ChiSox59

As others have said, his defensive shortcoming leave him nothing more than a backup catcher. He's been great at the plate since a dreadful start to the season. If I were Rick, I wouldn't hesitate dealing him if the right offer came along this offseason. But I doubt it will, because other teams will know this guy isn't a big league catcher. If you can't get anything of value with him, keep riding him as a backup catcher for now. He's just so bad back there that it really kills any value he has.

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!

You sound like Hawk.

Surprised we haven't heard that he's cleared waivers. He most certainly has at this point.

LOLZ

Guessing it was that. He probably felt 33rd round was a slap in the face, especially since he appears to have been more signable than everyone thought.

He's a glorified beer league player. But he can rake.

Gonzalez has been great and I am super excited about him. But to say Rutherford should be closer to 20 than 10 is a bit harsh IMO. He's been very good this year and is still just 21.

For real. Rutherford has been pretty damn good this year.

If they were gonna call these guys up, they should have done it 4-6 weeks ago. It makes zero sense at this juncture.

Correct. My mistake. Point still stands.

Or teams actually trying to win games. I have no doubt that Eloy and Kopech would be up if the Sox were within spitting distance of a playoff berth. But they aren't (even close). In fact, winning games at this point is somewhat counterproductive unless its due to fantastic games from long term future pieces.

I keep seeing people say why does 2025 matter when Gio, Lopez and Moncada will all be FA in 2024. Especially that Patrick Nolan guy on Twitter (man has that dude been a blowhard the past few months). The whole idea of a rebuild is to have waves of talent. Avoiding having all your elite talent becoming a FA the same year is important. 2024: Moncada, Anderson, Gio, Lopez 2025: Eloy and Kopech 2026: Cease, Dunning, Collins, Madrigal 2027: Robert, Rutherford, Basabe, Hansen, Adolfo, Burger, Gonzalez The whole idea is that your whole roster doesn't just go away in one season like what happened with the Royals right after they got good.

I have a feeling it won't be an issue we'll need to worry about.

Depends on who you ask. The diehards are still believers. The serious but a little more casual fan are pretty frustrated. Very casual fans are fed up. Buxton is in trouble, he has some serious hamate issues, and as we all saw with Beckham, that can really fuc* up your swing. But when his rehab stint ended in early July, they actually optioned Buxton, so they now control him through 2022 as opposed 2021 (which is when Sano and Rosario are FA). He's likely done for this season and needs to spend 2 more weeks on the 25 man this year for Twins to lose control in 2022. My buddies all think Sano is a POS, but the talent is obviously there. He did have a rod inserted into his leg about a year ago, so I think they give him a little slack. I tend to agree that the Twins are in a pretty bad spot. But Mauer is off the books after this season, and they have minimal future commitments. They have a top 5-6 farm, and still do have some good young talent on the major league roster in Berrios, Rosario, Kepler, Polonco, Buxton and Sano. Beyond Berrios, they have a pretty good set of SP prospects in Fernando Romero and Stephen Gonsalves who are both MLB-ready and Brusdar Graterol who is bit further away. They have an elite middle infield prospect in Royce Lewis and an OF prospect in Kirilloff that is blowing up. But besides Gonsalves and Romero, their better psopects aren't that close to the bigs. Not all things are terrible....but this is supposed to be the meat of their contention window, and instead is looking like a team that is going to struggle mightily to contend before their core of Sano, Rosario and Buxton (now delayed another year) hit FA after 2021 unless they go big in free agency, which is something they haven't done much at all, and their FA signings have all been pretty bad in recent history. That being said, this isn't the old Terry Ryan-led twins. Lavine and Falvey know what they're doing.

I personally was talking about next season. I'd keep Nicky around for the rest of this season so we don't waste an option, and I don't think there is any issue getting him at bats between LF and DH. He and Palka each DH and LF against RHP, Davidson sits. Davidson DHs against LHP, one plays LF. But I am also in the leave Eloy in AAA camp, so that's why there are plenty of ABs to go around. But we don't need to discuss that in another thread.

I don't think anyone wants to jettison Nicky. But he has 2 options, and I'd rather him play everyday in Charlotte than sit on the bench in Chicago. Having depth that can actually play in the bigs at AAA is never a bad thing.

Mentioned this here before...but I live in Minneapolis, and obviously my buddies are Twins fans. I had the under on a bet with a bud on Buxton's fWAR at 3.5. It ended at 3.5. I ended up looking up the calculations and doing the math...it came out to like 3.4975. I had Eno Saris confirm my math via twitter DM, which he amazingly did. It was an incredible line we set. Was offered the same bet this year, which I declined, because I took an amazing amount of shit from my buddies the last several weeks of last season as Buxton's fWAR rose and rose and rose. Wasn't worth it...but man I wish I did this year. But instead I did Twins under 85 wins, so not all is bad. They've been awfully quiet....

Chris Sale was the last guy. And at that point he as a reliever, and the team was in a vastly different situation.

I'd continue to give both of them reps the rest of the season. Next year will sort itself out. But Nicky has options (so does Palka), and Palka has earned another shot next season, so Nicky probably starts in AAA next year, or at least once Eloy is up for good.

Has Polo been hurt all year or what?

Let him get 2 starts this weekend. Why the hell not?

Shrug. Cearly you’re not a Dozier fan. But I don’t see how a 2 year $26M deal that I suggested (candidly it may take more) does anything close to hamstringing the Sox. Seems like the exact type of move they should be making if they’re serious about starting to teach the core of this team how to start winning games on a consistent basis. And Dozier would not cost a draft pick.

While I wouldn’t hate Donaldson on a two year cushion type deal, anything long term would scare me. He’s already had the yips of sorts at 3B and has had shoulder issues already. Don’t think he’s a full time 3B more than a couple seasons.

I kind of think that what he was alluding to. Probably won't be players in this FA class (probably at least talk to Machado because the fit), but that 2019 FA class may be different. He did say that they'd be looking for more signings in the Wellington Castillo mold to fill gaps while prospects develop.