JoeC

These comedic replies alone make this announcement worth it. Thank you.

I mean, he can get some valuable insight by watching joining the team for the first road trip of the year.

I initially misread this poll as "Grade the Cease Thread." I feel like that would be much more interesting.

Tell Jerry that Lorenzen can play RF, so he can save money on that 26th roster spot.

Big league bullpens are full of guys who failed as starters who became closers. Just off the top of my head of Sox / ex-Sox guys, I can think of ReyLo, Hendriks, Jenks, Colome. Kopech has shown he can't be counted on to be a starter. He's got talent (read: "stuff"), and it seems like he'd be able to be an effective bullpen arm.

There’s a Royals joke waiting to be written there

Clearly the $500M is the money needed toward the new park at The 78.

Yep - Ricky was a great rebuild manager to instill discipline and cohesion. Half wondering if the 1/3-season success of 2020 was enough to induce delusional confidence in the 2021 season… I wonder if 2020 would have been a full season and the team would have inevitably hit the wall, would Ricky have hung around for 2021, and TLR wouldn’t have come back?

Some people happen to be into that.

Based on this comment, I was half tempted to create one with my expert depiction of Drake LaRoche....

It's a depiction of an action shot from 2022.

I have a cease one ready too.

I can customize it for any player number, and i can even make it a frowny face. I didn’t include the logo to avoid copyright claims.

Ask and ye shall receive

Depends on your view of manufacturing. If you want to REALLY get into it, you'd say that at that point you should sell off your expensive, MLB-level assets and replace them with freshly-minted MiLB graduates from your "factory." Like what chitownsportsfan said, there's a lot of wisdom required in baseball in addition to pure athleticism. Not that other sports don't have the cerebral component, but these cerebral battles in baseball happen on such a controlled level that it's hard to get by on talent alone... that, and because it's so controlled, every little weakness is exploited. The closest analogy I can think of in professional sports off the top of my head is an NHL goalie... and that's even a stretch. There's a really good reason that NHL goalies peak later compared to their position-player peers. They have to be mechanically damn near perfect, and none of the gazillion split-second decisions they make every game can show even a glimpse of those weaknesses. Drop your blocker hand a couple of extra inches when going down in the butterfly while moving toward your blocker side? Good luck eliminating that habit through every possible position shift. If it pops up in a game, NHL shooters pick up on that stuff and exploit your upper blocker corner and five-hole at will, the same way young MLB hitters and pitchers get exposed. Make a guy go into a "sink or swim" situation too quickly, and he might figure out a way to swim, but he'll probably develop other bad habits / holes along the way in his game that'll just then get exploited later. By then, you're a physically more mature player, and those habits are just harder to break... and the next thing you know you end up as a filler for Steve Stone in the booth for a (should-be) last-place team by the time you're in your mid-30's.

The train left the station without you last August, Pedro. Everyone else here has already been left behind.

Different sports. Gymnasts peak even earlier. Marathon runners peak later.

2024 is a lost season for the big league team. Skip a hand of blackjack and take $25 and put it on 85+ wins. You're likely out the $25 either way, but at least this gives you some minor, long-shot sliver of what might turn into hope for like... the first couple of weeks of April.

It's not a matter of "no pressure." The minor leagues should be looked at as a factory - not a warehouse.

The problem is that if Montgomery hits .111 or .200 at this level, he is likely going to develop bad habits that will ruin his growth for the long term. Give the kid time to actually develop in the minors (sounds like it won't take long), and let guys like DeJong struggle and be themselves. You won't do harm to the kid who actually matters to the long term success of the team.

"You forgot to say 'away' again." -M. Bluth

Well there's been exactly one championship in each home ballpark since they moved to town from St. Paul in 1900, so we're about due for a new ballpark before we can win one again. It's just math.

In short, the media has moved on to the next hot story.

Defensive efficiency will be solid, and that's probably the one and only area where this team will be better than average.

Spring Training doesn't count.