Red Sox (Giolito) vs Orioles (Bradish): 8/26/25, 6:35pm

[moonslav59]

46 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

How’s his ops doing? And I think he’s got something like 6 hits in his last 65 ABs. He has no plate discipline and his offensive performance is sinking like a rock. He’s a fair target for criticism and trying to defend him for his offense really isn’t a good look. Face it: he’s not helping the team with his bat, and he has too much company. I predicted his end of season OPS was going to be between.720-.740. I don’t think he’ll even be that good.

I know his OPS has been falling, recently, but why not apply "recency" to DHam, Lowe and Wong. If that's the criteria, then they are not "black holes."

His offense is not an asset. I'm just saying he's very near the league norm and above the league CF norm on O. If that's "defending him," then so be it.

BTW, .720 to .740 is above the league norm, and I thought you projected worse than that back earlier in the season. It was only after he was reaching near .795 that you raised your projections to slightly above the league norm and still said he sucks on offense.

Maybe this is just semantic: to you average sucks, and being great of defense apparently doesn't change his overall value enough to pull him out of the sucking category.

He doesn't suck, even just looking at offense. He is .010 below the league average OPS. Maybe you will end up gloating over a .700 or sub .700 end of season mark. Maybe not. He's proven one thing: he's streaky. He also seems to hit better when not in the infield.

[moonslav59]

22 minutes ago, Tedballgame said:

I love what Cedanne brings to the team. Gold glove, defense in centerfield. The ability to play shortstop, second base, and all three outfield positions. His hitting and plate discipline have improved greatly from last year. He is only going to get better. Anybody that hates him does not know baseball.

Even if he stays at .710 and plays GG type defense, runs well and provides decent middle infield depth, something this team has needed for nearly a decade, he's a clear plus player. WAR agrees by a landslide.

[moonslav59]

19 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

Narvaez has tailed off as expected. DHam is a sub who is going to see more reps than he really should. Wong will likely improve on his abysmal OPS to date because there’s no place for him to go but up. Even Story has an OPS barely above league average. These are some of the reasons we can’t afford to have a black hole like Rafaela out there every day 

If Rafaela is a blackhole because of recency, then DHam and Wong are not. Our 1B position is no longer a Toro-fueled blackhole, either.

Just pick one criteria and stick with it consistently.

[Bellhorn04]

Doesn't matter how much data or arguments we present, of course.  Nothing will alter his opinion.  We're doing this for ourselves, basically. 😄

[FredLynn]

12 minutes ago, notin said:

Are we really attacking Rafaela by defending Wong with an OPS that has no place to go but up?  Thats the textbook example of a rationalization.  Unless his OPS is 0.000, it can go down…

Who’s defending Wong? While I admit he’s looking a bit better at the plate lately his performance for the year is horrible 

[Nick]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Even if he stays at .710 and plays GG type defense, runs well and provides decent middle infield depth, something this team has needed for nearly a decade, he's a clear plus player. WAR agrees by a landslide.

Next year, hopefully we can just put him in center field and not worry about him. He's a gold glover. 

We have other things to worry about. 

He's not the problem.

[notin]

14 minutes ago, Nick said:

Next year, hopefully we can just put him in center field and not worry about him. He's a gold glover. 

We have other things to worry about. 

He's not the problem.

Is there even a problem right now?  The Sox have been on a torrid pace for the past 7 weeks.

I think some folks got a bit worked up over those two losses to Baltimore.  First - only two losses.  Second, they did face one of the best pitchers in the AL in one game and then lost the second in extra innings.  It’s not like they dropped both games 30-0 and Baltimore pulled all their entire starting lineup in the fourth inning and replaced them with the starting players’ children, most of whom are 6 and under and half of whom are girls, and the Sox were STILL overmatched…

[FredLynn]

24 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

If Rafaela is a blackhole because of recency, then DHam and Wong are not. Our 1B position is no longer a Toro-fueled blackhole, either.

Just pick one criteria and stick with it consistently.

As I have written here over and over again: its a matter of context. Rafaela had a minor flash in the pan. Thats over now. As I suspected because he has no plate discipline his numbers are again tailing off, down to near the level you said you would not play him regularly, below .700. Wong doesn't have that fatal flaw, and DHam is simply a backup player from whom we can expect very little-anything we get from him is gravy. Put it all together and we need more punch in the lineup that Rafaela is providing.

[moonslav59]

Nobody likes watching a player on their favorite team swing at balls 2 feet out of the zone. We all wish he could hit better.

We have differing opinions on just how low a batter can be, before he becomes a net negative value to a team. Maybe that has to do with how much value you are willing to assign to defense and base running.

If Rafaela falls far below the norm on batting, maybe he can become a net negative player. Right now, he is far from that, IMO and the opinion of bWAR and fWAR.

[moonslav59]

44 minutes ago, Nick said:

Next year, hopefully we can just put him in center field and not worry about him. He's a gold glover. 

We have other things to worry about. 

He's not the problem.

Solving the middle infield problems and depth issues would go a long way towards reaching that worthy goal.

Easing the OF logjam could also force the need to not take Rafaela out of te OF, because the options to replace him are worse than the choices at 2B or SS. 

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Doesn't matter how much data or arguments we present, of course.  Nothing will alter his opinion.  We're doing this for ourselves, basically. 😄

I could say the same thing about his "data". WAR is only one metric. There are others. For example, his OPS+ is down to 94, BELOW average. His OPS is .709, also BELOW average. Since the ASB his BA is .188 and his OPS is .491-in 137 PAs, not a small sample. I wrote earlier that I thought this would happen as he got tired from the long season.

In a vacumn given his defense it might be tolerable, but with so many other guys falling off the cliff (Narvaez, Gonzalez etc) he's a liability. But as I said, cheer up! He's not going anywhere. But he remains fair game to be targeted for criticism just as the Sox announcers have done ("we gotta get him going" etc). It strikes me as a bit blind for ostensibly knowledgeable posters not to see that.

 

[Bellhorn04]

1 minute ago, FredLynn said:

I could say the same thing about his "data". WAR is only one metric. There are others. For example, his OPS+ is down to 94, BELOW average. His OPS is .709, also BELOW average. In a vacumn given his defense it might be tolerable, but with so many other guys falling off the cliff (Narvaez, Gonzalez etc) he's a liability. But as I said, cheer up! He's not going anywhere. But he remains fair game to be targeted for criticism just as the Sox announcers have done ("we gotta get him going" etc). It strikes me as a bit blind for ostensibly knowledgeable posters not to see that.

 

Knowledgeable posters understand perfectly well that Rafaela has approach issues at the plate and that the team knows that too and that they are the ones who manage the players.  Sox announcers saying "we gotta get him going" accomplishes nothing.

 

  

[mvp 78]

8 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I could say the same thing about his "data". WAR is only one metric. There are others. For example, his OPS+ is down to 94, BELOW average. His OPS is .709, also BELOW average. In a vacumn given his defense it might be tolerable, but with so many other guys falling off the cliff (Narvaez, Gonzalez etc) he's a liability. But as I said, cheer up! He's not going anywhere. But he remains fair game to be targeted for criticism just as the Sox announcers have done ("we gotta get him going" etc). It strikes me as a bit blind for ostensibly knowledgeable posters not to see that.

But why worry about Rafaela hitting at his expected level and not complain about the "many other guys falling off a cliff" instead? I don't think many of us projected Rafaela to be a 100 OPS+ guy. The posters who saw him as a 800 OPS guy when he was running hot pre-ASB and were saying "Mookie who?" were fooling themselves.

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Knowledgeable posters understand perfectly well that Rafaela has approach issues at the plate and that the team knows that too and that they are the ones who manage the players.  Sox announcers saying "we gotta get him going" accomplishes nothing.

It's the equivalent of clapping for Tinkerbell. 

[FredLynn]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Knowledgeable posters understand perfectly well that Rafaela has approach issues at the plate and that the team knows that too and that they are the ones who manage the players.  Sox announcers saying "we gotta get him going" accomplishes nothing.

 

  

It accomplishes nothing other than stating the obvious, I agree. Look, I wish he could "get going" too. I just don't see it. Very few players who lack plate discipline are successful with a bat. I think he will have a few more streaks where he is better, but overall the trend will be negative for him, unfortunately.

[Bellhorn04]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

But why worry about Rafaela hitting at his expected level and not complain about the "many other guys falling off a cliff" instead? I don't think many of us projected Rafaela to be a 100 OPS+ guy. The posters who saw him as a 800 OPS guy when he was running hot pre-ASB and were saying "Mookie who?" were fooling themselves.

And as you have pointed out over and over, when Rafaela was in the minors the team tried to alter his approach but it made him worse.

[FredLynn]

2 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

But why worry about Rafaela hitting at his expected level and not complain about the "many other guys falling off a cliff" instead? I don't think many of us projected Rafaela to be a 100 OPS+ guy. The posters who saw him as a 800 OPS guy when he was running hot pre-ASB and were saying "Mookie who?" were fooling themselves.

I HAVE commented on the other guys who are slumping too! I won't waste my time listing them: you know who they are. The difference is that most of them have much better plate discipline than Rafaela and therefore have a better chance of picking it up again.

[FredLynn]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

And as you have pointed out over and over, when Rafaela was in the minors the team tried to alter his approach but it made him worse.

Thats just it: I DON'T expect him to change. So he will remain a below average hitter and at some level the team will not be able to afford to have him in the lineup every day, just like what happened to JBJ.

[Bellhorn04]

4 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

Thats just it: I DON'T expect him to change. So he will remain a below average hitter and at some level the team will not be able to afford to have him in the lineup every day, just like what happened to JBJ.

Of course that's a possibility.  But the comparisons to JBJ may not have any relevance because we don't really  know exactly what caused the demise of his hitting.  His swing and plate approach were much different from Rafaela's.  He had kind of a big loopy swing.   

      

[mvp 78]

7 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I HAVE commented on the other guys who are slumping too! I won't waste my time listing them: you know who they are. The difference is that most of them have much better plate discipline than Rafaela and therefore have a better chance of picking it up again.

I don't know if I agree with that. Players like Romy, Hamilton, Wong don't have career numbers that are much better than Rafaela. Rafaela succeeds in ways those players can't even though he infuriates me by swinging at very first pitch and can't lay off sliders 3 feet outside. The problem isn't that the players are struggling, but that the Sox have had to rely heavily on parttime players to play fulltime roles. They were lucky to get great performances out of Romy and Rafaela when they were going hot. Just don't expect that to be the norm! 

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Of course that's a possibility.  But the comparisons to JBJ may not have any relevance because we don't really  know exactly what caused the demise of his hitting.  His swing and plate approach were much different from Rafaela's.  He had kind of a big loopy swing.   

      

From 15-20, JBJ had a 101 OPS+. I'd rather him have a JBJ/Kiermaier track than a Kevin Pillar track. When he provides defensive value, there will always be a spot for him. Not every player needs to be an All Star to start on this team.

[notin]

27 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

From 15-20, JBJ had a 101 OPS+. I'd rather him have a JBJ/Kiermaier track than a Kevin Pillar track. When he provides defensive value, there will always be a spot for him. Not every player needs to be an All Star to start on this team.

Blasphemer!!

[mvp 78]

11 minutes ago, notin said:

Blasphemer!!

The greatest team in Sox history had a starting lineup that had 4 BELOW AVERAGE hitters in it (catcher, Moreland, Nunez, JBJ) and they still won a boat load of games. 

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

I don't know if I agree with that. Players like Romy, Hamilton, Wong don't have career numbers that are much better than Rafaela. Rafaela succeeds in ways those players can't even though he infuriates me by swinging at very first pitch and can't lay off sliders 3 feet outside. The problem isn't that the players are struggling, but that the Sox have had to rely heavily on parttime players to play fulltime roles. They were lucky to get great performances out of Romy and Rafaela when they were going hot. Just don't expect that to be the norm! 

I agree with most of this. Maybe even all of it. Romy, Hamilton, and Wong simply aren't that good. Unfortunately watching Rafaela seems worse because he can't seem to lay off balls in the dirt or a foot outside. The other guys don't really have better numbers, I agree, but somehow, to me, watching them is less painful. This team has definitely been badly bitten by injuries and as you said, we have had to rely on subs way too much.

[Bellhorn04]

20 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I agree with most of this. Maybe even all of it. Romy, Hamilton, and Wong simply aren't that good.

On the other hand, they have all contributed at times.

And they're all making peanuts.

If you buy into WAR at all, Hamilton is actually an above average player, even this year, with a bWAR of 0.9 in 161 PA.  Last year it was 2.6 bWAR in 317 PA.  Obviously the advanced metrics really like his defense and love his speed.  He has some power, too.    

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, FredLynn said:

I could say the same thing about his "data". WAR is only one metric. There are others. For example, his OPS+ is down to 94, BELOW average. His OPS is .709, also BELOW average. Since the ASB his BA is .188 and his OPS is .491-in 137 PAs, not a small sample. I wrote earlier that I thought this would happen as he got tired from the long season.

In a vacumn given his defense it might be tolerable, but with so many other guys falling off the cliff (Narvaez, Gonzalez etc) he's a liability. But as I said, cheer up! He's not going anywhere. But he remains fair game to be targeted for criticism just as the Sox announcers have done ("we gotta get him going" etc). It strikes me as a bit blind for ostensibly knowledgeable posters not to see that.

 

Nobody is saying he is a plus on offense. And again, you focus on recent numbers by a cherry-picked date that only is chosen to aid your point. You call Wong and DHam blackholes, but they have good to great OPS since the same date you picked for Rafaela. Please explain why the criteria changes so easily?

Rafaela is at .773 since May 27th. It's a larger sample size, but select chosen recency matters more for him than DHam, Wong, Lowe and others, apparently.

[moonslav59]

Out of 17 players with 100+ PAs, 9 have a higher OPS+ than Rafaela (one is Devers) and 6 have worse. Even if your focus is 90-95% on offense, which is questionable, there are others to pick on, more often.

[FredLynn]

35 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Nobody is saying he is a plus on offense. And again, you focus on recent numbers by a cherry-picked date that only is chosen to aid your point. You call Wong and DHam blackholes, but they have good to great OPS since the same date you picked for Rafaela. Please explain why the criteria changes so easily?

Rafaela is at .773 since May 27th. It's a larger sample size, but select chosen recency matters more for him than DHam, Wong, Lowe and others, apparently.

Rafaela is BELOW my Mendoza line for the season. And I fully expect it to get worse. 
Where’s your OPS cutoff for him to get used as a late inning replacement?

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

On the other hand, they have all contributed at times.

And they're all making peanuts.

If you buy into WAR at all, Hamilton is actually an above average player, even this year, with a bWAR of 0.9 in 161 PA.  Last year it was 2.6 bWAR in 317 PA.  Obviously the advanced metrics really like his defense and love his speed.  He has some power, too.    

They have contributed at times, but you don't want those players to be on the field 75% of the time. They are role players for a reason. 

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

Nobody is saying he is a plus on offense. And again, you focus on recent numbers by a cherry-picked date that only is chosen to aid your point. You call Wong and DHam blackholes, but they have good to great OPS since the same date you picked for Rafaela. Please explain why the criteria changes so easily?

Rafaela is at .773 since May 27th. It's a larger sample size, but select chosen recency matters more for him than DHam, Wong, Lowe and others, apparently.

Rafaela:

3/27-6/27: 702 OPS

6/28-7/18: 1214 OPS

7/19-current: 491 OPS

Cut up the numbers however you want. Aside from a three week stretch before the ASB, his numbers have been as expected or worse.