Jake

Crazy. I had just been talking to a friend about how I'd like the Sox to give him another shot—he had a ton of talent and seemed to have struggled a bit after his mother's death before the eventual elbow issue.

Ventura's first season was a bit of a curse. That team wasn't that good, but the fact it almost made the playoffs kept the franchise half-assing an attempt at competing for years after despite never having a team that had much of a chance to make the playoffs without a lot of luck. Give him better talent or lower expectations and he can be an adequate manager. Mets probably would like a calming influence.

Avi clearly has a ton of power. You can measure that, you know, and he hits the ball as hard as anyone on this team. Whether he will hit a bunch of home runs is another question.

QUOTE (Sox-35th @ Sep 24, 2017 -> 10:23 AM) Stolen bases are overrated as a stat. They're nice, but an out is a lot of risk. Sure, but the difference between 5-10 stolen base player and 40-50 stolen base player is a lot of value. And coming from a power hitter who takes a lot of walks may affect the way pitchers try to pitch to him

Interesting thing with Lopez is he's been without his best offspeed (breaking ball) the whole time he's been up. I'm looking forward to seeing him work through the lumps like so many young starters have to do. The raw talent is great and it looks like he's got a good head on his shoulders.

I noticed a strange gait as he trotted around the bases either tonight or last night. I thought he had to be hurt.

Moncada just oozes competence and confidence at the plate. He doesn't always get the result, but between his demeanor and his physical tools it's hard not to be optimistic.

I think main thing with Fulmer is getting to spend a month with Coop

Am I crazy or does Zack Collins get a ton of days off?

Kind of odd how bad it got. Went from "lost my edge without it and felt dreadful" to "I gotta go to rehab" really quick. I've taken prescription amphetamines since I was in my early 20s and it would suck to get used to not using them again and would probably affect my ability to keep my job. But I don't know what I'd get out of rehab because I'd either have the stuff or I wouldn't. But, of course, I'm not addicted—the drugs are treating an illness, of course I should feel badly without them even after the withdrawal fades. With that said, good for him to deal with whatever happened and get back to baseball. I always wondered what caused him to leave the Brewers like that.

I was thinking it would be best to keep him in AA just to reduce the risk that a bad start or two in AAA before the season ends would hurt his confidence. On the other hand, some players are so focused on moving up the ladder it might be better for him mentally to get the promotion that his production deserves.

To put Giolito ahead of Lopez is absolutely absurd to me.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 11, 2017 -> 08:49 PM) Oh so true. We have to remember, the Yanks are very shrewd. That is, they might have given up on Rutherford as an "elite" prospect. Otherwise, they would not have let him go, possibly. AFL might be very good for him. The other thing about elite talents is they do sometimes go through stretches of just holding their own and then suddenly the stars align and they just start killing it. Eloy didn't do a whole lot in his first couple years in pro ball. Reynaldo Lopez hung around for several years without doing much before just getting it figured out.

There's a fundamental problem that if you care about the lives of South Koreans, you have very little leverage. Seoul is home to 10 million people, with another 15 million living in that metro area. It is about 40 miles from the DMZ. North Korea has conventional (non-nuclear) weapons ready for immediate use that could easily flatten that entire area. The death toll could be higher than World War 1's in a matter of minutes without a single nuclear weapon. We have an important responsibility to not play around with these people's lives just in the service of assuring everyone how tough and manly we are. What does NK want? They want legitimacy and security. To them, the nukes ensure security because one does not attack nuclear states. Though they are not perfectly rational actors, they understand how ruinous it would be to use nukes offensively. But they know there's no ground war to be had in Korea when their defensive capacity is so deadly. That means the regime survives, which is priority number 1. Legitimacy means they don't want to be treated like a pariah state. They rarely elaborate since we so rarely have serious negotiations, but the big starting ask of us from NK is always an "end to hostility" which presumably entails an elimination of economic and diplomatic sanctions, thereby further enhancing the longevity of the regime. That's not unfathomable even if maybe we don't feel they deserve that. But it isn't clear that there is anything they'd trade the nukes away for now. The question is whether we're willing to negotiate without a promise that the nukes eventually get traded away rather than a suspension of certain programs. Compared to Iran, this regime is less trustworthy, less sensitive to internal pressure from its citizens in response to sanctions, and has more leverage thanks to the credible threats they pose to our allies, especially Seoul.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 11:56 AM) Shockingly, Republicans in Indiana are suppressing the vote in Democratic areas and expanding it in Republican areas http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2017/08...olls/435450001/ Came here to post this. What a clever way to do it, too. It seems nice and bipartisan to have one member of each party on the boards...and the Dems will always vote to expand voting access. Republicans will vote to expand voting access when it's likely to earn them votes, but then can shut down voting access in all the places where they are likely to be hurt by it. So instead of, say, a system in which early voting is just stalled in general due to Republicans, this system expands early voting in Republican areas while halting/reducing it in Democratic areas.

The best solution will require leadership that isn't afraid to look weak and is pragmatic enough to allow some of our past statements about redlines, etc. to be contradicted. You will need to give NK things. By now, you will likely need to allow them to have some nuclear capability. The only thing they care about is their continued existence and in the absence of any other arrangements, they have spent the last 30 years trying to get nukes to ensure their continued existence because one does not typically invade nuclear powers. We had a chance in the 1990s when we stalled their nuclear program in exchange for some material goods, but we eventually pulled out of that deal as Congressional Rs complained about "bailouts" and such. A couple of good reads: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/north-...y-defense-21671 (by the guy whose children interrupted his live BBC interview) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-...th-north-korea/

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Aug 9, 2017 -> 05:04 PM) Burger is 21 years old and in the minors, Davidson is 26 with a track record of not walking or making enough contract. Currently Burger is a significantly better prospect, but the jury is still out on him. To be fair to Davidson, he does not have a track record of not walking other than this single season. He has always posted good walk rates in the minor leagues even at his worst. If he walked this year at the rate he walked in AAA last year, it would make my outlook for him much more optimistic.

I'm usually all for grabbing guys with some talent when there is little risk beyond the occupied roster spot, but uh...I'm not seeing a ton of talent with this guy. He wasn't really a physical tools guy out of the draft but instead a highly polished hitter, but the polish seems to have worn off.

I made a post couple weeks ago about how I struggled to put Kopech at that top-top level until I could see him just have good command for a single outing. I pointed out that he'd yet to have a single start with fewer than 2 walks and several other ugly walk-related numbers. Since then, in his 4 starts he's had 0, 2, 0, and 1 walks in 8, 6, 7, and 7 innings to go with 8, 12, 8, and 11 strikeouts.

He has one hell of an aggressive swing. Looks so odd on the few occasions where he's hit it on a line drive trajectory but only about 70 mph.

Only 2 more seasons of team control for Profar.

3 relief pitcher prospects makes me scratch my head. If you want a lottery ticket, how about somebody who has upside as a starter, even if not a front of the rotation one?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 30, 2017 -> 07:48 PM) Hansen striking out the world! Truly surprised he's not a higher ranked prospect QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jul 31, 2017 -> 03:32 PM) Not talking smack, just curious how someone values Dunning over Lopez. Lopez has been fantastic at Charlotte, which is the best hitters park in the league. He also has plus stuff and is only 23 years old. I feel like he's constantly overlooked in the system, even being a top 50 prospect. He's all of 9 months older than Hansen and 11 months older than Dunning. I think he will be a hell of a #2 to Kopech for years to come with the Sox. I would say... 1. Kopech(easy) 2. Lopez 3. Hansen (slight) 4. Giolito (debatable, I'm in the Coop will fix em camp) 5. Cease 6. Dunning 7. Guerrero 8. Adams ... 37. Ballpark Vendor 55. Pat Daneker 79. Carson Fulmer In all seriousness, it's an abundance of riches. Even Guerrero at #7 has a good shot as a #3/#4 rotation lefty. Excellent point PHF. We're in love with college pitchers over a year removed from the draft who are pitching in A ball. I like seeing Hansen pitching well, but I'm hesitant to fully buy in on the college guys until they get to AA. Meanwhile you have similarly-aged Lopez doing well in AAA who has better stuff than Dunning and similar or perhaps better stuff than Hansen. Some might quibble with that last bit, but for all the love of Hansen's great stuff, I don't know that there's sufficient appreciation of how talented Lopez is. We've seen the regression of pure stuff with Giolito and Fulmer, but not so with Lopez and that's exciting.

It was hard to dislike Melky, but he wasn't that good of a player and there was no reason to keep him around if you could get pieces as good as we just got.

I would have expected a guy like Davis to be the best we could do for Melky, but we got the fringey guy in Davis and a real prospect in Puckett. Bravo!