moonslav59

It does not help that he sucks on D. While his splist vs RHPs is not great, it's not so low that it makes him a lost cause. He would not need to improve by much more than 75 points to be okay on offense. (He is at .855 vs LHPs.) He is .678 career vs RHP, but he averaged about 30 Hrs per 650 v RHPs with a respectable 82 RBIs. I don't see him getting another chance with the Sox, and filling up a 40 man roster slot may not make any sense, going forward.

Bad loss. I'm not sure why we went away from the running game, and Hartman sucked, today.

I'm pretty sure nearly all of us view the rotation as our highest need area for 2024. The need for 2 or 3 has been debated, and it seems unlikely we add 3 significant SP'ers, this winter. (I'd love to see it, as it would make our pen one of the best in MLB, but I think it is a long shot hope.) IMO, these are our highest need areas, this winter- listed in order of highest need: 1. SP1 2. SP2 3. Power RHB (CF, 2B or RF, if we trade Dugo) 4. 2B or CF/RF (whichever #3 does not fill.) 5. SP3 6. LH RP (Upgrade C or the last of the 3 slots mentioned in #3 and #4.) If we have $45-50M to spend, things will be way too tight to meet most of these needs, unless we make a big prospect trade. If we have $65-70M to spend to stay under the second tax line, we might be able to pull it off by filling 4-5 of these 6 slots with quality players or 3-4 with quality and 2-3 with decent upgrades- filling all 6 slots.) FA signings might be... 1. Gray 2. Montgomery 3. Duvall 4. Merrifield/A Frazier 5. Wacha 6. Nick Martinez/Wandy Peralta I doubt we can get all this for $70M. Either we go over the $70M mark, make a big prospect trade, sign lesser cost players or fill just 3-5 of these slots.

Clemson is coming alive vs ND. It's not over, yet, but it is not looking good for the Irish.

Yes. I know. I think that is the minimum he gets, but I still think the odds are slightly better he gets 2 years. I'm not sure why the odds on 1 or 2 years for Duvall is becoming a long running topic of debate.

We got Shaw on AUG 15, 2021. Dalbec "took off" on May 13. He was doing pretty good before the Shaw addition: .809 May 13 to Aug 14. (but 1.375 the 2 weeks before the trade.) But, he did "take off," afterwards: .970 Aug 15 to end of season. Shaw sucked in ST'ing '21 and looked totally lost to start the ML season. They tried Cordero before Casas. Then, Casas got hurt.

Yes, I remember several posters wondering about Dalbec, but Casas was considered ML ready or very near ML readi. His untimely injury in late May killed the depth plan. Personally, I don't see the 1B plan going into the season as a blunder. I thought several other positions were higher need areas. I wasn't thrilled about 1B, but with a guy like Casas in the wings, it looked pretty "safe."

I think it's close to 50-50. I'd say better than 50-50, but not by much. I project $18-19M/2. Most likely, he gets a 2nd year option, maybe with a $2M buyout. $8.5M 2024 with $9.5M team option- with a $1.5M buyout. Basically, $10M/1 or $18M/2 might get him.

I wasn't trying to justify or excuse the use of players out of position. I was actually trying to add to the list and the idea that he went overboard. I still "blame Bloom" for creating rosters that forced these odd positional shifts.

You have pointed out, many times, how it is not easy to make trades in May and June. We started the 2022 season with Bobby Dee at 1B. While he had a horrific 2021 playoffs, his career OPS, at the time, was .819 (545 PAs is rather significant.) He had also just ended the 2021 season with a 103 game and 345 PA stretch at an .867 OPS (23 HRs & 67 RBI which projects to 43 HRs and 126 RBI over 650 PAs) It's hard for me to think it was a blunder plan to start 2021, and once the season started, it was not hard to think maybe Dalbec was just off to another slow start and would "heat up" at any minute. When it became clear he was not going to, Casas got hurt. In 2021, Dalbec started heating up on May 13th. I think giving him until about June 1st, before giving up. Casas was hurt on May 17th. Was someone available to trade for? Cordero sucked, and Hosmer did nothing to help. Granted, Bloom got the 3rd and 4th string 1B plan wrong. I don't see that as a major blunder, planwise. The 2023 SS plan was a disaster.

No. Turner was on the original list, and he played 2B with LAD quite a bit.

You do two years, so you can get him over the many teams offering him one year. The list of quality OF'ers on the market might be the worst in recent memory.

Unless we trade or cut Refsnyder, he looks like a lock to be a platoon. Yes, he slumped towards the end of '23, like almost all his teammates, but the guy still has a better OPS vs LHPs 2022-2023 than anyone else on the roster for 2024: 90+ PAs '22-'23 w Sox .900 Turner (not on '24 roster, yet) .828 Refsnyder .823 Devers .817 Casas .772 Reyes (57 PAs) .756 Duvall (not on '24 roster, yet) .746 Yoshida .501 Wong With these career splits, we may see 2 OF platoons, if we add a RHB OF'er or Rafaela shows he can hit well vs LHP: Career (some small sample sizes) vs RHP/vs LHP .929/.400 Abreu (75 PA v R and 10 PA v L) .807/.665 Verdugo (2023: .793/.609) .795/.746 Yoshida (may bs our DH) .762/.570 Duran (2023: .841/.749) .604/.757 Refsnyder (.466/.828 in '23) .675/.645 Rafaela (in 62 PAs v R/ 27 PA v L) (FYI: Duvall .760/.770)

You don't think hitting .834 OPS in '23 vs the .677 OPS before 2023 might be enough to persuade one GM to offer 2 years?

Wong played 2 games at 2B in 2022 (5 innings) and 5 games way back in '23 with the Sox (5 innings.) Vaz played 2B: 0.2 inning in '20 5.0 innings in '21 1.0 inning in '22 That's a flagrant foul on you!

It doesn't bug me at all. I did not see the post that explained your reasoning. You can continue misrepresenting my thoughts and positions. I'm not going to take the bait. Feel free to get in the last word.

No, they will overlook it, regardless, if they think he can be a big help on the mound.

List all that played for the Sox for just one year would be challenging, too.

WOW! Good one! Loved that high leg kick.

Pitcher theme... Tom Seaver Fergie Jenkins Brett Saberhagen John Smoltz

I missed that post. Yes, that answers my Q.

If a team offers him 2-3 years w/o an option, I think he'd take it, unless he thinks he can stay healthy, have a big year and hit paydirt in '25.

Can we trade him for an ace? I'll throw in Dugo and Mata.

I think he should get $9M/1. He will get $19M/2. (1 more year and $10M more.)

I could see thinking Rafala, Abreu and Duran could maybe be counted on to fill 2 OF slots, combined, but that could backfire, badly. (LF and CF with Abreu backing up RF)