A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[Maxbialystock]

4 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Cora on how to manage the OF/DH bottleneck:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/03/alex-cora-discusses-red-sox-outfield-plans.html

It's not easy.

Finally, something substantive to discuss. 

And the answer to me is simple.  Dump Durbin from the lineup and add Yoshida as the DH.  Anthony goes to LF, Duran to CF, Rafaela to 2b, and Abreu stays in RF.  

Mayer is way better at 3b than Durbin. Rafaela is probably better at 2b than Durbin at 3b.  But you still lose that gold glove in CF. 

However, today's game convined me that Cora does not care about gold gloves.  He took Rafaela out of the freaking lineup so Yoshida could play left field.  Why not Anthony in LF and Yoshida as DH?  

 

[moonslav59]

11 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

Finally, something substantive to discuss. 

And the answer to me is simple.  Dump Durbin from the lineup and add Yoshida as the DH.  Anthony goes to LF, Duran to CF, Rafaela to 2b, and Abreu stays in RF.  

Mayer is way better at 3b than Durbin. Rafaela is probably better at 2b than Durbin at 3b.  But you still lose that gold glove in CF. 

However, today's game convined me that Cora does not care about gold gloves.  He took Rafaela out of the freaking lineup so Yoshida could play left field.  Why not Anthony in LF and Yoshida as DH?  

 

I'm not sure why you distrust Durbin. He has a decent rookie year and is a plus on defense.

.721 OPS in 2025 beats Rafaela's .708, and Rafaela is not a great defensive 2Bman.

All this to get Yoshida some ABs?

[moonslav59]

14 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

However, today's game convined me that Cora does not care about gold gloves.  He took Rafaela out of the freaking lineup so Yoshida could play left field.  Why not Anthony in LF and Yoshida as DH?  

 

Maybe the idea is to not give Anthony (m)any days off but to rest him as the DH for 20-30 games.

[Maxbialystock]

22 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not sure why you distrust Durbin. He has a decent rookie year and is a plus on defense.

.721 OPS in 2025 beats Rafaela's .708, and Rafaela is not a great defensive 2Bman.

All this to get Yoshida some ABs?

I did not see his stats from last year. WAR 2.8 ain't too shabby.  3d in ROY voting.

He still stinks after 3 games, but OK.

I gather the problem is that Cora and/or Breslow want to get Yoshida to get some at bats.  OK, but he should never ever play LF.  

 

 

[moonslav59]

49 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

I did not see his stats from last year. WAR 2.8 ain't too shabby.  3d in ROY voting.

He still stinks after 3 games, but OK.

I gather the problem is that Cora and/or Breslow want to get Yoshida to get some at bats.  OK, but he should never ever play LF.  

We intentionally put ourselves into this bind. While I'm fine with the Durbin trade and the Mayer as a starter (platoon) choice, I'd much rather have gotten Neto or KMarte or even Paredes by forking over one of the OF'er.

We'd have Yoshida at DH, Neto/KMarte/Paredes over Mayer or Durbin (Hell, those two could platoon) and be minus Duran, Abreu or Ceddanne.

[moonslav59]

After one series, and a tiny sample size, here are the Sox OPS numbers:

1.539 Abreu

Our catchers are 5 for 10, combined

.889 Mayer

.746 Anthony

.629 Duran

.600 Rafaela

.540 Willson

.438 Story

0.77 Durbin

Our SP ERAs:

0.00 Crochet

1.69 Early

6.75 Gray

 

[Old Red]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

After one series, and a tiny sample size, here are the Sox OPS numbers:

1.539 Abreu

Our catchers are 5 for 10, combined

.889 Mayer

.746 Anthony

.629 Duran

.600 Rafaela

.540 Willson

.438 Story

0.77 Durbin

Our SP ERAs:

0.00 Crochet

1.69 Early

6.75 Gray

 

Very misleading on some. After you touted Mayer, and Anthony going 5-6 on opening day they’ve gone 2-16 since.

[harmony]

21 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Very misleading on some. After you touted Mayer, and Anthony going 5-6 on opening day they’ve gone 2-16 since.

It's early.

Seattle cornerstones Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodriguez and Josh Naylor are a combined 2-for-40 so far this season (as I write).

[moonslav59]

Other than Weissert, our pen has a 0.00 ERA

10.1 IP

O ER (1 unearned run)

4 Hits

7 BB

11 Ks

[moonslav59]

29 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Very misleading on some. After you touted Mayer, and Anthony going 5-6 on opening day they’ve gone 2-16 since.

Yea, my "touting" is the reason.

[Old Red]

9 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Yea, my "touting" is the reason.

As we all know your reputation has preceded you many times, and when you get giddy things have turned s*****. It’s not a gift, but a curse.🤔

[moonslav59]

Just now, Old Red said:

As we all know your reputation has preceded you many times, and when you get giddy things have turned s*****. It’s not a gift, but a curse.🤔

Saying someone had a good game is not being "giddy" or projecting they will keep having good games.

The fact that you think my giddiness leads to future outcomes says more about your "curse" than mine.

[mvp 78]

14 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

Finally, something substantive to discuss. 

And the answer to me is simple.  Dump Durbin from the lineup and add Yoshida as the DH.  Anthony goes to LF, Duran to CF, Rafaela to 2b, and Abreu stays in RF.  

Mayer is way better at 3b than Durbin. Rafaela is probably better at 2b than Durbin at 3b.  But you still lose that gold glove in CF. 

However, today's game convined me that Cora does not care about gold gloves.  He took Rafaela out of the freaking lineup so Yoshida could play left field.  Why not Anthony in LF and Yoshida as DH?  

 

Durbin is a better hitter and IFer than Rafaela. Are you trying to make the team worse? 

[mvp 78]

13 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

I did not see his stats from last year. WAR 2.8 ain't too shabby.  3d in ROY voting.

He still stinks after 3 games, but OK.

I gather the problem is that Cora and/or Breslow want to get Yoshida to get some at bats.  OK, but he should never ever play LF.  

 

 

Let's see what these guys look at on Memorial Day.

[mvp 78]

11 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Other than Weissert, our pen has a 0.00 ERA

10.1 IP

O ER (1 unearned run)

4 Hits

7 BB

11 Ks

On Weissert, if you have Suarez down 0-2, why put a ball on a tee for him? Weissert has a sweeper and Suarez loves to k. Just throw something out of the zone and get him to chase! 

[Hugh2]

Ohtani is 1-8 

M. Betts is 2-11

Bo Bichette is 1-14

Aaron Judge is 2-13

Julio Rodriguez is 1-15

 

People it's still March.  Why do we do this to ourselves every single year?

 

 

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

Ohtani is 1-8 

M. Betts is 2-11

Bo Bichette is 1-14

Aaron Judge is 2-13

Julio Rodriguez is 1-15

 

People it's still March.  Why do we do this to ourselves every single year?

Overreactions are just what people do. Like you said "every year." 

My overreaction:

I will say that I'm a little annoyed that the Sox didn't seem to have a plan in how to handle ABS and still look clueless in extras. Narvaez's sacrifice bunt was done on his own and not called by the coaching staff. Huh? Jarren Duran getting caught on 1b. This team just plays dumb baseball and they can't do that if they are going to be in a lot of low scoring games. The further away we get from 2018, the less faith I have in the coaching.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

17 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Overreactions are just what people do. Like you said "every year." 

My overreaction:

I will say that I'm a little annoyed that the Sox didn't seem to have a plan in how to handle ABS and still look clueless in extras. Narvaez's sacrifice bunt was done on his own and not called by the coaching staff. Huh? Jarren Duran getting caught on 1b. This team just plays dumb baseball and they can't do that if they are going to be in a lot of low scoring games. The further away we get from 2018, the less faith I have in the coaching.

Duran wasn't even leaning when he got picked off. They weren't even sending him -- your best base-stealer, the potential tying run, to get him into scoring position on a club that obviously is going to struggle to score this year.

But don't worry, in the next week the Sox are bound to face a pitcher who has nothing and rack up one blow-out win so posters can argue, "Look, they average 5 runs scored per game!"

[mvp 78]

8 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Duran wasn't even leaning when he got picked off. They weren't even sending him -- your best base-stealer, the potential tying run, to get him into scoring position on a club that obviously is going to struggle to score this year.

But don't worry, in the next week the Sox are bound to face a pitcher who has nothing and rack up one blow-out win so posters can argue, "Look, they average 5 runs scored per game!"

Ah, but they'll get blown out later on in the season, so it'll all work out. That's how we know Pythagoras W/L works!!!

[moonslav59]

Weissert pitched pretty well, last season. He's off to a bad start, but he may end up being a needed plus in our pen, this season.

That was a horrible pitch, especially when 0-2 on a high K guy.

[JoeBrady]

1 hour ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

They weren't even sending

Are you sure?  I'd have sent him 100% of the time.

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Are you sure?  I'd have sent him 100% of the time.

Why wait until a 3-2 count to go? 

https://www.mlb.com/reds/video/tony-santillan-foul-to-willson-contreras-o18ghb

[notin]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

Overreactions are just what people do. Like you said "every year." 

My overreaction:

I will say that I'm a little annoyed that the Sox didn't seem to have a plan in how to handle ABS and still look clueless in extras. Narvaez's sacrifice bunt was done on his own and not called by the coaching staff. Huh? Jarren Duran getting caught on 1b. This team just plays dumb baseball and they can't do that if they are going to be in a lot of low scoring games. The further away we get from 2018, the less faith I have in the coaching.

I have been strongly trending down the anti-Cora slope.  Double black diamond…

[notin]

1 hour ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Duran wasn't even leaning when he got picked off. They weren't even sending him -- your best base-stealer, the potential tying run, to get him into scoring position on a club that obviously is going to struggle to score this year.

But don't worry, in the next week the Sox are bound to face a pitcher who has nothing and rack up one blow-out win so posters can argue, "Look, they average 5 runs scored per game!"

Or when the Sox finish the year top 5 in scoring and someone will say “Thats only because of the blowout wins.”  Because, you know, the Sox are the only team in MLB to ever have blowout wins…

[mvp 78]

9 minutes ago, notin said:

I have been strongly trending down the anti-Cora slope.  Double black diamond…

In this analogy, is that leading you towards being anti-Cora or heading away from being anti-Cora?

[notin]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

In this analogy, is that leading you towards being anti-Cora or heading away from being anti-Cora?

I am getting more anti-Cora in my apparently misleading analogy…

[bkzwhitestrican]

2 hours ago, Hugh2 said:

Ohtani is 1-8 

M. Betts is 2-11

Bo Bichette is 1-14

Aaron Judge is 2-13

Julio Rodriguez is 1-15

 

People it's still March.  Why do we do this to ourselves every single year?

 

 

Judge still has a .769 OPS though 😎

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

44 minutes ago, notin said:

Or when the Sox finish the year top 5 in scoring and someone will say “Thats only because of the blowout wins.”  Because, you know, the Sox are the only team in MLB to ever have blowout wins…

When it comes to average -- say, in a 10-game span -- there's no difference between a couple games scoring 10 runs and a couple more scoring zero, as long as in all the others they score 5.

But will agita-filled Red Sox fans who watch most of the games be happy to witness a few scoring 20 while the majority of the rest are stress fests all summer where Boston barely plates 3 runs or less...

Here's their 10-game sample: 20, 20, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0 = 52 runs divided by 10 = 5.2.

"Our record might be 3-7 or 4-6, but hey, we average seeing Boston score 5.2 runs per game," nobody will ever claim. 

Stats may be earefutable, but games are often eyeballfutile.

[notin]

4 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

When it comes to average -- say, in a 10-game span -- there's no difference between a couple games scoring 10 runs and a couple more scoring zero, as long as in all the others they score 5.

But will agita-filled Red Sox fans who watch most of the games be happy to witness a few scoring 20 while the majority of the rest are stress fests all summer where Boston barely plates 3 runs or less...

Here's their 10-game sample: 20, 20, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0 = 52 runs divided by 10 = 5.2.

"Our record might be 3-7 or 4-6, but hey, we average seeing Boston score 5.2 runs per game," nobody will ever claim. 

Stats may be earefutable, but games are often eyeballfutile.

The point isn’t that the blowout don’t effect the Sox RPG; it’s that they are not this huge factor in inflating the Sox RPG compared to other teams since every team will have them..

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

8 minutes ago, notin said:

The point isn’t that the blowout don’t effect the Sox RPG; it’s that they are not this huge factor in inflating the Sox RPG compared to other teams since every team will have them..

I only watch one team in one sport on TV where the most runs win. 

But being a longtime Red Sox fan, it's hard getting used to the type of team playing when the most run wins.