Eminor3rd

Reshuffling every player

It's just like Kenny, except instead of has-been hitters, they're all has-been defenders. This team is going to have like a 58 wRC+ next year.

Lmao Colas.Theres now a full useless journeyman platoon in his way. Wtf did this guy DO to this org? He must have pissed Jerry off somehow. EDIT: Wait I take it back. I somehow didn’t immediately see that this is the end of Sheets in RF. This move is brilliant.

I think it depends how the rough first half occurred. Is it an elevated ERA or BABIP with solid peripherals? Possibly hold. Is it reduced velocity, increased hard hit rate? I'd take the Burnes-ish return.

If the going rate for Burnes is an old, low-ceiling IF prospect, a high-variance project arm, and a (n essentially) second round pick, then it's reasonable to hold Cease for the deadline. Deadline markets tend to increase the value for pending free agents, but there's always a premium for the second year of control. Yes, there's risk, but the Sox have to try to do better than what's on the table now -- and if Cease is healthy and effective, they likely will.

Phenomenal move for the orioles. If this was available for Burnes, there was no argument for either side on making a Cease deal.

You could say “put the ball on the air” or “never try to put the ball on the air,” and as long as you’re speaking in generalities, you’d be wrong both ways. The reason there’s a burgeoning private industry for high-end skills development and coaching is because the actual solution to optimizing your performance is taking a customized approach to your game. Some hitters can benefit phenomenally from a narrow approach, others would be destroyed by it. It would be absolutely foolish to listen to advice from anyone who isn’t considering YOUR skill set when giving it.

Yes paywall? Not blaming the messenger, just sayin

I think the lack of defense/position probably limits his earning cap a bit more than the typical case.

You can’t pick one dude who has a handful of similar characteristics and expect it to be a meaningful comp. Whether it’s comping Mayo to Bryant or it’s comping every right handed hitting 1B to Andrew Vaughn.

1 to 1 anecdotal prospect comps are completely useless, no matter which direction you're arguing in.

He better never get happy OR mad. And enough with the jokes, we don’t need that. But hopefully he’s really funny. The most important thing is he needs to clearly support the team on the broadcast, so he can relate with the fans. But definitely don’t want him to be a homer. He needs to be bold and progressive, but always stay in his lane and never rock the boat.

I was hoping for a little more shove on Grant Taylor

Wow

I mean, we’re already this deep in the “culture over talent” zone, I’m not sure why we’d divert now. May as well see what happens.

I’m not sure their need is as high as it seems at first glance. They have a bunch of dudes set to come off the IL mid season, and the offense to carry in the meantime.

I’m starting to want to hold Cease now. I’m reaching the threshold of hopelessness where I don’t think there’s any path to contention, ever, and so it’s becoming more valuable just to have a fun pitcher to watch once a week. It’s like when you decide you’re just gonna “drive your car into the ground” instead of trade it in while it still has value. I’m resigning myself to having a problematic vehicle for the foreseeable future but at least I won’t have to make payments on it.

I’m not sure we need this one to work out any more than we needed all the others to work.

He’s not a lot like kikuchi, at least when Kikuchi first came over, though. Kikuchi always had command issues, threw harder than Imanaga does. They are both fastball/slider heavy though.

Idk, Yamamoto is a hell of a lot better. Admittedly, I haven’t watched nearly as much Imanaga (because it’s harder for me to get games from his league) as I have of both Yamamoto/Senga, but I’d put Imanaga below Senga pretty comfortably. It’s not a super fair comparison because they’ve got opposite strengths and weaknesses, it Senga’s raw stuff was always undoubtedly MLB quality, whereas there are some questions there with Imanaga. Im also surprised he didn’t get more, just because of the market. But it makes sense that Senga outdid him.

Maybe. He pitched in a bandbox in Japan, too. He’s a high spin guy, which is often credited for his homer prevention. We’ll see if it’s enough to work over here.

Yeah, I mean the Sox are going to use 15+ starters this year as it looks today, might as well get 60-70 innings of five-and-dive out of Crochet as part of it. The bullpen is going to be complete trash, but all of these junkheap starter projects have to land somewhere, so maybe its best if they see if one or two can reinvent themselves as 7th-8th inning guys anyway.

I think he'll be alright. The fastball has a ton of depth to it despite its velocity, and his command is excellent. No chance he misses enough bats to be more than 3-4 at most, IMO, but if they're paying $15m/yr, that's totally fine. Tbh, I'm more worried about his health than anything else. He's been banged up a bit and has had an arm surgery already.

I really don’t think it’s about forgiveness. It’s just not really tenable to expect a fanbase to accept that their pbp guy is a clear homophobe. Sure, he deserves to be able to make a living, but at this point he’s just not a realistic candidate to be the public face of a sports team like that. At the minimum, practically every homosexual member of the fanbase will be constantly aware that this dude doesn’t respect their existence, and that his continued employment is a tacit endorsement by the team that it’s okay to hold those views. More realistically, that extends to any fan that feels sympathetic to the cause on any significant level. There’s just not a case to be made that you should hire that guy for that job. I think we talk too much about “deserving” jobs in situations like this, when it really has nothing to do with it. He’s not being “cancelled” for his “slip,” he’s just no longer a job fit because of what the “slip” showed everyone about him.

It’s not the fact that he said something stupid, it’s the fact that when you listen to what he said, it’s really really difficult to believe he didn’t mean it. This was not a case of stumbling over a word or improper context, he was quite articulate, he just didn’t think anyone was listening. It doesn’t matter what you think about second chances — it’s really hard for a fanbase to swallow that its broadcaster is a homophobe, whether he apologized for it or not.