Jake

My take is that if he can't play outfield then we've wasted a lot of money on him. You have to keep running him out there.

The key thing is that the guy be able to be competitive. About August 1st last year, you could have called Eloy up and he'd be over a lot of the stuff he's dealing with right now. On the flip side, we moved Carson Fulmer up way too fast and he had to just struggle to survive at higher levels. It is to be determined whether Carson will ever recover (and we'll never know what he would have done with a slower pace through the minors). Gordon Beckham is another example of a guy who got up here too quick and was at too high of a level to deal with the big picture problems he had. Dylan Cease I presume would be okay getting up here and pitching because he's done so well at the higher levels he's pitched at. He maybe hasn't gotten every last ounce of development out of AAA just yet but nowadays if a pitcher can hang in MLB there's no use letting him use up whatever's left of his ligaments in the minors.

bobblebat

If Tim walked it off I'd need him to be twirling that thing like a drum major

Let's win this thing

I know it's hard to believe but these games could actually be less watchable

Scott Merkin et al

Sprained ankle, no broken bones, will get MRI tomorrow as part of standard procedure

The question is why any of it matters when the ball has gone over the fence. I'm sure Abreu had no idea it mattered as long as they crossed home in the right order

They really are crediting the catcher with an unassisted putout. The fact that the play defies the scorebook is a good sign the rule behind it is stupid

The official books seem to be calling it a single

Is there any good reason for that to be the rule?

Yeah I see Mendick as Saladino. Saadino probably had more fielding talent but Mendick a little more pop, I think.

I wonder if Santana will just accept the assignment

The hard truth in this game is we've hit the ball quite a bit better than them and have nothing to show for it

Nicky has been hitting the ball hard

IDK, to me Montgomery seems clearly more valuable than Colome given his extra year of control and untapped potential as a starter

Hard not to root for Chris Davis

I think frequently about how we moved the top prospect in baseball to a new position because of a guy with a .070 ISO in A-ball

Also, Statcast's metrics on 90 foot runs had Engel 0.01 seconds faster than Hamilton (so basically the same) last season.

Just goes to show you there's more to it than speed, I think. Clearly stealing bases has a major skill component, but the other metrics of baserunning success that don't consider stolen bases show Hamilton is quite a bit ahead of Engel as well. That being said, those same metrics would tell you Engel is a very good baserunner but Hamilton is just special. That being said, the difference is more dramatic defensively. Hamilton is a very good defender but Engel is really special and has added more value in many fewer innings since Statcast started keeping track.

The goal for Engel is be like a slightly better hitting version of Billy Hamilton (knowing he would never steal bases like Hamilton despite having similar speed). As for Engel's swing mechanics, what I always say is he swings like he has never watched baseball and only read about it in a book.

While I don't doubt that the Sox are truly at or near the worst in the league, I'm not very convinced by their analysis. If Baseball America and/or FanGraphs have biased analyses of players from an organization, then it makes it very hard to interpret the surplus value you're getting. If every guy you trade to the Dodgers see his value increase, is that because he's really getting better or because Dodgers prospects get overrated? It can be hard to tell from what they're doing. The ultimate equalizer would be to only use MLB performance as an indicator but they don't have prospect grades going back far enough in time to track players from minors to a decently long sample in the majors.