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Growing up, I never realized how good of a player Jose Valentin was. I was a young meatball fan back then, like most are when they're young. I remember him leading the league in errors during his first year with the Sox, and thinking he was a lousy fielder. The advance metrics paint a different picture. Whether you like the stat or not, Jose's UZR at SS and 3B were very good throughout his tenure here. Below is Jose's WAR year by year during his tenure with the team: 2000: 4.5 2001: 3.3 2002: 3.5 2003: 3.9 2004: 2.2 Jose Valentin was a hell of a player with this Sox. I liked him, but didn't truly appreciate him in my younger years. Something I do remember is his walk-off against the Cubs. Man, was that sweet. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/video/day-jose-valentin-hits-walk-homer-vs-cubs

Just say you think it’s Tatis Jr

I just imagine Francona standing behind a dejected-looking Plesac at the rental counter like "no, he will NOT be needing SiriusXM radio, thank you very much."

You? Wrong? My world is shattering!

Say what? MLB has handled this about as poorly as possible. The cardinals have played 5 games lol. They're going to play like 10 fewer games than other teams. The cardinals had this issue because MLB didn't have protocol preventing players from going out. Now a bunch of teams have to jam games in a short window to get the cardinals to like 45-50 games so they're being punished because the cardinals chose to go to a casino. If the USA wasn't a complete joke, baseball would be canceled for this many positives like it is anywhere else in the world. I enjoy watching as much as the next guy, but mlb has handled this well? Please.

Hopefully Moncada comes out of this feeling fresh. Also good to get the bullpen some rest, Foster should be ready to come out firing as the opener.

CNN has had some mess ups, but I get a kick out of CNN being considered "fake news" by followers of someone who deceives you every day.

This is the official Jump the Gun thread. We have no idea what's going to happen with our starters the rest of the year nor do we know how Covid will affect next season. Confirmation bias is settling in on Mazara despite warnings about SSS just about everywhere you look. 8 games and 20 AB for Marzara. He could go 3 for 4 tomorrow with a HR and a double and his OPS is around .850 and OBP is around .450.

Tim worked Boyd like a puppet. That was one of the coolest lead off ABs I’ve ever seen. I don’t think Robert can do that yet- he needs to see all the pitchers for a couple years and learn

Line up construction is overrated anyway. Lots of comments here "why is ricky batting jose 3rd..." but I played with a lineup construction tool and I used a lineup of all great hitters (350/500) except for two who I made really super bad (280/300) and made lineups those guys one and three and 8 and 9. The difference was 0.25 runs or 40 runs over 162=4 wins. That is quite a bit but in reality examples are never that extreme (850 ops vs 580 and 8/9 vs 1/3 for the super bad guys) so realistically the worst lineups a mlb manager can create probably cost about a win per season. Much more important than batting order is who is batting in that lineup... https://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py?Player0=A&OBA0=+0.350&Slug0=+0.500&Player1=C&OBA1=+0.350&Slug1=+0.500&Player2=D&OBA2=+0.350&Slug2=+0.500&Player3=S&OBA3=+0.350&Slug3=+0.500&Player4=D&OBA4=+0.350&Slug4=+0.500&Player5=D&OBA5=+0.350&Slug5=+0.500&Player6=S&OBA6=+0.350&Slug6=+0.500&Player7=D&OBA7=+0.280&Slug7=+0.300&Player8=D&OBA8=+0.280&Slug8=+0.300&Model=0

I think people WAY underestimate the humanity of athletes. They are subject to all of the same peeves, tics, and oddities that regular people are, but some how we think that changing little things don't have a ripple effect on the mentality of the athlete. You will never convince me that where a guy hits in a line up doesn't get into the heads of some hitters. Whether it is pressure, anger, resentment, pride or whatever there are guys who are going to internalize that into their mental state, and carry it with them on to the field. Athletes are human.

Yep. Batting the reigning batting champ leadoff is a dope move, ha.

The other day during a broadcast Jason said something about how Steve's favorite song was "Regulate" and I don't know if that was true but it made me bust out laughing to picture it.

So does anyone else think they're both gone for a while? Cleveland claims they weren't sent down for punitive reasons lol Plesac makes that dumb ass video, and then arrives to talk with the team with Clevinger today. They basically tell both of them to get lost after the conversation, which leads me to believe it didn't go well. How long will the Indians keep them off the big league roster? I think Francona's health issues paired with Carlos' really exasperated the issue in Cleveland and made these two look like even bigger morons.

If Vaughn becomes the high OBP guy many believes he will be, I'd be fine with him leading off. Look at what the Cubs are doing with Bryant and Rizzo. It's working out for them. Vaughn Moncada Robert Eloy

Is this the most transparent thread in Soxtalk history? At least Puigmania wasn't on the main board.

He obviously isn't a star player but it is hard for 1b men to put up great war numbers, he was ranked 6th in war in the AL among 1b men last year. This year his start was not great but he usually gets better later in the year and while he has some cold streaks he usually delivers you your 115-125 wrc+, 30 bombs and 100 RBI with a decent average and that is all you can ask for from your 1b. Obviously he is no miggy but he is a perfectly fine winning team first baseman. Of course at some point decline will come but then the sox hopefully has vaughn filling in and I would be very happy if vaughn delivered the same stats that jose delivered so far over his career (.292/348/512) with 30 bombs and 100 rbi a year.

I think it is Betts, but if I were starting a team, i would want one of Acuna ,Tatis or Robert so that I could build around them before they got a $30m annual salary.

The guys at the site are currently the ONLY guys who can be traded (also including the 28 man ML roster).

Right. Jose Abreu, the guy who was worth 1.2 WAR in 2018 and 1.9 WAR in 2019 is soooooooooo good. He has been even worse this year. The overrating of Jose Abreu continues.

YES! Ricky’s strength!!!

Nope, one of the few from The Region who can't stand ND. Hopefully this lines up as a series we take with all of the negatives going for St Louis right now.

It's on. MLB is doing a pretty good job IMO. In fact they are proving that at least with a professional sport you don't have to do a bubble, even in the hotbed of COVID in the US.

"Boylen will stay, Jerry cheap"

x10 "Don't be surprised if Boylen stays" "New FO giving him more of a shot than you'd think" "Boylen fired" "Boylen was a horrible with players and it's no surprise it was fired"

Cowley being a hack once again confirmed.

Just having all the states that are forcing the kids to go back to schools is going to make this fall a disaster. We've already seen several examples of schools having to be shut down on their very first day back.

I'm curious if you read the article you posted. So basically, people are sending less mail. So fewer machines are needed. And in terms of this impacting the election... Doesn't really seem like a dire situation.

I've wanted to trade for Nimmo for years.. He would fit this profile EXACTLY. Give them Collins and Dalquist/Thompson.

Praise the stars....Jim Boylen is fired! Is there hope for Ricky Axe???

It has been said that Rodons shoulder problems might make it difficult for him to have 60+ appearances per year with little rest between. That the shoulder flared up again this year is not a good sign.

Agree with Lopez at this point. I think he would flourish out of the pen. The same scenario needs to be considered for Rodon as well. I'm ready to go the Andrew Miller route with him, but will he be up for something like that?

Another "cheap" narrative is dead.

You dont HAVE to sign a pitcher, however it would be nice. Positives? You enter the WIN RIGHT NOW strategy. This weird year kind of already put us in that in some weird way, but in a regular season we'd have a lot of ups and downs that would be highlighted over a long season. The downside is that you tie up a lot of your money into a single guy. Ideally that rotation has Cease above Keuchel in a year and Dunning/Kopech do their jobs. Post 2021 season I'd ideally see the rotation as such. Giolito, Cease, Kopech, Keuchel, Dunning. But if we do go outside the orginization i think it's all but clear the obvious candidate in Bauer. 1 year contracts, even if inflated, are JR wet dreams. 100% for him. The rest of the list is a bunch of okay pitchers, but none that give you a better chance of winning a WS than in house candidates. Lopez to the bullpen as a 7-8 inning guy has always been my plan. Rodon? Sucks cause i like him, but i think you have to move on and let him probably flourish elsewhere.

I would say Parkman will die on that Nylander hill, no matter how wrong he is about him, but he'll probably change his mind about him by tomorrow.

With this line up we don't need an all star in RF, would like someone who plays good defense and gets in base at the bottom of the line up. Spend money on pitching

Hes a coach. He was yelling from the other side of the room

Polanco looks awful. Want nothing to do with him. It’s time to bring in an above average right fielder and stop with underachievers

I can't believe players are still doing it. It's a recipe for disaster.

That makes too much sense. A bubble playoff in November would be awesome as opposed to playing outdoors at the end of October. Follow the NHL model. This is the MLB that won't work.

I was just thinking about Stone's old white ass bobbing his head to it and it made me think of my dad, and I was like "well, I guess it's possible"

That’s Tim Anderson’s future job.

I think Robert is the leadoff hitter long term but I want to see this when Anderson and Madrigal are back: Anderson Moncada Robert Grandal/Eloy Eloy/Grandal Abreu EE Mazara Madrigal

In the modern game, there may be nothing more overrated about leading off than working counts. Guys just don't throw their entire arsenal the first time through the order anymore so you're only seeing the same 2ish pitches over and over again. OBP and run scoring skills are really all that matter at this point in time. If TA can maintain a high BA which puts his OBP north of 350 he's a very good option to lead off. Moncada is going to work counts in the 2 hole.

Actually wrote about this today: https://www.ecopolibbling.com/post/the-1-spot-is-reserved-for-7 "It’s nothing against Robert - who is a generational talent and the most exciting young player I have had the privilege to watch in my 33 years on this planet – as much as it’s a testament to all the hard work Tim Anderson has put in since he was an unpolished slightly bowlegged state champion point guard from Alabama, who played short stop in his spare time." I think Anderson is the clear choice despite people's constant doubt. As long as he's dropping .350+ OBP I'm good with Tim doing the job. I'd even take a 340ish sink.

Robert swings and misses WAY too much right now for me to be comfortable with just handing him the spot. He's doing damage in spite of that but that is probably going to change and he'll have to correct for it. I don't think it's the right spot for TA either, but I'm by no means going to be upset with him over robert. Long story short, put either of them there idc, they're both not right for the spot right now anyway.

I agree. I would move Abreu to 4th or if they are in love w the righty/lefty Grandal in the 4 and Abreu in the 5.