outstanding RE24 of 22.81, second best in the MLB only to Liam Hendrick's 22.89. 22.81 is also the 16th best score for a single season over the last 5 years.

But this isn’t really the argument. You asked what “Maddon” was available for the Sox to replace Renteria with like the Cubs did when they upgraded from him. I gave you two better options — Maddon himself who you are not a fan of and Girardi who you admitted would be an improvement. Now we are having a runaround discussion defending Renteria by saying that managers don’t impact wins and losses that much, that fans don’t know the inside clubhouse reasons for each move a manager makes (i.e. injuries), and that managers have to also consider players’ egos when making decisions. All managers have to deal with these issues, not just Renteria. All of these factors are true but the simple truth is that Renteria is definitely near the bottom of the list as far as good MLB managers goes and there were at least two better options that the Sox could have replaced him with, this offseason alone.

His blank check approach to team building only works for so long. And now that there are caps for the draft & international pools his flow of young talent has slowed. Throwing gobs of money at everything seems to have caught up with him this time.

When a team has a Bryant who announces up front there will be no extensions...I strongly believe that player needs to be put on the block while the team has 2 years of control left. Cubs are going to get bubcus for Bryant instead of a pretty nice haul which would have been available had they moved him earlier. RH needs to work very hard to get extensions for Gio and Moncada types. RH has been very good at this by the way.

https://www.mlb.com/news/predicting-next-10-world-series-winners 2021: Yankees over Padres Speaking of late-90s World Series rematches … The Yankees attempt to re-create their ‘90s dynasty by actually beating all the teams they beat back then: They took out Tony Gwynn's Padres in 1998. It is a very real possibility that the Yankees' best player in '21 is Gleyber Torres. Is this his Derek Jeter year when he becomes a national star? The Padres have a budding shortstop superstar of their own in Fernando Tatis Jr., who just might be an MVP by this point. 2022: Dodgers over Angels The Dodgers have to do it at some point, don’t they? By this point, Mookie Betts and Cody Bellinger may be leading them, and Clayton Kershaw will be the grizzled vet finally having his big postseason moment. By the way, congratulations to Mike Trout, whose team has finally become good enough around him to succeed in the postseason. Wouldn’t a Fall Classic be truly amazing if it had Trout in it? 2023: Braves over White Sox The Braves, despite all their postseason appearances, haven’t won a World Series since 1995, but they barely sneak under the 30-year drought mark with the first championship for Ronald Acuña Jr., one of those players whose talents are so abundant that his career will feel incomplete if he never gets one. By this point, he should be surrounded with pitching, and his contract, if you can believe this, runs through 2026. The White Sox may well be dominating the AL Central by this point: All their young talent is going to mature and grow old together. 2024: Blue Jays over Dodgers Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will be 25 years old in October 2024, right in his prime, and all his fellow “Juniors” -- Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio -- will be ready to take over the AL East. (Until the Yankees reload again.) The Dodgers are as likely as any team in the NL, and maybe in baseball, to be competitive every year of this decade. As a frame of reference, by the way: 2024 is the first season the Tigers won’t be paying Miguel Cabrera. Yankees over Braves in 2020, fwiw.

Everything feels good right now. But go back 4-5 years or so with the Cubs. Who would the extension candidates of been? Even ahead of Baez, they would of been Schwarber and Russell (since Bryant wouldn't of done it as a Boras guy). I'm not sure many people saw the fall in value for those 2, or the rise in value of Baez. That said, Theo has won what, 3 World Series? He's obviously facing the biggest struggles of his GM career right now. It will be interesting to see if he can right the ship before bailing on the Cubs. And for the Sox, hopefully Robert and Jimenez live up to their prospect status, both this coming season, and for the next 5-7 years beyond that.