JUSTgottaBELIEVE

Yes, he’s been fine. 95 wRC+ with a .172 BABIP which is well below his career average. Meanwhile, Manny has a 92 wRC+ with a BABIP perfectly in line with his career average...

Alonso has been fine. Currently has a higher wRC+ than Manny Machado ? Nova is the only one I never understood. No defending that trade.

McCann looks great. Outhitting Narvaez and much better defensively. $2.5M looks like an absolute steal to this point (even while the rest of the board disliked the signing when it was made). His only other MLB free agent signings last offseason were Jon Jay, who has been out to due injury, and Kelvin Herrera, who has been terrific as a setup man. Thus far, I’d say Hahn did quite well with his free agent signings last offseason...

And McCann ? but guys like Colome, Nova, and Alonso technically wouldn’t make the list because they weren’t free agents, correct? Acquired via trades

Time to promote Robert and Madrigal. Move them together. Mitch Roman certainly isn’t blocking anyone in AA.

Still better than what the Sox have been able to produce in RF this season, although things have improved since demoting Palka.

Insane. Didn’t even look like he got it well. Just kind of flicked his bat out there and took him out to RF. Kid has insane power. Dare I say he could end up an even better MLB player than Yoan?

You were absolutely right about Avi. If the Sox never had serious intentions of pursuing Harper, why didn’t they bring Avi back? It’s not like they had better internal options for RF this season.

The only way it will be meaningful is if they miss the playoffs by a couple games this season (I don’t see that happening but anything can happen when you are still in April, right ?)

Considering how short of a leash they had on him, I figured they had to have had some type of out clause on the $4.3M. Especially when they don’t have many good options behind him.

Oh you mean just like a bunch of posters wanted to move TA to CF or the bench before this season?

I finally agree with Ron about something!

And they’ve always been around here and there but it seems like the sheer number of them has greatly increased over the past year or so.

22.4 K%, 157 wRC+

I have a hard time believing that half the posters on this site are actual Sox fans. It’s gotta be Cubs fans trolling us.

All I know is that so far this season we have the top hitting shortstop in baseball and Moncada is outperforming Machado at 3b. Those are FACTS. Go Sox!

I guess we’ll never know for sure will we?

Not sure we’d have Moncada if we didn’t make the Shields trade though. I truly believe the Shields trade blowing up as dramatically as it did as early as it did played a huge role in initiating a full scale rebuild 6 months later.

Who needs Tatis Jr when we have Tim Anderson? TA is a fucking stud!!!

Why? I see the Twins as a 85-90 win team over the next several years, 2021 included.

I think the Indians will be trending downwards in a big way by 2021 but I’m not sure the Sox will be a clear favorite over the Twins even if the Sox top prospects perform well.

It is what it is. Look around the division. No owner in the AL Central is breaking the bank in terms of payroll. If the team bumps the payroll to $125-130M by 2021, they should be one of, if not the division favorite. If they aren’t, something clearly went wrong with the rebuild along the way. As long as the young core continues to develop, I remain optimistic that this team will be very competitive starting in 2021, two years from now.

Of course. 23.7% is a HUGE improvement from 33.4% last season.

23.7 K% thru 97 plate appearances this season

I have no doubt Jerry is comfortable carrying a $125M-130M payroll and I have little doubt they will hit that number within the next few years. But I also think Jerry imposes a relatively hard cap so if they are locking down someone like Machado at $30M AAV it very well may mean they are unable to afford a Moncada or Robert extension in the future if they are already pushing up against Jerry’s self-imposed cap.