Dominikk85

Mendick most definitely is a lot slower than madrigal. Nick isn't a burner but mendick is a below average runner Longenhagen gave him a 45 and sprint speed confirmed that at a below average 26.9 which is slower than eloy (27.7) and only a bit faster than Jose (26.6). Mendick is very slow for a middle infielder.

Mendick is a fine backup but madrigal makes more contact, runs better and is a better defender.

Many of them have been old and washed up, not many premium free agents age 26-29 have been signed by the sox, many have been older guys or mediocre older guys who have a big year. Dunn was the big bust of course (even though his final 3 years had been ok albeit not great at around a 110-115 wrc+) but other than that there weren't many good guys in their prime signed.

Iglesias would be a good option to trade for the sox after the injuries to madrigal and Garcia thinned out the sox IF depth. His bat obviously won't stay this good but he is a good defender, makes contact and seems to have made a little power jump from a no power guy to 11 bombs last year and while he has hit no homers this year he hit tons of doubles and his exit velo took another step forward. Don't think he is super expensive either as at 30 years of age he won't be part of the next Os window so he wouldn't cost any of the sox top 9 prospects plus he has a club option for 21, which means in case he is good you get him another year and if he is bad he is gone for free making this super low risk financially. I would like that deal. Sox shouldn't sell the farm but they have no middle infield help coming up so having Iglesias for 20 and 21 would be a nice insurance and while he is not a stud he is an upgrade to mendick and leury especially since he can play a good shortstop too.

Btw decision making is clearly part of Baserunning but madrigal doesn't have the reputation of being a reckless guy who just runs wild. A guy of his stature doesn't get drafted 4th with questionable decision making, all the reports said he is a mature guy. He was just a young guy being a bit overanxious in his first games, I think he will be a quite smart baserunner.

At this point of the season running into two dumb outs can put you at the very rear rather quickly even behind super slow guys who just jog station to station so I would not read that much into Baserunning stats that early especially for guys who even missed time.

Of course the royals would have been bad even without the injuries:)

Looked up some stat ranks in the AL by the sox. As of today Hitting Bb%: 7.2 (12th) K%: 24.8 (11th) Iso: .163 (12th) Wrc+: 105 (5th) Babip: .317 (1st) Pitching K%: 23.2 (7th) Bb%: 9.0 (9th) Hr/9: 1.28 (9th) Fip: 4.3 (8th) Era: 4.26 (9th) Overall pretty middle of the road albeit with 8 playoff teams that could be enough. Hitting bad k to bb rate is no surprise of course. Babip could regress but I expect power to get better with tim back and EE and jose getting better in the second half which they often do albeit it is not guaranteed at their age. Pitching is probably about right albeit there are guys who could improve or get healthy again.

Really anyone slides headfirst though. It is dumb but players are doing it all the time because they think they can avoid a tag better. I think even trout still does it on SB attempts despite having hurt his thumb before that way.

He obviously isn't a star player but it is hard for 1b men to put up great war numbers, he was ranked 6th in war in the AL among 1b men last year. This year his start was not great but he usually gets better later in the year and while he has some cold streaks he usually delivers you your 115-125 wrc+, 30 bombs and 100 RBI with a decent average and that is all you can ask for from your 1b. Obviously he is no miggy but he is a perfectly fine winning team first baseman. Of course at some point decline will come but then the sox hopefully has vaughn filling in and I would be very happy if vaughn delivered the same stats that jose delivered so far over his career (.292/348/512) with 30 bombs and 100 rbi a year.

For a one year deal team greatness doesn't matter though. Sure a ring would be welcome but pitchers aren't judged by wins anymore and basically you just need one year of good results.

The thing that makes trout special is that he has almost a 1 to 1 walk to k rate (at least the last 4-5 years) while hitting 40 bombs. That combination is really rare, the last before trout really was prime pujols who did the same (pujols even walked more than he struck out), mookie betts is kinda like that too albeit it is more 30 than 40 hr power. That level is almost impossible to attain but it is possible to still be elite with a worse k to bb rate if power and contact quality is there. Robert will never be trout or pujols because of the k to bb rate but tatis JR and acuna also had very bad k to bb rates in the minors and are still way more Ks and they are elite. If robert can tighten up that k/bb from 4-5/1 to 2.5-3/1 he will be an absolute elite player. Still work to do to get there though but it is possible.

Line up construction is overrated anyway. Lots of comments here "why is ricky batting jose 3rd..." but I played with a lineup construction tool and I used a lineup of all great hitters (350/500) except for two who I made really super bad (280/300) and made lineups those guys one and three and 8 and 9. The difference was 0.25 runs or 40 runs over 162=4 wins. That is quite a bit but in reality examples are never that extreme (850 ops vs 580 and 8/9 vs 1/3 for the super bad guys) so realistically the worst lineups a mlb manager can create probably cost about a win per season. Much more important than batting order is who is batting in that lineup... https://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py?Player0=A&OBA0=+0.350&Slug0=+0.500&Player1=C&OBA1=+0.350&Slug1=+0.500&Player2=D&OBA2=+0.350&Slug2=+0.500&Player3=S&OBA3=+0.350&Slug3=+0.500&Player4=D&OBA4=+0.350&Slug4=+0.500&Player5=D&OBA5=+0.350&Slug5=+0.500&Player6=S&OBA6=+0.350&Slug6=+0.500&Player7=D&OBA7=+0.280&Slug7=+0.300&Player8=D&OBA8=+0.280&Slug8=+0.300&Model=0

Long term I want madrigal there, leadoff should be a guy with a good k/bb rate and both tim and robert aren't great in that department. This year I want tim there, no great k/bb rate but very consistent contact quality.

That one was pretty controlled by eloy though. He saw he wouldn't get to the ball and then just laid casually into that net for fun, that was not really a dangerous situation. He was just hangin out a little

He did show some good signs but in what planet is 5 runs in 6 a quality start? He did keep them in the game and went 6 but 5 in 6 is a 7.5 ERA in that game. I do think he is showing signs of improvement but I would not call that a QS yet.

Cease breaking ball has decent action but really not much command. Often either fat in the zone or a for outside, not many in that borderline strike area maybe an inch outside where you want it.

Clevinger also suspended for violating covid policy https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29635888/indians-mike-clevinger-miss-start-violating-protocol%3fplatform=amp

Good observation with the bat angle at contact. Classic teaching was always level bat, level shoulders at impact and for preteen kids that is still a good cue but most good hitters use a vertical bat angle downward of like 30-40 degrees on contact. Robert also does that very well. I'm using that also a lot with the more advanced kids I'm working with, bat sensors like blast are also able to measure that. This can create issues on higher pitches but the big advantage of that is that you can hit lower pitches straight at a good angle while the classic flat bat at contact often creates roll overs on low pitches. There are still good flatter bat guys like bregman but they tend to be high ball hitters. Engel is obviously not that good but I would be fine if he was a league average hitter the next 2 years combined with his defense.

Yeah can't believe ball boys are out there who don't understand baseball enough to stay away until you know it is foul. Albeit in that case it was likely good for the sox, that ball was going to rattle in the corner and at least two, possibly 3 without the kid interfering.

They have lost 3 games but they are still on a 108 win pace for 162 games (.667). They likely won't hold that pace and their SP is questionable but that offense is just pure terror. I think the twins will win the division but the sox also have a good chance to make a playoff spot but only if that injury thing doesn't continue, pitching depth is thinned out a lot.

His heat map shows he handles most of the zone very well, he struggles mostly out of the zone and very down and away https://www.fangraphs.com/players/luis-robert/20043/heat-maps?position=OF&ss=2020-07-24&se=2020-08-08&type=5&hand=all&count=all&blur=2&grid=10&view=bat&pitch=&season=all&data= His walk rate his been good but probably mostly because he sees very few pitches in the zone (35%), his chase rate has been extremely high (47%). This means his walks will probably regress but that also mean he is seeing more strikes which would be a good thing that might lower his walk rate but cause more damage too.

He is not a burner but his sprint speed is actually about average (27.7 last year) which is faster than some pretty good fielders (Kepler for example). He doesn't look good out there but his speed is actually ok for LF at least for the next 2-3 years. He "just" needs to improve his routes and general awareness in the OF. Not an easy thing to do of course.

Not saying Ricky makes no mistakes but with the sox lack of SP depth and lack of ability of those starters to go deep (only keuchel and giolito really can go 6+) you can't always use a quick hook and ride your pen aces hard or you will burn out the pen. Ricky thus needs to sometimes leave in a struggling starter or put in a bad reliever and hope they make it through the inning in order to manage the workload. Yeah that will cost games but due to injuries the situation is as it is. If the sox had 5 durable starters and a deep pen they could use a quick hook and still be fine but with the sox situation you always have to be ready for 2 3 inning starts in a row so you can't always pull the trigger and sometimes you need to leave a struggling pitcher in with bases loaded and hope somebody hits into a double play. that isn't ideal but it is the way it is currently.

I think long term it is madrigal. Tim didn't have great K to BB rates in his career but robert didn't have good ones either and was mostly like 4 to 1 in the minors. He obviously has more room for growth than tim but I think madrigal should be a better bet to get on base a lot. Robert should be a 30+ homer guy even if it is a 320 obp so that would fit better in the middle of the lineup.