mvp 78

They lost a bat without a guy that can play that position. If they lost an OF bat, it would have been less of an issue.

Sox fans would get to boo him for 81 home games every season too!

there are too many OFers and not one big bat that is a great fit for DH.

They really wanted Mayer. Sox didn't want to give up Mayer. Is there a Mayer package that's worth it?

Need to complain about every decision.

Big MLB Draft guy are you?

Hamilton had a 746 OPS at the time he was playing vs BOS. On that same date, Grissom hadn't had a MLB PA in '26 yet.

Can he play 2b?

Toro was really hot for a few weeks there...

“If we do it, (the Tigers) tend to have some lefties up at the top (of the lineup),” said Tracy. “So they can change it around and get more righties into the lineup, possibly. But it also pushes him down to where when, third time through, maybe it’s in a section of the lineup we can push him through a little bit. “I think he’s open right now to doing whatever to get himself on track,” said Tracy. “I think to doing whatever it takes to help our team win. He’s frustrated, too. But Brayan will be fine. If you watch and really look at the outing last time, there was 2.2 (inning) where it really looked like vintage Bello. It’s 96 mph and it’s sink. There’s a lot of quick outs and he’s looking good. A couple of guys get on and he lost the zone a little bit. So, I think I saw glimpses in that outing where he was very close to turning in a solid outing. But we have to get him over that hump. “Seeing the velocity back up, the other day, that was encouraging to me. I was watching and there was a lot of 96 mph. If he’s got that sinker, he’s usually in good shape. But I still, again, think, there were glimpses where he takes down pockets of hitters fairly easily. We just have to get him over the hump. A lot of it the other day was maybe getting a little tentative with some people on base. If we can keep him on the attack, he’s still capable.”

If this year's Sox 3b can just replicate the 96 wRC+ last year's Sox 1b, everything will be just fine then. Durbin is basically hitting like '25 Wong instead.

To me, the only hitters that looked interesting were Bregman and Hoskins as a bench bat (due to his pull air tendencies and small contract). Brez was willing to use a lot of prospect capital to acquire Contreras (great!), Gray (ok!) and others (um). If they really weren't all in on bringing back Bregman, pull the deal to get Marte. He can play 2b for a few years and then transition to 1b when Contreras leaves. If you don't like the Marte deal, go get Paredes and push the deal over the finish line (DD was always able to).

If the return for Sale wasn't a dog turd, I think it'd be easier to understand that trade. Whatever internal scouting/metrics they had on Grissom was a big time failure. What's really cool is he's now OPS'ing over 800 for LAA. 🤪

Thanks Bailes!

I don't think it's "build through offense" but more "take a balanced approach." They swung it so far towards pitching that they desperately needed the pitching to be both healthy and lights out in order to win games. They really assumed health for all of the starters and dealt away a ton of depth in ultimately meaningless trades (particularly Durbin).

No true Scotsman?

Wait... A guy who was a one inning reliever had a bad ERA when he lost games? WTH?

It's clearly Jake Bennett, the only WOO pitcher mentioned.

The bigger problem to start the season was that 3 starters (Durbin, Story and Duran) were among the 10 worst hitters in the game. Story and Duran were expected to be top of the order bats by the organization. Combine that with Roman not performing and it's a recipe for disaster.

Moran is opening for Bello.

Pitchers get injured climbing into bed these days. Hard to build your team solely around pitching and see success year in and year out simply due to IL stints.

Mayer's k rate has been nearly cut in half FWIW. Abreu's numbs have gone up, but they did early last season as well.

Everybody's gonna move their feet Everybody's gonna leave their seat