Dominikk85

I think that is a trade that really could make sense and help the sox the next 4-5 years. Foscue is a second and third Baseman in the rangers org. He is a below average defender but offensively he has everything the sox are lacking at 2b, he walks a lot, doesn't strike out much and has power. Also he is pretty blocked in Texas who have semien, Jung and seager locked in for the next couple years. Foscue is a 2020 first round pick and at 24 he is mlb ready, his line in AAA so far is 277/405/488 with 8 homers, a 14% walk rate and an 11% K rate. As I said the defense is below average but he could give the sox a high OBP slugger for the next 5-6 years. I would give the rangers giolito plus a reliever for him unless the sox are really back in the race at the Deadline (which still could happen).

The Athletic is a great project but I have always thought that they must be losing money due to their huge staff of high profile writers. I think they were hoping they could drive up subscriptions enough to essentially monopolize the market and it paying off but maybe it wasn't quite working and the NYT needs to save money to make it work.

I do think that he probably should have owned more of his own responsibility but I do think that conflicting messages are a big problem too. That's not just the sox but also many other teams. For example a cardinals pitcher reported the same issue. The cardinals are generally not a bad player dev team but they kinda like the same "safe" type of player, i.e hitters with good strikeout to walk ratios and pitchers who throw strikes, avoid walks and pitch to contact. However the latter doesn't work as well anymore so the player had the issue that some coaches would teach him the old "cardinals way" while other more modern coaches would tell him, "no, Go for the swing and miss". I guess that is the same issue with the sox, some old school coaches and some more modern data driven guys and then players getting pulled in all kind of directions. Reports from the rays and dodgers are that they got a plan for you and speak with the same voice from rookie ball all the way to the majors. That can be bad too if it is outdated stuff (like telling a pitcher to establish the fastball down early in the count and only throw offspeed with 2 strikes) but it certainly makes it easier on the players. Not an easy thing to establish though, with dozens of coaches and levels and likely will lead to pushback but long term it probably is best.

Carson fulmer implied that white sox player development Ruined him

BTW I don't think the team is that bad. If anyone is healthy the could still compete for the division next year but the margin for error is very small due to the lack of depth, I.e when anyone is healthy and performing this still is a dangerous team and I also think TA will bounce back. But the lack of depth in combination with injury prone players is an issue. The opposite of that are the rays, they are also injured a lot but they can bring up a 1-2 war player for any roster spot while the sox have to bring up some -1 war guy if somebody gets hurt. Regarding Jerry not spending on player development: more and more owners get that investing a few millions in technology and coaches is a good investment but still many owners very much hate to spend money on stuff other than the roster. That is because an investment in player dev won't pay off until 4-5 years in the future (a new system usually takes 1-2 years before it is really running and helping the players and everyone is buying in) and also it is hard to quantify how much it actually helps. It still is smart to spend in player dev but Jerry probably doesn't want to do such an "experiment" anymore in his age especially since it also would mean to alienate some of the long tenured coaches and scouts that are in the org. Maybe in the post Jerry Era that will change, some of the younger businessmen are more into analytics and stuff like this.

I also felt the front office was not aggressive enough in trades. I can understand that Hahn wanted to keep the minor league depth but he kept many prospects until they basically had no value at all. Guys like Adolpho, basabe, Rutherford and before them Hansen, Fulmer or Collins all at one point where solidly ranked prospects and Hahn could have gotten back something for them even if it was only some relievers, a rental corner OF or a backend starter. But Hahn kept them until they were DFA material and most of them are out of baseball or close to it. I felt Hahn should have been more aggressive with those B level prospects. I think Hahn got too gun shy here and was too risk averse. Preller and dombrowski got hammered for raiding their farms and they did but so far most of the guys they traded away turned into nothing (except for the sale trade:))

Just a couple years ago the rebuild looked really great and the sox had a top farm System and later a good young core. They also had really solid seasons in 2020 and 2021 but after that it went downhill. But what happened and could it have been avoided? -signing TLR certainly wasn't a good decision even though he won over 90 his first year he seemed mentally/health wise not able to do the job anymore 1) not getting enough depth from the farm System after the "core" graduated certainly was an issue, the sox had a good core but still a depth problem, especially when injuries happened. This probably can be blamed on the front office as player dev, drafting and non Cuban international signings were just bad. Blame on front office: 9/10 2) a lot of core players got injured. I think this one can't be blamed on decisions of the club, Anderson, Robert, moncada, Eloy and giolito are all under 30. Sure now it is apparent they seem to be injury prone but at the time that couldn't have been foreseen and trading them after injury would have meant selling them low for 50 cent on the dollar. Sure grandal and Lynn are older but overall I would say it was mostly bad luck. Blame on front office: 2/10 3) signing bad free agents Some free agent signings actually did work well. I think overall Lynn was a success, even though he might be done now he was excellent his first year and ok his second year. Hendricks also I think was a great get, even if he can't rebound from cancer at 100% that was not foreseeable. Past that it doesn't look good, grandal, bennitendi,encarnacion, pollock, the list of failures is long. However you have to consider that the checkbook of Jerry did limit the front office in the quality of free agents they could target but still even considering they had to take older and slightly washed guys some of the results have been extremely bad. Blame on front office: 6/10

I think he will be fine. He probably won't be a star but I think he will hit like 270 with 25 Homers in his peak years and probably have a 30 bomb season or 2 two. He isn't Paul goldschmidt or miggy Cabrera but I think he will be a fine average to above average first Baseman (maybe like 5th to 6th best in the AL or so). The team does have other issues than vaughn but sure, his start to his career was a bit underwhelming, you don't want your third overall pick to have negative 1 career war one month into his third season. That being said 2019 was a very bad draft to draft in the top5. If you look at the first round of 2019 it simply looks very bad. Rutschman is clearly the top guy and he seems to be great but behind that it is just bad. Second pick Witt still could be great but so far he only has a 96 career wrc+. JJ bleday took till 25 to even establish in the majors (in the worst team in baseball now) although he looks a bit improved this year. Greene so far is OK but nothing special (a bit better than vaughn though). Cj abrams who many sox fans wanted over vaughn looks terrible too, chases a ton, doesn't walk and has an OK ability to contact the ball but no power to drive it. Some later picks like Manoah, Carroll, baty,kirby and lodolo look decent but they never were considered top5. They just "picked" a bad year to draft high.

I wonder if Jose is done. He is hitting solidly so far but his swinging strike rate is at a career high and his max ev so far only 106. Last year his power already was down but he compensated by a better average and more walks but it seems like his batspeed has declined even more. So far he is hitting over 300 but with a 400 babip which won't be sustained. Abreu was great for the sox but they might have jumped the ship at the right moment.

Sucks for cruz as he likely will be out for most of the season but you can't blame seby, cruz did slide late almost running him over

I know the season starts today but we could do a late draft this weekend and start the week next Monday. I'm open to any fantasy format. Write here if you are interested

I think sosa should start in AAA. Fangraphs says he is a pretty bad defender so let him work at second base every day and not move him around.

I think andrus is a decent signing, he isn't great but is projected for around a 90 wrc+ and like 1.5 war, for a 9 hitter that is fine. When healthy the sox have a decent core of hitters, they just need to avoid that black hole situation in the bottom of the lineup where they are forced to play a 70 wrc+, negative war player like EE, mazara and others in the last couple years because a -1 war player basically turns a 4 war player in the middle of the lineup into an average player (4+(-1)= 3 which means the two players average at 1.5 war while if you get a 1.5 war or even just 1.2 war player you come out at like 2.7 war per spot between the two).

It's good that they are Investing in it but most important is that coaches and scouts are forced to use the stuff. Kyle boddy from driveline said a couple years ago that there were teams hiring analytics, biomechanics etc guys who would write in depth analytical reports and some of the old school coaches and scouts would put those emails in the trash without reading them. Most teams now do have biomechanics, analytics, data etc guys but what teams like the Astros, dodgers, rays or guardians do better is getting everyone to pull on one string and have a really streamlined approach while the worse development and scouting teams have the advanced stuff more as a "you can use that if you want" thing and still have many old school people who don't act accordingly to the analytics information or even actively fight against it ("we have always done it that way"). Many GMs have failed modernization that way, they bring in good analytics and good ideas but don't have the power against a wall of old school baseball lifer types who are loyal to each other and stand together to push against change. Here the owner is really important, you need the owner to tell the old school guys "my way or highway".

I think Jerry actually fired Tony. He is loyal and doesn't care much about winning but Tony was bordering on being senile and even Jerry saw that this is not working anymore so he kinda gave Tony that cop-out of citing health for stepping down. Of course Tony actually probably isn't healthy which is part of him not being able to do this anymore. At 78 or whatever his age is he simply wasn't fit to do the job anymore. Still with more player health he likely would have won 90 games and the division but that's not a testament to his performance but how bad the division is and how talented the Sox core is when everyone is healthy.

Miami hopes to compete though (although it's unlikely they do), they need every bat they have as their offense has been very bad. In fact they try to shop an arm for a bat, doubt they would be interested to trade chas unless they are getting a haul.

I don't think he would have been a good fit for several reasons 1. Adding another injury question mark to an Already injury prone roster 2. Adding another questionable defender to the OF mix Sure there is upside of being a 120-130 ops+ but after that injury that is far from guaranteed so worst case you have a league average bat which misses half the season and is more suited for DH than a corner OF. I think benintendi is a better solution, little less offensive upside (likely more 100-110 range) but more capable defensively and while there is some Injury risk too it is less than with conforto

Some are but some teams don't. If you have enough money insurances are a bad deal because the insurance doesn't give away money, they lessen variance. That means expected value is that if you pay your house insurance for 30 years you will lose money but you migitate the risk of being ruined by your house being burned down. In baseball the insurance will asses the risk of injury of the player and make you pay for it and since baseball owners are billionaires even a little 200m contract won't ruin them. That means they are really better off taking on that risk on themselves instead of paying the insurance for doing the same. Only advantage for a billionaire of insurance is that you pay it out over more years. Sure if player gets injured in year 1 the insurance pays off but if you insure 15 contracts over the average you lose money because that is how insurance makes profit, the "lucky" ones subsidize the unlucky one.

His plate discipline is a bit scary as he is an extreme free swinger but the sox have had success with that type of player before (robert, anderson). He likely will have a high chase rate and low walk rate but if he can do enough damage on contact and keep his k rate in check (not well over 30%) he could be a valuable contributor. Best case he hits 280/315/500 with 30 bombs but worst case he strikes out 36%, walks 3% and hits 220 with a 260 obp. Definitely a risky profile but could be really good.

If Rodon gives them 4 good seasons or even 4 good years with two of them only 120 innings due to injury and then blows up the deal would be good but I would be worried rodon blows up his shoulder and never is the same again after 50 innings of the first year and then you pay him for 5 more years without getting anything positive.

Not giving him the QO was a huge mistake by hahn, should have at least gotten the pick. That being said I think 6 years with his injury history is rather stupid by the yanks. But I'm happy for Carlos that he got paid.

One thing you have to consider is that the park in oakland is quite pitcher friendly so pitchers can work there who wouldn't work as well elsewhere. So they probably hope some of the pitchers do well for a couple years there and then can be traded at an inflated price. Oakland is essentially tampa bay minus the player development - owner doesn't like to spend on coaching and training facilities which why oakland doesn't trade for A ball guys but either for young mlb players or AAA players who are half a year away, then they are playing them for 2-3 years and trade them for new prospects. The rays do the same but their approach works a little better since due to their big player dev system they are able to take on younger, more raw and higher upside prospects while oakland with their budget player dev staff needs to get higher floor, older and more polished players which means the upside (and risk) is lower. Still the approach has worked reasonably well with 6. 500+ seasons, 3 90+ win seasons and 5 playoff appearances in the last 10 seasons but there are limits to that approach of course because it is hard to generate stars that way and a bunch of 2-3 win players is not stacking up favorably in the playoffs. But it could be a lot worse considering their low payroll, they could have been a team like seattle or Pittsburgh with 2 playoff appearances in the last 20 years.

I would not trade for Murphy but go into the season with grandal. Sure he was bad in many regards but I think a lot of it was injury, if he can get healthier and his legs under him more again he might also hit the ball a little less on the ground again and hit 230 with good obp and 15-20 homers. The question is whether the sox believe he can get healthy again or whether his body is just ruined from the years of catching and he never will get reasonably fit again physically.

In the end it was the right decision to let jose go. Partly he is victim of the roster construction of rick and kenny, they drafted and traded for a ton of DH types in the last 5 years (eloy, burger, vaughn, collins, sheets) and at some point that roster needed some cleaning and jose just was the oldest and most expensive guy and at some point he will decline.

I think part of the homer decrease was also that the ball was more dead. Regarding launch angle it is important what the reason was. It could be just a small mechanical tweak and the astros coaches are great at that. However it also could be physical and age related issues. For example instability and pain in the front leg can lead to a weaker "blocking" and thus body drifting through instead of staying behind the back leg which can cause grounders. Also the attack angle of the bat gets more upward more out front so if he is late due to declining batspeed his launch angle also could get lower (unless he were to slice the bat under oppo hit balls - which of course wouldn't be a good strategy). Regarding exit velo staying the same that could be a good sign but also consider usually low liners are the hardest hit balls so less fly balls could help his average EV a bit. If you look at his peak EV it is still good at 113 but lowest of his career and 2 ticks down from last year. He could be already in rather steep decline.