The Yankees have a lot of issues right now. But sometimes just when you think they're dead they get re-animated, so I never take anything for granted.
I'm sure they want to keep Soto, but they have other needs as well, and Hal already said they can't keep spending at this level. Will be interesting to watch.
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
Yanks definitely have star power, but their overall line-up on the field is awkward, while the Sox actually look more balanced. I said it a month ago: Yankees are going nowhere with Judge in centerfield. He has a negative dWAR, and doesn't make diving attempts for anything close (I suspect the club told him to stay on his feet -- and not to risk injury -- since his bat is the key to their season).Originally Posted by Bellhorn04
Soto also has a negative dWAR. Boston may have four outfield gloves better than NY's two starting All-Stars: Duran, Abreu, O'Neill and Rafaela -- who may not have the numbers of Duran, but makes a highlight catch in just about every game he plays CF. Any fan watching nightly already knows: Ceddanne is our best fly-chaser since JBJ.
I said before the season they would move Verdugo. An outfield of Soto-Trent Grisham-Judge is far superior defensively to their current alignment, and barely a drop offensively. No idea why they are so dedicated to Veduho’s bat…
Judge has been DHing a lot, and Verdugo and Grisham have both been in the OF.
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
Ah yes. The Annual Giancarlo Stanton Injury.
Verdugo is useful for covering that…
A baseball season is a marathon not a sprint.
A month ago everyone would have said we are playing for the 3rd wildcard spot and shoudn't even be concerned with catching the Yankees.
Well, if we were to sweep them we'd be only 2.5 games behind them. I think that will be hard, and will be very excited to take 2 out of 3. But this is what it's all about.....chipping away.
Yeah, 162 games is a lot of freakin' games. And it's why baseball is the best.
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
Yup 100% 162 games of highs and lows. Right now this team is trending up, at the very least my hopes are trending that way as well.
Wise words--could not agree more. The Yankees still have the third best offense, runs scored, in MLB and the 7th best team ERA (which is 3.69, right behind our Sox 3.57).
The Sox team OPS, .741, is 7th best, but our runs scored are 12th. Sox have scored 402 runs to the Yankees 447. That's roughly 1/2 run per game less.
Caution notwithstanding, since June 4, the Sox are 17-8 and the Yankees 11-16.
Have to like Cora's attitude. When asked about the wild card race , he said " Let's get greedy and win the division." Or something to that effect. That is what you want to hear from everyone in the organization. Especially now as they head into what is probably the biggest series of the season to date.
Old school is good school.
Nailed it. Again. The genius--if you want to give the Farrelly brothers that much credit--of Fever Pitch is that it captures the length and grandeur of an entire MLB season as well as the agony and ecstasy of the postseason, but especially the incredible ALCS vs the Yankees.
Worth noting, I think, is that just 3 years ago--not 300 years ago as the nattering nabobs of negativism would have us believe--the Sox did something similar when they got the wild card, beat Cone and the Yankees, and then beat the 100 win Rays, 3 games to 1, in the ALDS before going down to the Astros (4 games to 2) in the ALCS.
The Sox's Bogey, Kike, Devers, JDM, Renfro, Dugo, Arroyo, Vazquez, Schwarber (late acquisition), and Iggy (also late acquisition) all had pretty good seasons. Despite the absence of Mookie, the Sox offense was ranked 5th in runs scored.
But even with Eovaldi, Whitlock, Pivetta, ERod, Houck, et al, the 2021 Sox pitching was ranked 15th in MLB in team ERA. Plus Barnes as closer faded badly, and the Sox had no closer in the postseason.
Most of us voted the 2024 Sox would finish 81-81. I certainly thought so. But this bunch of no names (excluding Devers and Jansen) is playing pretty good ball, no thanks to Breslow, but many thanks to the Sox minor league system and especially to manager Alex Cora and his pitching coach. In fact, give some credit to the recently fired Chaim Bloom who acquired some of those no-names.
Right now both the Yankees and Sox are fighting for wild card slots. So maybe it helps that, when it comes to baserunning, the Sox are a whole lot wilder than the Yankees--86 SB's to 37.
Of course.
We may still see Grissom, instead.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
Agreed. While we still seem to be lacking that extra RH’d bat, we have some flexibility and unsung players that have taken up the slack in a very balanced way. We’ve improved our D since April. We’ve added speed on top an already upper tier speed team. The pen has been taking up the slack as our rotation has come down from that great start.
The middle IF has 2 RHBs: Rafaela & Romy.
The middle IF has 2 LHBs: DHam & Valdez.
The OF has 2 LHBs: Duran & Abreu (Yoshida)
The OF has 2 RHBs: O’Niell & Rafaela
Not many teams have a L-R catcher set-up.
Our rotation is 8th in fWAR & our pen is 4th.
Pretty damn balanced.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
You may disagree with this methodology, but here is one way to categorize our SPers by slots:
1-30 #1
31-60 #2
And so on… (by fWAR)
There are about 150 pitchers with 30+ IP as a SPer. Here are our slot rankings:
#1 Houck 3.3 ((T2nd)
#2 Crawford 1.7 (34th)
#3 Criswell 0.9 (79th)
#3 Pivetta 0.9 (79th)
#4 Bello 0.6 (101st)
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
i always thought that was the rule, but i swear, i think i saw the Rays do it once and thought WTF? maybe i just dreamed it.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote