CaliSoxFanViaSWside

DOuble down in the 9th !

Ever since his wife fixed him he's been bombs away and taking strolls.

Ok a bit of sarcasm here . It's not easy judging and developing talent is hard. However the Sox have a long standing practice of owners who can't figure it out. If there are restrictions on MLB payroll and MLB contracts then its imperative to have a system in place that guarantees the development of youth, who according to the rules set up by MLB is cheap labor , then you must ensure that the cheap labor is given every chance to reach its potential.

Required reading on the subject though 5 years old now. Future Value: The Battle for Baseball's Soul and How Teams Will Find the Next Superstar by Eric Longenhagen (Author), Kiley McDaniel (Author), Keith Law (Foreword) . An unprecedented look inside the world of baseball scouting and evaluation from Fangraphs' lead prospect analysts For the modern major league team, player evaluation is a complex, multi-pronged, high-tech pursuit. But far from becoming obsolete in this environment⁠—as Michael Lewis' Moneyball once forecast⁠—the role of the scout in today's game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team's arsenal. Future Value is a thorough dive into the world of the contemporary scout—a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness. From rural high schools to elite amateur showcases, from the back fields of spring training to major league draft rooms, FanGraphs' Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel break down the key systems and techniques used to assess talent. It's a process that has moved beyond the quintessential stopwatches and radar guns to include statistical models, countless measurable indicators, and a broader international reach. Practical and probing, discussing wide-ranging topics from tool grades to front office politics, this is an illuminating exploration of how to watch baseball and see the future.

These Kenny or Hahn posts are extremely myopic. Lots of people involved in this stuff and many of them are specialists on minor league players whether its Getz, Haber, Kenny Williams , Jr, Mike Shirley and various scouts for the areas once names starting being bandied about. IDC who facilitated it as long as the others involved are competent . But it's the Sox. They don't exactly roll with cream of the crop evaluators.

JR has had 40 years to build the infrastructure. Hahn hasn't been the GM for 40 years. JR allocates the money and it's well know he doesn't like to spend on youth. Look at how he treats the Int'l draft. How many DR success stories have the Sox had under with JR in charge despite the vast amount of great DR players for many many of those 40 years. If you want to give JR credit because he gave Hahn $185M to spend on the 25 man roster go right ahead but you cannot ignore the well documented facts that JR doesn't like to invest in potential. Hahn is JR's puppet , he does as he is told, not the other way around. He won't give pitchers long contracts. Al he allows Hahn to do is spend most of the money on the 25 man roster. I don't think you are looking at the big picture or have forgotten how the good teams who know how to develop talent have invested heavily in the Int'l draft while JR trades that money away or spent it in lumps sums like with Abreu and Robert. But the true pipeline of talent, those $1M or less 16 yr olds who later blossom into great players, not only are they not investing in them but they don't have the infrastucture in place to develop them and that has been on JR for his entire tenure. If Tampa Bay can compete on a small budget in a terrible park with bad attendance year after year in the same division with the high spending Yankees and Red Sox, because they invest in potential why can't the Sox ever do it that way? It's mainly because JR is penny wise and pound foolish. All Hahn does is carry out his wishes and spends $10M here and $20M there thinking that the cheapest way to win is buying relief pitching and older washed up guys who soon retire or their performance goes south after joining the Sox. If you pay mediocre prices you get mediocre or worse returns . Hahn certainly sucks at his job but you tell me how often over the years have the Sox actually poached top scouts, data analysts and biometric anaylsts and all the machines and software or executives who were important cogs in developing pipelines of talent ? Marco Paddy isn't even allowed to do his job properly. Whose vote counted the most in hiring LaRussa ? Do you actually think JR doesn't have his hands on every aspect of spending that the Sox do? It's naive to think otherwise.

They turn players into better players hitting and pitching . They revamped Outmans whole swing and pretty much do the same to get more velo. We'd need more than just their coaches including scouts and their whole development system and people in whatever things they used , super slo mo cameras, biometrics etc. That's where JR just sucks.

Speaking of catchers. I'm looking at Yeminator on instagram live now lol

Thank you Yoda !

An actual win breaks the 6 game losing streak after 38.5 % of the innings pitched this year for the Sox was traded so an unlikely shutout happens. Toussaint , Banks and Santos combine for the blanking of the now .500 Guardians. Burger, Robert HR's. Cola RBI single. 3-0.

Chuck and Ryan McGuffey talk about the trade. Highlights: Vaughn looked at Burger and said Lee had power like him. Chuck talked to a minor league scout, probably one of the Sox ,so take this with a massive grain of salt. He said that Cuero and Lee both could be All Star catchers. But interesting how he was pretty high on both of them. My own opinion is that the returns were decent for guys who were pretty worthless. I normally think its not a great idea to target catchers so smart organization really don't care much about giving them up. Hard to find good defensive catchers who can hit and they take much longer to find offense with the amount of time it takes to learn defense. That being said the whole Sox catching situation is bleak. Might see both Lee and Hackenburg next year along with Perez. That's a lot of youth back there. But it will be competitive at least.

I don't want to be that guy but it would be hard to fathom shutting Cleveland out let alone actually winning this game with the muck we have in the BP.

I thought Burger might hit one his 1st AB off Norris. Got him on the second AB

HR coming this inning for Sox

Toussaint with decent Voodoo tonight.

It's never that simple. JR philosophies on many things doomed the rebuild and basically most seasons.

Trayce Nikolas Thompson his initials. You probably know that but someone along the way started using it.

I think he's searching for that fine line between hitting for power and not striking out so much. He hit for power when he pulled everything but his K rate went up 10% . SO this year he might be trying to refine his approach.

Athletic has an article about him "“I think there’s a future for me wherever someone needs a catcher that’s devoted to the game, a catcher that wants to play every day, a catcher that loves baseball,” Lee said. “That’s kind of what I bring to the table and whoever likes that can take me. Like I said, I’m gonna play my game whenever that is.” https://theathletic.com/4650153/2023/06/29/korey-lee-houston-future-trades/

Big difference in the 2 reports . My MLB pipeline one says basically he can't catch but has a real strong arm. Scouting grades: Hit: 40 | Power: 55 | Run: 40 | Arm: 70 | Field: 45 | Overall: 45 A part-time player in his first two college seasons at California, Lee had a huge year in 2019 batting behind No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn. Most clubs regarded Lee as more of a third-round talent, but the Astros loved his massive raw power and arm strength and made him a surprise first-round pick, signing him for a below-slot $1.75 million at No. 32. He batted just .202 in Triple-A during the first two months of last season, then rallied to make his big league debut in July and belted 15 homers in 40 games after returning to the Minors. Though Lee has quieted his load and shortened his stride as a pro, he's still an extreme power-over-hit guy. A right-handed hitter, he has gotten better at pulling and launching pitches, enabling him to get more out of his well-above-average pop that mostly plays to his pull side. But he has done so at the expense of his approach. He spent most of 2022 trying to crush pitches over the left-field fence and chasing offspeed pitches out of the zone, and his strikeout rate rose to 29 percent from 19 percent the previous year. Lee didn't become a full-time catcher until 2019 and has yet to start more than 73 games behind the plate in a pro season. While he's quicker and more athletic than most backstops and features plus-plus arm strength, his receiving and blocking skills draw mixed reviews. The Astros believe he can become an average defender with more experience, but scouts outside the organization question whether he'll be adequate enough to catch regularly in the Majors.

Thompson's $1.5 salary offsets some of the cost. But I still wouldn't be surprised to learn the Sox ate something since they got a couple of decent prospects.

I was going to say Mastrini but went with the cutesy answer of Kyle Hurt.

Kyle Hurt ?

Quite Obvious? You'll have to show me that. I know Grifol made some comments about him but they were typical rookie stuff. I have no idea why the Sox would be looking for another RF. They are sucking and will continue to suck. There's no reason whatsoever not to play Colas and or give Sosa a shot somewhere. At some point AAA success should translate to MLB success when you are young and given time to learn. Plenty of traded young Sox players have continued on to become productive MLB players.

it was