Dominikk85

yeah. Doesn't affect service time much unless he gets hurt.

I like it. Really not as worried about service time for pitchers as they can get hurt easily and I rather have them in the majors. Only big risk is the kopech thing happens and he loses 1.5 years of service on the DL.

His K-BB rate is really bad but he seems to have a sustainable skill at suppressing Homers. Ideally you dont want a back end reliever with a sub 10% k-bb rate but he gets the job done. Still I'd rather have him at setup and a closer who misses a few more bats.

The sox have a monster lineup but I'm not sure how both the Pen and the SP would have held up over 162. The pen has been taxed a lot due to the inability of non giolito/keuchel starters to go more than 4-5 innings and there is really no starting depth either to compensate for an injury. The sox have a great future but they need to add pitching either from internal (kopech, stiever, breakout by Lopez maybe) or an acquisition.

Back then cameron was not valued so highly because a lot of his value was tied to walks and defense. Fans just saw a 250 hitter with 20-25 homers and few talked about OBP and nobody talked about defense metrics.

Robert is a much better ballplayer though. Similar plate discipline issues but still overall better hitter and of course a much better defender. Robert has not so great plate discipline but other than that he is not a raw ballplayer, Cuban kids grow up with baseball and learn the game and you can see that with robert who already is a fundamentally sound ballplayer who can not just hit bombs but also run the bases, do the right things in the field, hit oppo and so on. Jackson never became nearly as complete of a ballplayer.

How scary are the yankees with all the injuries though? I think they are getting back Stanton, judge and torres soon but nobody knows in what shape they are or if they are on the DL 3 games later again.

Those baserunning blunders weighing more heavily due to the short sample size. Running into an out just has a very negative value (like minus a run or so) but over a 162 game season that is not so big. But this is a short season plus madrigal was called up later and missed time with an injury so he did not have much time to compensate for the blunders.

I do think that is correct. People overestimate the effect of a single player. Mike trout gets about 2.6 bases per game (TB+HPB+BB) and an average player hits for about 1.9 bases (did that research a couple weeks ago). That means trout gives you about 0.7 bases more per game than an average hitter (100wrc+) which is worth about 0.4 runs or so. 0.4 runs per game is about 65 per sesson or about 6.5 wins at a 10 run per win conversion which is generally believed to be about correct. However of course a replacement level player is worse than a 100 wrc+ (more like 80 or so depending on the position) so the extra value is a bit higher. Baseball is not basketball and you only get like 4 ABs a game no matter how good you are and that just limits impact. Also consider this is a short season, so you can basically almost multiply by 3 to get whole season effect.

That is a good argument. Maybe using grandal/mccann at 1b and Jose at DH (like today) is really the safer option as that gives you the opportunity to put the other catcher at catcher in case the starting catcher gets injured. On the other hand you could also just take the risk. I mean catchers do get hurt but still how common is that? One in 30 games that your catcher needs to leave the game? Really worst that can happen is you lose the game and that is a chance you can take.

That would be massively unfair towards teams who were good last year and bad this year. I think using a combined record would be most fair.

Both would be smart to take a deal. Madrigal will be in his late20s when he is a FA, Vaughn too. Especially for 1b/dh the market doesn't get better as they approach 30 so Vaughn should consider it. Depends on how good he becomes of course. If he hits his absolute ceiling and is like Paul goldschmidt (who averaged 5 war his first 6 years which is a 70fv) he can get a good deal at 29-30 and shouldn't take an extension. However if he hits like the median outcome which is like a 2.5 WAR player on average (55 fv) then maybe he should take that deal and sign for like 60M through age 32 or so.

Saw this tweet. Apparently a large majority of owners have asked Manfred to keep the 16 game playoffs. I would not like that, for 60 games the expanded playoffs are great but 162 games are going to be awfully long. Also it makes winning the division worthless, maybe at least you can give the top seeds a bye week like in football. Or you do away with divisions and do it like in nba.

That is a big discussion these days. Multi sports athletes often have advantages in coordination and athleticism over early specialization but there are also many early specialization guys who become great. Roger federer was a multi sport athlete but tiger woods specialized at age 4 or so:)

Wasn't tim a basketball player and picked up baseball as a teenager? Lorenzo cain was like that too, those guys are not traditional prospects and almost impossible to predict.

Something obviously is wrong with mazara (probably a mix of physical, mechanical and mental which can affect each other). Maybe he could fix it next year and hit his usual 105-110 wrc+ against righties while sucking against lefties and hitting 20 Homers but it probably is not worth the money finding out because there is no guarantee it gets fixed. EE is already sitting a lot recently, the sox have enough options with the two catchers at DH to only play EE against some bad stuff pitchers were he still can hit an occasional homer.

Mccann/grandal is a competent DH.

Sox won't move past those teams though as the last season would weigh much more on the position. Those teams would still stay near the bottom. Big winners would be the sox and padres who have good seasons and still get good picks (padres might even get a top10). Red sox would be the biggest loser being that bad and still probably only getting a mid round pick.

Shouldn't vaughn be mentioned as he very likely is a major leaguer?

I hope they do a combined record of 2019 and 2020 which could give the sox a pick in the 15 range (if they win 39 games this year they will end up with a combined 19-20 .500 record). That would be a huge break for the sox if they get like the 15th pick instead of the 28th or so.

how about giving dunning an opener? Dunning doesn't have monster stuff but he also doesn't walk guys and can handle the non elite hitters. So if you give him an opener and basically start his day against their number 5 hitter you can ease him into the day and maybe get him deeper into the game.

The angels have two very good candidates in trout and rendon. Sox also basically have 3 candidates. Apart from the sox and Angels guys of course nelson cruz is the 6th candidate. I think abreu, cruz and trout are the front runners but cruz could have an advantage if the sox and Angels guys are splitting votes with their teammates.

EE has been sitting 3 out of the Last 8 games, I think that is the way to go (semi platooning EE). Mazara I would platoon with engel.

Encarnacion isn't getting "all those ABs" anymore, he actually sat on the bench 3 of the last 8 games which is quite a lot considering his salary. RR has basically semi platooning EE the last two weeks and have the catchers hit more at DH.

He definitely must improve his control. He never will have pinpoint command like bieber or Hendricks but he must eliminate the big misses. It is ok to miss the zone by 3 inches as that can induce swing and miss but those big misses by a foot plus must be reduced. The stuff is there but the walks are a problem especially because that means he needs to throw some middle middle fastballs to avoid more walks which then can lead to multi run homers. He doesn't need to locate perfectly but he needs to throw strikes early in the count. Sometimes he does get away with it and his stuff helps with getting out of jams but at some point you will give up the 3 run homer if you always walk guys.