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I'd like to think the Sox can win this game at home in a battle of wild pitch offenses. But it is the Sox.

King Liam !

For a guy with a slugging % at home higher than most in the lineup OPS , I don't care.

No idea why you didn't go with the high FB to Baez instead of the non competitive slider.

Is Yoan dancing in the batters box? Whats with the jittery legs . Doesn't look like that's an effective way to keep your weight on your back foot and have an effective and timely transfer.

I'm getting sick of asking why Burger isn't in the starting lineup at home ? What else does the guy have to do ?

Times a wastin' then to spend the rest of it. Still would like Ricardo.

Since the Sox have about $1.5M left can they carry it over to the Jan 2024 class and have a shot at 16yr. Cuban SH SS Yandel Ricardo ?

I think Sheets has shown now he's an MLB hitter but yes I'd rather have Burger in there over him. SHeets is an ideal PH late in games considering the over abundance of RHP you generally face late. He's been very good in high leverage ,runners in scoring position with 2 outs situations. I'd just like to see Grifol using some of the stats available to him. There's no reason not to put Burger in the lineup when at home even if it's at the expense of taking out Sheets . Burger has a massively high Slugging at home and thats while most of his PA's are now against RHP. I'd be fine with Gavin starting some games on the road over Burger but even then in a lost cause kind of way Burger needs to start hitting on the road and leveling out his stats. I know many many players are better at home but his splits are just too ridiculously better at home. Burger is just a better power hitter and provides some speed regardless of the handedness of the starting pitcher at home . There's no way Burger can keep up the kind of stats he's putting up at home but it's silly to keep benching him in favor of SHeets. Hell Moncada is sinking to the point of his defense might not even be a viable reason to keep playing him. Even when he's in there Moncada can't be in the Middle of the order. Not when his Slugging has sank to its customary level of right around .400 and his OBP is now just .307. It's pretty sad when the old broken down Grandal is a better hitter than the young broken down Moncada. I've tried to be charitable to Moncada and his injuries but be it his oblique (then) or Back (now) he just never seems to heal but keeps playing poorly. So you have 2 guys you can take out of the lineup at home to get Burger in there, Moncada and SHeets. Grifol has only done it once in 4 games at home. I don't get it. I keep juggling lineups in my head to try to avoid Burger at 3rd base. Maybe Romy can play a better 3rd base ? Of course now the hole is back at 2nd base and you're back to either putting Moncada or Andrus at 2nd base. Platoon them maybe at 2nd base ? Deck chairs ... Titanic... yadda yadda ... just looking for something to put them on a little roll against the harder schedule upcoming. I wonder how often Grifol sits down with his coaches and thinks about these things. 1st and foremost would be Burger at DH at home but he can't even do that so no chance he does any of the other things I'm spitballing about. Now with Burger and Romy in and Sheets and Moncada out in my scenario the Sox are back to being a primarily RHH team again. Throw in that Grandal should be traded ASAP and that leaves 2 RH catchers in Zavala and Carlos Perez. Maybe you can find a team who would be willing to give up a youngish LHH catcher for Grandal who is near MLB ready . But basically come trade deadline it's apparent the Sox should be seeking out more LHH . Of course that's been the case forever with the Sox weakness being against RHP but Hahn's avoided it until this year. God I hope Colas can fix his issues and stay in the lineup.

How do you find how they do starting pitching vs relief pitching ? I don't see anything on Baseball reference that does splits that way. I see Gavin at a .769 OPS against all RHP in 2023. Burger at .833 Never mind I found it . Just means he does better late in games against the relief pitching. Although you would think that if they had a stat for performing against RHS they would have a stat for vs, RHRelief pitcher too. I see it now there's a little caveat :vs Starter batting splits are for the entire game when the starter was LH or RH. These splits include any subsequent plate appearances against a reliever regardless of their throwing hand. These splits are a proxy for platoon splits for seasons we lack play-by-play data. from GL team pitching splits indicate how batters did against the team and use the batter's overall batting handedness for this split. I prefer the overall OPS vs RHP a lot more than that stat you used. It's kind of a strange stat with the qualifier they use. Gavin is actually a better hitter on the road this year by a decent amount of OPS. Home .657 , Away .825.

Clevinger, Middleton, Lopez, Kelly Graveman TA 2 hits and a double for an RBI ( the only extra base hit of the game for the Sox) Romy looked good on defense. Jimenez RBI single and 13 game hitting streak

You shouldn't even be trying to calculate Benintendi's yet 2 months into it and Yas was only about $5.5M or less than 1 WAR from being worth his contract last time I saw a week ago.

Nice Job Moncada?

All right you bunch of losers get some runs !

Yea if I was Manager I'd leave that .861. Home Slugging % on the bench (Not OPS but slugging !)

This is just a pitiful display by the Sox hitters .But yeah keep leaving Burger out of the Lineup.

Ugh No Burger again 3 of last 4 games at home. The guy still has a .600 slugging % on the season an astonishing .861 Slugging at home when most of your guys aren't even at .450 . He's only 4 for 5 with a HR since the Sox got back home. Play the man at home ! Still the 0 HR guys at the top of the order. Is Grifol allergic to against getting AB's for his few HR hitters ? The Sox are still bad against RHP. If anyone is going to hit a HR against a AAA pitcher who can't command the zone it's Burger. He'll just look for a pitch on the inner half and turn and burn.

They couldn't even start the hottest hitter at home they have in 2 of 3 against the Angels . In the one game Burger started he got 3 hits and PH in the last game and hit a HR. 1.0 fWAR now , 145wRC+ .603 Slugging Romy should be easier to fit in at 2nd base but we'll see.

Hahn doesn't make trades in a vaccuum. They do have MLB scouts and an analytics dept. ( I think). I know you aren't implying Hahn was solely responsible and the only input he had was his own view of Fangraphs. Most of MLB probably came to the same conclusion you discovered in hindsight which is why the Cubs got only Madrigal and Heuer although that was a lot of years for a few months of Kimbrel. Plenty of time for them to get some value from those 2.

Do you think JR buying controlling interest of Stadium Network was just a coincidence ? The Regional Sports Network model is being re-evaluated and ComCast's rights for Bulls, Hawks and Sox expires in Oct. 2024. Reinsdorf probably will put the Bulls and Sox on Stadium and could even expand nationally. He'll certainly try to get the Hawks on Stadium too since they will be an up and coming team soon once they build a team around Connor Bedard and Marquee couldn't get them. It sure helps that Stadium's home is in the United Center. I wonder what he's thinking and how he's going to screw it up. Didnt he screw up the Sox television appearances when he took them off WGN back in the day and put them on Channel 44 ? I don't know his whole history dabbling with television. I don't think whatever he did was very smart or good for the Sox though.

I can think of one player to sell ASAP and that's Grandal. Sell while he's still relatively healthy with a decent OBP. Eat some salary if you have to. They won't because I'm sure in their minds they think they need his bat. But it will become apparent soon enough when they start losing to the upcoming better teams and drop to 15-20 below .500 that this season and the window and is over and falling below mediocrity has begun. I know Hahn knows it's over no matter how much he sugarcoats it as he must do for the fans and media.

Welcome to SoxTalk

Add it to the list of why bad teams are bad . With how their pitching has been what does it get the Sox a couple more wins ?

I don't have counter arguments. There's no perfect way to win a World Series or stay in contention. There are many many things the Sox do wrong and I'm consistently the one whining about them along with Balta and the wonderful recent post from eminor. Basically if you take all the posters here who pick out one thing or player to complain about, they all have differnt idea. SOme hate the lack of big name signings. Some hated Grandal, Keuchel now Lynn once he started to failthey never should have resigned him etc. During the height of the frenzy about about the direction the Sox were headed in 2020 and 2021 I posted that the rebuild would fail. I'd have trouble finding that post. I dont even know which thread it was in or the year I posted it. I think I said something about typical Sox contention window with Covid, Labor problems , injuries etc. Not sure if I mentioned Hahn or JR. I always complain about their methods so it's likely I did. If you think the Lynn trade was bad so be it. Add it to the list of the Sox many many failures but I'll tell you the same thing I told Balta. Tell me the perfect way to consistently stay in contention and throw in a World Series win every 5 years of so and I'll pass it along to the 29 other teams with small and medium and big budgets. Picking out one trade that actually worked seems odd. One minor leaguer who hasn't done much of anything yet for 1 3rd place Cy Young year seems like a decent trade. Resigning him turned out to be the mistake a much bigger mistake. At least they didnt give up Semien, Bassitt and 2 others for one year of Samardzija. Imagine having Semien, Tatis ( James Shield trade) and Bassitt for the rebuild years. The failure of the rebuild started with those trades but Sox are gonna Sox in multiple bad ways. Add it to the long list.

I'm not sure what you are proposing. There is no perfect way to win a World Series. A lot of teams do it different ways. Many sign megabucks FA. Lester and Heyward Cubs. They traded youth for Chapman. They also traded for Quintana trying to sustain their run. Boston traded for Sale. Houston signed Verlander and developed a lot of youth. Dodgers ,despite all their talent with their farm system and all their money won 1 World Series in the Covid year . Yankees consistently outspent everyone in FA. The Padres signed big FA's and traded a lot of youth and no World Series. If you want to complain how the Sox do it that's fine I do it all the time. Tell me the perfect way on the Sox budget to win consistently be in contention for a World Series. TB has never won one but their methods for their budget are sound. I'm defending one FA signing they made. Were they not supposed to sign Grandal when they badly needed a catcher , more LHH and OBP ? Collins ended up being a bad draft choice, Fulmer. Madrigal, Vaughn all no help. Cease's great year was no help. Kopech no help. Gio no help after 2021. Lynn no help after they resigned him in the middle of the 2021 season. Rodon had 1 more good year after the Sox decided not to keep him I ultimately think it was failed draft choices and poor participation in Int'l FA for many many years and the Sox utter lack of investment in youth that doomed the rebuild and a lack of commitment in high quality FA that led to failure . But even if they had done those things it's hard to overcome injuries and inconsistencies in performance to most of the youth they acquired to start the rebuild among the other ways JR doesn't invest in youth.You tell me how to be perfect enough to consistently stay in contention and win a World Series. I'll hang up and listen to pass it along to the 29 other teams.