Maxbialystock
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Everything posted by Maxbialystock
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Neat!!! Thanks.
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I'm all for making the playoffs with the no doubt vain hope that the Sox pitching can make a difference. I think both Early and Tolle are good additions. I also think Sox hitting will continue to struggle without Anthony.
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Anthony was called up because Abreu went on the IL and absolutely not to replace Devers. Devers hated losing 3b, and it took Cora a while to get him to embrace DH, where he excelled with an OPS of .905 without missing a single game. The time to move Devers to 1b was spring training when Casas, a lousy fielding first baseman, could have been moved to DH. I hasten to add that keeping Devers at DH for this season would have been smarter than making a big public show of how he refused to play 1b--including having JH fly to KC to talk to Devers about that situation. Funny thing, but Devers is playing 1b for the Giants, so to me it's obvious Breslow was heavy-handed.
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The Sox already had a pretty good outfield with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu plus Devers was the DH. I believe Anthony was called up on June 9 because Abreu went on the IL. When Anthony arrived on June 9, the Sox had already played 3 rookies--Campbell, Mayer, and Narvaez. Heck, all 3 were starters although Campbell was sent back to Worcester on June 19. Plus Campbell and Anthony already have long term contracts. And rookie starters Early and Tolle are active right now. My point is that I do not think the Sox have underused their rookies this season.
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I think John Henry opted out of arms races after the 2019 season when the Sox highest payroll in MLB didn't make it to the postseason. Plus fixing the 2019 pitching was going to cost even more. This year the Sox payroll is 12th highest in MLB, but that was/is enough to spend big on Bregman, Crochet, and Chapman--plus Buehler, Yoshida, Story, and Giolito, all of whom are around the $20M/year salary.
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Absolutely was not on Cora who in fact was instrumental in getting the one win, 5-4 in 10 innings, with his adept handling of both the bullpen and the lineup substitutions. Last night was as much Story's fault (2 errors, 2 unearned runs) as Bello's. Plus of course the weak hitting. And the game 1 loss, 1-2, was entirely about the weak hitting. I still think Anthony going on the IL Sep 3 was a crucial loss. The pitching has been this team's mainstay all season long, but you still need to score runs, and without Anthony the Sox lineup has struggled. And that's despite the fact that Story has been incredible in September with an OPS of 1.023!!! The Cora baiters on talksox remind of the Francona baiters of yesteryear when every single loss was entirely his fault.
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Exactly. Well said.
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It's why they call themselves the Athletics and not the Sacramento Athletics.
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He certainly has in September.
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He has indeed. I think the DWAR guys screwed him with a +0.4 when he leads all MLB SS's in assists and is 2d in PO's. His June, July, and August OPS's were all over .800 and in September it's .952.
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Horrible 1st by Bello, who obviously wasn't ready to pitch the 1st in which he threw a bunch of meatballs.
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The A's took advantage of Bello throwing a lot of pitches right down the middle.
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You seriously saw not a smidgen of irony in my conclusion, especially when I have defended Cora til the cows come home?
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Gotcha. I left out Casas because his OPS for 29 games was .580 and his WAR was -0.9. I thought my real point--that Sox injuries played huge part in their struggles this season--and that Cora actually has done a good job with his lineups. The loss of Devers and then Anthony were major. I think he also did a great job with the pitching staff.
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To play 75% of a MLB 162 game schedule you need to play in 121 games (rounded down from 121.5). Right now the Sox have 3 players--Duran, Story, and Rafaela--who have played in 148, 148, and 146 games. No other Sox players will get to 121. No other AL team has just 3 players assured of playing in 75% of the games. The Jays, Yankees, Tigers, Astros, and Guardians, all have 6 or more players sure of playing in 75%. And the Mariners have 5 who, however, have played in 151, 150, 149, 148, and 130 games All 5 are very likely to play in at least 85% of the Guardians games. Here are the names and OPS's of 6 Sox players not playing in 75% (121 games or more) of the Sox games: Devers .905, Refsnyder .863, Anthony .859, Gonzalez .821, Bregman .820, Abreu, .811, The top 3 OPS's will all finish having played in less than 50% of the Sox games this season. I think it's pretty obvious that Cora gets the blame for the lack of good hitting on the Sox. He simply didn't play his best guys.
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Great bunt. Pitch was high but Narvaez persevered.
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Wrong again on this game and on Cora and Bregman. While I think the Sox are still very much in the hunt for the postseason, the hitting scares me.
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Agree.
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Not right down the middle but definitely a lousy at bat, just like Gonzalez.
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Right now Bregman is the only choice at 3b, but his September OPS is .563. His one dinger hit the Pesky Pole down low. And whatever bon mots he is sharing in the dugout or locker room ain't having much effect.
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Yes and no. The Jays are better but the A's could sweep the Sox.
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Last night another well-pitched game squandered.
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Not a joke--simply a team having trouble hitting a round ball with a round bat squarely. Not keeping Devers as DH saved money, but never solved the 1b issue--and it definitely hurt the hitting. At the time, I thought it was the right move and thought so for a long time until 2 weeks ago when Anthony went down for the count while Bregman couldn't hit spit. Devers as DH would be huge right now. Definitely not as good a clubhouse guy as Bregman, but that ain't working lately. Hitting is the coin of the realm. Breslow has a better eye for and interest in pitching than hitting. He brought in Breslow, whose value this season is maybe 1/2 his $40 salary and who gets $40M more next year if the wants it. But the two best Sox hitters this year, Devers and Anthony, came from DD and CB. So did Duran, Story, Abreu, Mayer, and Ref,
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Bregman is not mailing it in. He just can't hit for almost a month now.
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That's not a better world.
