The Kids Can Play

Sadly you may be right, but I pray we are wrong. Unfortunately he will be 35 next year. We forget he had a long Cuban baseball career before coming to the Sox as a 27 year old rookie. I am hoping he is dedicated to working out harder than ever in the off season. Hell, look at what Nelson Cruz is doing at 41.

Good point on Lynn. For that matter I think the entire team need to dedicate themselves to better off season conditioning. They all need to work on their fundamentals and definitely their flexibility so we don't have as many hamstring and groin pulls in 2022.

It would be insane to trade Hendricks. Kimbrel had a fluke first half this season for the Cubs. With no Hendricks we are back to square one with no closer. For those on here thinking Kimbrel was or is so good, you obviously didn't see his stats from 2019 & 2020 and additionally must not have any die hard Cub friends either. If you did, you would know how they felt about Kimbrel.

He led the league. Way too many GIDP's for a clean 4 hitter.

Ok fair enough, my bad as maybe I paraphrased some words. but the bottom line is, you like many others here, which is fine, didn't see Madrigal as a good future value due to his injuries. Yet I believe there are many of us that feel he would have been good and these injuries would have been behind him. Keep in mind, Madrigal wouldn't be the first player in MLB history to start out slowly due to injures and then have a long successful career because he eventually learned how to proactively train correctly and play smarter.

Please TLR, resign this week! Go enjoy your retirement. Let someone else younger and more qualified handle this young talent that needs stronger fundamentals and discipline. If JR could actually be honest with himself, which we know he is too arrogant and senile to do, he would realize making you the manager was a colossal mistake. We went backwards from 2020 instead of forward.

It appears there will always be this division on the Madrigal value in this forum. The reality is we never get anywhere when we debate Madrigal. I think many of us here are like me, feel the Kimbrel trade was dumb and then there are many others like you, who think the trade was awesome and Madrigal was garbage. I guess in the end we will have agree to disagree. The fact is you will never convince me that getting rid of Madrigal was smart.

I agree 100 percent with you. The manager is responsible for the lack of drive and awful fundamentals. I think we have the talent. I think it was poorly coached and developed. A perfect example of the lack of fundamentals and discipline is how the Astros stole 5 bases in 4 games and the Astros were 27th in stolen bases this season. Hahn also needs to be able to spend more money to fix some of the holes. We can't keep being a middle of the MLB team in payroll and expect to win a WS title.

You are missing the point. The Sox were patient with Rodon. Before the Sox DFA'd him last year, they hung with him for 6 years. What the Sox did to try and find starters is another thing. The fact is they hung in with Rodon for 6 years.

Madrigal not playing a 140 games is not the problem that caused the trade. The problem is Heuer not having another season like his rookie year. Foster not coming through like he did in his rookie year. Marshall not being healthy. Crochet being inconsistent and not having his great rookie year. This forced the trade for Kimbrel, due to the fact Hahn felt the bullpen was weak and he needed Kimbrel and Tepera.

You are making the assumption he will always be injured in the future. You can't predict that. How do you know if he hasn't learned from these two horrific injuries and will train harder and smarter to stay healthy in the future? The Sox have hung in there for long periods of time with with several former first round picks. Hmm, let's see, Rodon was a high number 1 pick (3rd overall) and they were patient with his constant injuries and surgeries.

If anyone does give him that kind of money then they are really stupid.

There is more than a small body of recent work where has been horrible. Yes he once was one of the premier closers in baseball and yes he had that amazing first half. However In 2019 he had a 6.53 ERA, WHIP 1.60 and in 2020 he had a 5.28 ERA, WHIP 1.43. Now all the teams see his horrific second half with the Sox. I have many Cubs friends who are glad Kimbrel is gone and know they got the better of the deal.

It was a horrible trade when it was made. It's even more sickening now. Everyone only wants to remember the first half amazing season Kimbrel was having. Yet everyone seems to forget or are ignorant of the fact, he was horrible in 2019 and 2020. In 2019 a 6.53 ERA, WHIP 1.60 and 2020 a 5.28 ERA, WHIP 1.43. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze. We got fleeced. It's so ironic that Hahn fleeced the Cubs to get Jimenez and Cease and then he allows the Cubs to get payback.

I totally agree with you! Those haters of Madrigal will be extremely upset in the future years if Madrigal is playing in frequent all star games for the Cubs. Plus the Sox have always been patient with their first round picks, especially a 4th overall pick. Hahn has done many great moves in this rebuild, but this one was a horrific disaster. Hahn should have told Jed Hoyer that Madrigal was not an option and offer someone else. I am so tired of BS that he had no power. He makes more contact than most other MLB players and hit over 300. He gets on base. The goal is to get on base and then score a run.

Love to get back FA Marcus Semien.

When you say the Dodgers are good at developing their talent, I assume you forgot about the proven talented players from other teams they could afford to go after and acquire, such as Tre Turner, Mookie Betts, Max Scherzer, AJ Pollack, Justin Turner and of course Trevor Bauer until that Nutjob was taken off the roster. I don't think the Dodgers developed any of those players. I agree the Dodgers are a good organization, but that's a lot easier to accomplish when you can out spend every other team. Actually the Tampa Rays are a superior organization to the Dodgers. The Rays won 100 games this year with the 26th salary payroll of 70 million. The Rays were even less last year at 28th at 28 million and made the World Series.

If TLR did that and we have the lead, then all of us that said TRL was a bad manager and choice, would be more right than ever

I'm pretty sure by now on game day with a few hours to go, the McCullers and Maldonado have a good idea of how they were planning on attacking our hitter regardless of the specific lineup order or players used. As Lynn already said yesterday, he has spent many hours watching film on the Astros hitters in his preparation.

Totally agree! Having said that, what a waste of a roster spot just for late inning defense or pinch running.

Robert has been batting second and needs to stay there. Robert at second is why he is crushing it and seeing good pitches. Btw, why does TLR always have to drag his feet putting the lineup out. Houston has their lineup posted.

Not only is he our worst pitcher by far. Of the pitchers on the ALDS roster he is the only one who has given up more hits than innings pitched. His Whip at 1.53 is horrific. The way Kuechel puts men on base, he could never be used to bring in to close out a jam with men on. He would need to always start a fresh inning. However then he would put men on and then we would need to bring in another pitcher to clean up his mess. Having Kuechel on the roster would be the definition of insanity!

I assume this was your form of sarcasm and you cant seriously think this will happen. Unless Keuchel spends a ton of time in the off season developing new pitches that are faster and most importantly, have more movement, he isn't going to have a good year next year either.

That is not all true or accurate. Yes the other 29 teams could choose to spend as much. However most of them cannot afford to because they do not have the stadium size and attendance numbers of the Dodgers, nor do most of them own a TV station to bring in the additional massive revenue like the Dodgers. You are getting off the point though I was trying to make which is, let's see how good the Dodgers would be if all the teams spent the same amount of money like in the other three sports. We know why the Sox don't send the money as the owner is a cheap ass spender. You cannot dispute the fact the Sox would be the significantly stronger team if we could spend 267 million like the Dodgers. That was all my post was about.

Mendick is a joke and good Keuchel is out