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Too early for the NH watch ?

Theres also Wilmer Difo , 32, an MLB veteran who it looks like can play 2nd base pretty good from some recent highlite reels I've seen. He also looks like a better hitter than Lopez from his previous time in the bigs . He's doing pretty good so far in Charlotte. AAAA guy for sure and just another deck chair but he fits right in and may be a slight upgrade over most of the guys you mentioned.

I'd have to agree with your assessment and there's the unknown of ownership be it JR operating as he always has or a new owner. I also said 4 or 5 years down the road so if someone thinks it's 3 to get into a playoff game which was my other caveat besides ownership to qualify as a contender fine by me. But realistically the chances of making the playoffs in a shorter time period diminishes your chances of being correct. Not you T R U , I agree with you . Too many unknowns and counting on many prospects to play well when just Montgomery is expected to arrive in 2025. Arriving and thriving never seen to match up at the same time .

If you look at the 2024 Sox they are building from nothing. I don't see a many players who the Sox have on the MLB team now that will still be here when the 2027 season starts. Maybe Korey Lee and Ramos. Realistically who turns into a quality MLB player from AA in just 3 years from now ? Anyone who comes up will be maybe I'm their 2nd season . Others will be rookies or trying to get a foothold up here. I try not to overestimate the talent so I'm conservative with my estimates and knowing it'll take more than a few players from the farm to field a team capable of playing a wild card playoff game. I also don't know if JR will still be in charge or what level of talent will be brought back from a Robert trade or whoever else they get this deadline. I'd also feel better about massive upgrades in how they operate internationally and with player development. And while I don't condemn Getz because of JR I don't have much faith in the organization as a whole if JR is still in charge.

Did we ever figure out what is was that made him appear to have vertigo ? Was that 2023 ? I remember his play in CF was not very good at the time but his hitting didn't seem to suffer all that much and he put up best season of health and hitting even though you list 6 injuries in 2023.

Come on Lip. You know who the owner is. You know the budget was cut tremendously this year. You heard Reinsdorf say the Sox cannot compete at their current location. Use your head. Getz is a pawn in whatever game Reinsdorf is playing. He's got nothing to work with except the decent amount of talent that's in AA right now. His big acquisition was Fedde, a guy no one else of the other teams thought highly enough of to outbid the Sox even though most teams need starting pitching. All Fedde has to do is not implode for 2 more months. We'll see what type of talent he gets and the level in the system it goes to. Same thing with Pham. Cease brought in 3 prospects that slotted in our top 10 and he rolled the dice that Wilson might fetch a better prospect than a 4th prospect the Padres might've been offering. Every pitcher after Fedde was the reason he hired Bannister as are any yet to be acquired. When all you can do is scrounge among players that every other team rejected you can thank Reinsdorf for that. There's been no solid evidence that Getz has done much wrong. He hasn't been on the job long enough yet to decide that all the roster churning he's doing will make any difference. He knows they are at a minimum looking 4 or 5 years down the road. And even then who knows where thing will stand with the franchise . All we can do is hope he brings in more talent and that it develops enough to move the needle going forward with whatever JR has up his sleeve. I don't know if Getz will be any better or worse than any other pawn JR hired to GM the team but I do know that JR doesn't pay for talent because they refuse to operate under the constraints JR puts on them. When was the last time a JR hire was considered among the very best in any part of the organization ? Now imagine the best people at multiple key levels of the organization instead of just one position without Reinsdorf's short sighted approach on how to be a competitive winning organization .

He hit 96/97 consistently through the 1st 3 innings.Didnt seem to have control..Walked 4 guys but got out of the jams so looks like he can maintain it a certain amount of pitchers. I'm not sure how many pitches he had through those 1st three innings. I didn't see anything above 94 in his 4th inning but turned out to be either his best or 2nd best inning of the 4. I know people think he's toast but if you can start throwing strikes at 96/97 and find your command he'd get much better results and the Sox have 2 months to figure out how to get the most value out of him. Maybe he's just been holding back as a starter trying to go 5 or 6 innings by not throwing at max effort . He's had a tough row to hoe with all the injuries and is still young enough to readjust. There are mental and physical things to push through. That takes time to happen . It's hard enough to just figure out that your best that worked in the past isn't going to consistently get MLB hitters out and you have to add a pitch that can take years to figure out. Steve Stone said he tried a change up many times but could never get it right or feel comfortable with it. There are just so many different things you can try. As a player you could win Cy Young or MVP but that doesn't mean you ever stop trying to improve . Most players have enough talent to be decent MLB players but the true secret to succeed is often reinventing yourself. You're constantly revolving and developing as your body and strengths change.This is why we so often hear, yet disregard, that development isn't linear. It's also why player development at every level is so important. Baseball is so unique and required a great deal of patience and mental fortitude to work through many failures .

Tied

2 runs that inning was a nice surprise. Pedro loading the line up with RHH. Likely takes more though to beat the Yanks. Julks solo shot to LF . Lee walked Remillard tripled Lee home. Remillard picked off 3rd with 1 out. Did someone miss a sign ? What happened there ?

Lots of people here agreed with that decision.

Is Nastrini going anywhere ? Is Thorpe ? is Cannon ? Horn came back and got traded for cash . Can we still not hit on some of the youngsters since we still have them to play the 2nd half and next year ? Why exactly should I trust your evaluation of talent ? You don't know who is going to move the needle . If you want to downplay the pitcher we got for a month of Grossmans low salary that's cool. Just remember to throw in that if Grossman was never acquired and Fletcher was still up we never get that pitcher while burning service time on Fletcher. Is that really better ? And now Fletcher is back up no fuss no muss.

You say why would he panic but then you said he did panic. Why would you consider the edition of Pham ,Clevinger or Grossman panic moves ? Clearly those guys wanted too much money in the off season and the price for them went down enough to offer them a contract after the season started. It's already paid off by trading Grossman. Pham should get you something decent too. Trading Wilson will add to the return on the Cease trade after paying his salary for a 1/2 season. If no one again wants Clevinger at least he might be able to eat some innings and keep the BP arms fresher. The last 14 games the BP has an ERA of 2.66 and the 4 innings by Soroka today turned out well. He was at 96/97 until the the pitch count got a bit higher in his 4th inning of work . There is still a live arm in the guy, how long it lasts seems to be the issue. If they want to keep the BP arms fresher and get prospects for Brebbia, Wilson, Soroka and Kopech they need innings from the starting pitching. I'd give Getz a C just because he had a lot of holes to fill and no money to work with. He'll likely get little to nothing for the guys he inherited like Moncada,Eloy, Vaughn, and Sheets. Most of what he gets will come from the guys he acquired. The guys he inherited were costly and injury prone and once again proved it. You're only using 1 option per season when u call up a minor leaguer and send him back down if he doesn't perform. You're burning less service time yo-yoing them while a guy like Grossman played enough to net you an arm and Pham will get you more. He gave Ortega a shot and he didn't perform so he's gone and replaced by Julks. Maybe if you sift through enough trash you find a Muncy , or JD Martinez or get a Yordan Alvarez in a trade. Plenty of good players started in other organizations then found their niche. Between the last trade deadline deals and the Cease trade there's been a good amount of talent added to the minors. I doubt Getz can get as much this deadline but he doesn't have as much to work with .

What's so hard to understand ? The more projects you get the better the chance to turn a couple into a minor leaguer. Remember Fedde was the huge expenditure at $15M for 2 years. You read way too much into things. He didn't panic. He couldn't buy guys in the off season but prices came down once the season started. Was Pham a panic move or a smart move ? Did the addition of Grossman work out ? It did.

Haven't seen anything above 94 this inning. I think Soroka at his max pitch effectiveness through 3 .Just trying to get 1 more out.

Ooh do tell. What's going on ?

If you ignore that fact that 5 runs in a game usually doesn't happen.

It must be difficult to comprehend that getting Pham can both improve the team in the short term while providing a chance to fix it longer term. Surely an advanced baseball mind like yours understands the closer you get to the deadline the more teams can determine their needs and who else becomes available. This is how the trade deadline has worked for years. Imagine someone yelling at Getz on a message board about why Pham hasn't been traded yet 2 months away from the trade deadline while also yelling at him to stop making the team better and start acquiring talent .Both will happen through acquiring Pham. They already improved in the short term and he will bring back more talent. You really should get out of the basement more.

There's different ways to look at things. You use the word panic .I doubt that's the right word.He was forced by the budget cuts to make small moves and concentrated on pitching then defense and lastly offense. He's been trying to fix the offense with trading pieces that didn't get contracts in the off season like Pham and Grossman. He already got a AA RP for a month of Grossman and should get more for Pham. These moves alone might justify keeping Colas , Sosa and other guys with options down. Why burn service time when you are trying to replenish the farm system ? Clearly the team won't be good this year or next so acquire tradable guys to acquire more prospects and let them Duke it out for supremacy . They can do that in the minors. If Fletcher can't get it done then go maybe you play Julks and see if you catch lightning in a bottle, after all he should be in his prime and if you are going to break out you better do it quickly. He's going through as many guys as he can on the fringes either to trade or hoping very good happens after a little coaching. So I wouldn't call it panic. Right now he's recycling, sifting through garbage, searching for anything junkers sell for better junk until you find something valuable enough to actually want to hold onto for 5 years. We'll be seeing this for a while. Not sure he'll get much more to spend next year but if he does that ups the ante. Guys getting midrange contracts was the bain of Hahn's existence . Too many expensive over 30 types who quickly sucked with the Sox. The returns might be better sifting through the garbage and sticking the returns In the minors and let the cream rise to the top.

I wonder what happened to him. He blazed through the minors his 1st year playing in the states but they didn't get him many ABs at AAA. Maybe they started him at a level too low, kept him there too long or kept him in Birmingham too long or just saw him hitting well and kept him down to work on defensive fundaments but he was gunning down a lot of runners. Then he made the team out of ST after working all winter wit Sox coached on pitch selection. He really hasn't been the same player since.Its like they took away his power to get him to swing less and take more walks. I can see by his AAA stats has his OBP is about .90 above his BA which is pretty good but everything else is just not even close to the BA or power he displayed that 1st year in the system where his combined BA at all 3 levels combined was well over .300. Unfortunately it was only about 7 games at Charlotte. I thought we really had something. Power hitting RF who also hit for average with a gun for arm.

Think they trade another 5 guys between now and the deadline. Mostly pitchers. That was the plan all along one they hired Bannister and identified as many cheap dumpster dives they could who had a sliver of hope of turning it around. I've said all along it wasn't much of a plan turning lead into silver but I never saw much else he could do given the cutbacks.So he spread the money around on as many of those types as he could to build a team and tried to put some good defenders around the pitchers . Next you all get to be unhappy with the returns. But tougher competition leading to the deadline may diminish some of the sheen . Hoping Fedde can keep his metrics fairly decent since he's likely to have the most interest.

It's June 18th against the Astros when the homestand starts not the 17th. Didn't edit my post so when I nail both those predictions I won't be accused of cheating

The schedule isn't kind coming up. 18 of the next 29 on the road. I figure they might win 9 of the 29. So I'm predicting a 23-50 record after the game on June 16th. Maybe Robert ,Jr. comes back for the home games starting on June 17h.

Last place finish guaranteed !

Then why bother to stick up for him in the 1st place if all you have to offer is a let's wait for a bigger sample size, which was kind of my point. You can't draw any conclusions on what a small sample tells you about the pitcher and certainly not about the coaches.

I guess I'd have to ask you if at any point in Thompson's career with the Sox if he had similar or better stats in any 23 inning sample size. I'd also ask if you anticipate that if he continues to walk 13 batters every 23 innings if you think that ERA is sustainable.