SoxBlanco

No way in hell we give up that much for Joc.

I bumped the starting pitching thread when I saw some discussion start in here about the 5th starter. Curious to see people's thoughts on who we should get.

For the Sox, pitchers and catchers report on February 12. Position players have until February 17.

Assuming our 5th starter had to come from one of these six options, rank your order of preference: 1. Dylan Covey 2. Manny Banuelos 3. Gio Gonzalez 4. Clay Buchholz 5. Wade Miley 6. James Shields

I had him in fantasy while he was on the Titans. Had some monster games for me. Probably over the hill now, though.

Wasn’t that about the potential Joc trade?

Great post. Thanks for posting those numbers. Pretty interesting.

Yeah, I am by no means a Steverson supporter, and I honestly don't know what happened during the second half either, but I tend to think hitting coaches get too much credit when things go well and too much blame when things go south.

To play devil's advocate, who do you think was responsible for the large increase in BB rate during the first half?

Not a possibility at all.

I’ve always envisioned an outfield of Eloy, Robert, and Gonzalez in 2021, with Basabe as the 4th outfielder. But I’m admittedly higher on Gonzalez than most.

My Blu-ray copy of The Parent Trap did just sell on EBay to a J. Pederson from California. I never made the connection, but I think you’re on to something.

Please make Bryce Bush off limits.

Yep. And that’s why there’s not many ways this could play out where we don’t end up with one of the two whales.

It would be nice to have that stellar back end of the pen, but any more additions would really take away reps from the young guys. We need to see what they’re capable of this year.

Do you know somebody with connections to the Sox?

We should have signed him for 15 years at $1.5 billion. We’d still avoid the luxury tax, right?

I am a huge Moncada supporter and I think he will continue to get better, but one thing I never do to defend him is point to the amount of times he struck out on questionable calls. When you take that many close pitches with two strikes, you are bound to lead the league in the amount of times you get rung up when the pitch is actually a ball.

To piggyback off this, take a look at Micker Adolfo. Here were his K rates the last three years: 2016 in Kanny: 33.2% 2017 in Kanny: 31.5% 2018 in W.S.: 27.4% He has been decreasing his K rate the past three years, and that even included being bumped to a higher level. I think K rate can definitely be improved, especially when talking about a really young player. I don't think Basabe will automatically have a higher K rate as he rises to the next level.

Burger, Sheets, Collins, or one of our outfielders could end up there.

I’ve been confident ever since we signed Alonso and Jay. I think Manny has chosen us (in his mind, at least), and at this point it’s all about getting a better deal than we are offering.

Let’s say we knew for sure it was a Sox hat. How would that affect everyone’s confidence that he will sign with us? I’m pretty confident we will get him anyway, so I’m not sure how much this would move the needle for me.

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7 for $175 is not a false report because more people are claiming it's false. It's false because it makes zero sense.

Not really. If Manny ends up signing a bigger deal, they can just claim that at the time, 7 for $175 was the offer.