Maxbialystock

Try those 3 dots in the upper right corner of your posts.

Both pitchers are crappy, but the hitters are much worse, except for the redoubtable Guerrero., to whom Crawford is obligingly serving up fat pitches.

Exactly. It's possible that at some point the Sox will decide he must go, but we are nowhere near that yet. And let's not forget that Mayer is no model of fitness/wellness. Let's also not forget that there are two middle infield positions to fill next year. I've beat up on Grissom endlessly, but he too should be a candidate/option.

Well written, able defense of Breslow. I would add one other item: it was his first year in a job a whole bunch of other potential CBO's probably turned down because of the uncertainty of where JH wants to take the Sox. On the other hand, Breslow also seems to be in the mold of his predecessors in not being able to make big moves on pitchers that work out. Even DD had to leave because in 2019 because two very pricey starters, Price and Sale, were struggling--and continued to in subsequent seasons while being paid enormous sums of money. Bottom line: Breslow is probably the best available CBO for the Sox. He's smart, and he knows pitching after having been one for 12 seasons in MLB. I'm guessing he and Cora are in sync.

Shakespeare said it best: much ado about nothing. My version: a stupid article just to write something, anything. Reality: when Story is ready, Cora will plug him in at SS or 2b, depending on the needs at the time. I frankly like 2b because I like Rafaela at SS and Duran in CF, leaving LF and RF for Ref, Abreau, O'Neill, et al. We know Story is a plus middle infield defender because we've seen that right here in Boston, and there is no end to the rantings and ravings on talksox about the dire need for good defense--almost to the extent of ignoring hitting and pitching, but not quite. Also, as was the case with Yoshida earlier this season, why wouldn't Cora play someone being paid $22M/season, who is also a plus defender and, back in Colorado, a plus hitter? I thought, you thought, we all thought Mayer was going to shore up the middle infield next year, but he too is injury-prone. All the more reason to take a look at Story this season.

Terrific win in just 2 hours and 10 min!!!!!!

The Sox dumped McGuire, not Wong. Tonight he caught a shutout. How many times has that happened this season for the Sox?

JBJ had 3 seasons when his OPS was over .800, but I'm inclined to agree with you. I also agree Rafaela will improve.

Agree. Eight is more than enough.

2d game without Devers. There's an article on the website that argues Wong absolutely, positively stinks behind the plate. Not sure I agree.

Either O'Neill read my post, or the Jays bullpen is as bad as ours.

He looks great out there tonight! A few of us--but not me--wanted him to go back to Worcester to "learn how to pitch," and they were just wrong. moonslav provided the stats to show us why. Tonight the problem is the lineup, who can't score runs.

2015-2020, JBJ's average OPS was .770. He was better than Rafaela. But Cora needs Rafaela because he's the best SS on the team--and I frankly don't care that he's probably the best centerfielder because Duran is doing just fine out there and anyone can play left field at the Fens.

Lineup is really let Bello down tonight. Just awful. But especially here in the 7th when the first two betters hit singles, followed by a horrible pop-up bunt by Gonzalez and of course still another K by Rafaela.

By "their" I assume you mean the Dodgers and not the Sox.

I assumed Mookie had an agent, but I guess you're right that he didn't and therefore would have been fine with an extension for peanuts. 😉 I do like your points about the LA opportunities.

Yacht World is a tad less rosy these days. A Yacht and/or a personal jet are pretty much the ultimate in ridiculously wealthy consumption. I can honestly say I yearn for neither, but I'm guessing JH does simply because he is reportedly a billionaire--and that's what most of them have. I have two theories about JH. One is the one everyone on talksox believes, that he's transformed himself into a skinflint, a cheapskate, possibly as a result of the 2019 collapse of the Sox when they had the biggest payroll in MLB and DD was telling John Henry he needed a lot more money to keep Mookie from the Dodgers and to replace Price and Sale as starters while continuing to pay their huge salaries. The other theory is that, despite his net worth of maybe $4B or $5B, John Henry might have cash flow issues. Simply stated, I have no idea how profitable the Sox and the other sports franchises JH owns are, month to month and year to year. 2020, for example, could not possibly have been profitable. And since then MLB has gone to a lot of trouble to streamline the game to make it more attractive to fans. Huge changes in extra inning games with the ghost baserunner on 2b from the 10th inning on. DH in the NL. Pitch clocks that are enforced, ditto rules on how much lounging outside the batter's box a hitter is allowed to do. Some say those pitch clocks have affected the durability of starting pitchers because they have less recovery time between pitches. Meanwhile, back in Boston the Sox are now in their 5th straight season, beginning with zero attendance in 2020, of lower attendance. From 2003 through 2019, average Sox attendance was somewhere around 36K or 37 K. In 2020, 0 attendance. In 2021, 21K, In 2022-2024, about 32.5K. I think a case can be made that the Sox attendance has stayed around 32K in part because of the departure of Mookie Betts. Seriously. In 2018 the Phillies average attendance was 27, 318, and the next year, 2019, it jumped to 33, 671, event though in both seasons, 2018 and 2019 the Phillies won-lost records were right around 81-81 with no hope of the postseason. What changed was that the Phillies signed Bryce Harper after the 2018 season. This year, 2024, with good seasons last year and the year before, plus Trea Turner at SS and Kyle Schwarber at DH, the Phillies attendance is an insane 41,497, 3d highest in MLB. On the other hand, the Dodgers got no bump when they added Mookie. In 2019 their attendance was 49,065. This year it's 48,270--but still by far the highest in MLB. Yankees are 2d with 41,826. Back to John Henry. He is not a novice at owning baseball teams because he was the Marlins owner before he owned the Sox and a minor league club owner before he owned the Marlins. First he made a fortune in commodities, and now has done the same with sports franchises. He bought the Sox for $660M, and now they are worth $4B or $5B, but that doesn't mean he can't have a cash crunch.

I saw that too. The defense was ranked like 27th in 2004--but the others, as you say were pretty good. I'm not against good defense, nor are the Sox. But almost invariably a good glove also has to be able to hit to stick with the Sox. JBJ is a great example. Tremendous arm and equally terrific routes to the ball in CF, he replaced Ellsbury on day 1 of the 2014 season, and after about a month or so went back to Pawtucket. That went on until August--that is, back and forth between Boston and Pawtucket--when JBJ's hitting seemed to come around. He finished that season with an OPS of just .531. But in 2015 it was .832, in 2016 .835, in 2017 .726, 2018 .717, and 2019 .738. His overall WAR's, 2014-2019, were .6, 2.2, 5.3, 2.8, 2.1, and 2.0. In the short 2020 season his OPS was .814 and his overall WAR was an impressive 1.9. His lifetime OPS is .684, but I'm pretty sure his 2015-2020 OPS with the Sox was about .770.

I left something out. The LA Dodgers also have the highest attendance in MLB and a much bigger fan base than the Sox. They are in fact far more profitable and can therefore afford to spend more than the Sox. A bidding war with the Dodgers for Mookie Betts would have been unwinnable.

The 2020 season and postseason were hugely affected by the covid epidemic, which demonstrably helped the Dodgers, whose 2020 WS win is the only one since 1988, 36 years ago. When Mookie went to the Dodgers in 2019, it was because the Sox already had the biggest payroll in MLB, which would have increased by at least $50M in order to outbid the Dodgers for Betts as well as to find and pay good starters to replace Price and Sale while at the same time continuing to pay both of their hefty salaries.

A lot of moaning and groaning, to say nothing of a sense of entitlement, on this thread. With perhaps the exception of giving away Babe Ruth, a truly great pitcher who turned out to be maybe the greatest hitter in MLB history, the Sox preference for offense over defense is also how they finally ended the 86 year drought and won the WS in 2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018 (the best Sox team in history). In 2004 they led MLB in runs scored, in 2007 they were 3d, in 2013 first again, and first again in 2018. Good hitting wins games, even titles. Gotta have good pitching too, but defense is a distant third. These days, as I will remind all of you relentlessly, one half of every MLB roster is composed of pitchers, whose only job is defense. I personally think pitching in MLB is extremely hard to do and so agree with the notion of 13 pitchers even though only one pitcher can be on that mound at a time. In any case, pitching is far and away the most important part of a team's defense. All of the scoring, on the other hand, depends on the 13 lineup players, who also play defense. Fortunately, the average MLB player can be counted on not to commit an error roughly 97% of the time. Not so at the plate, where he can expect to get a hit maybe 27% of the time and something else--an out, a walk, an HBP, a hit ball leading to an error--83% of the time. Because of the above numbers, the Sox have always preferred "good hit, adequate field" over "inadequate hit, good field" at every position. Thus during the John Henry era, the one with the four WS wins, the longest serving SS has been Xander Bogaerts. Thus is Devers, a subpar thirdbaseman, the guy with the big contract. I would be remiss if I didn't also note the Sox have had some excellent defensive players--Pedey, JBJ, JD Drew, Ellsbury almost, Alex Gonzalez and Jose Iglesias at SS, and a bunch of others. Even this season I think both Duran and Rafaela are standouts on a team that, granted, is dead last in MLB in fielding percentage. It therefore infuriates me read about how important the freaking defense is when in fact the only reason why the Sox are above .500 is that those same lineup players have the Sox ranked 6th in MLB in runs scored. The pitching, measured by team ERA, is ranked 21st.

That was a hard hit ball that Casas didn't catch, and I agree it was an error, which the scorer called.

It's also unfair to document errors/nonerrors that lead to losses and ignore the same by opposing teams who do in fact commit errors that now and then contribute to losses.

My point is it's unfair to document errors--or even "nonerrors"--that contribute to losses and ignore good plays that contribute to wins.