Dominikk85

It would bei stupid to Bring up vaughn immediately because unless he signs an extension because then you could just as well have brought him up last September for the playoffs instead of EE. I doubt vaughn has improved much between September and next spring so there is really no argument to think he is ready in April but wasn't in September.

I think the Duncan signing could be a bad sign that reinsdorf has transferred power from hahn to TLR. Not saying duncan is bad but it is probably no coincidence that he is the son of Dave Duncan. It is ok TLR wants to bring his own coaches but an analytics coordinator should be on the front office and not on the manager. Maybe I'm missreading this and it is a coincidence but it sounds a bit fishy.

I guess at least the political views of bauer and TLR are pretty similar:). Not sure how he would get along with how TLR handles data. I think as long they let bauer do his thing with the training and preparation.

For teams like the sox not the highest upside guys are interesting but rather more polished guys who can fill out a niche (most likely pen). So guys like maitan and pint make no sense as they are nowhere near mlb ready even in a small role.

Rule 5 will be tough this year with no milb season last year a lot of guys will be pushed into rule 5 that might have used 2020 to get mlb ready in the minors. This should mean the talent level could be better than a normal rule 5 draft but there also is missed development time. Imo you can't really draft hitters this year after they missed a year of at bats. But there might be some high octane guys you can put into a relief role. Most interesting would be to find a pitcher who has used 2020 to gain velo or add a pitch but that is almost impossible to find out for the other 29 teams.

Bradley is still a plus fielder out there in the outfield. Uzr has him slightly positive in center

With one year and His salary I can't see him being too expensive in terms of prospects. Cubs shouldn't get any of the sox top4 prospects for him. I would thing something like a good 45 fv and two 40s or so prospects should get it done.

I'm also against trading the top prospects but I think this "the cubs were only good a short time" is overstated. The cubs since 2015 won 2015: 97 (nlcs) 2016: 103 (WS) 2017: 92 (nlcs) 2018: 95 (WC) 2019:84 (no playoffs) 2020: 34 (92 pace, lost WC) Eventually they had 6 years with 5 of them over 90 wins (average 93.8) and also some bad luck in the post season.they could have won in 15 and 17 too, they definitely had a strong window, 6 years is a good period. If the sox in the next 5-6 years win a WS, and make another 2 ALCS and two WC I would take it in a heartbeat. The dissapointment with the cubs is more because they had most success at the beginning of their window but overall it was a pretty good window even though they made some bad decisions, especially on the free agent market and could have been even better.

Ideally the Sox keep all the advanced good prospects (close to mlb and 50fv+ and sign guys via free agency. The Sox have one of the lowest payrolls in the majors and could afford some more even without breaking the bank.

I think they need to get another top reliever or at least resign colome. The pen was great last year but there is some regression expected and a pen minus colome and plus some regression could get ugly especially if there maybe is an injury.

Definitely milb. If he became a High Level reliever that still would be a solid result at his draft spot (probably about 50th percentile outcome) but the first try for a first rounder should always trying to make him a starter. And to become a starter he needs to first build up his stamina by ramping up innings and also work on improving his command and his change up or another third pitch. If you have him just let it ride with his FB and slider for 1-2 innings that would probably work in the majors as a reliever but not develope him as a starter. If his innings are controlled you could still bring him up for the playoffs later in the year if you need him but first priority must be trying to develope him as a starter and that only works in the minors. This has the additional advantage that if he eventually needs TJ you are not burning 2 years of service time on the DL like it happened with kopech.

Well cano took a substance that Ben johnson got busted for 20 years before armstrong so modern testing was not really needed to catch him:). It is harder now to not get caught but cano certainly took zero effort in trying to avoid getting caught by taking the oldest and easiest to detect substance.

Because only low IQ idiots get caught. Cano took a steroid from the 80s, famous doping doc victor conte said you need to be an idiot to get caught. There are modern substances and methods that are almost undetectable, lance armstrong spent millions on not getting caught and only got caught due to wistleblowers. I think it is no coincidence that mostly latin players get caught. Obviously latin players are not more stupid than us players but they leave school at 16 and really focus on baseball since they are 12 so their formal education is not great. That being said cano has over 100m in the bank, I can understand that a latin minor leagues who barely speaks English and doesn't have a HS degree gets caught but cano has the means to afford a good team and even hire a doc, not sure why he is injecting that old stuff into his ass.

Of course they get a prospect as good as vaughn or kopech, we are talking about a cost controlled 27 year old ace here. In fact I think they can get a better prospect than vaughn or kopech (who are more top40 than top20) but both would be a bit steep. I think a fair price would be one top15 prospect and a second one in the 80-100 range.

I think Hahn did a great job but I wish he was a little more aggressive in trading away soon to be rule 5 eligible guys. The rays do that a lot and usually dump the guys before they are eligible either for younger prospects or for mlb ready guys. Burger of course was hard to trade but for example sheets would have been a great candidate for a trade. But of course this is easier said than done because with no milb season the trade market for advanced but not quite ready prospects was not great. Maybe he didn't receive any decent offers.

Don't think that mlb wants that. Mlb wants to downsize non baseball roster costs and remove possible edges for front office, scouting and development because those are extra costs to stay competitive. That is why mlb makes the minors smaller and create in international draft, it is to reduce the number of non player employees. Drafting picks makes it more complicated and could create an edge for teams which would mean they would need to spend more on analytics.

I think Theo wasn't motivated to go through another tank job and if the owners weren't giving him the financial means to compete it made no sense to stay there. Maybe he goes to the angels now after dombrowski declined the opportunity?

Can't answer that without knowing the price. Wouldn't want to trade vaughn, madrigal and kopech but obviously there is a price for anyone. I would rather trade thompson or stiever but the return is also lower.

But that was true for giolito too, not a lot of Ks initially. As long the stuff is there I think there I hope they can increase Ks with better command and pitch selection. Cease fell behind often and also missed big with his offspeed stuff a lot so hitters wouldn't chase. If he can get ahead more often and keep the miss margin for the offspeed stuff smaller he will get more chased too. That of course is an if and no guarantee but there is some hope for him and I wouldn't write off lopez either.

I agree. He wouldn't get a higher AAV and a long term contract would have been greatly reduced. So he pockets the 18 mil and then hopes finances are better in early 2022. Of course he will be a year older and also could get hurt and then make nothing but he has made enough money so he can take the gamble.

He had an absolute monster season though. Over 50% k rate, 44% k-bb, 0.86 opponent average, 0.33 era, 0.86 fip. Also his "change up" that he invented might be one of the best pitches of all time, it has insane spin and movement and players missedore than 50% of the time when they swung. All the pitch design guys like bauer will want to learn it. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/devin-williams-and-the-unicorn-changeup/

Mattingley and Cash won MOTY, ricky second place.

Abreu is still very good but with contract he also doesn't have much projected surplus value. You could trade him but wouldn't get much back (maybe a 45fv prospect or so). Even vaughn doesn't have a huge amount of trade value because the market doesn't love short right handed first basemen. Don't get me wrong, vaughn has good trade value because the industry believes he will be like a 120 WRC+ hitter with a very high likelihood but it is more you are getting a good young 3 starter for him instead of a TOR. Don't want to give him up for that. Now there is a chance that vaughn gets even better than that of course. Some experts say his absolute ceiling is essentially paul goldschmidt who averaged like 5 war during his prime (as a 60fv they project vaughn to average 3 WAR) and in that case of course you get a TOR for him (if he has proven that on the mlb level for 2 seasons) but I wouldn't want to trade paul goldschmidt.

Grandal has been constantly rated a great framer, can't believe pitchers think he is stealing strikes. 2020 he was 4th in baseball savant Framing https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/catcher_framing and second at bbpro https://www.baseballprospectus.com/leaders/catching/catcher-stats-full-season?year=2020&lg=all&team=all&lvl=mlb&min=qualified Not sure about the game calling albeit I would think often the manager calls it these days, doesn't he?

Honestly giolito needs to learn to deal with grandal. It is not that grandal is some defensive hack, so there is no reason why giolito shouldn't get along with grandal especially if you get a worse backup than mccann.