Dominikk85

Nice hit by moncada. Hopefully he gets it going soon. Still a bit worried about him as his EV and ISO is down last season and this too, wonder if it still is a longer term covid effect.

I agree. His arm is probably below average and he had some bad throws but that was a good play as he had to wait for the runner to pass and then throw on the run so he couldn't get much behind the throw

Rodon doesn't have good command today but he is battling pretty well and throwing 97 after 100 pitches is a good sign.

Mercedes should have caught it anyway but there also was no reason for nick to not throw a routine throw to yermin's chest. Need to support yermin here with good throws.

I said that by late spring already, the book on Vaughn is out, away, away away with an occasional brush back pitch in to keep him honest. He Really needs to work on hitting that as he won't get as many mistakes as he did in the minors. Right now he can't handle that but that is OK, young guys need to learn to adjust.

I think it is Really part of his framing to catch it so close. Higher chance of CI but you also give the ball less time to sink below the zone (make the low pitch look higher) or angle out of it. It is a trade off.

If he can hit 300 with a 350 obp I'm fine with that. He needs to tighten up his defense but I'm not worried about that either. I still would like him to become like a 6-8 Homer guy at least but if he really is a 1-3 Homer guy but the rest is good I'm fine with that. Yes, the power is a little disappointment so far as most prospect guys would hope he would get to 10-12 homers power but if everything else is in line that would be OK.

Well the alternative is developing pitching which can work but has a lot of attrition I.e. You must have a lot of pitching prospects to make it work which means you have less (top) hitters. That is why some teams like the epstein cubs have done the develop hitting and buy pitching approach. Disadvantage of course is it is expensive and you don't have much depth in case of injury.

Not many highly drafted catchers have worked in the last years. I wouldn't draft a catcher top5 overall, chances that you get a buster posey are slim (we have heard the next posey or "Joe Mauer with more power" a lot and it rarely worked) and also even if he works out a catcher only plays 4-5 times a week at best so you get less plate appearances than if you draft another position player. In fantasy thus I always take late guys for catching. On the other hand the average catcher has like a 90 wrc+ so you gain a lot by putting in a posey or grandal but then again you only get like 110-120 games per season which diminishes the value some. I can understand teams using a cheap defense first catcher and getting offense in other places albeit of course having a double skill catcher is a nice thing to have that separates you from other teams. But still if I'm a rebuilding team other things have priority, get a middle infielder, center fielder or front line ace to start your core.

That's why you usually use utility infielders and 4th outfielders to pitch and not highly paid stars or young top prospects.

I think from a pure winning standpoint position player pitching is not used enough. With a 6 run deficit in the 8th your win probability in an even match up is about 0.5%. Such a comeback does happen but basically it means you Win less than 1 in 100 of such games and saving the pen 99 times is probably worth more. There are other reasons to not do it like paying people in the stadium and people watching on TV, basically the quality of your product brand, but from a pure winning perspective teams are probably not tanking enough. I wonder if a team like the Rays which has no fans anyway will do that one day and radically tank games with big deficits using position players. That would probably cost you 2 wins over the course of a season but it would allow you to use your pen much more aggressively in the remaining games which would create extra wins.

I'm surprised they square it up at 2500 RPM for the FB so well even at 93.

Is there a way to see live in game spin rates? I wonder if his fb is not just slower but also having 100 RPM or so less than usual the way they are making contact with it.

LG not missing any bats today. Defense has not helped a ton either but red Sox also also really on Lucas.

Maybe more a Netflix drama series:). Definitely had some issues but in the end if he turns the corner on health and performance I don't care.

Not really. It is about total days of service time in that year, it doesn't matter when they send him down. You get a year of service time when you are up at least 172 days (of 180 something) in that year so if Vaughn is down more than 15 days or so the sox gets the extra year. However I don't see the sox Front office sending him down for 2 weeks. Either he turns the corner the next two weeks and he stays up or he gets send down for at least 6-8 weeks to work on his batting and fielding in AAA.

I certainly hope they are not using him on short rest.

Also don't forget the sox had a pretty tough schedule apart from KC and Seattle. Fangraphs full season win projections Boston 89 LAA 86 Cleveland 82 Seattle 74 Royals 80 So apart from the last two those are solid teams and even the Latter two had hot starts (8-5 and 9-6). This shouldn't be an excuse but I bet it was one of the tougher schedules without any true bottom feeders.

Wouldn't worry about that, he has to get used to mlb stuff. He has a good eye but mlb pitches just move differently. I wonder if the Sox have overrated the alternate site thing a little though. Longenhagen was always sceptical about this, he said Sim game ABs are less competitive, you face the same pitchers over and over and pitchers won't be as willing to pitch on the hands because Nobody wants to take out a top100 prospect with a fractured wrist. Not sure why they wouldn't give him some more time in AAA. In the end it wasn't an easy decision though you had the scouting reports and good looks at the alt site vs him never playing above high A and doing well there but not destroying it either. The Sox decided the former is more reliable but maybe it wasn't. I think he should Still be given the next two weeks but if he doesn't hit by then send him down

He always had that "hitch". Josh Donaldson has a hitch too, it is only problematic if it is not well timed. If you use a hitch to load you need to drop the hands as you lift the foot so the hands are back up as you land. If you do it later it becomes an issue.

Vaughn should definitely play regularly until at least early may. Sending him down now makes no sense because Sox have no real replacement and also there's no minor league season currently. But he does look a little overmatched currently and if he isn't hitting when Engel is back they might send him down for a month or two

Should have hit the cutoff. Wasn't getting that guy and allowed guy to reach second by throwing home directly.

Yermin is not familiar with the green monster yet. Good hit and a double or Homer elsewhere but in Boston that is often a single if the LF plays it well of the wall.

He had like 30 ABs, give him some time. But maybe some AAA time would help him

I read rocker was struggling and his velo was down to low 90s his last starts.