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

[moonslav59]

29 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

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?

I'm assuming this is a hypothetica question based on our current roster and situation.

For a GG type CF'er with baserunning skills? Maybe .650 to .675, but it depends on who else is an option to play CF and OF. Abreu is on the IL, but let's assume all are healthy and hitting about what they are, now.

I would not bench a .600 Rafaela, so Yoshida can DH, instead of Duran/Anthony. This could be what the choice boils down to.

If we still had Devers as our DH and 1B and 2B issues solved, and it came down to 3 OF slots and Duran, Anthony, Abreu and Rafaela to choose from, I'd platoon a .600 Rafaela with Duran or Abreu, but never play him over Anthony, unless he was over .850 (and Anthony would pay over Duran and Abreu). Vs RHPs, I would not start Rafaela over Duran or Abreu, unless he was over .775 or maybe more. I'd use him as a late inning defense for Duran.

Rafaela has very close L-R splits, this year and career. (Career, he actually hits RHPs better.) The way Yoshida is hitting, I may never bench Rafaela, even if he hits .500 the rest of the season. If Yoshida gets back to his .790 norm, then maybe .600-.625? It's notan easy call.

[moonslav59]

15 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

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. 

Yes, one can slice and dice to make almost any point. I'm fine with .702 for a GG type CF with some baserunning value added. So, to me, I'd just count 3/27 to 7/18 at .793 for a proper sample breakdown.

.793 in 345 PAs

.491 in 133 PAs

I am concerned that this is the second season he has slumped near the end of the season. Last year, he was at .477 over his final 95 PAs.

I'm not trying to make him out to be a plus on offense. He's streaky- kinds like JBJ was. He K's too much and walks too little. He has poor plate discipline. I don't think anyone denies these facts.

The facts are also that the league OPS has fallen, while his has improved. The norm is not about .720 and he is at .709. If he ends up ayt .690, I'll worry more about next year, but I'd still have him firmly pencilled in as my FT CF'er for all of 2026.

[Bellhorn04]

14 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm assuming this is a hypothetica question based on our current roster and situation.

For a GG type CF'er with baserunning skills? Maybe .650 to .675, but it depends on who else is an option to play CF and OF. Abreu is on the IL, but let's assume all are healthy and hitting about what they are, now.

I would not bench a .600 Rafaela, so Yoshida can DH, instead of Duran/Anthony. This could be what the choice boils down to.

If we still had Devers as our DH and 1B and 2B issues solved, and it came down to 3 OF slots and Duran, Anthony, Abreu and Rafaela to choose from, I'd platoon a .600 Rafaela with Duran or Abreu, but never play him over Anthony, unless he was over .850 (and Anthony would pay over Duran and Abreu). Vs RHPs, I would not start Rafaela over Duran or Abreu, unless he was over .775 or maybe more. I'd use him as a late inning defense for Duran.

Rafaela has very close L-R splits, this year and career. (Career, he actually hits RHPs better.) The way Yoshida is hitting, I may never bench Rafaela, even if he hits .500 the rest of the season. If Yoshida gets back to his .790 norm, then maybe .600-.625? It's notan easy call.

In 2024 Rafaela had a 2.8 bWAR in 152 games, which is above average but not bigly, with an OPS of .664.  So his tipping point is somewhere around there, which is in line with your numbers.

[moonslav59]

11 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

In 2024 Rafaela had a 2.8 bWAR in 152 games, which is above average but not bigly, with an OPS of .664.  So his tipping point is somewhere around there, which is in line with your numbers.

Even if you go by his fWAR (1.0) in 2024, he was ranked 210th in MLB. That is bottom 7th tier out of 9 players per team. He's still a starter in MLB. 

I get how you want better than a bottom 7/9ths player to have a winning team, but many teams win with starters worse than that.

Combine 2024 and 2025 and his 3.9 fWAR ranks 107th. If you say there are 270 players counted as starters in MLB, he's better than the median guy at 3.4. That's the median! That's not "He sucks category" or even close!

[moonslav59]

Rafaela's fWAR ranks him top 60 in MLB, this year. I can understand people not liking or trusting WAR much, but can it really be that far off. 2 players from each 30 teams makes 60.

How can a guy who is top 60 "suck?"

Hell, top 120 or 150 don't suck.

Maybe 120 to 180 are okay or barely above bad, but even they don't suck.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

35 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Rafaela's fWAR ranks him top 60 in MLB, this year. I can understand people not liking or trusting WAR much, but can it really be that far off. 2 players from each 30 teams makes 60.

How can a guy who is top 60 "suck?"

Hell, top 120 or 150 don't suck.

Maybe 120 to 180 are okay or barely above bad, but even they don't suck.

With Fred it's strictly personal. He actually roots for Rafaela to fail at the plate. It's really obvious. There's a few players in MLB that I seriously don't like and hope they fail every at bat, but it's never a player on my favorite team.

[Maxbialystock]

25 minutes ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

With Fred it's strictly personal. He actually roots for Rafaela to fail at the plate. It's really obvious. There's a few players in MLB that I seriously don't like and hope they fail every at bat, but it's never a player on my favorite team.

No doubt he does.  

My case for Rafaela is a tad different because I begin with the argument that the pitching staff is making these wins possible, and that it behooves Cora to get his best defenders on the field.  In the cases of Bregman, Story, Anthony,  Duran and Lowe he gets both.  For DH he doesn't need fielding.   Tonight Cora is going with far and away his best defensive CF and 2B--plus Wong is a good defensive catcher.  

And Cora isn't giving up much hitting because Abreu is on the IL and both Gonzalez and Narvaez are struggling at the plate.  

With Abreu out until some unknown date next month, Cora must play Anthony, Duran, and Rafaela in the outfield with Ref and Yoshida as backups and maybe Garcia.  

[moonslav59]

The ultimate question on what level Rafaela's batting has to reach to warrant benching him comes down to weighing does the bat replacing his bat more than make up for the drop in defensive and baserunning value by taking away Rafaela from the starting 9.

Vs LHPs, it's a no brainer. Abreu is already platooned and some wonder whether Duran should be.

Abreu: .607 career and .721, this year. (GG RF defense)

Duran: .610 career and .568 this year. (Best runner of the 3)

Rafaela: .646 career and .693 this year. (GG type D and good runner)

Vs. RHPs: Anthony, Duran & Abreu all are ranked higher than Rafaela.

Now, let's look at 2B and DH, which can also involve 1B, if Romy plays 1B v L and not 2B, where Rafaela, DHam and Romy are choices. DH can be used by an OF'er, so Yoshida comes into the choice.

IMO, I already determined Rafaela starts vs LHPs in the OF, but not vs RHPs, unless an OF'er DHs. Let's look at the vs RHP splits:

Rafaela: .683 career and  .715, this year (He's better vs RHPs, so far.)

DHam: .660 career and .587 in 2015. (Plus on defense at 2B, better baserunner than Rafaela.) At 2B: DHam is a close call vs Rafaela at 2B v Righties.

Romy is not really a realistic choice vs RHPs, especially vs Rafaela at 2B, but his numbers vs LHPs make him a great platoon with DHam at 2B or Lowe at 1B. (Lowe is MLB's worst batter v LHPs, this year.) I won't even list Romy's numbers vs RHPs. Count him out.

Yoshida is a legitimate contender for playing time vs RHPs, based on his career numbers, but not so much by 2025 numbers. .793 career and .643, this year.

So, it's Rafaela in CF vs LHPs and Yoshida vs Rafaela v RHPs. Career: Yoshida .793 v Rafaela .683, but 2025: Rafaela .715 v Yoshida .643. Seems like a close call to me- looking at only the offense. If you value recency and baserunning, Rafaela is the guy. If you value Career it's Yoshida by a little. Now, factor in defense, baserunning and allowing an OF'er to rest while DH'ing to the equation, and it's Rafaela v RHPs. Now, how low can Rafaela go vs RHPs to flip the choice to Yoshida? That's not an easy question, because we are basing it on what we think Yoshida will be doing, if Rafaela is free-falling his OPS into the .500 to .650 range.

Do we choose a .700 Yoshida over a .600 Rafaela?(.650 v .550 and so on...) How about ,650 vs .600? To me, I'd choose Rafaela over Yoshida up to 100 points and maybe beyond. His D and his running make a difference. A big difference.

I think I've said all I can about Rafaela, and it has already been way to much. There should not even be a need to defend his playing time or whether his overall value is plus vs "suck."