Dominikk85

Yeah but he didn't strike out a lot of guys so he does need some batted balls falling in his favor. He does have the skill to induce weak contact his whole career but still obviously with contact something can always happen and you would prefer a high K guy who doesn't even allow contact even though he maybe walks some guys

He doesn't have massive power for a 1b but he did hit a lot of bombs in college. His statcast numbers in the minors point to like 55 grade raw power but the ability to get to all of it due to his hit tool. Scouts do expect him to hit like 30 bombs. He probably is not a nelson cruz who hits 45 bombs at his peak but 30 bombs with a 290 average and 370 obp is really nice. It will also be interesting what approach he chooses. If he goes for power and pulls the ball a lot he will hit some more homers but take a babip hit and hit probably more like 270 (basically what konerko did). But he could also use an all field approach and maybe hit high 20s homers with a 300+ average.

Colome was great last year but there was some luck involved too. Obviously this is a pattern with him (3.54 career fip and 2.95 career ERA) but I still see him more as a good setup man than a top team closer.

Yeah obviously. Even a Player statistically worth .1 win could be worth two wins in two if he gets two timely RBI hits. However that also is true the other day, Mike trout can hit .100 for two weeks and yolmer sanchez can hit .400 during that span. That value is just an average

Would they give up a year of service time for two weeks though? I calculated in another thread that two weeks of a sub replacement DH vs a solid one costs about .2 wins for two weeks. Is .2 wins worth a year?

The shine of the astros also has come off a bit.they were the hottest shit in player dev and analytics but their farm system got a lot weaker recently with only 1 top100. Sure they also traded and graduated quite a few guys but also many people in the industry believe they overdid the new school stuff, especially the cancellation of scouting.

I think we also need to consider the possibility that there is nothing close to a full minor league season. With no fans and corona prevention measures milb might become financially even less profitable and if milb starts in August or so maybe mlb is the only viable option

Not a fan of this either. Multi inning relief is better than just set up guy but still that is not a good environment to develope his third pitch. If you work on a third pitch in milb you just throw it a lot in all counts until it works in games even if that means you give up a couple bombs. But in MLB you are probably not throwing that with runners on when you are not 100% confident as you don't want to give up a granny and then tell your teammates "sorry I was working on something". Obviously you can still work on stuff on your side sessions but it is not the same as in games. Also relieving doesn't provide a regular schedule. If they really want to do something like this I would prefer them using him as an extended opener for the 5th starter. Let crochet go about 3 innings and then bring in the 5th starter as a follower for another 4 or so. That is not ideal either but better than a totally irregular schedule. But best would be developing in the minors so he can work on everything instead of worrying about results.

Good write up. Middle IF is really a weak spot of the system, especially true SS prospects.

I think the alternate site thing is the better the more raw a prospect is. A more raw player with mechanical and approach issues can benefit more from that kind of guided instruction where you can kinda mix up classic work on mechanics and stuff like that with live ABs. A more polished player like vaughn will benefit less from that but still it obviously is better to have that than just hitting in the cage and lifting weights.

Yeah I agree. More people are reporting it and teams nowadays fire guys pretty quickly. Still probably many women won't come out because they fear a "double punishment" where their story is believed and action is taken (which is better than previously where nothing was done) but still their job is made harder because teams are reluctant to let them work with them for the fear of similar stories getting out. That is kinda like canseco after he made those steroid accusations. That stuff proved to be true but he still was tremendously hated for "snitching", especially because he did it himself (which he admitted of course but "dragged" other colleagues into it. This kind of unofficial punishment is a big problem that gets ignored too. Even if a female journalist keeps her job and they do believe her story and fire the predator that is a good thing but it doesn't mean her job won't be harder after that. They might still allow her into the clubhouse but be a bit more tight lipped (because she is viewed as a risk and "trouble maker") when providing information which affects her ability to write good articles. This stuff will take much longer to be resolved. People now say "what do you want? since me too companies are actually firing predators" but while that is good and true there are still unofficial repercussions that will make your job harder even if you "won", like for example your boss who was friends with the fired guy now being tougher or colleagues shunning you. This stuff needs to change too and it is much harder to do because that stuff happens so subtly that it is hard to enforce legally. Good companies now have anti retaliation policies but in many cases it is hard to prove.

That is how those guys operate, they make a lot of predictions and if the hit they hype it and the misses they just don't talk about.

I'm pretty confident that the sox at least have 4 more years, possibly 5-6. Sure giolito is only there through 23 but I could see them extending him. And most of the good young position players are there at least through 25. They need more pitching after keuchel and lynn are gone but hopefully kopech, Kelley and crochet can fill that void.

Maybe the sox can get marquez cheap if the add 20 millions:)

I wouldn't rule it out that he is the best hitter. Jose could regress to about a 120 wRC+ and anderson could Regress some too. I wouldn't project him for that but I wouldn't rule out a big rookie season either. Pete alonso was a lesser prospect and he started with a huge first season. Now vaughn obviously won't club 50 bombs but I wouldn't be surprised if he had a .280 BA and .360 OBP with 25 homers or so. Obviously I would hope that vaughn is not their best hitter which because that likely means Tim and Jose didn't regress much and robert and moncada improved. But I wouldn't complain about a 130 by vaughn either.

Keuchel had a .28 hr/9 rate. I do believe he can stay under 1 which is great these days but .3 is probably not attainable in a full season. I would be ok with a low 4s for keuchel, I think 4.4 is a bit high, maybe more like 4.1 or so.

I also think anderson is too low. He is a regression candidate but depth charts has him at .774 (from 886), 730 is just too low. Also I think lynn and giolito are too low, I'm thinking high 3s for lynn and mid 3s or even lower for giolito. Keuchel sounds about right but moncada I'm hoping for like low 800s.

How do those guys think they are getting away with that? An old saying is "the internet never forgets" so if they had any brain they would know this will come out at some point, especially if you send explicit stuff. Now in the past often women would shut up because if you talked you were blackmailed out of the game but in days of Me too more women come out fortunately. Those guys who abuse their power need to be weeded out.

He didn't take a year off but it is not clear how this alternate site thing affects players. On the one hand you face better pitchers than in the minors but you face the same pitchers again and again and also they might be less willing to for example throw a hitter inside because you don't want to break your teammates hand. I would not be against starting him in AA for 2 months (added benefit is super two status) and then bring him up if he rakes but I could also see him holding his own right away. The question of course is whether there is AA ball at all this year or when does it start, if milb doesn't start on time you almost have to bring him up quickly (i.e after 2 weeks to get the extra year) for his development

To be fair if you discount for his all time bad 2011 dunn wasn't that bad. 2011: 60 2012: 115 2013: 107 2014: 114 Still of course not what you expected from the contract but 12-14 he was not terrible, if vaughn does that in his first year it would be fine.

I think vaughn has a bit less power than robert but he has better plate discipline and will strike out less. Best case could be a rookie season like rhys hoskins.

How good do you think vaughn can be in 2021 if he comes up rather early? Depth charts only has him for a 76 wrc+ (which is understandable considering he is soon 23, has never played above high A and did solid but but great there) but I think in this case we can trust traditional scouting more than the stats. But I also think we shouldn't be too optimistic, he won't need as much adjustment as some other hitters as his approach is very mature, but some struggles in the first season can happen. Is a 110 wRC+ a realistic goal for the first year? Would you go over or under with that? I would be fine with a 110 wRC+ but he also could have a big rookie season or struggle a bit more.

I think overall the team can be better as young guys will emerge or improve plus you have the additions of lynn and hendricks but I think you also shouldn't underrate the regression potential of abreu, anderson and keuchel. "A little" regression is probably an understatement, abreu likely won't be bad but he is in his mid 30s and a 120 wRC+ wouldn't be bad (but a huge drop against the 160+ this year). Anderson still has a very bad k to bb rate and is quite BABIP dependent and projections have him for a 20 point wRC+ drop. Maybe projection systems still underrate his babip skill and his power improved too but a 380 babip might still not stick. Projections also drop eloy about 10 points (depth charts has him for 40 homers but drops his babip from 340 to 328). Also projections have keuchel to more than double his ERA. Even if you are optimistic and have jose only for a 20 point regression instead of 40, Tim for 10 points and keuchel for 1.5 runs (3.5 instead of 2) you would still need a very big improvement to compensate for that. Not saying it is impossible, it could certainly happen but there is some stuff that needs to go right. In the rotation I think even 2 runs decline by keuchel could easily be compensated but if the projections for the hitters come true and Tim and jose lose 60 points combined that would essentially eat up all the gains from DH, RF and more.

I think that the sox overall are a better team than in 2020 but there are also some regression candidates. 2020 stats/2021 depth Charts projection Hitters wRC+ 1b jose 166/114 2b madrigal 114/97 ss Anderson 142/103 Of eloy 140/128 Pitcher era Keuchel 1.99/4.x That is some serious regression potential. On the other hand RF and DH should be much improved, moncada should be better and lynn is a big upgrade. In the pen heuer and marshall will probably regress some but hendricks is a big upgrade. Overall the offense will probably slightly worse because just everything clicked in 2020 for many guys and the upgrades in RF, DH and 3b are probably not quite enough to offset regressions of jose and Tim but it shouldn't be much worse. the pen I expect about the same to slightly better and the back end of the rotation should be a lot better.

The difference that vaughn and crochet also have the upside to be 3.5 war players while dunning is more considered like an average guy for the back of the rotation so it was consolidating depth for upside. The viability of this move obviously depends on how the sox pitching prospects are developing. The dunning move was banking on that behind him higher upside players like kopech, crochet, cease need some more time to develope but will eventually overtake him and make him the 6th guy and thus somewhat expendable. Now obviously if those guys all fail it could turn into a bad move but obviously we hope at least one of them becomes a regular, reliable starter and hopefully more than 1.