CentralChamps21

If > 110 WRC+ is not a realistic expectation from Vaughn, then the Sox shouldn't be handing him the keys at DH and should be signing or trading for someone else.

ZIPS projections puts the first group at 3.5 WAR and the second group at 4.1 WAR. Now, I'm not sold that the difference between Hendriks and Colome will be a large as projected but also I have to consider that Kopech might come up and get some of Rodon's innings, and that potentially makes the gap wider. As for Eaton vs Joc, they project to be about the same overall, but with Joc having much more severe splits. I'll take Eaton if for no other reason than if Engel has to play every day because one of the other OFs gets injured, Engel isn't a complete black hole vs LHP.

DIDN'T YOU HEAR? WE RE-SIGNED CARLOS RODON! BEST NEWS EVER!!

A quote that will endear himself to his teammates, but not so much his agent.

Unless he's getting a 25 year contract, Bauer probably isn't signing for $10mil/year.

The $600 billion number is from a proposal by 10 Republicans. There's no way the final number is that low.

I predict the Sox will not be better vs LHP than 2020.

Two roster questions: (1) 40-man is full, so is someone getting traded or is there a DFA coming, and if so, who? (2) Can Cease or Lopez still be optioned to AAA? If not, that makes six starters on the ML roster including Rodon. Could be a challenging roster juggle if the Sox pick up another starter.

???

Regardless of how good the team is now, management should continue to improve the team so long as it has resources, and the Sox have some combination of dollars and trade assets that could easily improve this team. To not get at least one of a DH or SP is unacceptable, and they really ought to be getting both.

No way the Sox should have offered 2/20 to a guy who couldn't get more than 1/7 from anybody else.

Trading up to get a QB is still giving up assets--other draft picks. The bears can't afford to not take the best OL available at 20. Now if there are several closely grouped OL available when that 20th pick comes up, then yes, trade down from 20, get your OL and then use what you get from that trade to go back up to get Trask or Jones if still available, but that's a very specific scenario that needs a lot of dominoes to fall just right to be available.

The Texans just finished a 4-12 season and got the living shit beat out of them by, among other teams, the Bears. If the Bears are going to give up enough players and draft picks to land Watson, they're going to have a team just as lousy as the one Watson is leaving. I don't see any scenario by which the Bears pick up a franchise QB without giving up enough assets to ensure that franchise QB doesn't have a terrible team surrounding him until he hits free agency. The Bears need to acquire all the good OL, DL and DB they can get, and anybody not in those position groups should be traded if they can bring back talent in those position groups and/or valuable draft picks. Build the core of the team for a couple years, THEN go after your franchise QB. Get Fitzpatrick or someone comparable to hold down the fort for a couple years.

He's overrated and not good enough to help the Sox win, but at some point in the future he'll be a free agent and become someone Sox ownership is too cheap to sign.

Tanaka going back to Japan

Well, Canada does have free health care.

That was his appeal. He found a group of voters that both parties had been neglecting and that was largely gullible. When he told them that they were being neglected because of Muslims, illegal immigrants, blacks, Hispanics and transgender people, they bought it and they elected him. When he told them that record low unemployment and record high stock market were signs that he was doing wonderful things for them, they bought it, even though they didn't really benefit from those things and their wages remained stagnant as their bosses got huge tax cuts. Now we have the Republican party in Arizona censuring the sitting governor and a former Senator because they chose to say things that were true instead of things Trump wanted them to say, and in Oregon putting out a formal statement that the Capitol attack was a false flag operation even as hundreds of attackers have been identified and admitted to being long-time Trump supporters.

I'm not certain I want to win that war.

I think athletes deserve a good amount of leeway when it comes to political views. Calling people snowflakes doesn't cross that line for me, and like it or not, failing to accept trans people is a common conservative religious view. Where he crossed the line for me is past tweets that appear to condone harming journalists, and supporting the Jan 6 Capitol riots. That's going beyond political views to endorsing violence. I'm fine with keeping Schilling out for that, but also don't want this to be a slippery slope into keeping out anybody who ever expressed conservative political views.

It's not the people post too much, it's that we've beaten every possible topic to death and people still post.

So basically Realmuto is getting an extra 4.85m per year to not botch force plays at home plate.

The last 14 games were all against playoff teams, with a bullpen that was thin due to injuries and the two best starters missing starts to set up the rotation for the playoffs, and yes, a manager that was not great. I don't think any of those things are cause for concern going forward. Also, IIRC, only one of the last 14 games was against a lefty starter.

Well, collectively we've worried about various SP trade candidates for 52 pages, Nelson Cruz for 42 pages, Trevor Bauer for 32 pages, and Adam Wainright for 10 pages. Some posters share tweets here so quickly after they occur that they must be spending the entire day refreshing Twitter looking for anything to share, and there are at least three Twitter accounts that seem to have no other purpose than to troll us and we seem to be more than happy to oblige. I get that COVID has limited our activity options for a year and that the Bulls and Hawks suck, but Jesus Christ start a new series on Netflix, or watch some movies on HBO Max or start a blog or something. Also, the number of permanently or temporarily former posters that I'd had to look up in order to understand why current posters compulsively mention them is staggering.

The latest date the Sox were in the #1 seed slot was 9/17. In the last 11 days, the Sox did indeed drop from #1 to #7, but don't forget that the #5 and #6 seeds went to 2nd place teams who still had worse records than the Sox despite the struggles of the last 11 days, and the Sox ended up only one win short of being #2 instead of #7. The Sox also skipped starts by Giolito and Keuchel because they determined that having them ready to pitch the first two playoff games was more important than playoff seeding.

Bears are a perfect fit for Rodgers. He can't keep losing the NFC Championship game if he never gets there.