almagest

They’re promising changes. Good in theory. We’ll see how that shapes out over this season. They need to draft some position player studs and see positive growth from multiple guys throughout the minors. Also would like to see at least one of the non-Meidroth guys in the majors show something.

No they wouldn’t, because it’s too early to know. It’s potentially promising to us, who are looking for reasons to be hopeful. It’ll be picked up around the league if results start showing up.

Not really. Ten teams didn't receive votes, and some of those teams are pretty good, have been pretty good recently, or have been known in the recent past as having quality front offices.

Probably because they don't. I think ~5 teams would only really qualify by objective measures. The rest of the teams are average at best. Having a good to great front office is the best advantage you can have.

Not really, no, because the team is still in the dumpster, and it takes a while for that progress to reflect positively enough to make its way around the league to a point where it would make a difference.

Sounds like it's not so bad to be forced to drop to 10 this year, besides losing the extra draft pool $. Hopefully next year is much stronger at the top, when the Sox are basically guaranteed a top 3 pick.

Walking Meidroth there was smart

That’s a real funny looking ground out to short, Andrew

I feel like that was only his most recent start. Has he had more control problems than that?

I like Smith, but Caglianone is looking really good

I haven't played baseball in decades and even my eyes lit up seeing that meatball

League average offense is bad for a first baseman for sure. He's also not a good defender there (and a disaster in LF), so he should probably be a DH, where his offense profiles even worse. He'd need to be about .100 OPS points higher over his career average to be worth playing.

Drafting a first baseman that high was always questionable, but industry consensus was that Vaughn was absolutely going to hit in the majors. You're not wrong, though - you pay your scouts and draft team to avoid super costly issues like these. Missing on a top 5 overall pick is an enormous failure, especially when some pretty good players were taken after him.

If the rumors are true about Vaughn not being receptive to advanced data and not wanting to change his approach, then there's no hope for him and I put little blame on Sox player development for his failures. He's probably the biggest disappointment out of the rebuild for me, because at least Moncada and Eloy showed some promise before injuries crushed that. Vaughn has been a sustained wet fart since he came up.

Eh. He's gone on heaters like this with the Sox before. He's also being well protected as a platoon bat, and his underlying stats aren't all that different than his time with the Sox. He's just hitting more line drives and less fly balls right now. I'm guessing he'll be back to the Gavin we all know by the all star break.

I know you can never have enough pitching, and the Sox are really good at developing lefties, but I am so worried about the offensive future of this organization. Maybe drafting for need isn't the way to go, but another starting pitcher at 1-10 if there are any near equivalent offensive prospects there would be a mistake.

Taylor is the guy you pinch hit for. Yeesh.

Vaughn with a ground ball hit! See, I knew that groundout to second instead of short was a good sign

Still a helluva start. Probably should've gotten him out of there once he walked two, though.

Hey Vaughn hit a grounder to second! Progress!

In 2024, the Sox were 27th in O-Swing%, 14th in Z-Swing%, 18th in O-Contact%, 20th in Z-Contact%, and 4th in pitches seen in the Zone%. In 2025, the Sox so far are 7th in O-Swing%, 12th in Z-Swing%, 26th in O-Contact%, 21st in Z-Contact%, and again 4th in pitches seen in the Zone%. So far they're much better at not swinging at pitches outside the zone, average at swinging at pitches in the zone, worse at (as in they make more) contact when they swing at pitches outside the zone, and about the same at contact in the zone and in how many pitches they see in the strike zone. Overall, some positive trends, but the lack of talent means teams can fill the strike zone against the Sox and they can't do a whole lot to punish that.

Like I said, this is a talent maximization strategy, but you still need talent to maximize.

https://x.com/haffball7/status/1909609219793314222 Guessing Ryan Fuller has something to do with this. Good stat with some promise, not leading to a good outcome yet though. This is a talent maximization strategy, but you still need talent to maximize.

You might know better, but I'd guess the offers were complete trash or required the Sox to absorb a lot of money, which they won't do. If they had a solid offer without a lot of money going to the other team and Getz didn't take it, then that's a big mark against him.

Stop me if you've heard this before, but... Andrew Vaughn hit a ground ball to short.