GreenSox

i.e. there have been worse hitters, including those at premium offensive positions.

Don't forget the opening month designated hitter, Cody Asche and his .105 batting average and .353 OPS.

Yea you're right. I was looking at the wrong column. Thanks for the correction. Anyway, no rush. I thought the push might begin this year, but it's next year.

Eloy has a .331 OBP in AA. He's got things to accomplish. Saunders shouldn't be anywhere near Chicago anytime this season; numerous players who need auditions before him. Still I'm not sure why Thompson's on this team (with all due respect to September, 2015).

Exactly. This isn't the NFL where you may draft to fill a need next year. This is 2-3 years down the road, if not more. Get the best players you can...things will sort out. And all other things being equal, up the middle infielders > corner IF or OF. I like the idea of an athletic 3B, rather than someone who should be playing 1B. Bregman can play SS, e.g.

Jones, Fry and Rondon are doing well. Those are the only 3 that pitched in our last 3 wins, except for 1 (unsuccessful) inning out of Avilan. Beck has had a few good moments - he's probably next best. The rest of them are awful. It's way too early to project a 2020 and beyond bullpen. Their staying power isn't long. Rondon clearly should be flipped in a month or 2; there are a couple of guys in Charlotte who probably have a better flip projection at this point than Soria or Avilan.

They couldn't have maintained a .500 team when rebuilding for the obvious reason that they couldn't maintain a .500 team when going for it. Oh it's possible that had they retooled, instead or rebuilt, that they could have gotten things accomplished, although .500 in the process is a stretch.

If only the Sox could play basket-cases like Texas, Baltimore and the Royals every game.

Per the savant, Leury was only -1 last season and is +1 this season; maybe there is something to giving him more time and seeing if he can improve; his offense is at least passable for CF. Engel was well in the + range both seasons.

I went back and looked at some of his college video, and you are correct. His delivery is much more herky-jerky now than it was then; and he didn't do the glove pump in the middle of his windup like he does now. How/why in the world did he start doing that?

Law likes Hahn and has been complimentary of Hahn numerous times especially with trades, although he has not been positive on a lot of Sox drafting (hard to argue with that sentiment based on results). It's KW that he and the BP types didn't like.

Agree

The brings up the question: what is the shelf life of a reliever? He won't help the Sox win a championship for at least another 2 years. On the other hand, if you trade him, no team will pay 6 years of value. One positive with Abreu in the trade market is that he has 1.5 seasons of control: that seems to be the "sweet spot" in trades re maximizing value, especially for a player his age. He's one year older than Carlos Gomez was when he was traded and has same amount of control.

On a side note, I want to welcome the Texas Rangers to Rebuilding World. Your length of stay will be approximately 4 years.

Yea, I'm early on that call. But wait and see.

Good question. I'd lean to trade, but I just don't think they'll get full-value offers. The player that I believe that teams will start calling about is Jace Fry

Not much that I see. I hope Fulmer can get can some work with Zaleski - he fixed Fry.

Yes. The same Jennings is pitching reasonably well for the Brewers.

Jennings is pitching reasonably well for the Brewers. He was a good pitcher, but not someone who's going to bring back much in prospects. One thing that is missing is getting something out of the 2nd tier trades...the Brewers mastered this: Zach Davies for 2 months of Parra; they scored when moving Segura (who had 2 successive years of not hitting a lick before they traded him); year and a half of Gomez yields Santana and Hader. And the help with these young players was almost immediate. And the Cubs and Astros were helped in their progress with second tier trades as well.

In college, Fulmer got a lot of outs with pitches out of the strike zone; major league pitchers do that too, but only after first setting them up with pinpoint command early in the count. Fulmer didn't have to do that in college. Fulmer does a glove-pump in the middle of his windup; it's like a twitch. Hard to see how you can have consistency doing that. Cooper's not for everybody; the Sox have good minor league pitching coaches, so it may help him. I don't think Covey's necessarily a disaster either- he had under 40 pitches above A ball prior to last season, and the Sox didn't try to hide him in the bullpen by using him sparingly; they threw him out there. He may end up being useful, especially on this team.

Holland also has a WHIP of 1.28 and is averaging 8.5 Ks per 9 innings. He had a good April and May with the Sox, but without those K numbers. He clearly wore down. One thing that might help is that he's exceed 90 pitches only twice this season. Last year, he exceeded 90 pitches in all 10 of his April and May starts.

When did KW want to do a rebuild? And, really a rebuild never made much sense until the time he stepped out of the GM chair. And they did set down the path 2 years ago (22 months anyway). If you meant 2 years earlier, yes, they would have been dealing with the Cards, Rangers, Giants, Royals and Mets..probably wouldn't have been as bountiful if they were trying to trade Sale, but good enough for most of the rest of the players. And they may not have had to trade Sale. And they would have Tatis. They would have been worse in 2014, which might have netted Benintendi. They needed to rebuild after 2013. Hahn knew it. He started rebuilding. It was aborted for some reason. And speaking of "What ifs", what if instead of making the bizarre trade for 1 year of Samardzija, they had traded for 4 years of Donaldson, whom the Jays got with a similar package? Good move optioning Fulmer. Let me work things out without the pressure.

There is no "help the tank." That's an excuse. You don't pay $8 million in the anticipation of poor performance. His purpose was to be flipped. Yea, it doesn't really matter in the long scheme; but Shields mattered. The 10-15 such stiffs they signed when trying to contend mattered. They need to do better.

Soria - this org. certainly can scout the veterans.

Just send him to AAA to try to regain some control. Hearing from a different coach might help (might help some others, too).