he gone.

We'll check back in about 4 years and see how this is going. Can't get too excited or mad about a HS pick. Hopefully he develops and we can flip him for immediate needs during our current window, or, he begins kind of the next turn for this team. Either way, welcome aboard. does anybody know why he's a year+ older than most HS guys?

they definitely do not. that said, look at the rest of the division. tigers - not happening. their young pitchers are already being tapered down. they're playing much better baseball, but they're not jumping us in the standings with that team. twins - this is the team with the most talent in the division outside of us. that said they are out 15 games. they're more likely to sell guys like Cruz than tack on pitching. it's just not going to happen mathematically. we could play 30-46 ball here out and finish 81-81 and the twins would have to finish out 45-31 to match. it's just not happening. Royals - they're in the same boat. team actually is somewhat talented but their young arms haven't really taken that step forward this year. they're the same record as the twins and have less talent than the twins. they're toast. so that leaves the indians - that team is predicated on their rotation, and although they just got back pleasac, the rest of the rotation is banged up. without bieber taking hte ball every 5th game, without civale, etc. they're maybe the worst team in the division. that offense is puke worthy for stretches and they're too cheap to add at the deadline. their rotation has pitched to like an 8ERA over the last month without their guys. that team, if healthy, has the best chance. But give them just 2 or 3 more weeks without their top arms and they're definite sellers at the deadline and may be 10 games out. If by the deadline they're 10 games out? then it's another math equation. If we play .500 ball here out we finish with 89 wins. They have to go 47-30 here out in that scenario. Without Bieber and Civale for another 16? games ... call it 7-9 record ... that means they'd have to finish 40-21! And that's us playing .500 ball. If we even play a few games above .500 and you see where this goes .... they'd need to like 43-18. NO matter how good bieber and civale are, that offense isn't a 43-18 club. they're as good as TOAST unless they go on a nice run very soon. Kind of the reason I'm all in on rest. Keep the pedal down through the deadline, but as long as we play strong ball for another few weeks & if the indians dont? Then its ovah. then it's shuffling the deck to make sure you have everybody in tip top shape. Give the August dog days off, and get them back into a rhythm as it hits mid september.

Yes. 110%. Just like Kopech and his somewhat phantom injury. As mentioned I'd go out there and get a body. Or bring up Stiever. This should become even more apparent if our lead continues to grow. I just looked up the Knights stats.. no idea who Mike Wright Jr. is - not a bad season so far. 61ip, under 1.00 whip. Lambert should be able to give a few. Stiever. Reynaldo is a disaster down there, but maybe a few innings out of him. Give me 10-15 starts out of the group above and let us go .500 during those and i'd be happy. Those 75IP plus a few kopech starts should really help relieve the staff enough to keep them okay for games that count. Selectively find series against the tigers, orioles, royals, etc. and use those guys against those teams.

insert eye emoji's. didnt think of that angle. give me a second basemen and i'll be extremely happy. I don't even care if we mortgage a prospect - i want frazier or story. eloy back at DH in 3 weeks or so. vaughn in LF, engel in RF, robert in CF by mid-august. Grandal back by late August. By September 1 (hopefully) Anderson Story Abreu Grandal Moncada Eloy Vaughn Robert Engel Shoot i dont even know how to make that lineup. Didnt think about R/L at all ... but even outside of that... who goes where?? haha. feed me an aggressive trade!

Good for the Sox. It's not like them to admit mistakes and cut bait on money like that. Eaton just seemed done. I was actually pro that signing this offseason, thought he filled a need pretty well. It became pretty apparent quickly that he was on the downside of his career. Sure some team like the Pirates or whoever may try and pick him up on league min. after he passes.

Man what a rag tag crew that somehow keeps going. Not sure what you do here... is Yermin THAT bad at catcher? Like .... THAT BAD? Real question. I feel like he should be able to handle 1-2 games a week. Looks like hes caught two games at Charlotte since going back down. With Grandal out for 5-6 weeks, one week being ASB ... you really just need 3-4 weeks out of Savala and Yermin, or about 8-10 games total. Don't think it's worth trading or bringing in anybody on that basis. Side note, saw Lucroy just got called up by Braves.

Little. Overall most people are bad at budgets, saving, etc. Even during the pandemic it really was just reallocating into new buckets. Instead of shoes, concerts, Sox games, clothing, etc. etc. it juts got moved to house projects or the likes.

I kind of like mixing it up - you never know who you'll find. Plus, baseball, is weird. It's not like calling a basketball or football game with constant action. lots of down time, lots of conversation and lots of learning for newbies who haven't been in that situation of filling dead airtime. thought frank was funny at times, gordon wasn't half bad either. To be fair, a large % of us didn't like Jason in the beginning. We get used to the banter and comfortable with the call between the normal guys. It becomes that comfortable recliner in your basement, so when it's switched up it feels off we generally don't like it. I'd be all for rotating more and more guys in, especially if we're nearing the end of the road with Stoney. Gives the opportunity for the fan base to hear new candidates. (though I'd have to think Kasper was promised a spot if he took a radio gig, but who knows)

Trammel, Margot, etc. etc. that were all mentioned are probably good comps. You just simply can't be a 36% Strikeout guy in AA. It just doesn't translate to the majors even in the environment we live in nowadays where stirking out is acceptable. The only people who can get away with that are those who walk a ton (gallo) as well. He's trayce thomphson, trammell, margot, etc. A guy who you might be able to ride for a 3-4 week hot stretch, but ultimately, the game doesn't translate. Maybe with more consistent playing time, and hopefully not being injured he can find another level, but unfortunatley i doubt he makes much of a difference ever.

okay. we'll bookmark this and when he signs a major league deal in the next month for several million dollars you can explain your way out of it. he signed a $18mm deal the prior year, had some injuries and wasn't fully healthy. he's been throwing and sounds like he'll have a showcase in the coming weeks/month. He wasn't fully healthy in the offseason ... therefore no deals.

Kopech hadn't pitched in almost two years, was coming off arm problems. You can say that about almost any pitcher at some point of his career at this point. And how do you know he's not 100%? Have you talked to him personally? He's back to throwing, and its said he'll be preparing for a showcase. If i was him, i'd do this same route. why pitch a full year when you can get the lay of the land and figure out which teams are contending, which teams need arms, and then drive up the price?

If I was Hahn I'd seriously look at Cole Hamels. Weren't we talking to him a few off-seasons ago? He's familiar with Chicago. Wants to join a winning team. He then allows even more inning flexibility with our rotation and keeps our arms fresh for what is the important part of the year - September and October. The Sox could adopt a 6 man rotation, or, go the route of the Dodgers and make up IL stints for each of our guys giving them 2-3 turns off through the rotation each. HIs acquisition cost is just $$, no prospects, and he helps the team not just this year, but next year when these guys innings were limited. Next year you're talking all of these guys PLUS playoff innings logged on their arms ... It seems like a luxury, but all things considered a signing like that could go a long way not only for the stretch run this year, but next year as well. Outside of that, I mean, you'd have to think that at least one, if not more Diamondbacks will be on this roster. TLR knows who he likes over there, and that will make its way to Hahn and you'll have someone on this team.

He didn't show any rust from being off nearly two years, a few extra weeks away is not a bad thing. I'd rather have Kopech ready to fire 4 innings in September/October than being restricted or being concerned about the following year. Honestly, tying a few threads together, I'd go as far as saying signing someone like Cole Hamels would make a ton of sense. He's still throwing, he's had interest in teh Sox before, and his acquisition cost is absolutely nothing outside of money. He'd allow for a veteran arm to step in, take innings and give our rotation an extra day or even a Dodger approach where they all go on the IL for a few weeks at a time to limit innings. Based on how this year is playing out the only real threat to our division race is the indians who are now without Bieber and really just don't have the rotation depth or offensive depth to hold in through the end of September. That is an 85 win team. We are a 90-95 win team even with our current injuries.

What a damn nice day out for baseball. Quintessential summer baseball. I think to win this one it will have to be low scoring. So let's get it. 3-2 final. Fee

He will definitely be an interesting case. As much as I've always liked him, there's a certain walkaway price, especially with our arms waiting in the wings + the lynn debate and price. My guess is you can/will sign one of Lynn and Rodon. Lynn is still dominate, but people will bring up his age. Rodon can be dominate and people will bring up his health. I haven't a clue what either of those guys will go for. My guess is something like 4 years for both guys. And I think $10-14mm is reasonable on both. Given the same price I'd take Lynn in a heartbeat. Not sure I'd go much over $10mm on Rodon, maybe a few ticks up on a 3 year deal.

I never understood how all the GM's missed on him. I thought it was crazy that he only could get $3mm or whatever the number was. His upside v. signing a Lester or a Trevor Williams if youre the Nats/Cubs was so insanely different. One had upside, one doesn't. I've driven the Rodon bandwagon for a long time, even during his bad times. I continue to cheer for him and even despite his injury risk, hope we can find a way to work out a 4 year type agreement at like $10mm a year. Think it represents a healthy price for a guy who should continue to have the upside we see balanced by injury risk. When healthy and good - (current run) he's every bit of a top stuff guy in the league deserving of $20mm a year. However that injury risk will always be there. Giving a 3-4 year deal would seem to balance upside, downside, length, price, etc. etc. to where it could be a win for all parties. Either way we'll have some decisions to make with Lynn and Rodon with Kopech and Crochet probably ready for their next step in 2022.

Bump. most of the Sox Talk armchair GM's got this wrong.

the ultimate long term issue is now people have been conditioned that their worth is as much as the government just cutting a check for them doing nothing. it's kind of like food stamps. it's a catch 22. if you give enough free handouts then create a dependency. it's trying to do the right thing with unintended consequences. just like printing money. printing money leads to more inequality. rich get richer in that scenario. Cutting 1400 checks is pissing into the wind. seems like a windfall for a lot of people, but for every actions there's an opposite reaction (inflation) and now people having a hard time wanting to get back to work. It'll continue to be a grind. also before people try and pick apart the above - maybe the answer is something along the lines of a partial stimulus. like $200 a month for those making under $20,000 a year or something. So it's not a livable wage, it's not an insane number that drives a budget so out of whack, but its enough to allow the bottom rung the ability to put food on their table or help with rent, etc. I'm not a bootstraps guy even if the first paragraph makes u think so. truth is somewhere in the middle

mortgage underwriters are computer programs w/ limited human checks. hell commercial insurance is basically all raters and computer systems. humans do very little

Universities are corporations and investment funds masquerading as education. There's a few ways to fix. a) technology, then social. the technology is there. isn't it MIT or some well regarded college that post their classes online for free? I thought some college does. Technology allows for professors to post and broadcast their lectures. Tests are tests. You can easily recreate the educational aspect of college via online courses. Technology is the great deflationary force. b) however that doesn't fix the social aspect. It doesn't fix the corporations and society that force kids to have these degrees. And it doesn't fix the social aspect of "the best 4 years of your life". There's a lot of growing up that is very valuable in college and very beneficial. It is a nice breakaway stage where kids are learning to be on their own and maturing away from their parents. Making mistakes. c) take away the guaranteed loans. That's very true. Goodbye Eastern IL, Western IL, goodbye many, many state schools. those schools are surviving on the fringes already. They will disappear. It's a true free market and likely you see college graduations drop ... which at the end of the day doesn't much matter in society to be honest. There are generally a few movers in the world that create and a bunch of minions that follow. LIkely taking away the lower tier schools doesn't mean you're eliminating much. The movers still move regardless. They'll do it without college or with college. And the same with the followers. The numbers drop and I guess you can see say we have a less rounded country. And maybe. But not by that much. d) make college free. I mean - it sounds good. But nothing that is handled by government is efficient. You dislike the system now? Good luck. Government contracts = free money and higher margins. Schools would become even less incentivized and poor. Sure now you can say half your population is educated, but in reality, they're not much better off. e) in regards to student loans. you can fix the past problem by forgiving it all, but that doesn't fix the future problem There's so many more layered arguments in there, but Sox game is about to start.

this. too many people in media and across the sox fans give hahn a pass for spending money when most of it was just guaranteeing arb money. still holding out some (not much) hope that with fans back in the stands and a strong run at a WS this year that Jerry opens up his checkbook to the max and re-signs a guy like Lynn, makes a strong offer to Rodon, maybe goes after a Nick Castallenos, etc. I want an abundance of talent on this team where you're searching of how to get a guy like Cespedes, Colas, etc. into a lineup. Baseball is a long season - teams like the Padres and Dodgers are doing it right. Those teams had like 7 man rotations and they're barely getting by. They had talented deep rosters. Injuries like Bellinger or Lamet or Tatis or Dustin May happen. Just like they happened with Eloy and Robert. This team is good, but it needs a few more NICE, BIG TICKET guys to get over that hump completely.

Gallo is fine in a vacuum. like adam dunn is. They have a purpose and bring value in their own way. However you can't have a team of 9 Adam Dunn's or 9 Yasmani Grandal. you need a mix which is why someone like madrigal (although somewhat disliked it seems) brings to the table. I don't want Gallo for a few reasons: His acquisition cost probably outweighs his value IMO and B) I don't want him slotting in the lineup. I'd hate to have an inning with Abreu and Yermin on with nobody out and then Moncada, Grandal and Gallo come up. Again, nothing against those guys individually. I just don't want a team where it's always a 3 outcome event. Ketel Marte would be super interesting. David Peralta makes sense too. Josh Reddick could even fill the void nicely. If you want to go all out ... Nick Castellanos ... maybe Mitch Haniger... Mariners are on the up and up, but its his last year and they Julio Rodriguez and Trammell looking for a spot. Eaton is really the key to this all though. If he can be a .275 hitter and stay healthy then I think you can sit tight or make a move on the margins rather than try to swing something big. This is also counting on Engel to do his job at 75% of what he did last year. I think between Engel, Eaton and Vaughn you should be able to field a passable OF for a few months.

We had 14k yesterday? Looked like a lot more - maybe that's just how long it's been since it seemed normal. We can have like 22-24k right? Hopefully we can fill up the 60% at least .... If all was normal in the world & with last years results i'd hope we could get 26-30k consistently.

Let's put it this way ... would you bet your life savings it wasnt? I know that's a hypothetical and not a fair question. I do think the fact you have to ask the question means there's at least some credence to the question. I'm in the category that i'm guessing it was an accident and that it came out of the lab. However, everything after that? remember those original videos China was releasing, where people would be seizuring in the middle of the streets and just collapse and die? Then hazmat suits would come in and body bag them? Where else did that happen in the world? Why was China creating videos like that? That's the question. I tend to think this happened accidentally, China knew the best way to control their own population was to create videos and fear and then go to extreme measures to lock down. But at the same time they treat their population like a statistic. they don't seem to care about the well being of their country people, it's always how can they get ahead to the top. they're willing sacrifice generations to get to that point. So in this case their measures allowed them to get probably 5 years ahead of where they might have been. In regards to masks at grocery stores and stores in general ... we can all be honest with ourselves. Nobody wants to be judged and typecast. People need more confidence to care less about what others think. You won't catch me in a mask if it's not required. Who cares what people think about me ... if I'm healthy and vaccinated then why am i going to virtue signal? Stand up and be confident in reasoned decisions.

i'm just looking at the context clues of what is being told and how they enact. I'd highly doubt Biden isn't in daily contact in regards to this stuff. State/County/Local and fed are separate. CDC is guidelines/recommendations. Each state has it's own rights and laws and rules they can try to enforce. Take marijuana for example. Federally not legal. State by states make their decision. CDC just says what they say and then the states can make their own rules. AKA how Texas has or how Illinois has. its based on local feedback from constituents, data, etc. (or ideally how it's supposed to be). On point 2 - I wouldn't exactly take what they say at face value. The science and studies have been there to where what they are saying now is right. However, as a point to the rest of your post, what is the incentive if to get the vaccine if you don't take away the freedoms? So they take them away and try and tell you can have them back if you get the vaccine. That works for a good amount of the population, but they see the numbers. They know how many vaccines are going out the door and how many are being returned. At a certain point you have the amount of society that is going to get the vaccination, vaccinated. The other 30-40% aren't going to. Unless we go full on sci-fi movie, you're not getting those people. So it's basically do you lock down indefinitely trying to convince maybe another 10% to get it, or do you change course? They changed course because it is now convenient to change course. They've done what they can. It goes back to how they handled this in the beginning - they said no masks because they wanted hospital workers and front line workers to have the ability to get them. They told a lie they thought would help them, and then reversed case. This is no different. They gave the time for those who wanted to get the vaccination the ability to get it. now they know they're not going to get a significant increase, so it's time to open and do the rest by herd immunity. Is it confusing to the public? Yes sure. I'd say it is. was it handled right? hell no. why? well it's hard to get 300mm people on the same page. It's hard to get people to do their own research and make informed decisions. so people take the watered down version via news. unfortunately the water trickles down the pipe into red or blue for A LOT of people. which in turn makes it even harder to try and get people on a same page. so they resort to what i'd call "white lies". Basically just trying to help the most amount of people they can. The honor system? I mean, what's the other option? It's the lesser of the evil's right? You can do a smart phone, app, card, etc. Tell those who aren't vaccinated they can't go to the grocery store, a sox game, a concert without it. But the burden of proof on the gate keepers at these private businesses to enforce ... I don't see how that ends up going very smoothly. Forcing people to show their vaccination? It starts again turning into a sci-fi movie/black mirror episode. Look how well a mask went ... now you're telling someone they have to inject something into their body and show proof of it to go do every day tasks? That's not going to go well. If you want more divide that's the path. At the end of the day, those who are vaccinated should feel good that they are vaccinated. They've protected themselves. People can't worry about what others did. the data and facts are out there and if you aren't vaccinated the risks are clear. everybody is an adult and we're never going to all row in the same direction. Just not how life works. so you take solace in your decision and move forward. For kids? I mean what's the risk? mask them if you'd like, but go look up harvard studies ... kids aren't spreading very much, the overwhelming majority will have no symptoms, some will have few symptoms. And very, very, very few will get sick enough to go to a hospital - about 80 per million. That number is about 500 per million of adults who are vaccinated (CDC) will end up in the hospital post covid vaccine (post 21 days out -- so not people who had covid before their vaccine shot). So just looking at it as a math equation - unvaccinated children are actually more safe (both are generally thought not to transmit very much, both are generally mild symptoms, kids much less hospital/sick rate) than vaccinated adults. These aren't arguments against what you're saying. You're free to have your thoughts - my points are we just need more people going on the CDC websites, pulling the data, and making their own informed decisions of what's best for their own families. trying to hammer others into submission has never worked in a very diverse society and this will be no different. Eventually we move on.