Greg Hibbard

I heard DJ make that reference to Moncada and stolen bases the other day during a radio broadcast, and he seemed to indicate it was an intentional choice. Does Moncada not want to steal bases anymore at all? Does a player get to make that call on their own? Seems strange.

Is Leury the new grinderball poster child for this organization?

Yermin needs a day on the bench. I know yesterday was off, but I think the dude needs a hard reset. He’s been brutal the last week.

I love Ron’s threads about Abreu- everything he writes on this board about him is a treasure. I hope it’s preserved forever so people can laugh at him for decades.

Runs saved seems very situational, doesn’t it? If Madrigal’s defensive range costs a hit on a play where the Sox are up big or down big, it’s seemingly inconsequential to the result. Am I wrong in that assumption?

Another thing regarding Yermin - let's keep in mind where this should be at. Yermin is a career minor leaguer we are asking to plug for Eloy, and so far he's giving us the WAR we need to live without Eloy's production. Yermin has largely been the savior of this season, offensively. Yes, we all fell in love with the myth and the story and the burger but honestly we need him to hit .270 with 25 dongs, and if he does that - jeez guys we are fine. The loss of Robert, on the other hand, is becoming more and more of an existential threat. We have some defensive answers but our bench is way too thin and we have a couple of AAAA players making too many appearances in the lineup on a regular basis.

Why would people take Yermin's sample size from April and say his hot start was meaningless because of his sample size in May....which is the same "meaningless" size? His overall stats are still great, and twice as big as either sample. How about we wait for him to get to 1500 plate appearances like we did with Moncada and then decide if he's good enough? I don't think he's a hall of famer but he's a hell of a lot better than 2011-12 Adam Dunn, 2019 Yonder Alonso, and 2018 Daniel Palka.

Vaughn is getting better and better at LF.

We just need to get back into that pen again today

I don’t think he saw the sign, honestly.

How on earth do you not at least try to pitch around him

Thank god.

This is so dangerous

Is Tony at the bar? Why is Lynn still in?

Man. You forget what a great outfielder defender Leury truly is.

No Jimenez, no Robert, no Abreu and we are absolutely clobbering the twins in every game lately pinch me check that, don’t pinch me

Stone is really going out of his way to complement Yoan tonight. 3 compliments in 2 innings

Eh, Ohtani seems to be on the fast track to MVP anyway

Because how we value players is largely based on WAR and wRC+ and extra base hits are huge in determining that. Even if Madrigal is a .320 lifetime hitter, if he’s one who hits 87% singles, with about 10% doubles and 3% triples, (Madrigals current percentage), that doesn’t generate nearly enough value to outweigh the typical replacement level 2B. Especially if Madrigal only walks 25 times a year. We would be looking at a .320/.355/.355/.710 hitter. Mendick is already a .712 hitter, and it’s not like Madrigal is adding value in defense or baserunning Being able to put the ball in play is only meaningful if you hit an absurdly high average or hit for power or are a decent mix.

I am fine with Madrigal being a .300 hitter and having zero HR power if he hits combined 30 doubles and triples per 162. I think he’s capable of that, but he hasn’t looked good lately. I do want to believe he will be good, and I’m willing to give him 200 games of rope to find out, just like we gave Moncada, who took that long to get good. It took Anderson nearly 3 seasons to unlock his true potential.

10000%. To draw a hockey analogy, Jose wears the C jersey on this team and will wear the C on this team until he retires. Year in and year out we hear the people run their mouth about his age on this side of 30 and the dip in production in some months, but he is playing harder than ever, he’s smarter than he used to be, and he consistently finds defensive and offensive nuances to add to his game. Tim Anderson wears one A on this team, and even though he’s currently struggling, I think Lucas Giolito wears the other A.

Another windswirled homer to right that just appears to be weird wind luck?

Leury “Automatic Out” Garcia is at least providing some consistency to the lineup

Because he plays every position and TLR has to show us how smart he is for using him in so many different places

TLR really doesn’t have an impact on the situation when everyday players do what they’re paid to do and the White Sox win. When Rodon throws a no hitter, that had nothing to do with TLR being good or bad. Similarly, when the everyday lineup rakes and scores a million runs and your starter throws a quality start, that has nothing to do with TLR being good or bad. What we need to discuss are all the situations TLR makes autonomous decisions that will not be good long term plays, regardless of whether they work or not. The manager really only has an impact on the game when he makes pitching change, substitution, and lineup construction decisions. Saying yesterday’s game was some sort of 4D chess by TLR because we ended up winning a game that really shouldn’t have been close is mind-boggling. It’s results oriented, in the same way that playing a bad poker hand because “you had a feeling” and winning despite the odds is not good play. We won despite Lamb playing awful defense a first, a TLR only decision. Lamb did his very best to hurt us more than he helped us with that home run. We won despite a number of obstacles like that. Good for us. I wonder what would have happened if we had just played Abreu at first and DH’d Mercedes. I wonder if we would have won 9-2 again. What is with this notion that we have to only play stud starters 130 games a year now? These are top tier athletes at the highest level. Abreu played every damned game last year. Play the regulars. TLR has cost us actual games - like leaving in Giolito too long or not understanding the Reds extra inning situation - by himself. If you’re happy being 22-13, that’s great. With another manager we might be 18-19 and with a third manager we might be 26-9. here’s the point - a high leverage situation in the playoffs is a once or done deal. You don’t get a second chance. So a gaffe like that in the postseason destroys potentially 10 years of work- the tear down we did, the rebuilding we went through, the shakeups and the losses. You either make the right call or you don’t. This guy has shown me so far that he is really iffy in that department. Whether it’s age or not being familiar with the game, he’s not altogether on top of it. I truly hope that this is just TLR shaking off the rust, and that he will learn things as we progress. I want the best for the White Sox. Ozzie was not a great manager in a lot of respects but there was never a doubt in my mind about him making gut calls in the 2005 playoffs after the Boston series.