Orioles (Sugano) vs Red Sox (Buehler): 8/19/25, 7:10pm

[moonslav59]

6 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Okay but it was a late signing that saved our bacon.  We wouldnt have gotten the chance had he not fallen out with astros and tigers.  We let that play out first because we are never aggressive.  

Who cares if it's late? Apparently we were in on many big names and got the last one. It still counts.

The Crochet deal took ballz we havent seen since DD.

The Chapman signing surprised us all, but lets just talk about 3 guys that failed at 2B and why Brez didnt add a 4th 2Bman.

I agree, he blew 1B.

[Maxbialystock]

7 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Just found the reason for last night's problem on Red Sox.com.

Batting Average with Bases Loaded 2025:

1.000 Casas, .667 Campbell, .500 Devers, .500 Refsnyder -- all gone (damaged, demoted, deported, debilitated)

.

 I looked that up too and saw that the Sox have accumulated 90 at bats with the bases loaded.  And the guy with the most bases loaded at bats, 14, is Story.  His OPS is 1.175.  Gonzalez has 6 at bats, OPS 1.667, Ref, 2 at bats. 1.100.  Toro, 5 at bats, .900, and Bregman, 9 at bats, .667,

The big disappointments are Duran, 10 at bats, .314, Rafaela, 6 at bats, .000, Narvaez, 5 at bats, .000 and Roman Anthony, 4 at bats, .000, 

Devers had 6 at bats with 2 grand slams, 12 rbi's,  and an OPS of 2.125.  Casas had 1 at bat, Campbell 3, and Abreu 7.  

In 90 at bats, the Sox OPS with the bases loaded is .877.  

[FredLynn]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

So, it was sarcasm. Fine.

"Maybe" 6-8 players is not a solid foundation. I'm fine with you believing this, but I disagree.

Crochet, Bello, Whitlock, Slaten are solid foundation pieces along with very promising  and could be called solid pitchers like Dobbins, Crawford, Sandoval and maybe Giolito. (I wont say Tolle and other prospects, just yet.)

Anthony, Bregman, Duran, Abreu and Narvaez are solid to me. Mayer, Campbell and maybe Jh Garica will be. Story & Casas look solid, when healthy and I know we disagree on Rafaela, but I see him as a plus player- not "mediocre." (Not "solid foundational", either.)

I see a solid core of 10-12 players with good chances of another 6- 8 being there, next year.

Tearing down would be "wait until next year" being 2031. Why would you advocate for that?

Are you saying we need to sign 18 free agents or trade for them and then win in 2026? 

Now, that's funny!

I would include Abreu in the "keeper" list. So maybe 8-10 players who have played this year on the ML team in combination with some of the talent in the minors. I disagree on Narvaez. I think he was a flash in the pan, though good defensively, he can't be counted on to hit the baseball-like Rafaela. The dismantling won't happen all at once. It will take 2-3 years. But with competent management the franchise could become relevant again. Why should we not demand that the team have the success rate of, say, the Astros? Thats my expectation.

[drewski6]

11 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Who cares if it's late? Apparently we were in on many big names and got the last one. It still counts.

The Crochet deal took ballz we havent seen since DD.

The Chapman signing surprised us all, but lets just talk about 3 guys that failed at 2B and why Brez didnt add a 4th 2Bman.

I agree, he blew 1B.

I care because its relevant.  Target the dudes you want, be aggressive.  Every offseason we are talking to every free agent and then watch them come off the board one by one.  We got lucky that Bregman was left looking for a home very late in the offseason.  Its our process which is bunk.  

Same at the deadline.  Too many irons in the fire, too much wait until last minute, too much wait ....wait.....wait

I was so happy when they got rid of verdugo because at least it was one position that would be turned over.

I just want more decisiveness and more churn.

[drewski6]

6 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I would include Abreu in the "keeper" list. So maybe 8-10 players who have played this year on the ML team in combination with some of the talent in the minors. I disagree on Narvaez. I think he was a flash in the pan, though good defensively, he can't be counted on to hit the baseball-like Rafaela. The dismantling won't happen all at once. It will take 2-3 years. But with competent management the franchise could become relevant again. Why should we not demand that the team have the success rate of, say, the Astros? Thats my expectation.

well thats absurd to expect them to win the division every year. The astros play in a notriously weak division

 

[FredLynn]

10 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

well thats absurd to expect them to win the division every year. The astros play in a notriously weak division

 

Thats not what I said. I said I expect them to be competitive NEARLY every year. When you finish last or finish at around .500 you are not competitive. Of note, after last night's game we are now on a pace to win 86+ games. Thats unacceptable if its year after year as it has been. No team competes EVERY year. The FLOPS have SUCKED since 2018 aside from one good year. Happy with that?

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, FredLynn said:

Thats not what I said. I said I expect them to be competitive NEARLY every year. When you finish last or finish at around .500 you are not competitive. Of note, after last night's game we are now on a pace to win 86+ games. Thats unacceptable if its year after year as it has been. No team competes EVERY year. The FLOPS have SUCKED since 2019 aside from one good year. Happy with that?

clearly not.  but im more focused on what they are doing vs you who is more focused on what they are getting

those two things dont always align, but in this case they do.

so we're in agreement, just focusing on different things.  You are focusing on results/record, im more focused on complacency and lack of roster churn

I am happy verdugo isnt on this team.  Dont take that for granted.  It could have very easily been year 7 of putting out the most mediocre of all mediocre players because why change from what you got? Lets just be comfortable and cozy with players we've grown to love and never give anyone up because we love alll our mediocre players

But yay, hes gone.  Get rid of Crapas next.  I dont think we're 10 games over if he doesnt blow out his leg on his first hustle ive ever seen

half my friends just want the dudes they know and im so sick of it.  my phone blew up when we got james paxton as if that was anything other than pathetic

go 0 -162 next year.  just try. 

[drewski6]

fred, im with you if you dial it back 18%

get rid of so many of these bums and ill be happy. and i dont really care if they are replaced with parking lot attendants.  Just anything other than using familiarity as an excuse.  My friend joey has never ever once seen a trade he hasnt hated. Because its always "but we already had x, and i cant believe we gave up y" pretty much if they ever played for us, they are awesome and deserve a 10 year long leash

i dont like it.  hes just happy to root for his team. he doesnt care about winning.  and i really dont either.  I just dont want to roll foward the same chumps every year.

bro i fought with everybody about verdugo.  EVERYBODY. Left that fish on the line for 3 years too many.  James Paxton.

Every offseason these people just want to resign our own guys.  Its just overrating your own.  Im a churner.  I average like 6 trades every fantasy season. Nobody else trades at all.  Becuase they already have all the best players in their eyes because they must be the best because its all hopium

 

[drewski6]

just get rid of people. i dont care. just get rid of people.

[drewski6]

if their plan for 1b next year is casas then we will never change. he shouldnt have been the plan this year either.

[drewski6]

There is one player on this team who i can think of that we had to have. The guy who was like "this is the guy we want, this is the guy we are going to get" ...Not to talk to every free-agent and trade target at the position and see where the results go. Just picked a dude, had to have him, got him

That player is Criswell.

Thats a problem.

[moonslav59]

42 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

...and you wanna talk about wait till next year.  dodgers and nyy are adding 5 all-stars a pop this offseason.  And Ill laugh.

The Yanks have been losing large salaries and some good players almost as much as they have been adding them, and their core of young players is not close to our level.

[moonslav59]

24 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

I just want more decisiveness and more churn.

It has been more. (More than very little may still not be enough, but the decisiveness meter jumped, a lot, this past winter.)

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, moonslav59 said:

It has been more. (More than very little may still not be enough, but the decisiveness meter jumped, a lot, this past winter.)

yes but joey would rather it go back the other way

[moonslav59]

Nobody felt like we did what it took before the 2021 season, but we ended up doing well. I felt we did more before the 2022 season than the one in 2021, but we did way worse.

Things don't always align with effort and actual data on who you added, each year.

The fact is, after the Betts trade, our roster was pitiful: very few stars, too few decent players and nearly 20 guys on the 40 man roster that were near replacement level players. To top it off, our farm sucked.

"Wait till next year" was really about hoping JH would spend $120M AAV, all at once. It wasn't based on thinking we had a solid foundation and just needed a few key pieces: we needed like 8-12 key pieces, each off season, well, maybe that number decreases by 1-2, each season after 2020.

I'm not trying to sugar coat the current "wait till next year" sentiment that is spreading like wildfire, here, but I for one am very optimistic about our future, and it is no longer dependent on hoping JH does something outlandish- like up the budget by $100M. To me, just bring Bregman & Chapman back and replace Buehler's $21M, Gio's $19M, Hendriks' $5M and $4M from Wilson and Ref with a solid SP'er, pen arm and a rightside infield guy and we should be a top 4 contender. That was totally unrealistic before 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

This does not change what happens, this year. It sucks to be even thinking about "wait till next year" in August, but the fact is, we did "do a lot" and "get a lot" this past winter. We got way more right than wrong. Despite 4 or 5 of our best 8 SP'ers missing most or all of 2025, the depth was there to keep us in this thing. As much as we poo-ppo'd the M & M additions, they have done okay, yet we keep hearing "tear it all down," Fire Brez & Cora," over and over. 

I'm so far away from that position, I can't even say by how much. 

We've hit a rough patch. Some want to believe that means we will continue like this for the rest of the season, and maybe we do. I think this team is better than this. We've bounced back all year, and I'm not being a homer to think we might do it again.

There has been so much turnover in the past 2 years, that this team is barely recognizable compared to 2022 or 2023. The senior most 40 man roster players were added in 2020! (Houck, Whitlock & Wong.) We only have 7 players on the 40 from the 2021 forty man roster and 3 were on the IL, all year or most of it! 16 players were on the 2022 team with 6 on the 60 day IL!

23 players on the forty were not on the 40, when Brez arrived, but we should somehow expect this team to "FLOP" like they did. The idea is absurd, to me. (Sorry, Fred, but it just is.)

 

[moonslav59]

28 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

if their plan for 1b next year is casas then we will never change. he shouldnt have been the plan this year either.

It should have been Devers at 1B and Casas at DH on day 1.

[FredLynn]

40 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

clearly not.  but im more focused on what they are doing vs you who is more focused on what they are getting

those two things dont always align, but in this case they do.

so we're in agreement, just focusing on different things.  You are focusing on results/record, im more focused on complacency and lack of roster churn

I am happy verdugo isnt on this team.  Dont take that for granted.  It could have very easily been year 7 of putting out the most mediocre of all mediocre players because why change from what you got? Lets just be comfortable and cozy with players we've grown to love and never give anyone up because we love alll our mediocre players

But yay, hes gone.  Get rid of Crapas next.  I dont think we're 10 games over if he doesnt blow out his leg on his first hustle ive ever seen

half my friends just want the dudes they know and im so sick of it.  my phone blew up when we got james paxton as if that was anything other than pathetic

go 0 -162 next year.  just try. 

I’m admittedly a bottom line kinda guy. I don’t really care if they make a single trade or acquisition as long as they are competitive for a playoff spot nearly every year. That has obviously not been the case and too many fans are tolerating it by showing up at the park or making excuses on message boards. 

[drewski6]

8 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Nobody felt like we did what it took before the 2021 season, but we ended up doing well. I felt we did more before the 2022 season than the one in 2021, but we did way worse.

Things don't always align with effort and actual data on who you added, each year.

The fact is, after the Betts trade, our roster was pitiful: very few stars, too few decent players and nearly 20 guys on the 40 man roster that were near replacement level players. To top it off, our farm sucked.

"Wait till next year" was really about hoping JH would spend $120M AAV, all at once. It wasn't based on thinking we had a solid foundation and just needed a few key pieces: we needed like 8-12 key pieces, each off season, well, maybe that number decreases by 1-2, each season after 2020.

I'm not trying to sugar coat the current "wait till next year" sentiment that is spreading like wildfire, here, but I for one am very optimistic about our future, and it is no longer dependent on hoping JH does something outlandish- like up the budget by $100M. To me, just bring Bregman & Chapman back and replace Buehler's $21M, Gio's $19M, Hendriks' $5M and $4M from Wilson and Ref with a solid SP'er, pen arm and a rightside infield guy and we should be a top 4 contender. That was totally unrealistic before 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

This does not change what happens, this year. It sucks to be even thinking about "wait till next year" in August, but the fact is, we did "do a lot" and "get a lot" this past winter. We got way more right than wrong. Despite 4 or 5 of our best 8 SP'ers missing most or all of 2025, the depth was there to keep us in this thing. As much as we poo-ppo'd the M & M additions, they have done okay, yet we keep hearing "tear it all down," Fire Brez & Cora," over and over. 

I'm so far away from that position, I can't even say by how much. 

We've hit a rough patch. Some want to believe that means we will continue like this for the rest of the season, and maybe we do. I think this team is better than this. We've bounced back all year, and I'm not being a homer to think we might do it again.

There has been so much turnover in the past 2 years, that this team is barely recognizable compared to 2022 or 2023. The senior most 40 man roster players were added in 2020! (Houck, Whitlock & Wong.) We only have 7 players on the 40 from the 2021 forty man roster and 3 were on the IL, all year or most of it! 16 players were on the 2022 team with 6 on the 60 day IL!

23 players on the forty were not on the 40, when Brez arrived, but we should somehow expect this team to "FLOP" like they did. The idea is absurd, to me. (Sorry, Fred, but it just is.)

 

Im open to the possibility that I am holding bloom against breslow and have gotten what i want (turnover and churn) but am having trouble seeing it due to fighting with friends for years that we need more than to just bring back the same players from last years team because youve grown to like them (joey)

but this deadline felt like more of the same. And your offseason plan doesnt have enough churn.

[drewski6]

10 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

It should have been Devers at 1B and Casas at DH on day 1.

Devers at 3b, Bregman at 2b, teoscar hernandez at dh, casas traded for luis castillo

[moonslav59]

Just now, drewski6 said:

Devers at 3b, Bregman at 1b, teoscar hernandez at dh, casas traded for luis castillo

That's just silly. Bregman is near GG at 3B, Devers is better than Casas at 1B. Casas might be healthy at DH.

Casas & DHam for castillo-- YES!!!

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I’m admittedly a bottom line kinda guy. I don’t really care if they make a single trade or acquisition as long as they are competitive for a playoff spot nearly every year. That has obviously not been the case and too many fans are tolerating it by showing up at the park or making excuses on message boards. 

I am admittedly more annoyed by people telling me we need to rollover the same team that finished last the year prior than I am from the annoyance of actually finishing last

[drewski6]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That's just silly. Bregman is near GG at 3B, Devers is better than Casas at 1B. Casas might be healthy at DH.

Casas & DHam for castillo-- YES!!!

I meant Breg at 2b

I dont believe in positions.  If Varsho can go from an elite catcher to the best cf in the league in 1 month, you either got it or you dont.

Bregman can play anywhere, but I agree is wasted at 1b.

[drewski6]

I dont believe in positions in basketball either.

[FredLynn]

Just now, drewski6 said:

I am admittedly more annoyed by people telling me we need to rollover the same team that finished last the year prior than I am from the annoyance of actually finishing last

It’s not just “rolling over the same team “. It’s the way they go about their business. It’s straddling the fence at the TD. It’s letting players leave because Henry was too cheap to keep them. The mechanism by which they have achieved consistent mediocrity is integrally related to the mediocrity itself. They can’t keep pulling the same s*** and expect different results.

[drewski6]

ANd I dont want casas healthy, I want him off the team.

I wont go as far as to say casas is the new verdugo but only because of my undying hatred for verdugo. ANd it has nothing to do with him being involved in the betts trade

Hes a bad person and the most average of baseball players and for years people liked him and he cant run or hit and he is soooo the paradigm of "well we had him here last couple years, so i guess we'll trot him out there again"

Telling my friends for years that we need to move on from teh verdugos and the paxtons and the rich hills is 90% of my identity.

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

I meant Breg at 2b

I dont believe in positions.  If Varsho can go from an elite catcher to the best cf in the league in 1 month, you either got it or you dont.

Bregman can play anywhere, but I agree is wasted at 1b.

This is not silly, but Mayer at 2B, Bregman at 3B and Devers at 1B would have been better.

I don't fault Brez for thinking Mayer, Campbell & DHam could take care of 2B for 2025.

the 1B fiasco is 100% Brez.

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, FredLynn said:

It’s not just “rolling over the same team “. It’s the way they go about their business. It’s straddling the fence at the TD. It’s letting players leave because Henry was too cheap to keep them. The mechanism by which they have achieved consistent mediocrity is integrally related to the mediocrity itself. They can’t keep pulling the same s*** and expect different results.

preach!

like i said earlier - you are focusd on the lack of results (what they are getting), I am focused on the lack of effort and urgency (what they are doing). Those 2 things dont always align.  You can do everything right and fail. Its possible and it happens....

But in the red sox case....5 years of mediocrity (and counting) is 100% related to what they have been doing. Lack of urgency. TD indecisiveness. Rudderless.  This team is the epitome of buying AND selling. Who even made that a thing? Of course, you cant do both.  And our "buy but yet sell" big plan this deadline didnt even manifest because it was always dumb.

[drewski6]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

This is not silly, but Mayer at 2B, Bregman at 3B and Devers at 1B would have been better.

I don't fault Brez for thinking Mayer, Campbell & DHam could take care of 2B for 2025.

the 1B fiasco is 100% Brez.

Ill take it.

[moonslav59]

Don't be surprised if we run back the 1B situation, again in 2026.

Lowe, Campbell and Jh Garcia are added to the mix, but likely nobody else will be added to the roster.

Would Arreaz be a possible signing, since he can play 1B and maybe still some 2B?

[Maxbialystock]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Toro has been dreadful for a while now, Max.  It's not just last night.

I completely agree. My point is that pinning last nights' loss on him is wrong, especially when the inning before the Sox had the bases full and 3 Sox struck out.  Toro at least hit the ball.  If he's hit in the right place, he would have been the hero.