Athletics (Ginn) vs Red Sox (Bello): 9/18/25, 1:35pm

[moonslav59]

38 minutes ago, notin said:

Romy is among the bench starters.  The Sox weren’t and shouldn’t have been counting on him to carry them either…

True, but he kinda earned his way out of the platoon-only role, and not so much due to injuries making him the best choice of evils.

In the last 28 days, Story, Bregman, Rafaela and Duran are the only players with 18 or more start.

DHam has 9 and Sogard 7.

Ref has 10, along with Wong (Narvaez 16.)

Eaton has 13 and Lowe 16.

I'm thinking, add up Eaton, DHam and Sogard and it's 29 Games started in 25 games played.

It's about 1.2 per game.

If you count Romy and Ref, it's 56 over 25 or 2.2 per game.

[bkzwhitestrican]

One thing not mentioned anymore is why they waited so long to call up Anthony. He was clearly ready in the early part of the year but they waited until mid-June to call him up. You'd have to think he could've helped Boston win at least one more game during the first third of the year, which would be huge in the standings right now. 

[notin]

22 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

True, but he kinda earned his way out of the platoon-only role, and not so much due to injuries making him the best choice of evils.

In the last 28 days, Story, Bregman, Rafaela and Duran are the only players with 18 or more start.

DHam has 9 and Sogard 7.

Ref has 10, along with Wong (Narvaez 16.)

Eaton has 13 and Lowe 16.

I'm thinking, add up Eaton, DHam and Sogard and it's 29 Games started in 25 games played.

It's about 1.2 per game.

If you count Romy and Ref, it's 56 over 25 or 2.2 per game.

Romy and Refsnyder are fine as weak side platoon hitters.  But lately both have seen that role expand out of necessity…

[Maxbialystock]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

Not getting a real bat that you have to pay for all season is not trying to win. Im talking about at the roster construction level. I know on the field they are trying to win.

This is ongoing.  Verdugo should have been replaced 2 years before he was.  Its too much settling for average players.  Whatever happened to arms races?

I think John Henry opted out of arms races after the 2019 season when the Sox highest payroll in MLB didn't make it to the postseason.  Plus fixing the 2019 pitching was going to cost even more.  This year the Sox payroll is 12th highest in MLB, but that was/is enough to spend big on Bregman, Crochet, and Chapman--plus Buehler, Yoshida, Story, and Giolito, all of whom are around the $20M/year salary.  

 

[notin]

56 minutes ago, bkzwhitestrican said:

One thing not mentioned anymore is why they waited so long to call up Anthony. He was clearly ready in the early part of the year but they waited until mid-June to call him up. You'd have to think he could've helped Boston win at least one more game during the first third of the year, which would be huge in the standings right now. 

Anthony was called up 6 days before Devers was traded.  At the time the Sox still had Duran-Rafaela-Abreu in the OF.  Whether or not he is worth one more win than any of those three over the first 2 months of the season is debatable.  
 

Now if Devers had been a team player and said (in Spanish) “I will take over first base since Casas is now injured”, that would have at least opened up a DH slot for him and been a much better lineup capable of a few more wins.  But Devers was still a petulant child at that time..:

[moonslav59]

40 minutes ago, notin said:

Romy and Refsnyder are fine as weak side platoon hitters.  But lately both have seen that role expand out of necessity…

Agreed. I do think Romy has been doing well enough vs RHPs to get more playing time. Maybe he's just a late developer and not the journeyman profile he was for years and years. I'm not sure Ref will ever really earn the slot vs RHPs, although he has had some seasons where he was okay at it.

Of course, it would be better to have a big beast of a bat vs RHPs that is better than R & R, better than DHam & Sogard, and better than Lowe and others.

Our recent line-ups have looked pretty sad near the bottom, and our bottom of the line-up has been a relatively speaking asset to the team over most of the season.

Losing Anthony, Casas and long periods of Bregman and Abreu have been too much to overcome, especially in light of the team choosing to trade away our best offensive player in early June.

[Maxbialystock]

37 minutes ago, bkzwhitestrican said:

One thing not mentioned anymore is why they waited so long to call up Anthony. He was clearly ready in the early part of the year but they waited until mid-June to call him up. You'd have to think he could've helped Boston win at least one more game during the first third of the year, which would be huge in the standings right now. 

The Sox already had a pretty good outfield with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu plus Devers was the DH.  I believe Anthony was called up on June 9 because Abreu went on the IL.  

When Anthony arrived on June 9, the Sox had already played 3 rookies--Campbell, Mayer, and Narvaez. Heck, all 3 were starters although Campbell was sent back to Worcester on June 19.  Plus Campbell and Anthony already have long term contracts.  And rookie starters Early and Tolle are active right now.  My point is that I do not think the Sox have underused their rookies this season.  

 

[Maxbialystock]

7 minutes ago, notin said:

Anthony was called up 6 days before Devers was traded.  At the time the Sox still had Duran-Rafaela-Abreu in the OF.  Whether or not he is worth one more win than any of those three over the first 2 months of the season is debatable.  
 

Now if Devers had been a team player and said (in Spanish) “I will take over first base since Casas is now injured”, that would have at least opened up a DH slot for him and been a much better lineup capable of a few more wins.  But Devers was still a petulant child at that time..:

Anthony was called up because Abreu went on the IL and absolutely not to replace Devers.

Devers hated losing 3b, and it took Cora a while to get him to embrace DH, where he excelled with an OPS of .905 without missing a single game.  The time to move Devers to 1b was spring training when Casas, a lousy fielding first baseman, could have been moved to DH.  I hasten to add that keeping Devers at DH for this season would have been smarter than making a big public show of how he refused to play 1b--including having JH fly to KC to talk to Devers about that situation.  Funny thing, but Devers is playing 1b for the Giants, so to me it's obvious Breslow was heavy-handed.   

 

[mvp 78]

4 hours ago, notin said:

I would only consider the 2011 team to be chokers.  Although a more realistic label might be “quitters”…

I think 2012 quit, not 2011. 2011 just had no pitching down the stretch.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, Maxbialystock said:

The Sox already had a pretty good outfield with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu plus Devers was the DH.  I believe Anthony was called up on June 9 because Abreu went on the IL.  

When Anthony arrived on June 9, the Sox had already played 3 rookies--Campbell, Mayer, and Narvaez. Heck, all 3 were starters although Campbell was sent back to Worcester on June 19.  Plus Campbell and Anthony already have long term contracts.  And rookie starters Early and Tolle are active right now.  My point is that I do not think the Sox have underused their rookies this season.  

 

I agree that the OF was already very good, and the DH slot was full (Devers) even beyond the Casas injury at 1B.

I do think Anthony was the guy that could have and should have been called up earlier. The fact that we used many rookies, this year does not change that point. This is not some hindsight observation, either on my behalf and others here who felt the same way and still do.

If that choice kept us from winning even 1 game, that could be the difference.

 

[notin]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

I think 2012 quit, not 2011. 2011 just had no pitching down the stretch.

It believe it was 2011 that had the lead entering September and then just fell apart that last month, reportedly due to being forced to play a makeup game on a scheduled off day.

The 2012 team faltered to the end because in late August, they traded away AGon, Crawford, Beckett and Punto for a pocketful of change and a basketful of dreams…

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

3 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

Anthony was called up because Abreu went on the IL and absolutely not to replace Devers.

Devers hated losing 3b, and it took Cora a while to get him to embrace DH, where he excelled with an OPS of .905 without missing a single game.  The time to move Devers to 1b was spring training when Casas, a lousy fielding first baseman, could have been moved to DH.  I hasten to add that keeping Devers at DH for this season would have been smarter than making a big public show of how he refused to play 1b--including having JH fly to KC to talk to Devers about that situation.  Funny thing, but Devers is playing 1b for the Giants, so to me it's obvious Breslow was heavy-handed.   

 

Fk Devers 

[notin]

Upon further review, this post has been overturned…

[notin]

19 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I agree that the OF was already very good, and the DH slot was full (Devers) even beyond the Casas injury at 1B.

I do think Anthony was the guy that could have and should have been called up earlier. The fact that we used many rookies, this year does not change that point. This is not some hindsight observation, either on my behalf and others here who felt the same way and still do.

If that choice kept us from winning even 1 game, that could be the difference.

 

A lot of people wanted Anthony called up earlier.  You’re hardly alone on that list.  The only issue was the Sox didn’t need OF/DH types.  They did have issues at 1b and eventually at 2b.  But Anthony solved none of these…

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

A lot of people wanted Anthony called up earlier.  You’re hardly alone on that list.  The only issue was the Sox didn’t need OF/DH types.  They did have issues at 1b and eventually at 2b.  But Anthony solved none of these…

Then, they ended up playing Rafaela at 2B, later. While that is not the solution I like, getting Anthony in the line-up outweighs the negative aspects.

I get why they made the choice, but yes, many of us wanted Anthony up day one. I thought another reason was to gain a year of control. Did they get that?