Vulture

Considering Lynn has a 9.6 WAR since the beginning of last season, I have a hard time imagining the Padres making a bigger splash than that. Some people don't seem to realize how good a pitcher Lynn is. Add him to the Sox, its debatable who the number one starter would be.

That's arguable in general, but for the Sox it is certainly not even close to true. What would you rather have, Engel in right and Lynn on the mound, or Gallo in right and Lopez pitching? I wouldn't trade Lynn for Gallo straight up. Need horses to win in the playoffs, and Lynn is a horse. The Sox are already breaking home run records. Lance Lynn WAR since beginning of 2019: 9.6. Gallo career war: 9.8

Yeah that 0.70 ERA is terrible, not to mention his save rate with the Sox.

Mondesi has been due for the last year.

Pretty sure Anderson missed the hit and run sign there.

The Sox once had LaRussa, Jim Leyland, Dave Duncan and Charlie Lau on the same coaching staff. Aside from Lau, fired them all. Then they had Terry Francona in the minors, won minor league manager of the year in '93, named top managerial candidate by Baseball America in '94, and in '95 the Sox hired Terry Fucking Bevington. The one good manager we've had in the last 30+ years went nuts. We're just doomed to shitty managers.

Don't worry guys. They've just got to put it together in a good tasting pie.

There is no tag going into first.

A lead off hitter hits with an average of .45 runners on base per at bat, a third place hitter with .65 runners per at bat. Its ludicrous to have a forty home run guy batting lead off IMO. Even batting Trout second has been a mistake if you ask me. This guy should have been driving in 120+ runs a year not 90. Not worth getting fifteen extra at bats a year when you have 60+ less chances to drive in a run. The difference between leadoff and third would be even worse, probably around 120 less chances over a full season.

He hasn't won the day in nearly five months. Hope he isn't just resting on his laurels!

Ozzie has the best defensive WAR in major league history and Omar isn't even close. Not that that is the be all end all, but it matches how I remember it, so I'm going with it. Point is Valentin turned a hell of a lot of double plays that year, and I'm pretty sure he had the most total chances by short stops that year as well. No one even came close to him in double plays turned. I'd argue he more than made up for the high number of errors by creating outs other short stops weren't making.

In 2000, Valentin turned 117 double plays in only 136 starts at short stop. The greatest defensive player of all time, Ozzie Smith, never had more than 113, and that was in 158 games.

Rich Harden's best season was a 2.07 ERA.

He really just tanked hard in July. His august and September numbers were solid, albeit not as strong as his first half numbers. I guess it all comes down to whether you believe he turned a corner or not. To me he looks like a well above average catcher, and I think it is fair to say he excels at handling pitchers. I think he could be signed to something like a 3/25 deal. Paying something around 26 million a year to cover C and DH doesn't seem all that outlandish in this day and age. Right now Sox are paying considerably more than that between EE, Grandal and McCann. Insert Vaughn for EE, and that would actually reduce payroll by several million.

They signed EE to DH so they must not consider those other four in the same light. Grandal wouldn't just be DHing anyway under this scenario, and presumably they can sign McCann for less annually than they are paying Encarnacion. If the question is someone like Encarnacion or McCann at a little less, I'd prefer McCann. Its obvious at least some of the Sox starters prefer throwing to McCann, which is another consideration.

Dylan Bundy is the only player I have seen in my life who walked off the field in the middle of a play, when he should have been covering home no less. He's got to be a ticking time bomb mentally.

Unless you were playing under a multimillion dollar contract with the expectations of being a savior of a floundering major sports franchise with deep roots in a major US city, a million lifelong fans most of them generational going back 100+ years, I'm not sure your experience is corrolary

What outliers? He was remarkably consistent in walk, hit, strikeout rates, etc with the Sox, if anything with slight improvements year to year.

Maybe moving Grandal to dh has been the plan all along, considering they signed EE to a one year deal and made no apparent attempt to trade McCann. Maybe not, but saying there is no way is clearly false. The way would be to guarantee him starts along with a competitive contract offer. Whether that happens is another story, but there is a definite way.

If McCann were resigned I would consider him the primary catcher and Grandal the primary dh, however playing time is split. Throughout his career, pitchers have performed better with him behind the plate, I'm not convinced Grandal is a better receiver despite the framing stats. Small sample size, but that trend has carried over to this year. After today, McCann's era is close to 3.00, Grandal 5.63. Grandal allows passed balls at somewhere around 4-5 times the rate of McCann as well.

I wouldn't bring back EE. As for Vaughn, the good teams that win year in year out stack their rosters and let the pieces fall where they may. Ultimately he's Abreu's replacement. Knowing we had an all star caliber catcher 162 games a year would be a huge advantage. I'd rather have that than an Encarnacion type.

The advantage of batting Anderson, Moncada, Abreu and Grandal at the top of the order is it keeps the pressure off Robert and Eloy, which is a key consideration at this point IMO. A year or two from now is a different story. This is still about '21 and beyond. Anything this year would just be gravy

With DH open they can guarantee him 130+ starts

With Encarnacion gone, DH is open for Grandal theoretically. Then you'd have Vaughn as depth for 1b, DH and C (by way of Grandal)

The Natural was shot at the old Buffalo Coliseum.