mac9001

I don't have any issues with trading any of our SP prospects, but it doesn't feel like the return was adequate. The stuff wasn't there with Mena, but at his age there was a lot of time left to build a variable path to a MLB career. Honestly he was probably closer to a MLB start than Eder. My issue with the Sox is they just love to waste value on replacement level players. There's always a lack or vision or strategy. If you're gonna spend prospect capital go spend it on an above average talent, then spend money to fill out the roster with replacement level talent.

You gotta figure he's going to get more than Lopez. I think people are vastly underestimating what he's going to get.

Bush looked really solid. His fastball doesn't really pop on the gun but until that last inning it didn't seem like anyone was squaring it up. He's a big dude so I image the perceived velocity on his fastball probably plays up a bit.

He keeps hitting and he'll find himself on the top 100 list on the next update.

The problem with the Sox is a lack of a concise strategy. If they were gonna spend $80-100M in free agency next year I could kind of understand why they held onto so many assets. But seems like they're just setting themselves up for another sell year next year and at likely a lower return. The return for Burger wasn't half bad, but I feel if there was anyone offering more for Vaughn you do that in a heartbeat. It just feels like TA, Cease, Vaughn, Bummer and Eloy are all likely to get traded by the deadline next year, so why not just do the fill tear down now.

The system could see a significant ranking jump next year. There's legitimately 4-5 arms that can sky rocket up prospect charts. Additionally if Sosa opens the year raking in Charlotte he's a legitimate top 100 prospect.

I will say if you're going to drop a guy like Jonathan Stiever off the list due to injuries but keep guys like Pallette and McDougal it seems a bit hypocritical. Is the assumption Stiever won't recover from his injury or that his struggles prior to surgery were not related? I'm just not sure how you can justify any ranking on someone who hasn't thrown a pitch in pro ball and is coming off TJS.

Anyone else struggling to come up with a defensible argument why Wes should be on the list?

JR is also 86. There's a fairly high probability he's not at the decision table when the Sox lease is up.

If you build it they will come. Build a world class facility and surround it with dinning, drinking, entertainment, shopping, and lodging and the Sox could outdraw the Cubs. The northwest burbs are densely populated and fairly affluent. That's a good basis for a season ticket fan base. You could do it somewhere else, but the Bears have enough land for 4 stadiums, so jump on the bandwagon out of town and make a deal.

Really solid draft. Love the arms and there's at least intrigue with the Seniors. Comine this year's stock with some of the other young arms and the laws of baseball say we should at least hit on a few. At least we're laying the ground work for a home grown future rotation. The Sox don't have a single home grown (drafted) product in the rotation and Davis Martin probably finds himself in a bullpen role.

The moment the Sox have a competent management team with a vision they'll pursue a new stadium strategy. The South side is not attractive as a development site. AH was a nice sweet spot for the Bears. They managed to aquire a crap ton of land that will be worth multiples of it's current value with proper development and it can be reasonably accommodated with a public transport link to the CTA and an existing Metra stop. The Sox may not find that in Chicago, but I'm sure there's an opportunity somewhere in this country that's infinity more attractive than 35th and Shields. If the city wants to keep the Sox the solution won't be a south side stadium. Not sure how feasibility you can turn Solider Field into a baseball stadium but they better start getting creative.

The time to leverage that is now. If I was the Sox and the play was to bend the city over now would be the time to engage the Bears and make a potential exit as real as possible.

The Sox now for all purposes have the 2nd oldest stadium (A's will build a new one soon, so only Rogers is older with no major renovations). The Bears left because they're not going to let the Chicago Park District have a significant stake in the success of the franchise. The Sox will eventually come to the same revelation when they can own and develop real estate to suit their ends without any restrictions. South side of Chicago is a shitty place for property development, so is Solider Field and the Museum Campus (can't own lakefront property in Chicago). The moment the Sox have a competent management team they're gone.

The Sox best move is working out a deal with the Bears. Eventually the same restrictions and limitations that drove the bears out of Solider Field will also drive the Sox out. The south side of Chicago is just a terrible location for a large sports stadium, eventually they'll follow the money into the burbs, downtown or out of town. It's inevitable.

That's what he gets for opening his mouth. Getting DFAed is bad enough, but for Mendick? This is as bottom as rock bottom gets

League average on grounders is about .240, he's at .196. League average on fly balls is .220, he's at .179. He should be roughly 40-50 points higher on his average just on the grounder and fly balls. Given how hard he's hitting the ball he should be outperforming the league average on both grounders and fly balls. Where he is struggling and why the power output is lower is his line drive rate is down to about 12.5% (career avg is 20.6%). Expected average on a line drive is about .700. So he's hitting most of his balls on the ground or in the air but not on a line. The outcomes on those should be better than what we've seen, but his HR and double output is a cause for concern as he's not hitting line drives. This is still a relatively small sample size. If he continues to hit the ball hard and his line drive rate recovers to what we've seen in his career he numbers will stabilize. What makes the numbers even more stringing is his line drive rate drop to 9.1% at home, and if you keep slicing it down his line drive rates on hard hit balls is only 19% (usually over 30%) and medium EV balls at home it's only 3.7%, historically on medium EV balls his line drive rates would be over 20%. There's just an insane disparity based on his career numbers, expected outcomes and basic probabilities. Overall it's actually quite striking how the Sox are underperforming their career baseline line drive rates. Line Drive Rates Abreau -- Career: 20.6%, Best: 23.6%, 2022: 12.5% Robert -- Career: 23.3%, Best: 26.4%, 2022: 21.2% Moncada -- Career: 23.4%, Best: 26.6%, 2022: 14.3% Grandal -- Career: 18.6%, Best: 22.9, 2022: 14.9% Pollock -- Career: 19.8%, Best: 23.3%, 2022: 19.7% Vaugh -- Career: 19.5%, Best: 19.9%, 2022: 16.7% Harrison - Career: 22.3%, Best: 25.1%, 2022: 8.1% I guess not hitting line drives has become contagious. The Sox are now 28th in line drive rate.

Jose this year: .275 Expected Batting Average (about as high as he's ever been) .523 Expected Slugging Percentage (2nd highest after 2020) 94.3 Average Exit Velocity (highest of career), in the 98% percentile in all of baseball 9.6% Barrel Rate (career 9.5%) 55.8% Hard Hit Rate (highest of career), in the 98% percentile in all of baseball 17.2% K rate - lowest of career 10.3% Walk rate - highest of career There's no indication Jose has lost any steam, he's walking more, striking out less, hitting the ball as hard as ever. He just appears to be incredibly unlucky. Historically Jose has generated a lot of his power production off fastballs, this year his SLG on fastballs is .412 with an expected SLG of .599. Thus to be more precise he's been incredibly unlucky on hard hit fastballs. Here's already had 7 pitches that had a hit probability over 90% go for outs. In all of 2021 he 14 pitches that had a 90% hit probability go for outs. He keeps his current bad luck pace up this year and he'll end up with 33-34 hard hits balls that are hits 90% of the time.

Baez hit the ball hard (103.7 EV) on a line. That's a hit 75% of the time, the fact the Pollock even had a chance was relatively lucky. Liam made a bad pitch, left a straight fastball up over the plate and Baez made solid contact. The last 3 hits against Liam were all 103.7-104.5 EV, that's 3 really hard hit balls. You're not going to have a lot of success getting hit that hard.

Just bad luck, solid pitches that statically have very high probabilities of being outs/whiffs. Yet both of them had solid contact with low launch angles which means when they left the bat they were likely to be hits even tough the exit velocity were weak. That slider was literarily the last pitch you want to swing at as a hitter. If if had to guess the hit outcome on a pitch like that has to be less than 5%.

The Bummer hate is totally unfounded. The pitch he made to Baez was pretty solid. Painted the shadow of the zone low and away. Baez made relatively weak contact. You throw those same 5 pitches every time and 99% of his ABs will be just fine. Grossman AB was a slider low, out of the zone. It had 50in of vertical break which is about as much as you can get on a slider and 18 of horizontal break. That was a really solid slider that again resulted in weak contact. Throw that pitch 100 times and you'll only have a handful on successful contact events. He made two solid pitches and the hitters just managed to get enough bat to find a hole. It happens, keep making those pitches and he'll be fine.

I will say anyone that worried about the Sox pitching depth should take a look around the division. The Guardiana staff is loaded with finesse unproven arms that are highly susceptible to regression. There's a general lack of pitching depth in the whole division. The Sox are still a major injury or two away from not being front runners, but most of the other teams are one injury away from aspiring to be competitive to competing for last place.

Who's to say you can't use him a middle relief depth? In the event Lopez or VV are holding thing's down he's a veteran option over the weak back end of the bullpen. He wouldn't even need to be fully stretched out.

If/when Vaughn gets traded I think we'll all be equally disappointed in his trade value.

If Cueto costs like $5M I'd totally take him just for the depth.