thxfrthmmrs

Robert and Madrigal played at 3 levels already last season, and both played more games than they’ve ever had by a long shot. There was little to gain by forcing a promotion at that point. Sure, service clock played a role in that. Would that have made them both more ready to play this season? Surely. But even without doing so, this team have enough talent after one more SP addition and will be in the ALC or WC race this year.

That’s not apples to apples. You’re talking about giving some 200 ABs and a taste of big leagues and an off season to work on kinks vs calling up someone early by a month at the start of the season. How many wins less would Sox have last year if Eloy started the first month in the minors? 1,2? If that.

They’re not mutually exclusive. You can be competitive and financially cautious (as related to team control) at same time.

Starting them off in the minors for the first month or so does not prevent Sox from competing.

You will be disappointed.

Cease’s issues actually started in AAA, where his WHIP, BB% and BAA are all similar to his 70+ innings of work at MLB, so it is not as if he doesn’t have anything to work on at AAA either. If he throws another 50 innings and shows no progression at all, I’m fine with sending him back down to work on his game for a few months and call him back up when there is an opening.

His surplus value the next 2 years simply isn’t worth 2 top 25 and 2 top 150 guys. And if he has two more seasons of 5.5+ WAR he’s opting out for a bigger deal. If he performs worse than that, then the Sox paid 4 of their top 8 prospects for for a guy performing near or below market rate. It’s a no win situation for the Sox even if Rockies throw in reasonable cash.

Struggling is struggling, unless his ERA is inflated due to some uncommon fluke. Sox are in a position to compete next year and they should not move Gio to the pen in favor of Cease in the scenario I mentioned.

Not at all. If by June when Kopech is knocking on the door and Gio is having a 4 ERA and Cease’s ERA is still approaching 6, do you send Gio to the pen or send Cease down to work on his game?

People keep assuming Gio will only start for half a season but if Lopez doesn’t step up he’s the one sent the pen or if Cease doesn’t progress he’s the one sent back to Charlotte when Kopech comes up. Unlike a guy like Rich Hill, Walker or Wood, Gio is good enough and durable enough to pitch a full season as the 4th starter.

STEAMER more often than not under-projects 4/5th starter types, take it with a grain of salt. BTW, Nova 2019 STEAMER? 0.8.

Not to mention looking at 3 year history, one is clearly a superior pitcher.

And guess what Nova’s steamer projection is?

In all seriousness, I’m happy if the deal doesn’t exceed 1/$7M. We paid Nova $9M to eat innings last year, and Gio is more than just a Nova replacement.

Converting Tim Anderson to P. He’ll be our #2 starter.

Also hella confusing that Gio is both our ace and 5th starter.

You’re wrong, Dwilter was first.

If you’re not down with this as the 2nd starter signing, you need to get a new hobby.

What’s the wager here? Greg’s houses?

You clearly have not done a lot of research before speaking out on this topic. For comparison sake, look at Merrill Kelly of DBacks who also came from KBO last year and posted 2 fWAR, and Lindblom has fared a lot better than Kelly in KBO, a notoriously hitter friendly park. You point how much Lindblom sucked at MLB, but I hope you do realize in recent years players have went oversea to hone their craft and came back a better player. Lindlbom has improved drastically between his 1st and 2nd KBO stint, so it's very much possible he's going to fare better in MLB this time around. Lastly, his FB spin rate has improved considerably in recent years it is now consider elite for a SP, and that's only going to help his cause. I'm disappointed Sox didn't take a shot at $3M AAV.

1/$14M. Essentially a stopgap for Bohm.

He’s not a complete lost cause. The two main issues that derailed him in 2019 are Padres tried to stick him at CF when he didn’t have the range, and offensively he sold out contact for power and that led to a huge spike in K%. In a little over 80 games in 2018, he was worth 1.6 fWAR, so there’s still a good player in there. That said, if Sox feel like they could help cut down his K rate and if Padres are willing to add a Morejon or Abrams, I’d definitely consider it.

I think his name has been thrown around a few times here but just didn’t resonate. “Lindblom has sported 35-7 record, a 2.69 ERA while tossing 346 strikeouts to 108 earned runs through 362.4 innings pitched over that length of time.” KBO has been notoriously hitter friendly up until this year. If you look at his KBO stats from his first stint (2015-16) vs second, you’d notice marked improvements there, so it’s completely possible he’d fare better back in MLB this time around. I read that his improvements are attributed to his now elite spin on his four seamer, now more than 2600RPM, and ditching his ineffective two seamer from before. Though I haven’t heard any rumors of him tied tho Sox yet, and the Astros supposedly have him as one of their main targets.

After success of Mikolas and Kelly last two years, it would be crazy not to give Lindblom a look for a backend spot. FWIW Lindblom had much better stats than Kelly he last two years in KBO.

You ever settle down to enjoy a win? Or you’re just begging to be miserable at all times?