moonslav59

You always crack me up. Thanks for being such a bright spot in an otherwise mostly bleak environment, especially during losing stretches.

The "wrong, wrong, WRONG" is a direct quote made several times, mostly directed at me. Baseball is a sport that is impossible to predict or project. Everybody gets things wrong, unless they never make predictions of give opinions. Giving suggestions is another story.

There is another explanation: maybe the Sox were not really as bad as we thought, the last 2 years- pitchers, especially. Either answer could be correct, but maybe it's somewhere in between.

That was the killer, for sure. That just should never happen.

Good points. The other thing to look at is the large percentage of all of our larges deals that failed or fell way short of hopes or expectations. Most of our very best moves/additions were trades not large FA signings. This could be one reason JH tries to avoid these types of mistakes.

Crappy loss. Gotta break the slide.

Notable Numbers Woo 1.059 Kavadas .763 Westbrook .756 Hickey .749 Meidroth J Alexander 3.86 ERA R Fitts 3.91 Gambrell 4.35 POR 1.170 Lugo (6 HR) .912 Paulino .901 Gasper .794 Jordan .774 Mayer (5 SB) .755 Yorke (5 SB) .747 Teel .700 Anthony Olivares 1.76 Dobbins 2.14 Penrod 2.50 Wikelman 5.74 (before today's gem) GRE .951 K Campbell .849 T Miller .769 Castro Mullins 3.15 Early 4.57 SAL .827 A Lugo .739 Yuten .636 Bleis J Paez 2.37 E R-C 3.20

fWAR Leaders (before today's games) 1.6 Houck 1.5 Crawford 1.4 Kirby, Wheeler, Kikuchi 1.3 Suarez, Cease, Ragans, Skubal, S Gray 1.2 Imanaga, Greene 1.1 Glasnow, Castillo, M Miller 1.0 Detmers, Yamo, Ryan 0.9 S Lugo & others 2.9 Betts 2.2 Soto 2.1 G Henderson 2.0 Bohm, Altuve 1.9 de la Cruz, Ohtani, S Perez, Kwan 1.7 Tucker 1.6 W Smith, K Marte, Adames T29th O'Neill 1.2 T40th Abreu 1.0 Teams Everyday ALE 3. BAL 7.1 6. NYY 6.4 14. TOR 4.5 18. BOS 3.4 20. TBR 2.7 Pitching 2. BOS 5.3 8. BAL 3.7 16. NYY 3.1 27. TBR 1.1 28. TOR 0.8 Everyday + Pitching 10.8 BAL 9.5 NYY 8.7 BOS 5.3 TOR 3.8 TBR

Woo won 4-0 as Hagenman went 4 IP: 0 ER and just 2 hits. 0 BB & 8 Ks Dalbec 2-4 EValdez 1-4 w 2 RBI POR won the make-up game 2-1. Wikelman 5IP, 1ER, 0BB, 8K Zeferjahn pitched 2 IP and still has a 0.00 ERA Bastardo got lit up in the game 2 loss. GRE, SAL and the FCL teams all lost.

And the season is just a month old.

Another game with 2 or less runs allowed by the end of 5 innings. (1 is unearned.)

Passed Balls and Wild Pitches. Finding new ways to allow runs to score.

As a team, our SP'ers have these numbers: OPS AGainst .551 first time through the line-up as SP .597 second .559 third (only 7 PAs 4th time through at 1.000 due to a homer allowed) .600 first 25 PAs against .651 26-50 .585 51-75 .566 76-100 (Only 3 PAs over 100 pitches at 2.000) By catcher .602 w McGuire (Top 6 by PA: Houck, Craw, Wink/Criswell, Piv/Anderson .614 w Wong (Houck, Craw, Bello, Wink, Whit/Martin) .494 last 7 days .591 last 14 days .609 for season .589 v LHB .630 v RHB .566 Away .651 Home .576 SP .651 RP .655 men on base (.746 RISP) .702 Late & Close .683 High Leverage

Weissert has looked pretty good, out of the gate, this year.

The 2024 sample sizes are small, but here are some defensive numbers: DRS -1 Wong in 162 innings (30th out of 44 catchers with 100+ innings) 22 out of 33 with 130+ innings -2 McGuire in 135 innings (34th out of 44 and 25th out of 33.) Some metrics show McGuire is better at pitch framing than Wong. Wong has better pop times on SB attempts. McGuire is better at blocking bad pitches. We've cycled through so many pitchers on this team since McGuire joined the team in 2022, that there are not many balanced AND large enough sample sizes to get a good read on who gets the most from our pitchers, one-by-one.

Houck He's doing better the "third time through" than years past, but is still struggling after 75 pitches. .327 1-25, .688 26-50, .308 51-75, but .793 at 76-100. His logs: We are 4-3 in his 7 starts. IP -ER -H+BB -K 6.0-0-3-10 6.0-0-6-7 5.2-4-12-2 (3 unearned runs) 2 run HR allowed in 6th 9.0-0-3-9 6.0-2-8-4 (2 of the 3 men he left on base in 7th scored) 6.2-1-4-9 6.0-4-8-5 (had allowed just 1 run going into 7th) OPS Against by innings: .395 1st .348 2nd .644 3rd .713 4th .292 5th .523 6th 1.252 7th (0.00 in 8th and 9th that one game) Crawford: He has amazing reverse splits: .405 v LHB & .669 v RHBs. He has only gone past 27 batters once. .529 1st PA, .558 2nd PA & .483 3rd PA. .488 pitch 1-25, .469 pitch 26-50, .675 pitch 51-75 & .460 pitch 76-100. Game logs: (Sox are 3-4 in his starts) 6.0-0-4-7 4.2-1-5-5 5.0-0-6-6 5.2-0-2-6 6.0-3-10-4 7.0-2-6-6

We have really swung and missed at so many pitchers, and if you look at the cost per IP or cost per quality IP, my guess is our best additions were the lower cost guys like Strahm, Wacha, Bernardino, Schreiber, Whitlock, Slaten and Wink (if you don't think trading away Beni was costly.) It's worse with SP'ers. Choosing how far to go back is subjective, but clearly adding Pedro, Schilling and Beckett were bold and successful moves. Maybe the downturn started around the Dice-K signing in 2007, in terms of returns on big money spent. One can also ask, "How much is big money spent?" Is the $5M spent on Brad Penny back in 2009 big? It certainly is bigger than $5M spent on Martin Perez or Rich Hill. Here is a likely incomplete list: $52M/6 Dice K '07 (plus massive signing fee) $83M/5 Lackey '10 (not a bad signing but not great, either) $68M/4 Beckett '11 (extension and was later traded) $30M/4 Buchholz '12 (extension) $27M/2 Dempter '13 (retired after '13) (traded for Peavy at $29M/2, then traded him the next yr) '13 $10M/1 Masterson '15 (traded for $19M/3 Wade Miley) $217/7 Price (traded w Betts) '16 $88M/4 Porcello (extension) '16 (traded for Sale at $32M/5) '17 & traded for Pom $4M/1 '17) $68M/4 Nate (re-signed after trading for him in '18) '19 $145M/5 Sale (extension signed in '19) '20 $7M/1 Perez '20 $10M/1 Richards & $5M/1 Perez in '21 $10M/1 Paxton '22 (w option for '23) $7M/1 Wacha & $5M/1 Hill in '22 $39M/2 Giolito & Whitlock extension at $19M/4 '24 Pen $12M/2 Jenks & $4M/1 A Bailey '11 $7M/1 Hanrahan & Koji $4M/1 '12 $10M/2 Mujica & $6M/2 Breslow '14 $18M/2 Koji '15 (traded for Kimbrel at $42M/4) '16 (traded for Ottavino at about $8M/1 remaining) $19M/2 Barnes (extension,) Diekman $8M/2 & $3M/1 Strahm '22 $32M/2 Jansen & $18M/2 Martin '23 $10M/2 L Hendriks '24

Both Wong and McGuire have some specific areas of need on D, and they are not the same. That does not make large and balance sample sizes of CERA BS. Ask most pitchers, if they prefer to pitch to one guy over another. Last year the early overall CERA numbers favored Wong, but when you broke it down by pitcher, and only compared those with somewhat large and balanced sample sizes, the margin was not so great. This year, the sample sizes are too small, but McGuire seemed to have evened things up. I'm not even going to look, until half the season is over, but they do seem to be balancing the load more, this year. They both have had their hot streaks at bat, but Wong is doing much better there. I'm glad we have both of them, despite the big mistake by McGuire, last night.

Who is he?

Campbell on a SSS. maybe Kavadas...

Even if they flame out, they have ALMOST passed Ben's kids, already. (Maybe they already have.)

MLB.com called him the oraganization's "hottest hitter."

I'm like 0-4, so I'll wait.

Actually, it's 3. I 3 counted as "bad" were: Bello's second start: 5IP, 4 ER, 6 H+BB (won this game) Houck's 3rd start: 5.1 IP, 4 ER, 12 H+BB (lost game) Anderson's last start/opener: 1.2 IP, 5 ER, 6 H+BB Borderline: Crawford's game where he let up 10 H+BB but only 3 ER in 6 IP (a quality start) (1 unearned run in the loss)

Only about a handful are still in the majors. DD's look to already be passing or near passing Ben's.