jacksonianmarch

He has been off for sure. Bird's K was ridiculously bad

CC is all off speed. There is almost nothing straight

Giants and Dodgers

Altuve has a meager long term contract prior to the big extension. The Astros owned him through next year. His first season of his new FA contract would have been age 30. He got ages 30-34 at $30 mil AAV. It’s a nice haul, but Betts is about to get market value or close to it in arb, where Altuve was far below market. Betts is in the Bogaerts camp of guys taking it one year at a time. You’re not getting a discount. I guarantee the Sox would need to toss him a David Price or more deal to get him to sign

He’ll have just turned 28 when he becomes a FA. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, he’s baseball’s present day Willie Mays. I think Trout is a present day Mantle and Betts is a present day Mays. Mays in his prime as a FA would make serious, serious bank. There’s no reason for Betts to ink up now. He’s already getting paid $10.5 mil this year. He’s on pace to destroy that next year. He bets on himself and he’s staring at an 8-10 year deal. After Harper and Machado set the market this offseason, Betts will set it after that in the same offseason as Mike Trout becomes a FA. It’s the cost of doing business

I said before that you needed to elongate your lineup. Doesn’t mean you have to have killers at every spot, just guys capable of OPS’ing .750 who aren’t essentially an auto out. This is a good pickup

You’re not getting DeGrom. I hope we aren’t getting DeGrom. Someone is going to overpay for him. Someone is going to make a Chris Sale level deal for him (two top 50s and two other team top 10 guys). If the Mess deal DeGrom, it would signal a full scale rebuild. They’ll deal Thor and everyone else aside from Conforto and Nimmo and build around them. They don’t want guys with one or two years of control. They want guys with 5-6 years of control

Phillips is Pedroia insurance. Nunez has been terrible. Holt gets exposed when he plays regularly. If Pedroia cannot come back (which I wouldn’t be surprised about), then I think Phillips is your starting 2b come playoff time

If Pearce stays healthy, he’s a great pickup. He adds versatility vs lefties and if JBJ goes back in the tank, he can move to LF and allow Beni to shift over to CF. This lengthens your lineup, something many posters on here said wasn’t needed. Seems DD ascribed to my thinking. Also, the Phillips move was puzzling. Not that the Sox signed him, but that he sat on the market so long. He had a good year last year. I know he’s 37 and isn’t the highlight reel he used to be, but he’s a solid 2b for sure

A need for a starter would be much higher if there was a fight to make the playoffs. The Sox and Yanks are making the playoffs. The idea of a new starter isn’t born out in the stats, though. Our rotation has been every bit as good as yours. Our pen has been better. Your offense has been a touch better on the whole. There’s no real singular upgrade on our side that needs to happen. Either the guys we have play well or they don’t. On your side, there are clear spots of upgrade. 2b and CF are clear spots of upgrade. 3b and C are possible spots

JD is a beast. I especially liked an interview I heard from him. His swing is not a natural swing. He created it and needs to perfect it day to day. It’s crazy that something that’s so unnatural for him to where he needs to perfect it daily, can be so effective. His contract is effectively a 2 year contract with big up front payments to him and a lower AAV for lux tax purposes. It’s a homerun for both sides. If JD continues to hammer balls at his current rate, stays healthy, and remains awesome through next year, he’ll be looking at a $30 mil AAV contract

Ever since the beginning of the year, we heard about how NY needs a starting pitcher. When JMont went down, it became ever more deafening. That being said, a supposed weakness is actually a strength. Our rotation, even with 2 rookies in there and a struggling Sonny Gray, is fourth in starters ERA in the AL. We’re only 0.06 away from the “vaunted” Sox rotation. Our June ERA as a staff is far and away the #1 in the AL. Our team ERA for June is 2.35, with the second lowest being Cleveland at 3.10. While an addition on the starting front seems logical when looking at the cast of character, the numbers don’t bear it out. Now, we aren’t without our warts, but I’m not sure the warts we have will be fixed by any trades. We’re 17-8 in June. We’ve got the best ERA in the AL in June, and it ain’t close. But our hitting has fallen off. We’re only 9th in the AL in scoring. There’s not much we can do to upgrade that except maybe upgrade over Bird. Our 1b spot has been a graveyard beyond a hot month from Austin. Maybe that’s where we look? So for trade targets, the sexy idea is to get DeGrom or Thor, but I am not sure either will be able to fix what ails is. We need our offense to start pitching up the slack. Tanaka should be back soon. But we will see which way Cash goes. He’s stated that the pitching market is where he’s looking. I’m sure we’ll get someone

Loaisiga was dominant. He’s only really a 5 inning pitcher right now as he’s building innings, but his first 5 were awesome. The lineup woke up a little. The pen bent but didn’t break. Good to see a W after the TB house of horrors

He’s entirely unnecessary. If we’re going to have a lefty to balance out a righty heavy squad, at least have one that can get lefties out. I forgot about Kahnle. His last 7 appearances he’s been dominant. 7.2IP 5H 3BB 15K. If he can locate, you gotta go with him

I’m seeing the Sox linked to Canha from Oakland. Not sure why the A’s would want to deal him. He’s 29, pre-arb eligible, able to play all 3 OF positions and is currently right around an .800 OPS. If the A’s think they’re only a year away, I’m assuming they’d like to hang onto a guy like that. I’d assume the asking price is high, but with Beane you never know. A fair amount of the time he’s angling for guys not on the national radar and he’s right on some of them

Yeah, but you can’t do that with a knuckleballer. With a guy who throws 95 and has some secondary pitches, you can try to stretch them out a bit and hope that the nature of chance is in their favor. Knuckleballs that don’t flutter are effectively slow pitch softballs.

It was a bomb. That place can’t come down fast enough

No, he can’t. It’s time to stop thinking about lefty-righty garbage. We’ve got a kid down in the minors with flames coming out of his hand. It’s time to bring up Cody Carroll

On the other hand, Chasen Shreve is the human white flag

The arrest that linked to Hanley was June 6th. He was DFA’d two weeks before. I know the Sox aren’t forthright with information, but I believe them here

They sucked early in the year.

Gray wasn’t nearly as bad as his ERA entailed today. Only 7 baserunners in 6.2IP, but 4ER. Tampa is becoming a house of horrors for our offense

The Sox got themselves a steal. The deal is salary cap friendly in that there’s no way he’s not opting out at this juncture and they will have paid $50 mil over the first two, but will only be “charged” on the lux tax for $44 mil. They also didn’t go too long and should get two years of prime from him

Blind squirrels find nuts every now and then

How the hell can we not score more than 1 run vs the Rays pen. Oh well. CC walked a tightrope. The pen dominated.