mvp 78

21st in starter ERA, 7th in starter xFIP Maybe there will be some positive regression? I think taking Houck out of the rotation could help. I don't know what to think about the seesaw nature of Giolito just yet (good start/bad start/good start). Bello has just permanently stunted his development somehow and may need a scenery change.

That's just wild. He had Arias #42 at the start of the season.

Kutter was hurt in May 2024! Houck has been struggling off an on since last July. He's been a train wreck this season though. I think he should be sent to the pen and see if he can get his mojo back the way they did with Pivetta.

His mistakes in 2018 were just bad luck, the inverse of his good luck from point #2.

1. What players are you upset about that Bloom passed on and where you high on them at the time of the draft? 2. I don't understand your constant criticism of Mayer. Aside from his injury issues, he's performed at every level offensively and defensively. Campbell has only performed offensively at the MiLB level and in a brief spurt to start the MLB season. I think there's hope for Campbell for sure, but his whole game is struggling right now. At least Mayer can count on his glove to keep him in an MLB lineup if his bat is struggling.

Positions where the Sox have been above average defensively (all plays) 3B C (top 5) LF CF (top 5) RF (top 5) Every other position has been bottom third in MLB.

They better be sure the prospects they bring back are going to contribute. Furthermore, this would be a signal that the Sox won't be contending in 2026.

Is this week three of fielding percentages talk? What have we become? 😣

I can't imagine a trade offer being worth it though. This would be an all time shocker for me.

Right, probably on the move or just further from the base and simply making a tougher throw as the ball isn't right at him. Agreed. The throw on a more difficult ball to reach is automatically going to be more difficult to make. It's a compounding problem.

I'm not even sure what his timetable is. I think he's facing batters in FL, but isn't set for MiLB appearances any time soon.

From Passan's article in ESPN: "It's really difficult to predict that someone is going to be successful out of the gate," Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told ESPN this week. "You're making these long-term, probabilistic bets that guys who perform the way Kristian and Marcelo and Roman have tend to be productive big leaguers. But does that happen in Week 1, Month 1, Season 1? You don't know. You try to round out their development as well as possible. It's really important that communication between our major league staff and player-development group is seamless so we know exactly what their training, game-planning and routines look like so we can control as many of those variables as possible knowing what we can't control." "You try to make these decisions as unemotionally as possible, which is really, really difficult because the rest of the organization and I are incredibly invested in the success of this team," Breslow said. "You try to build out the best process you can when emotions aren't high so you can approach it as rationally as possible." "We have to be willing to react and pivot to all the variables in front of us," Breslow said. "Things change. Guys get hurt. The lineup doesn't look exactly the same as we thought it would on Opening Day. We try to balance all these things." Craig Breslow is lost in the sauce.

High socks, traded to TB with Springs (potentially future Sox closer per NESN in 2020) for an MiLB catcher.

Impossible! He's too busy replying to other posters to make a new thread right now! It can't be done until Sunday when only the true sickos are on here.

Swapping Story out (581 OPS) for Rafaela (639 OPS) doesn't seem like it moves the needle very much to me? Moving him to 3b would just be a temporary fix. His defense would be extremely wasted at 2b. I think the move would be Story to 2B, Rafaela to SS, Duran to CF and Anthony to LF if they were going to start rearranging the deck chairs.

I haven't watched any Padres games this season, so I can't confirm either way. I'm sure he's still lightyears ahead of what Devers would do at 3b.

Sure, but they had Antonio Anderson begin '25 in Salem, so I don't know why they didn't do the same with Zanetello. They are both similarly aged and both struggled massively last season.

Chapman is a good fielder. Machado is getting worse as he ages, which is not very surprising (0 OAA '24, -3 OAA '25).

If Bregman was healthy, call up Mayer to replace the struggling Hamilton at 2b and move Campbell to 1b. I think they are stuck with Story for the year. Squeeze Anthony in as the 4th OFer or make Rafaela/Duran platoon in CF.

Bogaerts and Raffy played zero defense that year. The rest of the team was ok. I'm sure Vaz ran around the bases like an idiot though. The biggest problem was that the pitching just was a mess from day one. They never had a complete rotation and tried to fake it for 60 games.

Zanetello should still be in Salem. I don't know why they promoted him this season.

They've laid off a lot of scouts and are deferring to the models. We'll see how it works out in the long run, but I think a team with a lot of money should use scouting AND data together. It's not either or!

Some of the home run celebrations have been good! Laundry Cart: 5/5 Marathon Medal: 2/5 Plastic Weights: 1/5 Decapitated Wally Head: 6/5