mvp 78

Who would fill his rotation spot?

They will end up over the first threshold. The goal this year was to stay under the second one.

Let's play 2!

IDK, he might not get claimed and head to WOO.

He'd be higher if that dang Cora wasn't moving him all over the place! 🤬

What does Mookie have to do with Rafaela right now?

If you don't watch the other teams on a nightly basis, you can't find fault in them.

At the deadline: Mayer was out with the wrist injury, Hamilton was terrible, Sogard was a AAA guy, Campbell was retooling his swing and playing 1B. They needed more than just Romy to get through the remainder of the season. Rafaela shouldn't be the backup plan.

This season seems more to do with the offseason illness he had and not really being able to come back from it. Once you are in the middle of the season, it's very hard to put weight back on. I think he was behind the 8 ball after he lost 20 lbs in ST. He's still put up 2.7 bWAR in this terrible no good very bad season. 11 DRS at SS!

You'll see!

When the playoffs allow for 3 wild card teams, 88 wins is good enough. The last three seasons, only one 88 win team missed the playoffs. The only teams behind them in shouting distance are the Guardians (4 back) and Royals (4.5 back). Those teams really have to start winning games and being better than .500 if they want to make the playoffs. If the Sox just play like the '25 Sox, they should be fine. The only thing they can't do is fall apart like the '22, '23 and '24 Sox.

Sandlin is not getting called up now. He had a nice start in WOO, but it's clear that he has no clue how to come out of a bullpen. That's not going to cut it this year.

15-5

There is reason to think that he will be all over the place on the offensive side of the ball: 2 percentile chase rate. He'll run hot and cold, but probably lots of cold. 3/27-6/27: 702 OPS 6/28-7/13: 1268 OPS 7/18-8/17: 508 OPS That 2 week aberration is doing a lot of lifting for his overall numbers this season. If he can just go back to being a 700 OPS guy the rest of the way, that's still an improvement over '23 and '24.

This is such a mismatch. Red Sox just saw Rogers earlier this season and will be able to hit this guy around (bottom 4% in hard hit %). Orioles haven't seen May since 2019 and will have no idea what is being thrown by him. Easy win.

Are you counting Devers because I don't think he can help us down the stretch too often?

He's not the CBO. There's a pretty big hole on the right side of the IF that wasn't addressed at the deadline.

I don't believe Breslow was expecting to trade Priester for 3 All Stars so I don't know why you think I believe Holobetz would be in that conversation? We're not even sure Priester will sniff an ASG appearance.

With Mayer, it's ALWAYS been a question about injuries. He's been very smooth in the field and looked natural at 2b, SS, 3b. If he could stay healthy, he'd be a starter in the league for a long time. He struggles vs LHP and offspeed stuff, but has a few years to figure it out.

Rafaela since the ASB: 508 OPS The dropoff from CF defense (one of the two best in the game) to average 2b is too much to give up as well. He's been David Hamilton out there. Maybe worse!

It was interesting that on Yophery it said "bad May, bad June, great July" but suspiciously left off August. Let me give you the 4-1-1 on why that was the case. His OPS was 411.

Rafaela has NEVER played a professional season where he didn't play the IF. He began his career as a MIF guy. He tried CF as an experiment in '19 that worked. Blaming his offensive woes on Cora is wild. Rafaela will always be a rollercoaster offensive guy due to his whiff rate. He has sky high talent and can reach nearly every ball, but has zero idea what to lay off of. It's been that way for years and isn't going to change. Not Cora's fault. Campbell played 5 defensive positions prior to even showing up to Spring Training this year. Cora never put him at a position he had never played before. Be upset at the org, not Cora. Not sure Cora is at fault for Campbell's terrible defensive performance at 2b/SS, which caused the Sox to move him around the field to begin with. I don't even know what to say about the Duran stuff. There is such a small difference between LF and CF that if his production falls off because he's shifted over, he needs to go elsewhere. He hasn't been very impressive in CF this season anyway. Duran has always had some questions about his defense. He's just not a natural out there. They've worked on it for years and he doesn't really track balls well or get good jump. He uses his quickness to catch up to balls, but that is going to eventually not be there.

This year he is 0 DRS, 0 OAA!

It would have been a great idea to trade Chapman if the Sox wanted a massive haul at the deadline and weren't looking to have an effective bullpen down the stretch.