Dominikk85

It is amazing how good of a breaking ball hitter yermin is. He has a. 460 wOBA against breaking balls this year. He does that super early leg kick but then has great balance on the rear leg. That makes him very hard to pitch to.

I wonder what kind of hitter Vaughn will be. It is already apparent that he has great patience and he can turn on balls in certain locations. Currently his K rate is a little high at 30%, however he still is getting used to mlb pitching and already starting to lower his K rate (first week high 30s, this more mid 20s) and I expect that K rate to be better than average (19-20% maybe) eventually. I do start to see the konerko comp a bit. Both had good K to bb rates and around 30 hr pop but the other thing I start to see is that Vaughn pulls the ball a lot. As I said in the other thread right now he doesn't handle the ball away well and he is pulling the ball a lot. I did not see that before but even in the minors he had quite high pull rates (mid to high 40s). That is maximizing is power output but also will hurt his babip if he keeps that up. That is were a bit of variability comes into play. Vaughn has good but not monster power that he can tap into very well. Now there is a decision whether he wants to be a 30 HR guy who pulls the ball a lot but runs babips in the. 270s like konerko did or whether he works on staying on the outside pitch more and use the whole field which he has the bat control to do so but might mean he is more of a 22-25 Homer guy who can hit 300. Either way I think he will be fine

Yeah it wasn't super difficult to get there as he was playing deep already and the ball was hanging up a long time but the wall was well timed.

I think he will be fine but he has a big hole in the outer half of the zone. I already saw that in spring, first they tried to bust him in and he turned on that very well but then in the second half of spring they adjusted and threw him more away and he did not much with that. His head map supports that, he did not have many ABs but he has literally not hit anything in the outer half of the plate https://www.fangraphs.com/players/andrew-vaughn/26197/heat-maps?position=OF&ss=&se=&hand=&count=&pitch=&season=&view=bat&data=&grid=&blur=&type=5 He needs to work on staying on that outside pitch longer and not cut across the zone so much. At lower levels he did not need to do that as he could just wait for his pitch with his good plate discipline but in the majors he can't have such a big hole because pitchers can locate. Once he improves that he will be a tough out.

No way eloy is the odd man out, that probably still is yermin if Vaughn starts hitting.

He just stole that strikeout though with his framing.

Didn't yoan have a play a home there?

I think Eaton really was a solid addition. He had a very bad season last year and his power might be a bit on decline but his plate discipline is back on track this season (10% walks, 18 Ks) and if he can post a 350 obp with 12 homers or so he will help the team a lot. I think against righty pitchers he should lead off.

Congrats, what field did you did your doctorate in?

The balls were directly hit at Vaughn, TLR would have caught them if he skipped the beer today:).

Schwarber is pretty bad Defensively too though. I think the white Sox shouldn't Punt too much defense. How about getting one of Jesse winker or Tyler naquin from the Reds? The Reds really have one outfielder too many so one has to sit and might be opening to trade one. I know naquin was a first baseman too but he lost some weight and unlike schwarber or Vaughn he is actually quite fast and athletic.

Nick williams sprint speed in 2019 (didn't find later values) was 27.8, Vaughn is at 25.8. Sprint speed is not everything but on top of beeing super slow Vaughn also has literally no Of experience. Williams Of numbers are mostly bad from CF, he was like average in LF. I'm not saying I want Williams instead of Vaughn but if Vaughn plays every day in LF that will be one of the worst defensive seasons of all time in LF because of both his lack of speed and lack of experience. He actually did a decent job so far not having any huge Gaffes and he did catch the routine fly balls but most of those a 50 yo beer league softball player would probably have caught too. So far Vaughn was lucky he mostly got routine fly balls and balls way out of his range but as the season goes on there will be situations with a ball toward the line or a short one which he doesn't reach with bases loaded costing two or three runs and over a season that adds up. Vaughn is not an everyday left fielder and expecting that from him would be unfair, his position is DH and 1b with occasional fill ins in LF.

Every rebuilding team probably who has a guy who is 30+. Depends on whether the Sox are willing to take on some salary.

Vaughn isn't a left fielder though and he is not learning it, with a 25.8 ft/s sprint speed no amount of experience will help you there. Vaughn always will be an emergency solution in left, Hahn needs to make a trade soon and send vaughn to the minors as soon as the minor league season starts.

I think the pen will be fine. Yeah they have been bad and bummer and foster probably were due to some regression but overall I still think the pen is a talented Group that will be fine. Also team defense was very bad which did not help either but when Anderson and Engel are back and nick gets more acclimated this will improve too. Right now the injuries just mean a lot of guys play out of position or are below average there. Vaughn and leury play out of position and collins has improved but still isn't a great defensive catcher. With madrigal also slumping Defensively (I still think he will be fine, he had a month in the majors and then a shoulder surgery which probably didn't help either) this means a lot of defensive weak spots in the roster.

I wonder if only certain pitchers want to pitch to collins. I do like giving grandal a few more days off and keeping him fresh as he is 32 (I think 115-120 games caught is good for him), but play collins against righties please.

But he is an infielder and the Sox are pretty well set with madrigal, Anderson and moncada. Sure marte is fast and could play Of but why not get an outfielder in the first place who is probably cheaper than marte.

I think Vaughn has looked OK in left and shagged some routine fly balls but his sprint speed at statcast is 25.8 ft/s which is 27th out of 30 guys in LF this year. For comparison Eloy was at 27.2 last season. That is definitely not playable every day in the Of, but occasionally it is OK. I really think the Sox should make a trade here, you don't want Williams or hamiltons bat there but also not Vaughns glove. I wouldnt want Engel there every day either, just get a decent rental who can put up a 100 wrc+ with average defense.

Not really, his sprint speed is 25.5 according to statcast. That is quite slow. Vaughn also is only at 25.8 which is really slow too and not really playable in LF every day. Thus I think the right move for Vaughn is to play him in left part time until Engel is back and then send him down. You can't play a sub 26 sprint speed guy every day in LF, of course he will some routine fly balls but over a year that is probably - 15 runs over a full season like Hoskins was in his LF season (and Vaughn is even slower than Hoskins)

Thanks. I only work with HS and college kids on hitting but I thought that was pretty glaring, never seen that rigid and passive of an upper body in the load. There are if course also guys who coil up too much and get long but a bit of that probably wouldn't hurt his contact a lot. I'm quite active on Twitter and actually send this suggestion to Sox coach Ryan Johansen what he thinks but understandably he said he can't talk about current players. Some other hitting coordinators are more open but I can understand that it is a risk to talk about that

To be fair naquin had just 600 PAs those seasons combined so it was about a 20 Homer full season pace. Stil of course there is upside.

What costs madrigal power is that he has a very passive upper body/spine in the load and his hands thus are not quite connected to the hips. His back is super stiff and not doing anything, he does load his hips and his hands but between that nothing happens which is why it looks stiff and unathletic. I put him in this video next to David Wright who did the move I'm talking about quite extreme. https://www.coachseye.com/v/7a25702a430642e8a1c68ba05674bff1 Wright uses rotation and side bend of the thoracic spine almost like a snake or lizard to create that front shoulder down look. This creates separation and a fluid connection of the hips and hands. Madrigals spine is completely dead, zero counter rotation and side bend. You Don't want to counter rotate too much as that makes the swing long but most top hitters use a bit of counter rotation and side bend in the spine so there is some "stretch" between the hips and hands while madrigal's "dead back" when he uses his hands and hips kinda independent of each other instead of together with the hips slightly moving ahead. Madrigal could probably add a couple mph of Exit velo just by this.

Many thought he could bulk up and add power, some even dreamt of him becoming altuve. Longenhagen thought madrigal would eventually hit 15+ Homers with good defense which could have made him a 4-5 win player. The floor was his strongest argument but it is not like he had no upside, if he Really was a. 300+ guy with 15 bombs and good

4th overall picks last 10 years to madrigal 18: madrigal 17: brandan mckay 16: Riley pint 15: Dillon tate 14: schwarber 13: Kohl stewart 12: Kevin gausman 11: Dylan bundy 10: Christian colon 09: Tony Sanchez You hope for more but really outside the top picks any guy who becomes an average regular is a success. Sure when they drafted him they hoped to get a 3.5-4 win guy but really most 4 picks in the last 10 years have not even been regular 2 win players except for gausman and Bundy who took long to get good too.

Madrigal has a good eye, last year his chase rate was a league average 31% and this year he has lowered that to an excellent 20% (not uncommon it is a bit higher in the first MLB year as you haven't seen that kind of movement at lower levels). He won't walk a ton if he is a 5 Homer guy but I think he will be around 7% or so and not be a 3% walk guy like Alberto. Billy Hamilton might be a good comp for this (obviously Billy has a way worse hit tool but he is a no power hitter with a solid eye and has a career 7% walk rate despite not being able to hit).