Bellhorn04

It's not a do or die game. But us Red Sox fans tend to look at a lot of games that way.

Yes, Devers has done a lot of whining, as you and many others have said.

He may have been a 3B at the time, but he was also an obvious candidate to be moved to 1B or DH at some point. It was a massive overpay. All part of the fallout from JH's catastrophic decision-making starting in 2019.

It made no sense, it was useless, and Devers should have realized that. It's basically a non-issue, or should be.

Well, it is a bit questionable how Chaim Bloom could promise Devers he'd still be playing third 11 years in the future. The promise may have been made, but it didn't necessarily make any sense. Especially when Bloom got the axe not much later.

This is kind of a confusing discussion. You're basically asking "what matters?" Some people of course believe nothing matters at all. I consider a 20 point difference in batting average meaningful, but only if it translates to say 40 points higher in OPS. As I said, BA in isolation doesn't mean much.

I'd like the Sox to win. That's about all I can say.

Maybe, but Bailey is Breslow's guy and Lawson is somebody's guy. All depends what kind of manager they hire and how much power they're willing to give him.

And if our pitching coaches and hitting coaches stink, we still have problems after they replace Cora.

As the old saying goes, you can't fire all the players.

Really questioning the merits of Andrew Bailey these days, too... With all that was made of his changes in pitching mixes last year, the benefits seemed to last about a month.

Really not sure what Cora is supposed to say that will make anything better. He could go Hal McRae or Herman Edwards of course. I loved what Earl Weaver said about not believing in "team meetings" - you know, the kind that are supposed to turn things around. Weaver said "if you have a team meeting and go out and lose again, then what do you do?"

If the above is true, and I have a bad feeling it is, it means Sox hitters are getting conflicting messages from their coaches. I would think that is one of the worst things possible for young hitters especially.

It provides some hope in the offense and in team spirit, perhaps, but over the long haul it spells a completely shredded pitching staff.

Cora's days may be numbered. But I believe the current problems run much deeper than just the manager.

He has wanted Cora fired long before this.

Fitts, Giolito and Buehler all getting lit up before the fans are even settled in their seats kind of signals there really is no hope for the 2025 Sox.

Lifted from SOSH: Julian McWilliams had some interesting insights during his interview on the “Off the Pike” podcast regarding both Pete Fatse and his assistant Dillon Lawson. Regarding Fatse he had this to say: “the core of Pete's teachings is just to have you at your base and then sort of build on that base. The infrastructure that you built and building on top of that to make you a better hitter.” It seems like there could be a rift between Fatse and his assistant as McWilliams suggested that Dillon Lawson is the Driveline guy teaching everyone to pull the ball in the air whereas Fatse is more of traditional hitting coach who tries to build on each hitters’ strengths. There are some other interesting tidbits in the interview particularly that Lawson was the only coach Cashman fired mid-season in his 28-year tenure with the Yankees and hitters like DJ LeMahieu proclaimed that it was a relief. All this is to say that it seems that the Fatse/Lawson divide is yet another instance of the coaching staff and front office not being on the same page.

Depends how you look at it, I guess. One is clearly better than the other, and small differences can be big in MLB. There can be small differences between the guy who's good enough to play MLB and the guy who's not. BA is not a great stat in isolation, of course. I'd rather use OPS+ any day.

The Orioles have been doing much better since they changed managers.

He made it back to the ALCS in his third season with the team. That said, I think it's obvious to everyone that right now his job security is at a low point.

.280 vs. .300 in how big a sample size, though?

Yes, we're all biased observers when it comes to our own team.

Chapman has a 1.2 bWAR. For a reliever at this point in the season that's excellent. WAR is a counting number like strikeouts or RBI, and relievers only pitch about 1/3 as many innings as starters, so I always multiply by 3. That would be 3.6, which projects to about 8 WAR for the season, which is elite level.

And the Rabbit Hole Era.