Yankees (Warren) vs Red Sox (Crochet): 9/14/25, 7:10pm

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

9 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The 690 OPS isn't great, but it's playable if he's in CF because of the defense. People on here definitely got too excited talking about Mookie Betts when Rafaela's OPS was in the 790's for a week or two. That wasn't meant to last. We saw molten hot stretches from JBJ too.

The All-Star break totally chilled Ceddanne's hot bat. He accidentally left in it a top-loading seafood cooler while he blurred his hand-eye coordination surfing youtube for web gems by Lynn and JBJ to practice at the neighborhood playground.

[drewski6]

11 hours ago, FredLynn said:

10th player? He’s definitely in our top 5.

Thats not mutually exclusive

[drewski6]

9 hours ago, FredLynn said:

I only bash those who deserve it. Narvaez is performing reasonably well. Rafaela stinks-and I don’t care how great a defensive player he is. JBJ was a great defender too. Neither could hit the baseball after a while. 

Reasonably well, sells it short.  He's framing pitches, and he has a lot of pop for a competent catcher.  He muscled that one to dead center.  When you go dead center, you arent uncoiling as much as when you pull (of course , still uncoiling some, otherwise you arent swinging from your hips) but still. That shot was impressive.

[moonslav59]

13 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The 690 OPS isn't great, but it's playable if he's in CF because of the defense. People on here definitely got too excited talking about Mookie Betts when Rafaela's OPS was in the 790's for a week or two. That wasn't meant to last. We saw molten hot stretches from JBJ too.

.690 is fine with me, and it's actually showing improvement over 2023-2024 combined.

I'm not sure if he can ever have a season over .800, like JBJ did, but maybe .750 for a few years would be very nice.

[moonslav59]

13 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

The All-Star break totally chilled Ceddanne's hot bat. He accidentally left in it a top-loading seafood cooler while he blurred his hand-eye coordination surfing youtube for web gems by Lynn and JBJ to practice at the neighborhood playground.

Cora destroyed Ceddane by playing him at 2B.

LOL!

[Maxbialystock]

1 hour ago, FredLynn said:

Even odds it’s not enough 

Huge, necessary win, but I'm still very worried.  Sox score 6 in 1st and don't score again?  Yankees get 4 runs on 3 HR's and make the game more worrisome than it should have been.  Sox go with their 3 best starters and win 1 game.  

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

.690 is fine with me, and it's actually showing improvement over 2023-2024 combined.

I'm not sure if he can ever have a season over .800, like JBJ did, but maybe .750 for a few years would be very nice.

I don't think you have a lower limit at which Rafaela should be benched. I think he could be at .400 and you would still want him trotting out there every day. 

He is hurting the team because too many other guys are not producing.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

Cora destroyed Ceddane by playing him at 2B.

LOL!

He shouldn't have played him at 2b. There's zero doubt in my mind. Did it play a part in it? Who knows. 

[mvp 78]

11 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I don't think you have a lower limit at which Rafaela should be benched. I think he could be at .400 and you would still want him trotting out there every day. 

He is hurting the team because too many other guys are not producing.

So it's not Rafaela, but the other guys. 

[FredLynn]

2 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

So it's not Rafaela, but the other guys. 

No, its Rafaela. But there are nine guys in the lineup every day. If there were 8 guys who are bashers.....or even just six....then we could tolerate a bum like Rafaela picking up a bat because he is so good in CF. Unfortunately the team has a lot of trouble scoring runs and when too many players aren't producing (and Rafaela is batting ninth for a reason) then you need to sit the worst of them down.

[mvp 78]

There's 43 CFers with over 200 PA's. About a third of them have worse OPS's than Rafaela. If you go by fWAR, he's a top 10 CF in the game. Not sure anyone should be talking about benching him TBH. Not sure where the inflection point is that the negative offense outweighs the defense. He's not there yet though. He's still playable above 650 OPS most likely. 

[FredLynn]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

There's 43 CFers with over 200 PA's. About a third of them have worse OPS's than Rafaela. If you go by fWAR, he's a top 10 CF in the game. Not sure anyone should be talking about benching him TBH. Not sure where the inflection point is that the negative offense outweighs the defense. He's not there yet though. He's still playable above 650 OPS most likely. 

I'll use OPS. He is below .700 and looks ridiculous with a bat in his hands. Furthermore, he is sinking fast. Since Aug 1 he is at .180/.526. Totally unacceptable. If he was the only guy who was a bum we could tolerate him. He isn't. He's got company, though he is the worst of them. Its time for him to sit.

[mvp 78]

16 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

No, its Rafaela. But there are nine guys in the lineup every day. If there were 8 guys who are bashers.....or even just six....then we could tolerate a bum like Rafaela picking up a bat because he is so good in CF. Unfortunately the team has a lot of trouble scoring runs and when too many players aren't producing (and Rafaela is batting ninth for a reason) then you need to sit the worst of them down.

Rafaela at least provides defense. Wasting the DH spot on Masa is worse IMO. He's got to be the first one to go IMO. He's also hitting 5th or 6th rather than 9th. Can also add Bregman, Lowe, Hamilton and Duran to bats that are "hitting" their way out of town this September. 

1. Bench Masa

2. DFA Sanchez when Abreu comes back

3. Abreu is DH vs RHP, Ref is DH vs LHP (Eaton in RF)

[FredLynn]

7 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Rafaela at least provides defense. Wasting the DH spot on Masa is worse IMO. He's got to be the first one to go IMO. He's also hitting 5th or 6th rather than 9th. Can also add Bregman, Lowe, Hamilton and Duran to bats that are "hitting" their way out of town this September. 

1. Bench Masa

2. DFA Sanchez when Abreu comes back

3. Abreu is DH vs RHP, Ref is DH vs LHP (Eaton in RF)

Yoshida stinks too, no doubt. Probably he is even more useless than Rafaela. Since Aug 1 he is at .235/.614, slightly better than Rafaela but he is useless in the OF. He looks to me to have improved a bit recently but still, he stinks. Thats that thing: teams can handle SOME black holes, but you still have to score runs to win games no matter how good your pitching is. We have too many non contributors.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, FredLynn said:

I don't think you have a lower limit at which Rafaela should be benched. I think he could be at .400 and you would still want him trotting out there every day. 

He is hurting the team because too many other guys are not producing.

We've discussed the "lower/lowest limits" his OPS could be and still  be acceptable or a plus. We disgree by a pretty big gap.

I'm a big fan of defense up the middle and may feel it has more value than you think it does. He's taken away countless hits and some homers. Way more than Duran or Anthony would have taken away in CF.

He should never have been moved to 2B.

You may not value WAR, and I agree it has flaws, but Ceddanne has the 4th best WAR among position players. I don't see why our 4th or 5th best player is bearing the wrath you heep on him. He's not even close to being the worst batter. He's not even top 9 in K% on the team (among 12 batters with 190+ PAs) and you bash him for lack of plate discipline. (That is a problem, but he has his K rate down to 20%.) His BB% has almost doubled since 2023-2024 combined. His OPS is better than 2023 & 2024. 

He's slumping, now, like he has before. I wish he wasn't. I'm not benching him, at least until Abreu returns. I'm not one to believe a player repeats what he's done over the last 2, 3, 4 weeks. I go through this with Max, almost weekly. Rafaela is one example of a player who never repeats month to month.

He may hit .400-.500 the rest of the way and be a reason we lose. He may not. He's streaky. I think he has a hot streak left in him. You don't.

[moonslav59]

No doubt, Rafaela has been bad for a month or so. The number support that. Only Yoshida (.516) and maybe Bregman (.561) are even close to his last 4 week OPS or .496.

I guess we should have benched Story for hitting .432 in May, which is worse than Ceddanne's last 28 days.

The question is, why should we expect he will hit.496 the next 12 games? What evidence supports players keep batting the exact same as the weeks beforehand?

I'm fine with playing hothands and giving slumping players a breather or short break, but I'm not benching my 4th or 5th best player in crunch time.

How long a leash does he get? Maybe until Abreu returns?

Is Eaton's short spurt of glory enough to take Ceddanne's place?

[FredLynn]

7 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

We've discussed the "lower/lowest limits" his OPS could be and still  be acceptable or a plus. We disgree by a pretty big gap.

I'm a big fan of defense up the middle and may feel it has more value than you think it does. He's taken away countless hits and some homers. Way more than Duran or Anthony would have taken away in CF.

He should never have been moved to 2B.

You may not value WAR, and I agree it has flaws, but Ceddanne has the 4th best WAR among position players. I don't see why our 4th or 5th best player is bearing the wrath you heep on him. He's not even close to being the worst batter. He's not even top 9 in K% on the team (among 12 batters with 190+ PAs) and you bash him for lack of plate discipline. (That is a problem, but he has his K rate down to 20%.) His BB% has almost doubled since 2023-2024 combined. His OPS is better than 2023 & 2024. 

He's slumping, now, like he has before. I wish he wasn't. I'm not benching him, at least until Abreu returns. I'm not one to believe a player repeats what he's done over the last 2, 3, 4 weeks. I go through this with Max, almost weekly. Rafaela is one example of a player who never repeats month to month.

He may hit .400-.500 the rest of the way and be a reason we lose. He may not. He's streaky. I think he has a hot streak left in him. You don't.

We can agree that he should never have been moved to 2B. That move negates any value he has to the team. Its clear that you do not have a lower limit of production before he should be benched. He keeps sucking worse and worse and you would still trot him out there. For me he is WAY past that. An OPS of .526 over a large sample of games is simply not good enough, not with other players slumping. I predicted that as the season wore on and he got tired his numbers would plummet even more, and they have. I do not expect it to improve either. Now he does take away some hits in some games, but its not every game he robs an opposing player of a hit. But it IS every game that he sucks at the plate.

[FredLynn]

7 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

No doubt, Rafaela has been bad for a month or so. The number support that. Only Yoshida (.516) and maybe Bregman (.561) are even close to his last 4 week OPS or .496.

I guess we should have benched Story for hitting .432 in May, which is worse than Ceddanne's last 28 days.

The question is, why should we expect he will hit.496 the next 12 games? What evidence supports players keep batting the exact same as the weeks beforehand?

I'm fine with playing hothands and giving slumping players a breather or short break, but I'm not benching my 4th or 5th best player in crunch time.

How long a leash does he get? Maybe until Abreu returns?

Is Eaton's short spurt of glory enough to take Ceddanne's place?

Story has a history of succeeding and has much better plate discipline, though he has trouble with certain pitches like most players. And I don't expect Rafaela to maintain an OPS of .496. I expect it to get WORSE.

[moonslav59]

33 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

We can agree that he should never have been moved to 2B. That move negates any value he has to the team. Its clear that you do not have a lower limit of production before he should be benched. He keeps sucking worse and worse and you would still trot him out there. For me he is WAY past that. An OPS of .526 over a large sample of games is simply not good enough, not with other players slumping. I predicted that as the season wore on and he got tired his numbers would plummet even more, and they have. I do not expect it to improve either. Now he does take away some hits in some games, but its not every game he robs an opposing player of a hit. But it IS every game that he sucks at the plate.

When did I ever say there is no lower limit?

He doesn't "keep sucking worse and worse." He goes up and down and has his whole career. He is sucking now, and you act like he always has and always will.

Maybe he will.

He was at .577 in early May (30 gms/112 PAs)

He then hit .807 in his next 30 gms (110 PAs)

He hit .849 next 30 (93 PAs)

.568 his next 30 (93 PAs)

.529 last 24 gms (89 PAs)

I've never been one to judge a player on just his last 40-50 games or so, like the cherry-picked worst sample of .472 in 36 games. That is horrific. That cannot keep going on forever, but until we have a better option on the 26, I'd keep playing him in hopes that the previous 95 games sample size of 358 PAs at .798 might return. It's over half his season- that sample size, but to you, that is not an cannot be him. Only this recent sample size is him.

[moonslav59]

40 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

Story has a history of succeeding and has much better plate discipline, though he has trouble with certain pitches like most players. And I don't expect Rafaela to maintain an OPS of .496. I expect it to get WORSE.

Why?

Because he slumped at the end of last year, too?

I'm not sure why you even try to predict what anyone will hit over the next 12 game stretch.

I hope you are wrong, but certainly you may end up guessing right.

It was easy projecting doom & gloom for the last 3 years. Now, things have changed, but you cling to the doom. I'm sure we'll never hear the end of it, if you end up being right.

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I've never been one to judge a player on just his last 40-50 games or so, like the cherry-picked worst sample of .472 in 36 games. That is horrific. That cannot keep going on forever, but until we have a better option on the 26, I'd keep playing him in hopes that the previous 95 games sample size of 358 PAs at .798 might return. It's over half his season- that sample size, but to you, that is not an cannot be him. Only this recent sample size is him.

You did write off Yoshida in a smaller sample than 40-50 games.  

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

You did write off Yoshida in a smaller sample than 40-50 games.  

I wrote him off before the season even started.

And, he's a DH only with little power.

Ceddanne plays GG type defense in a tough position. His offense has sucked, of late, and is barely passable as a whole.

[Bellhorn04]

Just now, moonslav59 said:

I wrote him off before the season even started.

Isn't that worse?

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Isn't that worse?

No. I thought we should have dumped his salary before his value went down further.

I thought we had better options at DH, like moving or rotating an OF'er to DH, since we failed to trade one last winter.

I wanted Anthony on the opening day Roster and Yoshida not part of the 26 man roster.

You think that's worse than supporting our 4th best WAR guy, despite his long slump?

[Bellhorn04]

37 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

No. I thought we should have dumped his salary before his value went down further.

I thought we had better options at DH, like moving or rotating an OF'er to DH, since we failed to trade one last winter.

I wanted Anthony on the opening day Roster and Yoshida not part of the 26 man roster.

You think that's worse than supporting our 4th best WAR guy, despite his long slump?

Just trying to figure out the 40-50 game sample size thing as it applies to Yoshida.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Just trying to figure out the 40-50 game sample size thing as it applies to Yoshida.

It's apples and oranges, because the only reason Ceddanne is still playing is because he plays excellent defense,

If Rafaela was a DH only bat, I'd play Yoshida over him v RHPs and it's about even vs LHPs.

[Bellhorn04]

9 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

It's apples and oranges, because the only reason Ceddanne is still playing is because he plays excellent defense,

If Rafaela was a DH only bat, I'd play Yoshida over him v RHPs and it's about even vs LHPs.

All I'm saying is you said "I've never been one to judge a player on just his last 40-50 games or so", but it didn't seem to apply to Yoshida's struggles getting going with the bat.  And I'm not blaming you for giving up on Yoshida, I just have trouble reconciling it with that statement.

[mvp 78]

6 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

All I'm saying is you said "I've never been one to judge a player on just his last 40-50 games or so", but it didn't seem to apply to Yoshida's struggles getting going with the bat.  And I'm not blaming you for giving up on Yoshida, I just have trouble reconciling it with that statement.

He's writing him off after the prior two years most likely. It's much larger than a 40 game sample if you don't like the guys swing. 

[moonslav59]

15 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

All I'm saying is you said "I've never been one to judge a player on just his last 40-50 games or so", but it didn't seem to apply to Yoshida's struggles getting going with the bat.  And I'm not blaming you for giving up on Yoshida, I just have trouble reconciling it with that statement.

I didn't want Yoshida playing before the 40-50 game sample of yuck.

Then, I kept asking how long of a leash does he get. He's up to 158 PAs, now. He did get a little better, but now he's back to sub .450 (8 gms).

I'm not sure what better choices we have, now, as Anthony and Abreu are out. My position was based on needing to play all 4 OF'ers. Now, that's not the case.

It's also a reason I'm hesitant on benching Rafaela, when those 2 are out.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

He's writing him off after the prior two years most likely. It's much larger than a 40 game sample if you don't like the guys swing. 

Masa had a BA of .285 over the prior 2 seasons.