Red Sox (Tolle) vs Athletics (Perkins): 7/27/26, 9:40pm

[notin]

14 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

This is why I can't see Breslow trading the farm for a bad shortstop like Neto or Abrams. Brez and Bailey know good middle infield D is the key for a club built around pitching.

I'm still surprised they demoted Cheng -- he does one thing better than anyone else on the roster, and that's play stellar shortstop... saw a stat yesterday the Sox were like 15-1 in games he started.

IKF or Mayer must be closer to returning than we think, because they can't be counting on Story's D down the stretch.

I liked Cheng.  I demote Seigler there. Hes largely redundant with Mead.

i think it’s 12-1 in Cheng starts.  But yes, I’m on board…

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

5 minutes ago, notin said:

I liked Cheng.  I demote Seigler there. Hes largely redundant with Mead.

i think it’s 12-1 in Cheng starts.  But yes, I’m on board…

I get that it's miserable watching automatic outs in the batting order, but that's basically what we got out of LF and C all season without the Gold Glove D.

Shortstop is obviously so important, but also underrated when they make all the plays, even the hard ones, look easy -- like Cabrera in the '04 postseason or Drew in '13.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, notin said:

I liked Cheng.  I demote Seigler there. Hes largely redundant with Mead.

i think it’s 12-1 in Cheng starts.  But yes, I’m on board…

I think Cheng had the one unique skillset out of the AAA guys. Probably should have stuck.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, notin said:

I liked Cheng.  I demote Seigler there. Hes largely redundant with Mead.

i think it’s 12-1 in Cheng starts.  But yes, I’m on board…

I was thinking the same thing. Siegler might be better than Cheng, but not at SS.

Right now, we have Romy as the back-up for FT Monasterio at SS.

Scary stuff.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I get that it's miserable watching automatic outs in the batting order,

I was looking at the boxscore from last night.  There was only one RS player with an OPS < .696.  In a league where the average is .721, that's pretty strong.

[moonslav59]

Just now, JoeBrady said:

I was looking at the boxscore from last night.  There was only one RS player with an OPS < .696.  In a league where the average is .721, that's pretty strong.

A few weeks ago, we regularly had 2-3 batters below .650 or worse in most line-ups.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

I was looking at the boxscore from last night.  There was only one RS player with an OPS < .696.  In a league where the average is .721, that's pretty strong.

Let's not forget how futile the same players (except for a few touted sophomores?) were with the bats for the first two months. But now that they're improved, is it wise to just hope these are the real hitters who won't regress?

It's kind of a whole roster Curtis Mead risk: is he the guy who got cut from other teams in the past year or the breakout bopper of this summer?

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

15 hours ago, a700hitter said:

First game —- That has to be a record for going down with an injury.

Enter the Sox lineup at your own risk.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

But now that they're improved, is it wise to just hope these are the real hitters who won't regress?

That's why we look at past performance to predict future performance.  Most of the players last 28 days aren't that far off their career norms:

• Contreras +200 (69 PAs)
• Monasterio +300 (60 PAs)
• Duran -200

The team BABIP was .287, which is about right.  I'm not seeing much of a reason to expect negative regression.