SoxBlanco

Great news. He’s been huge this year. With other options after we missed on Wheeler, Hahn hit a home run with this signing.

Holy shit, has Stiever really never pitched above A ball? Not sure why I didn’t realize that. Great post, by the way.

My guess is that resting for 10 days will not help him at all.

Remember when everyone was worried that RR would continue batting Abreu third in the order this year?

I don’t think Vaughn was ever going to replace EE anyway. If they pulled the trigger, I think they’d stick him in RF.

The 8 AL teams are just about set at this point. Toronto could fade, but I’m guessing the top 8 right now are your playoff teams.

This one had to be typed about a half hour ago! Big win.

Abreu. Nobody has had as many big time hits in huge spots as Jose.

Even nicer to have a team hitting boat loads of home runs and at the top of the league in runs scored.

Didn’t anybody notice that McCann didn’t react as if he tagged him? I honestly don’t think he got him. And even if he did, there certainly wasn’t enough to overturn.

Wrong. Not obvious at all.

I don’t think there’s any way that gets overturned. I don’t even know that it touched the foot.

It’s so refreshing to watch Dunning pitch. I’m completely sold that he will be a part of our rotation for years to come.

I wasn't trying to make some grand point. I was simply saying that if you asked a bunch of people on this message board to guess which guy has gotten on base more between Abreu and Grandal based only on watching the games and without looking at any stats, most (including me) would have guessed Abreu. That's all I was saying. I wasn't trying to get into some debate/discussion about the value of different stats, and I wasn't trying to claim that Grandal has been killing it. I apologize for not being clear. I certainly wasn't trying to compare the two players based on that one simple stat.

Yeah, in most years, it would be a no-brainer that Grandal would have a higher OBP. But this year, Abreu is having an MVP caliber year and "Grandal sucks" according to some people here. I'm saying it's crazy based on how people feel about both THIS year.

What??? You didn't like Cishek's scoreless inning last night?!?!

Also crazy that Grandal has a higher OBP than Abreu right now.

I am not a fan of RR’s lineups usually, but I also understand that lineup construction is very overrated. To the complaints about Grandal in the 3 hole against a lefty, I’m guessing RR does that to avoid a situation later in the game where a right handed reliever comes in and gets to face a string of righties. I’m not saying I agree with it, but nobody seems to be acknowledging that part.

Can we keep RR around as a bench coach because I do think the players love playing for him? Keep him around to handle the personality side of things and hire somebody else to make the game decisions.

A lot easier to miss a meatball when you have 2 strikes and you have the slider in the back of your mind. That's why I want automatic strike zones so bad. One pitch could change the outcome of an entire game.

Actually, the ump changed the course of that entire inning with that brutal 1-1 call to Cruz.

Oh. My. God.

Cease has given up 2 or fewer earned runs in his last 6 starts (which is every start other than his first of the year). His command has been bad at times, and he certainly has things to work on, but he's been pretty solid this year. Giolito, meanwhile, has put us in a big hole in 3 of his 8 starts. I'm not trying to argue that Cease is better or more valuable than Giolito, but it's not like wins and ERA are misrepresenting their seasons that much. In fact, I'd say wins and ERA are painting a pretty accurate picture in this case.

Great list, James. I appreciate the work you guys put into these lists. I think I may have asked this question in the past, but what is your thought process while ranking these players? Specifically, if you are creating your list and you get to a slot where you are debating between a couple players, what drives the decision to rank Player A ahead of Player B? Higher ceiling? More likely to reach the majors? Preference to keep one over the other if you had to trade one? I personally like that latter criteria the best. For example, if on August 31 I heard that we made a trade and it was either Yolbert Sanchez or Matt Foster being shipped to another team, I would prefer to keep Foster. Therefore, I would probably have Foster high on my rankings. I'm curious to hear what criteria you (and others) use.

He meant to quote the post above yours.