moonslav59

I would add that "the plan" was to slash the payroll budget, and DD was not the best type of GM for that role. IMO, he'd have been miserable having to trade Betts and not being able to replace all the salaries lost (Betts, Price, JD, Porcello and later with Nate, Sale & Bogey.) The "new spending" after the Sale & Nate signings up to Devers extension and 2025 & 2026 budgets was not up DD's alley. The fact that they chose Bloom as the GM supports that idea. Bloom cut the budget, built up the farm and 40 man roster depth to a point where a rebuild became possible had we spent top money correctly (No Story, Yoshida and the endless $10M seasonal SP'ers.) Brez has done a better job, spent more, but has made a few deals that went south, quickly and sharply. He did end up replacing the Devers money, but neglected replacing the big bat we needed beyond Contreras. I do see this roster & farm as better than 2022-2024 (Bloom after 2-3 years.) We have a few gaping holes, and the fact that almost all AL teams do too, offers little solace.

Yes, and there are a ton of 30 WAR everyday players and not many RP'ers at that number- plus.

I don't see how one player in the HOF vs another not matters on how WAR is calculated. It just shows the extreme subjectivity of it all. In one way, you could argue it shows closers are under-valued and people view the closer as better than the other player despite equal WAR numbers.

Eyanson has an eye-popping .350 OPS Against and 0.61 ERA. Let's see how he keeps going at POR. Mullins is second at .466. This guy seems to keep getting the job done but remains at POR. Barrett Morgan ha sstarted out well at SAL and is third at 4.67. .471 Rogers FCL>POR .492 Guerrero WOR (has pitched for BOS) .516 Reyes SAL .529 Jacob Mayers SAL .561 Rivera POR>WOO .572 Bennett WOO (has pitched for BOS) .621 Futrell SAL>GRE (on IL) _________________ TOP OPS (100+ ABs) 1.084 Arias POR 1.077 Brannon POR .947 Gasper WOR (BOS) .942 Cespedes GRE .892 Gonzales GRE .873 YRod GRE .873 Azocar SAL .871 Mason White GRE .871 Sogard WOR (BOS) .865 Godbout GRE .861 Capra WOR .858 Ferguson POR>WOR .853 Winnay GRE .834 N Baez POR .803 Heyman SAL _______________ TOP OPS (20-99 ABs) 1.214 Louis Andujar FCL 1.162 Jo Rodriguez FCL 1.083 Primera FCL 1.054 Ro Hernandez GRE .877 Peguero FCL .825 Hudson White GRE .784 Jo Garcia Look at all the GRE batter's numbers! They have 8 batters over .825! When the season began, many of us were in awe at GRE's projected rotation: Valera, Witherspoon, Eyanson, Phillips... .

Arias is second in OPS in the Eastern League. He's 4th in HRs. Cespedes is 14th and Gonzales 20th in the South Atlantic League. Azocar is 14th in the Carolina League. Heyman is 22nd. Gasper 11th & Sogard 27th in the International League.

WOO was rained out, yesterday. Arias and Jo Garcia had 2 hits each in POR's 4-3 win. Rosario had a dinger and another hit. GRE lost both the make-up game and their scheduled game by one run. Cespedes and Y Rod each had 2 hits, and Cespedes homered, Witherspoon had a good game: 4.1 IP, 2H, 1ER, 2BB, 6K. SAL won 10-2 on 9 hits and 6 BB. Tucker homered.

BTV has Chapman listed at 1.7 years of control and a $23.4M value. Minus his $22.2M contract, and he's worth about $2M, according to them.

They now have Rafaela as the highest value player, mainly due to so many years of control at a reasonable rate. According to BTV, the Sox extensions netted a plus: +57 Rafaela +43 Anthony -1 Campbell -22 Bello Net: +77 The Bloom Effect: -40 Story (owed $47M) -23 Yoshida (owed $30M) Basically, someone might pay $7M of each of their deals.

Yup. Some Sox fans- maybe not a majority or the ones that hang out on Ole Red's street corner and gym locker room actually do have some common sense.

I did not know this. Thanks. Is it part of bWAR, too? IMO, it still seems like the best closers are undervalued by WAR, but I can't offer any proof.

Nowhere did I say all save situations are high leverage, but most are. Chapman clearly pitches more high leverage and Late & Close as any other Sox pitcher and way more than the average of all Sox pitchers not names Chapman. Most closers face a much higher proportion of high leverage/late & close IP than the norm, but WAR only counts all IP as equal and results. It's a flaw in the system. Do you disagree? Most closer have a higher percentage of high leverage IP. Yes, a 7th inning high leverage situation where a RP'er comes in with bases loaded may be more important than a 9th inning save situation, where a closer comes in to start the inning. The high leverage and late & close data is not perfect for that reason, but overall, the numbers I posted tell a story that Chapman's IP'd are more valuable than others. Way more than some.

BTV accepts this absurd trade suggestion: Early (37) Soto (17) Azocar (15) Durbin (14????) & Witherspoon (13) for CJ Abrams (72) + $10M & Brady House (12)

How is it strawman? I fully realize many other innings have high leverage situations, too. To come in for a save situation is nearly pre-determined to be high leverage. Chapman pitches in more high leverage situations than others, so to me his IP count more than others. PAs in High-Medium-Low Leverage 37-17-14 Chapman (54 High) 31-27-20 Whitlock (40%) 15-13-9 Slaten (40%) 13-5 18 Coulombe (36%) 28-15-42 Weissert (33%) 21-16-34 Kelly (30%) 17-26-68 Moran (15%) 5-10-118 Watson (4%) Late & Close 85% (58 out of 68) Chapman 76% (59 out of 78) Whitlock 73% (27 out of 37) Slaten 28% (10 out of 36) Coulombe 28% (26 out of 93) Moran 27% (23 out of 85) Weissert 27% (19 out of 71) Kelly 8% (11 out of 133) Watson

I think COVID may have affected the offer he finally signed with LAD. Nobody knows what Betts would have taken before he was traded. Obviously, the final offer we made was not enough. My position was we should have offered more years and maybe the AAV goes down- and that seemed to be JHs major concern. Letting him go was almost as bad as letting the Babe go. We decided to keep Sale and Nate, instead. Another aspect to consider was the JH budgets from 2020>>> Had they stayed aboutt he same, and Betts was making $30+ AAV, what sort of team would we have had around him- even had we kept DD or hired the best GM in MLB history, instead of Bloom> Breslow?

Like a true reading of the "pulse," which is a self-proclaimed asset only Ole Red has is somehow closer to the truth than any single fan's view.

Nailed it. The thing about this year, for me, was that I expected some of our younger players, some of whom had already shown they can put together a full season of good play would continue to improve as they neared or entered prime. They haven't. The more inexperienced ones have not either.

Not beating the Twins at home is a real bummer.

The problem is with WAR and how it treats high leverage 9th innings the same as some guy coming into a 10-0 games to pitch one inning. Simply put, Chapman is worth more than his WAR and likely his projected WAR, too.

Looks like a great trade!

Go to the away games.

I think several recent winters crossed the line significantly more than this one, but the cumulative effect is real.

.731 vs .599 was better.

Arias homered, again. He has 11. Paez and Rogers went 3 scoreless, each. 0 hits 1 BB 7 Ks combined

The team who takes players doing crappy have hopes. The original point.

Oh yes. How about the Kike trade?