Pitching is the key to the Sox' chances in 2020. The lineup is stacked.

[Jerksticks]

1 hour ago, BackDoorBreach said:

I just don't buy into this stuff, the same with "leadership" in baseball.  It's an individual team game.  Jose Abreu doesn't will Tim Anderson to hit .330 the same way Puig wouldn't be causing Tim to make a bagillion errors.

They still need a legitimate RF though imo.  Puig fits that.

I don’t think you really believe that.  Every aspect of our lives can be negatively affected by something toxic.  

[tray]

There is a lot is symmetry and balance to our team as it now stands. I , for one,  prefer that they do not risk upending that balance or the character of the team by signing a fukup like Puig or bringing back Yolmer the assclown.

If Madrigal continues to show that he can play great defense and hit during Spring Training, I would bring him up on Opening Day despite potentially losing a year of contractual control. I said "potentially" because the Sox can always choose to extend him later this season or down the road.

Having Madrigal in the starting lime-up on Opening Day  means that the Sox don't have to futz with signing some infielder to start for a month, or making Leury platoon in the IF and OF which could  dilute his effectiveness.  So.... come out of the gate on Opening Day  with Robert and Madrigal  in the line-up. Develop team chemistry from the start, rack up as many wins as possible in the first two months, and bury the sh1t teams in the Division right off the bat.

Edited January 5, 2020 by tray

[poppysox]

3 hours ago, tray said:

There is a lot is symmetry and balance to our team as it now stands. I , for one,  prefer that they do not risk upending that balance or the character of the team by signing a fukup like Puig or bringing back Yolmer the assclown.

If Madrigal continues to show that he can play great defense and hit during Spring Training, I would bring him up on Opening Day despite potentially losing a year of contractual control. I said "potentially" because the Sox can always choose to extend him later this season or down the road.

Having Madrigal in the starting lime-up on Opening Day  means that the Sox don't have to futz with signing some infielder to start for a month, or making Leury platoon in the IF and OF which could  dilute his effectiveness.  So.... come out of the gate on Opening Day  with Robert and Madrigal  in the line-up. Develop team chemistry from the start, rack up as many wins as possible in the first two months, and bury the sh1t teams in the Division right off the bat.

Well reasoned post.

[AJSOX]

I agree Pitching and Defense are what we need. The lineup sure looks exciting

[VAfan]

How much more control of Rodon do the Sox have? Has their control been extended by his long stints on the DL? 

[BackDoorBreach]

2 minutes ago, VAfan said:

How much more control of Rodon do the Sox have? Has their control been extended by his long stints on the DL? 

He's a FA after the 2021 season.

[SonofaRoache]

57 minutes ago, VAfan said:

How much more control of Rodon do the Sox have? Has their control been extended by his long stints on the DL? 

We got a year and a half and then he gone. I would put him in the bullpen and see if he can be a bullpen ace. He will be pissed because he won't get a chance at that big deal, but whatever. 

[TheFutureIsNear]

I’m surprised it took this long for someone to point out how crazy it is to call Mazara a young stud 

[caulfield12]

15 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

I’m surprised it took this long for someone to point out how crazy it is to call Mazara a young stud 

Well, he is younger than Zack Collins, so basically being under 25 in MLB (even with 4 years of experience) can allow you to maintain that "young" label, right?

[greg775]

Is Nomar Mazara any good? I know he's only 24 which is great but isn't he one of our weakest links?

[BackDoorBreach]

8 minutes ago, greg775 said:

Is Nomar Mazara any good? I know he's only 24 which is great but isn't he one of our weakest links?

No he's not any good.  

[TheFutureIsNear]

17 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Well, he is younger than Zack Collins, so basically being under 25 in MLB (even with 4 years of experience) can allow you to maintain that "young" label, right?

Sure...I was struggling more with the stud part lol

[South Side Fireworks Man]

Sox still lack depth, except at Catcher (and some are eager to trade that depth away).

[chitownsportsfan]

22 hours ago, Jerksticks said:

I don’t think you really believe that.  Every aspect of our lives can be negatively affected by something toxic.  

Sure, but this is a) a workplace and b) a workplace only comparable to other MLB workplaces.   Like Puig coming in in a bad mood really doesn't have anything to do with the other 25 guys like it would in a office or blue collar environment.  Now, Puig dogging it in RF would, and that's why unlike most assholes (Chris Sale, AJ, Youk, Wells, Gardner and so on) Puis is a real threat, because in baseball you can be a fucking asshole to your team mates as long as you play the game the "right way" and most of the assholes do that, which some would say makes them "red asses", not assholes, if you want to get pedantic.

Christ it's January isn't it? 

tl:dr don't bring in Puig.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

13 hours ago, greg775 said:

Is Nomar Mazara any good? I know he's only 24 which is great but isn't he one of our weakest links?

Depends on your definition of good. Most might say he has shown to be average or slightly below average in his Major league career based on WAR and OPS+ .

If you define good as having  ton of talent that allowed you to get significant playing time starting at the age of 21 with a ML team for 4 straight years but with so so results then he is good but with the potential to be much better. The Sox have him for 2 years to see if they can make him better.

At the age of 22 he had 20 HR's and 101 RBI's, In each of the 4 years he had 19 or 20 HR's. He has been very consistent but has not as yet tapped into the  huge upside. He doesn't walk much and isn't regarded as a good fielder but has a strong arm. Some see him like the LH version of Avisail Garcia without Avi's speed.

Lifetime Batting average .261. 79 HR's. 308 RBI , .320 OBP, .435 Slg. , .754 OPS.

There are signs he is getting better, made some changes last year,  put up good numbers against RH pitching .288 BA, .340 OBP .500 Slg. , .844 OPS. Isn't good against lefties.

He probably has 40 HR potential if he can make more changes but you have to want to , then make fast adjustments and that isn't always easy.

When Ohtani came to the Angels it took him less then one Spring training to make the changes that resulted in him becoming a better hitter. He listened and learned from his hitting coach and picked Albert Pujols brain about hitting.

Mazara has been the same basic player for 4 years so if you think he is being stubborn you could be right.  You could believe that he will soon realize that changes are necessary based on the change he made last year and for the betterment of his career and future salaries and that implementing those changes will unlock his upside.

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[turnin' two]

22 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Depends on your definition of good. Most might say he has shown to be average or slightly below average in his Major league career based on WAR and OPS+ .

If you define good as having  ton of talent that allowed you to get significant playing time starting at the age of 21 with a ML team for 4 straight years but with so so results then he is good but with the potential to be much better. The Sox have him for 2 years to see if they can make him better.

At the age of 22 he had 20 HR's and 101 RBI's, In each of the 4 years he had 19 or 20 HR's. He has been very consistent but has not as yet tapped into the  huge upside. He doesn't walk much and isn't regarded as a good fielder but has a strong arm. Some see him like the LH version of Avisail Garcia without Avi's speed.

Lifetime Batting average .261. 79 HR's. 308 RBI , .320 OBP, .435 Slg. , .754 OPS.

There are signs he is getting better, made some changes last year,  put up good numbers against RH pitching .288 BA, .340 OBP .500 Slg. , .844 OPS. Isn't good against lefties.

He probably has 40 HR potential if he can make more changes but you have to want to , then make fast adjustments and that isn't always easy.

When Ohtani came to the Angels it took him less then one Spring training to make the changes that resulted in him becoming a better hitter. He listened and learned from his hitting coach and picked Albert Pujols brain about hitting.

Mazara has been the same basic player for 4 years so if you think he is being stubborn you could be right.  You could believe that he will soon realize that changes are necessary based on the change he made last year and for the betterment of his career and future salaries and that implementing those changes will unlock his upside.

 

Yeah.  This.  If this is the guy that is your weakest link, your lineup is pretty darn good.

[reiks12]

March 26th is so far away

[pcq]

Most of us seem to think of the Mazara move as an educated informed gamble. I expect he has upside we will see.

[mqr]

14 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Sure, but this is a) a workplace and b) a workplace only comparable to other MLB workplaces.   Like Puig coming in in a bad mood really doesn't have anything to do with the other 25 guys like it would in a office or blue collar environment.  Now, Puig dogging it in RF would, and that's why unlike most assholes (Chris Sale, AJ, Youk, Wells, Gardner and so on) Puis is a real threat, because in baseball you can be a fucking asshole to your team mates as long as you play the game the "right way" and most of the assholes do that, which some would say makes them "red asses", not assholes, if you want to get pedantic.

 Christ it's January isn't it? 

tl:dr don't bring in Puig.

Idk, I imagine dealing with someone you can't stand during BP or whatever puts a damper on your day, and when your expected to perform at almost inhuman levels, that could be a problem. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

1 hour ago, turnin' two said:

Yeah.  This.  If this is the guy that is your weakest link, your lineup is pretty darn good.

I had made posts about Mazara should look to improve his average launch angle above where it is right now.using Statcast data.

Further research shows that he hits fly ball pitchers better than league average and hits ground ball pitchers worse than league average.

Baseball Ref. uses a stat called Hit Trajectory to show how a player does when hitting fly balls, ground balls and line drives,

The line drives might not look so bad when looking at his stats .588 BA , 580 OBP .813 Slg and 1.393 OPS . In these line drive . ground ball and fly ball stats Baseball Ref. uses stats called sOPS+ and tOPS+. sOPS+ compares how he does against the rest of the league in those categories and he looks to be well below league average when hitting line drives even though those other stats i posted look great . The line drive one confuses me a bit because  the tOPS+ looks better way better than usual  where 100 is the mean he is at 256 but the sOPS+ is at 80. I don't see how they can be so different.

The groundball and fly ball stats look like they make more sense.  On fly balls his tOPS+ is 222 and sOPS+ is 172.

So it still looks to me that he needs to hit more flyballs which supports my Statcast /average launch angle data findings.

Perhaps if the Sox wanted him to improve against left handed pitching they could use Mazara against LH fly ball pitchers. I have no idea if the Sox discuss this type of data with Renteria or make a game plan for every game to optimize lineup production or just leave it up to Renetria to make the lineup on his own. But when all this data is available it would seem foolish not to utilize it for player development and pregame strategy.

Eloy has much the same problems as Mazara only Eloy tapped into his power much better but he still makes a lot of line drive outs and hard hit ground ball outs.

Imagine them both improving and having 2 40 HR guys in the lineup .

Edited January 6, 2020 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[ptatc]

On 1/4/2020 at 8:51 PM, BackDoorBreach said:

I just don't buy into this stuff, the same with "leadership" in baseball.  It's an individual team game.  Jose Abreu doesn't will Tim Anderson to hit .330 the same way Puig wouldn't be causing Tim to make a bagillion errors.

They still need a legitimate RF though imo.  Puig fits that.

Leadership is most important in baseball due to the amount of time spent together on the road and the amount of downtime involved in the game. 

[HeHatesShe]

If Mazara was in the Sox lineup last year and hit his career average he would have been our 6th best hitter,  and a huge improvement in RF.

Now with Encarnacion and a rookie Robert,  I'll take a .750 OPS out of  the 7/8 hitter. 

[greg775]

12 hours ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

Depends on your definition of good. Most might say he has shown to be average or slightly below average in his Major league career based on WAR and OPS+ .

If you define good as having  ton of talent that allowed you to get significant playing time starting at the age of 21 with a ML team for 4 straight years but with so so results then he is good but with the potential to be much better. The Sox have him for 2 years to see if they can make him better.

At the age of 22 he had 20 HR's and 101 RBI's, In each of the 4 years he had 19 or 20 HR's. He has been very consistent but has not as yet tapped into the  huge upside. He doesn't walk much and isn't regarded as a good fielder but has a strong arm. Some see him like the LH version of Avisail Garcia without Avi's speed.

Lifetime Batting average .261. 79 HR's. 308 RBI , .320 OBP, .435 Slg. , .754 OPS.

There are signs he is getting better, made some changes last year,  put up good numbers against RH pitching .288 BA, .340 OBP .500 Slg. , .844 OPS. Isn't good against lefties.

He probably has 40 HR potential if he can make more changes but you have to want to , then make fast adjustments and that isn't always easy.

When Ohtani came to the Angels it took him less then one Spring training to make the changes that resulted in him becoming a better hitter. He listened and learned from his hitting coach and picked Albert Pujols brain about hitting.

Mazara has been the same basic player for 4 years so if you think he is being stubborn you could be right.  You could believe that he will soon realize that changes are necessary based on the change he made last year and for the betterment of his career and future salaries and that implementing those changes will unlock his upside.

 

Thank you very much. I'll cheer for him thinking about the 100 RBI season.