A Realistic View of 2024: Part II

[Bellhorn04]

From all reports, they were more concerned about the trade deadlines and Blooms inactivity than bad FA signings.

 

Sneaky little reports that they were.

 

They had numerous things to choose from, unfortunately.

[Old Red]

Sneaky little reports that they were.

 

They had numerous things to choose from, unfortunately.

 

Fortunately the Red Sox had candidates banging on Sam’s door to take Bloom’s place. Brez popped out of the Cracker Jack box, and won.

[mvp 78]

Does this make sense: Team's #1 prospect shows he's finally healthy, rakes in Double A, succeeds in Triple A for the month of August, and ultimately gets a taste of The Show in September, filling the position that is the biggest hole on the big league diamond?

 

He'd have to get there first and staying healthy is no given. Also, an August callup to AAA is probably too late for a September callup to MLB IMO. I assume he would follow more of the Xander/Mookie progression and would be in WOO for 40-50 games. He'd have to be called up in June/early July for that to work. With his injury track record, I just don't see them rushing him as there would be a tendency for him trying to do too much. He topped out at 91 games before. He's not going to play 150 this year.

[mvp 78]

It's not the numbers so much as how he looks. He's small, he's slow and he has trouble getting the ball in the air.

 

The lack of loft has been concerning going back to last Spring Training.

[moonslav59]

Through 7/25/23, he had an 888 OPS. That's 2/3's of the season.

 

He had a 112 game stretch at .830. That was an 80% of season, continuous "stretch."

 

112/140

[mvp 78]

Sneaky little reports that they were.

 

They had numerous things to choose from, unfortunately.

 

It's clear that Bloom was indecisive and that was what all the reports stated. Other teams didn't even want to pick up the phone when he would call. It's clear that Breslow is far more decisive in how he has handled trades and working with other teams. Seems easy enough to put two and two together.

[moonslav59]

The lack of loft has been concerning going back to last Spring Training.

 

He hits the ball so weakly, I'm not sure loft would help.

[Old Red]

The lack of loft has been concerning going back to last Spring Training.

 

He likes playing ping pong, and he practices his serve to the IF when he is going bad.

[moonslav59]

From all reports, they were more concerned about the trade deadlines and Blooms inactivity than bad FA signings.

 

...and apparently the selling not buying aspect of trades not made.

[mvp 78]

He had a 112 game stretch at .830. That was an 80% of season, continuous "stretch."

 

112/140

 

That August dragged his 888 down with a 640 OPS.

 

APR 832

MAY 962

JUN 742

JUL 844

AUG 640

SEP 656

 

First 2/3 good, last 1/3 bad. Easy enough to spot the difference.

[moonslav59]

That August dragged his 888 down with a 640 OPS.

 

APR 832

MAY 962

JUN 742

JUL 844

AUG 640

SEP 656

 

First 2/3 good, last 1/3 bad. Easy enough to spot the difference.

 

True, but .830 through 112 games is good.

 

You can break it up many ways.

.557 7/31 to 8/21

.734 8/22 to 9/9

 

This makes saying all of August sucked look not so true.

 

He really had 3 bad stretches:

First 13 games

18 games from 7/31 to 8/21

Last 15 games

 

He had a 79 game hot streak at .905 (4/20 to 7/30)

 

He had a meh streak from 8/22 to 9/9 at .734.

 

I'm sure someone could split this into 6 or 7 "streaks," and show something different.

[mvp 78]

Yeah, 830 is still good. I get all the anger towards Yoshida. He still had a good year last year until he fell apart at the end. Hard to take away the first 2/3's of the season from him. He's struggling now and maybe he can turn it around again because he has before. It's not like he's the only one struggling either.

 

I'm not the biggest fan of his game and I agree that he's overpaid and that he's stuck here unless the Sox eat his salary. Thanks, Bloom.

[notin]

Yeah, 830 is still good. I get all the anger towards Yoshida. He still had a good year last year until he fell apart at the end. Hard to take away the first 2/3's of the season from him. He's struggling now and maybe he can turn it around again because he has before. It's not like he's the only one struggling either.

 

I'm not the biggest fan of his game and I agree that he's overpaid and that he's stuck here unless the Sox eat his salary. Thanks, Bloom.

 

He started fairly slowly last year, too. A year ago, his OPS was .680...

[redsoxrules]

No comment. I get the excitement for his extension, but I think there was less than a 50% chance that he was going to make over 50M over that time period.

 

Dude just hasn't hit AT ALL at the MLB level. Sure he can field, but those guys aren't making a ton of ARB money.

 

I wouldn't event say he can field. He missed played a liner last year VS Toronto that would of been the final out of the and instead Toronto walked off on them. And the silly drop from the other day. He hasn't impressed me much on the field overall yet

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Batting observations from an observer:

 

1. when Yoshida first batted in ST '23, his approach was to try to yank early in the count, and then go oppo with two strikes. There's no reason not to return to that plan, because it's not as if pitchers are afraid to challenge him...

 

2. ... same with Devers this ST -- when it looked like he was ready to be a .300 hitter with 90 extra base hits again. But as long as he keeps hacking at highballs out of the zone, any pitcher would be crazy to throw him a strike.

 

3. Abreu has been pulling his head on every single swing since Florida -- it is so obvious on TV, viewers don't even need to rewind to see it. The coaches must be telling him every day: You can't hit what you don't see. Right?

[redsoxrules]

You make "that stretch" sound like it was a month long, or something.

 

He was still at .901 on June 4th, 2023.

 

From April 20 to Sept 9th, he hit .830 (112 games and 469 PAs out of his 580 total.)

 

His two bad stretches were:

.560 to start the year (13 games- sound familiar?)

.591 last 15 games of the season.

 

It seems more accurate to say his 2023 season was marred by two 2-week stretches than to say he was carried by pretty strong 5 month "stretch."

 

That being said, I am losing confidence, very quickly, here, despite the fact that he started off slowly, last year, too.

 

 

He was aided a lot by dink hits and little dribblers for singles. In fact I think he led the league in infield hits last year. He's not going to get lucky every year on these.

 

His AVG got a boost from this last year which inflitated his OPS some. Notice how so far this year not much of his dinky dribblers are working out for him

[mvp 78]

He started fairly slowly last year, too. A year ago, his OPS was .680...

 

Yes and he was able to turn it around quickly early on.

[mvp 78]

He was aided a lot by dink hits and little dribblers for singles. In fact I think he led the league in infield hits last year. He's not going to get lucky every year on these.

 

His AVG got a boost from this last year which inflitated his OPS some. Notice how so far this year not much of his dinky dribblers are working out for him

 

He gets "lucky" because that's where all his balls go. Eventually, what he hits goes through. He'll have hot and cold streaks. It's just the nature of how he approaches hitting. Hard to say he was "lucky" or that his "average was boosted" if his BABIP was only 316.

[moonslav59]

He was aided a lot by dink hits and little dribblers for singles. In fact I think he led the league in infield hits last year. He's not going to get lucky every year on these.

 

His AVG got a boost from this last year which inflitated his OPS some. Notice how so far this year not much of his dinky dribblers are working out for him

 

I'm not sure it was luck. When you lead the league in grounders, you get a lot of IF hits.

[mvp 78]

I'm not sure it was luck. When you lead the league in grounders, you get a lot of IF hits.

 

Just put the ball in play! Less k's! It worked back in the 80's!

[notin]

Old ownership in Boston still wants to sell tickets. And if the Red Sox are as bad as most predicted -- and we all saw the past two days -- it has to be 50-50 whether the front office is compelled to bring up its version of the Orioles' future superstars.

 

It's not just Breslow, publicly counting on the Big Three (now in Portland), but Bloom's "You know what's coming..." and virtually anyone involved in roster construction.

 

Bad teams going nowhere often call up top prospects to generate hope for the fanbase and to give young players early big league experience in relatively stress-free competition. Not only can the youngsters acclimate to environments that get intense if/when the team returns to contention -- but their talents can help boost a club into contention.

 

What does the front office have to lose -- except service time, which they've now shown they're intent to buy out with extensions for the future core. You don't have to go to Yale to know that most fans aren't going to stay tuned to watch platoons of Hamilton/Romy and Pablo/Valdez... not, once the weather gets nice.

 

There is more than that.

 

Teams promoting top prospects can now earn an extra draft pick if the player accrues a year of service time per the PPI (Prospect Promotion Incentive) in the CBA.

 

A prospect has to qualify by being a top 100 prospect on X number of lists and have less than 60 days service time in his career. Mayer certainly meets these requirements. If the Sox promoted Mayer before the service time deadline and let him accrue 172 days on the MLB roster, the Sox would receive an extra draft pick after this first round, in what we used to call the sandwich round.

 

Jackson Holliday was promoted with 173 days left in the season for this exact reason. It certainly helped that he was absolutely raking in the minors and that some of the Orioles' infielders (notably Ramon Urias) were struggling. Story went down with about the same number of days left, leaving this an opportune time to promote Mayer as well. Except that at the time, Mayer had not yet played a game since August 2nd. This was probably a very large factor in not promoting him. And if it was not a factor, it damn well should have been.

 

The Orioles might have been able to promote Heston Kjerstad as well, as he was eligible for the PPI. And the early struggles of Santander and Austin Hays certainly justified getting him into the lineup. Not sure why they did not, unless there is a limit to how many PPI picks a team can accrue. Or it could be as simple as they have faith in Hays and Santander ending their slumps, unlike Ramon Urias. They also might have promoted Kjerstad if Ryan O'Hearn was struggling, but he is flat out mashing right now...

[redsoxrules]

Pitchers are better these day and fielders.

Harder to get hits than it was in the past

[mvp 78]

Pitchers are better these day and fielders.

Harder to get hits than it was in the past

 

Fielders are NOT better than they used to be. No way. I don't believe that for a second.

 

If pitchers are better, are you going to give Yoshida less of a hard time for struggling or no?

[notin]

Pitchers are better these day and fielders.

Harder to get hits than it was in the past

 

One largely unmentioned factor has been the demise of artificial turf surfaces that allowed groundballs to get through the infield faster...

[notin]

Fielders are NOT better than they used to be. No way. I don't believe that for a second.

 

If pitchers are better, are you going to give Yoshida less of a hard time for struggling or no?

 

I agree on the fielders. Very few players seem to make MLB solely with defensive reputations. Seattle's Evan White was one of the few who rose to MLB based on his glovework, and he was immediately extended b the Mariners. They now clearly regret doing so...

[Bellhorn04]

Pitchers are better these day and fielders.

Harder to get hits than it was in the past

 

Don't know about the fielders but the pitching is clearly much tougher. They throw harder and with more spin, and they have shorter outings.

[Old Red]

Fielders are NOT better than they used to be. No way. I don't believe that for a second.

 

If pitchers are better, are you going to give Yoshida less of a hard time for struggling or no?

 

🙈🤭🤮.

[mvp 78]

I agree on the fielders. Very few players seem to make MLB solely with defensive reputations. Seattle's Evan White was one of the few who rose to MLB based on his glovework, and he was immediately extended b the Mariners. They now clearly regret doing so...

 

Will the Sox regret their two extensions?

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

There is more than that.

 

Teams promoting top prospects can now earn an extra draft pick if the player accrues a year of service time per the PPI (Prospect Promotion Incentive) in the CBA.

 

A prospect has to qualify by being a top 100 prospect on X number of lists and have less than 60 days service time in his career. Mayer certainly meets these requirements. If the Sox promoted Mayer before the service time deadline and let him accrue 172 days on the MLB roster, the Sox would receive an extra draft pick after this first round, in what we used to call the sandwich round.

 

Jackson Holliday was promoted with 173 days left in the season for this exact reason. It certainly helped that he was absolutely raking in the minors and that some of the Orioles' infielders (notably Ramon Urias) were struggling. Story went down with about the same number of days left, leaving this an opportune time to promote Mayer as well. Except that at the time, Mayer had not yet played a game since August 2nd. This was probably a very large factor in not promoting him. And if it was not a factor, it damn well should have been.

 

The Orioles might have been able to promote Heston Kjerstad as well, as he was eligible for the PPI. And the early struggles of Santander and Austin Hays certainly justified getting him into the lineup. Not sure why they did not, unless there is a limit to how many PPI picks a team can accrue. Or it could be as simple as they have faith in Hays and Santander ending their slumps, unlike Ramon Urias. They also might have promoted Kjerstad if Ryan O'Hearn was struggling, but he is flat out mashing right now...

 

Good post. Back in the astroturf Seventies and Eighties, NL teams (with a majority of turf parks) and the Royals (closest thing to an NL team) recruited fast outfielders and quick infielders to stop or chase down speedy bouncers -- and nobody cared if those guys hit with power, because their wheels also generated plenty of extra bases if they hit gappers or choppers. Forget launch angle; in those days it was crunch angle.

[Old Red]

Will the Sox regret their two extensions?

 

Really? After 12 games? Wow!