JUSTgottaBELIEVE

You were lied to

Thought McCann couldn’t hit righties? @southsider2k5

Actually, that’s one of the reasons why I like a sac bunt here

Bunt please

Why is it so difficult to find a productive DH? And why is McCann not playing more?

Thankfully Buxton still isn’t much of a hitter and came up at the right time

Smoak had one good season, outside of that he’s sucked. It’s really that simple. I don’t care what his fWAR was the previous three seasons.

@Balta1701 A classic case where someone overvalues fWAR when comparing players. I remember this debate well and I couldn’t believe a Sox fan would argue Justin Smoak was comparable to Jose Abreu. How’s that working out?

And thank God he did!

This is going to be very close. Season is 75% complete and the Sox are currently on pace for 331 runs but the upcoming schedule is really tough.

Exactly. Not sure why everyone got excited a couple weeks ago when there were reports of Vaughn taking reps in RF. Was never going to happen this season barring a slew of injuries.

Why not? This team hasn’t seen postseason baseball in 12 years (same October I got married, feels like an eternity ago ha). It’s absolutely something to celebrate.

Would love to get the Astros in the first round. It would be great to be a part of dealing the final blow to that organization’s current competitive window as it comes to a close.

What do you mean by “moving forward”? Do you mean in the playoffs? Do you really want Grandal catching Giolito? If by moving forward you mean after this season, McCann is gone anyways so it’s a moot point.

I hate that framing is even considered a “skill.” It’s dumb tbh. This is 2020 for cripes sake. Well, anyway, both McCann and Omar Narvaez (what?!) have a higher “strike rate” than Grandal this season. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/catcher_framing?year=2020&team=&min=q&sort=5,1

I guess you’re more optimistic about Edwin than me then.

Do you see any signs of EE breaking out though? He’s looked terrible ever since last year’s playoffs.

Roughly 2/3 of McCann’s at bats this season are against righties and he has a 835 OPS. Last season he had a 759 OPS against righties over a large sample size. Even if that’s his “weak” side that’s still a heck of a lot better than what the Sox have gotten from Edwin this season (679 OPS vs righties in 2020). This isn’t hard. There’s two weeks left in the season, ride the hot hand hand Ricky.

What long haul do you speak of in 2020? There’s two weeks left and then the playoffs. I really don’t care about a long season when we are here and now with playoffs just over two weeks away. McCann should play at least 2/3 of the games from here on out. Don’t have to worry about this decision next season because McCann will be gone.

My eyes are telling me that McCann has looked like the better player this season, offensively and defensively.

For anyone watching the games and not simply referring back to fangraphs, I think the difference has been very obvious this season. I’m struggling to understand the perspective of Ray Ray and a few other posters. It’s like they’re watching a different game or maybe they’re not watching the games at all?

I partly agree. But I think it is also about McCann vs Grandal because I think McCann has outperformed Grandal defensively this season. I haven’t seen a discernible difference in their framing while McCann has been a better receiver, game caller, and shown better awareness on the field than Grandal. Ultimately, they both should be in the lineup every day but instead of Grandal getting 2/3 starts at catcher, I think it should be flipped in the postseason to where McCann gets 2/3. Let McCann catch all Giolito and Dunning starts. Let Grandal catch Keuchel and Cease. I’m hoping the playoff rotation sets up as Giolito-Keuchel-Dunning-Cease in that order.

See, this season I think it’s the exact opposite of the bolded.

Giolito hasn’t exactly pitched well when McCann isn’t catching him though

In a loaded lineup, McCann now has the highest OPS on the team. Impressive