CaliSoxFanViaSWside

I'm basically with you on almost everything you said. I love that they spent money on a better and LH OF. I never pushed for an upgrade offensively at catcher because with too many holes to fill that were more important like OF and starting pitching I'm fine with Grandal , Zavala, Perez. I'd prefer an outstanding defensive catcher. BUt I understand wanting a "sure thing" power hitter. I'm very in tune with helping the pitchers as much as possible with a guy with a good arm and good rapport with pitchers. I want speed and LH and defense. I want to take advantage of the new shift and pickoff limits with speed. I wanted an OF or OF's with speed and power. Those are reasons I wanted Colas to play so badly and wanted Outman or maybe Lars Nootbaar although my main opposition to them has been they are not sure things I know my Outman stance has become a joke now but he would still be an ideal 4th OF because when Robert gets hurt he's still a LH power hitter who can play all 3 OF positions. It's why I wanted Garrett or Aquino rather than Payton or Reyes. Speed and power plus controllable youngish players with upside though not top prospects . Guys like Outman and Nootbaar were developed by their organizations known for how they develop guys, Nootbaar through his work with Driveline and Outman with the Dodgers. Both totally revamped there swings and improved tremendously in a short period of time so much that they have never even had a blip on ranked prospects or even their own Top 30 lists . Both these improvements came after the off year in 2020 . The Cards did not hesitate to call up Nootbaar after only 35 games in AAA in 2021 after showing nothing before because they believed that though his work ethic he really did become much better. Outman followed a similar path reworking his swing with the Dodgers but just wasn't given the same chances in the OF with the Dodgers. Him spending any more time in the minors would be a shame. He's ready to contribute now. I understand the reluctance even with Colas to rely on rookies given they all go through periods of looking like crap offensively . However you still get the defense and the power because they are truly well rounded defensive OFers . But we've suffered both offensively and defensively with Vaughn, Sheets and Eloy through injuries during the peak years of our "window" in the OF that I have a hard time believing that there would be all that much suffering with Colas and Outman or some other guys who I thought were better than Cespedes, Payton and Reyes. It's one thing to want Eloy and Robert to have the best offensive years of their careers to propel us to the playoffs but you still have to prepare for the injuries they cannot seem to avoid by having strong backups available. The last thing we want is Eloy, Leury or Reyes in the OF because Robert got injured. Maybe it's just that some see 2023 as the last chance to actually make a run in the playoffs before everything really falls apart. But the last 2 years have been quite the disaster and a sure thing floor wise like Benintendi is like a Godsend to us now . Vaughn and Eloy are where they belong now at 1st and DH and that' s where I want to keep them. It's just a shame that it appears the Sox are finally coming to their senses in a last ditch effort to salvage the damage they've inflicted for the last 2 years.

Thinks Go Better With Colas ! He's the Real Thing. For the uninitiated these were popular Coke slogans 60's and 70's and were 2 of there best along with the very popular "I'd like to buy the World a Coke" sung to the tune of I'd Like To Teach the World to Sing in which they also incorporated It's the Real Thing at the end of the Song.

Thread needs some Benintendi highlights from 2022 : It's all offense , no defense in the highlights.

What time was the Jesse Roger's tweet that it was official ? 4 PM ? Kap got it right .

See if you waited we could've added Benintendi to the current Sox side !

It sure helps though if you think the Central is so weak that they are all going to do pretty poorly against the East If you are going to fatten up on teams it should be against the Tigers and Royals.

Speculation but we'll find out eventually.

The carry overs doing better was always going to be part of the plan. It had to be. Sox lacked any real LHH last year and had terrible OF defense. You get better OF defense by a lot with a healthy Robert and Colas/Benintendi is good enough defensively to keep Eloy and Vaughn out of the OF. Vaughn finally gets to play his natural position and not hurt the team because he needed to be a superstar bat to offset his ugly OF play. If his offense can take another leap forward HR + OBP) in his 3rd season he can replace Abreu's production. Just need to finish the OF with a solid back up OF. Yes I still want Outman for that ! But the Dodgers have their own needs in the OF for them to give up Outman yet. I don't know how comfortable they would be playing their top prospects Vargas or Busch in the OF. Vargas was up for a little while but played mostly 1st and LF. Busc,h they didn't call up at all and called up Outman for 4 games. Bellinger's gone. Chris Taylor didn't do well last year. So that leaves Betts and Trace Thompson. Right now our OF looks better than the Dodgers.

If we think of Cleveland as our main competition in the division they are a pretty RH pitching staff as are the Twins. Plus hard to prioritize LHP when there's not that many of them. But Benintendi is a better hitter vs, RHP .

They actually play him pretty straight up. He's not a dead pull hitter but when he hits HR's he hits them to RCF and RF. He sprays the ball all over.

He does get shifted on a lot and hits a lot of singles to the right side so probably even more singles than before. Takes walks so maybe he could get his OBP to up around .350. If he could hit 10 Hrs and keep his slg. at .400 or so a .750 OPS from him wouldn't be bad at all. Haven't checked on his fielding.

Nice. Finally getting their priorities straight when we've needed a LH starting OF for a while. Starting pitching LH OF, better defense without Eloy, Sheets or Vaughn in the OF.

Getting Jansen, who is from Elmhurst, would have the extra added attraction of Benetti constantly reminding us where he is from.

Benintendi and Outman would be a good thing.

Really, why would I be mad ? But I think some people might be very upset if they traded for Outman and stuck him and Colas in the OF on opening day.

It;s pretty obvious that this ownership group is not interested in winning a World Series the way we want them to, would be more accurate. JR just has his own outdated ideas on how to do it and cares more about the bottom line than spending like a madman or even spending on any top talent. He allowed Hahn and Co. to rebuild , build a core of potentially very good players. However the players have responded with inconsistent results or not enough good years as a group to do any better than make the playoffs 2 years while letting the farm system rot away after too many picks fizzled. Early on under Renteria, in the 1st playoff, the starting pitching wasn't there. After that it was TLR and a massive amount of devastating injuries to the core while Hahn was wasting money all over the place on supplementing the core. We lose Rodon after a spectacular year. We lost Cueto and Abreu this year and will finally let Vaughn play after 2 unproductive years in the OF. Then when we finally get a chance to play a real power hitting LH OF people think it's a good idea to keep him down and gain the extra year with some faint hope that his last year will be a year the Sox contend ? It sucks being in this position as fans and longing for these reclamation projects to be signed and for them to play well while saying, "well it's better than nothing" . Even if JR signs someone like Gallo these fans will claim victory because, "see I told you they would spend more" as if that's worthy of a victory lap. The player still has to perform. Hahn isn't good enough at his job to build a contender which means everyone around him he's relying on to help him make smart choices, scouts, statisticians, whoever also aren't good enough at their jobs to identify or develop major or minor league talent. JR pretty much decides he'll not only control the purse strings but also who the manager is and if he'll pay for top behind the scene talent.

Need a Rosenthal/Heyman, Passan confirmation. FIFY

Kap's 48 hrs. is officially up at what time tomorrow ? Probably before 5 PM Chicago time.

You could've waited til Kap's 48 hrs is up !

lol i edited my post right after I submitted Robertson to also add Madrigal

Konnor Pilkington ? Heuer ?

David Robertson ? Madrigal ?

If we just think of Merk as a Sox publicist and not a journalist he's fine.

Title change time.

Me too.