moonslav59

He's certainly made more plays most or no others make than errors, so he is a clear plus on D, at SS and CF. His offense is a big negative, and rbis are not something WAR counts. It is also not a skill or something that can be counted on as being repeated, going forward. That being said, those RBIs were huge and helped us win, so yes, WAR does not recognize things like that. By and large, the other numbers look about right. I listed games played to highlight how some of our highest WAR players have half the games as other near them in the team rankings. Ref would jump. Wong + McGuire would place 5th.

Sox fWAR Leaders 2.2 Houck (10GS) 1st in MLB for pitchers 2.1 Duran 50 gms (T 13th in fWAR everyday players) 1.8 Crawford (10 GS) 10th in MLB 1.5 Abreu 44 (T for 33rd in MLB) 1.5 Devers 39 (T33) 1.1 Wong 34 1.0 O'Neill 39 0.9 Slaten (26 IP) 0.6 McGuire 31 0.6 Casas 22 0.5 Criswell (7 GS + 1 RP) 0.5 Jansen (17 IP) 0.5 Refsnyder 24 0.4 Bernardino (20 IP) 0.4 Whitlock (18 IP - maybe out for 1+ years) 0.3 Martin (19 IP) 0.2 Bello (8 GS) 0.2 DHam 25 0.1 Wink (24 IP) 0.1 Romy 12 0.1 Uwasawa (4 IP) 0.0 many -0.1 Kelly (14 IP) & Anderson (22 IP) -0.1 Cooper -0.2 Short -0.2 Joely (11 IP) & Campbell (6 IP) -0.5 Dalbec/Smith (in less gms than Dalbec) -0.6 Rafaela -0.7 Grissom, Reyes & Valdez (One can see why we tried to fix 2B.) Team Positional Rankings in fWAR 2nd Pitching 7.5 (4th SP 5.0 and 2nd Pen 2.5) 3rd RF 2.0 (Abreu & O'Neill have been bright spots.) T3rd LF 1.7 (Nice!) 8th C 1.7 (I had hopes we could be above average, this year, but WOW!) 11th CF 0.7 (A mix of players, here.) 18th 1B 0.1 (Only Casas kept us from being negative) 23rd 3B 0.3 (I know Devers at 1.5 missed time, but...?) 23rd DH -0.3 (What a shame! 28th SS -0.1 (No story has hurt, here.) 30th 2B -1.4 (Grissom has yet to fix the 2B problem.) The Pitching, Catchers and OF have saved us: 4th OF 4.4 (POW!) The pen is ranked higher than the rotation! It's obvious, our middle infield and DH have been big weak areas, this year.

He went 251-65 in 6 years. He played in 7. (106-21 in 2 seasons, combined) 325 GS in those 6 seasons. He had a career .313 BA.

Woo lost 6-3. Fitts did okay (5IP, 3H, 1ER, 3BB, 3K) Zeferjahn and Luetge lost it. Westbrook homered. Meidroth 1-4 w BB. POR lost 10-1. Mata 3IP, 5H, 3ER, 0BB, 2K Coffey got rocked. Mayer doubled. Arias walked 3 times in a loss w FCL.

Nobody doubts Koufax was dominant in his time. The question is about transfering that dominance to this era. I'm not sure we can so easily say no players from back then could be dominant, now. That seems pretty unilateral. We'll never know.

Luis Tiant's delivery would be illegal, today.

Top Farm OPS (90+ ABs) 1.056 Kavadas AAA 1.031 M lugo AA .912 K Campbell A+ .846 Gasper AA .830 Mayer AA .823 Teel AA .816 Sogard AAA .808 A Lugo A- .807 Paulino AA .787 Ugueto A+ .781 E Alvarez AAA .775 Yuten A+ .756 Jordan AA .754 Westboork AAA .741 Meidroth AAA .739 Anthony AA .733 Bleis A- .727 Hickey AAA .711 Castro A+ .688 Yorke AA Notables w 50-89 ABs: 1.063 Jo Garcia A- .998 E Valdez AAA .911 Jh Garcia A- (out for the year) .879 Dalbec AAA Best Pitcher OPS Against (25+ IP) .550 E R-C A- .551 Penrod AA .591 Dobbins AA .609 Cohen A- .632 JD Encarnacion A+ .635 Bastardo AA .656 Duffy A- .669 Wikelman AA .688 Paez A- .704 Hagenman AAA .710 Early A+ .715 I Coffey AA .725 Dean A- .733 Gambrell AAA .745 Fitts AAA .751 Alexander AAA Some notables under 25 IP: .486 Brand A+/AA .491 O'Donnell A- .512 Wehunt A- .549 Luetge AAA .551 Olivarez AA .596 Carlson A-/A+ .634 Olds AA .646 Guerrero AAA

Ok. That's what I assumed.

I went from '72 to '04, and I was wondering if I'd ever see glory.

The murky middle might be 8-20 teams.

How many times have people discounted the Rays? Then, you look up, and they have 92 wins. (I do think this is the year, they don't win over 85 or 86 games.

Yes, and by 2.5 games. I do agree; they are not a good team, but they are about as good as we are, and about 10 other teams in the current ranks of about 9th to 18th in MLB.

I might have more posts, but you and Red lead the league in rips.

Agreed. I wasn't the one saying "We can't eat good teams." (or our own division teams)

Nice memory for such a young sprout! There were so many "what ifs" in that classic game. I really thought we had the better team, on paper, that year, but as so many Sox teams did for decades upon decades, we came up just short.

My penchant for good defensive SSs, I suppose.

When we lost to the Rays, we heard, "We can't beat the good teams." Now, we sweep them, and it's "The Rays are not a good team, anymore." (Okay, okay, this might be a bit fictionalized, but it does seem to be similar to what we've been hearing.)

That is the story of the year for the Sox and their fans. It's a top 5 or 10 story for all of MLB.

I get the value in adding a SP'er with 3-4 arbs remaining vs a trade like Luis Castillo, but I do think that trade was a very good one for SEA. Castillo was about as proven as proven can be. Point one. He was 29, when acquired, so maybe not as young as we'd like, but to get "proven," you do have to be good for a few years. The part that is an issue was his extension. I tend to think $108M/5 was an excellent deal for SEA. He'll be ages 30-34- not young, I know, but I like these types of deals. I agree, though, nobody is trading a Strider, although there were rumors Kirby was being shopped.

You did name a specific time frame instead of just saying long term. I responded to the criteria you established. I agree that Cease and Lopez were not long term additions. I agree with your point being made. Sorry for being a stickler for detail. BTW, word was that Cease and Lopez were on the market a year or two, before they were traded, but I guess they wanted more than what anyone would offer. You are right, the cost to get "proven" and young SP'ers with 2.5 or more years of control in very difficult, and it has not happened in a while. The days of guys like Sale being traded may be past us.

I don't consider it long term, either, but the point was no proven starters with 1.5 or less years of control are traded, these days. The list of proven starters traded with 3+ years of control does involve going back several years. I agree with that point- just not the 2 year point. Also, maybe one one traded, recently, but they just haven't become an ace, yet. (I know, I know, then they are not "proven.")

Your point was set at 1.5 years. You changed your point. Of course, I want young studs with 3-5 years, too, but not many are "proven" and have 4-5 years left. Yes, those guys are hard to find. Guys like Pivetta seem to be the best we can do.

It's hard to fault that logic. That was amazing. We only needed 5 starts from others. Those who look at ERA might find several teams that were better or way better, but these numbers look better than their ERAs do: ERA Pitcher ERA+/FIP 3.26 Schilling 148/3.11 3.90 Pedro 124/3.58 4.03 Arroyo 120/3.82 4.87 Wake 99/5.08 5.42 Lowe 89/4.26 I still like others more, but GS and IP are of great value.

Cease and Lopez were 2 years guys. That's 2 in 2 years. Why don't you count them? (Did you move the goalpost from 1.5 to more than 2?) We extended Nate to $17M x 4. That beat FA market prices.

Here is my top 25 prospects list that changes almost everyday... LOL... 1. Anthony (1 soxprospects.com) 2. Mayer (2) 3. Teel (3) 4. Cespedes (5) 5. Bleis (4) 6. Zanetello (9) 7. Slaten (12) may graduate, soon 8. Fitts (6) 9. Jo. Garcia (16) out for the season 10. K Campbell (20) 11. Perales (8) 12. Yorke (11) 13. Arias (22) 14. Sandlin (10) 15. Meidroth (13) 16. E R-C (18) 17. Hickey (19) 18. Castro (14) 19. Jordan (17) 20. Paulino (15) 21. Dobbins (23) 22. Wikelman (7) 23. Romero (24) 24. Monegro (21) 25. Penrod (29)