moonslav59

Again, nobody is saying signing Chapman is going to happen. It's a suggestion by a poster. Nobody is saying JT won't re-sign with the Sox, but many of us feel we already have enough DH first types on the team to think it's the best idea. If he signs, it doesn't make you right and us wrong. We are not making predictions, when we suggest what we'd like to see done.

They gave Kluber 9 starts at 6.26/6.57. He then let up 9 runs in his first 6.1 innings in relief. He and Pivetta killed us in April and halfway into May.

Yes. He was give 8 starts, and many felt that leash was too long, as it was. He had a 6.30 ERA and a 5.73 FIP. He was still at 6.15 after a couple sketchy relief games, but then went 3.05 (3.27 FIP) in his next 28 games and 97+ IP. That was 4 months. His good streaks have been longer than his bad one, but when he is bad, he's been real bad. It's hard to manage a guy like him. It's hard to plan the next season with him. He's been too good to want to trade, but it's frustrating, every year.

He's pitched very well for pretty long stretches of every season with the Sox. If he could just do it for a full season, we'd be blessed. I don't think we can count on it. I'd pencil him in as the #5 with Sale as the #6. (For those who dislike slotting pitchers: Pivetta in the rotation and Sale as SP depth.) I'm pretty sure the Sox will slot Sale in the rotation. I think Cora has already said he wants Sale to be the 2024 opening day starter. I'm okay with that idea, if and only if, we add 3 solid SP'ers, so Pivetta is made SP'er depth/long reliever. In short, if our offseason plan is to slot Sale and Pivetta in the starting 5, we are asking for trouble. Having Crawford, Houck and Whitlock as our primary SP'er depth is just asking for trouble. Ideally, if Sale is in the starting 5, Pivetta, Crawford, Houck and Whitlock should be in the pen, perhaps making it a top 3 pen in MLB with near revolutionary long relief in the pen.

You were the one that said you went into hiding. Not in those words, but you admitted you stopped watching, and it just happened to be when we were doing well. You claimed it was about baseball being watered down and not fun to watch anymore. Then, when we start losing, you comeback huffing and puffing, gloating and calling optimistic fans "losers." You start watching the games again, despite the league still being "watered down." It's not a "company line:" it's your line and your MO. You keep acting like us suggesting we get a SS and play Story at 2B was a prediction, and we were wrong for wanting a SS, and you were right. You crack me up, literally.

I really liked Wacha. At one point, I suggested we offer hima QO, but then I realized, he could be signed for much less. The deal he signed for was a steal for the Padres, even if he bolts. At least we offered Nate a fair deal and a QO. There was no word we even talked to Wacha.

24 Ks in 48 PAs, when he knows this is what he needed to improve on, certainly has not helped his case or value. That being said, the league trend seems to be to look the other way on K rates, if they guy can hit HRs or do something else- like get on base of play plus D. Dalbec has not shown he can do either of those, at the ML level, since the end of 2021 (not the '21 playoffs.) If we DFA him, and he goes unclaimed, we will know that no GM felt he was worth a slot on the 40. I do hope we can re-sign him to a minor league deal, if he does pass through waivers. The WOO fans must love him!

I think he is pretty credible and has no reason to be biased, whereas Betts has reason to stretch the facts. My guess is a $300M statement was made from the club- maybe not a firm offer, but maybe just a verbal "ballpark figure" floated to the Betts agents. That would cover the Betts statement that "no $300M offer was made," but also not make Merloni's source out to be untrue, as well. We may never know, for sure, and it's a pretty crucial point in determining, if we low-balled or "disrespected" Betts or not. As of now, I lean towards the idea that the Betts people knew the Sox were prepared to offer $300M and the Betts people said that's not enough, and the talks ended. That's the simple version that kinda fits the narrative of all reports.

My point was about whether later reports were just using Merloni's reporting or if other sources confirmed what he said. If other sources were found, I'd tend to believe it more.

The WS winners have proven you can win it all with various combinations of being really good in some areas and okay or even bad in some other areas. Certainly, being good on batting and pitching is more valuable than defense and base running, but all factor into how much you win or lose. The Royals won with a crappy rotation, but a great pen, defense, base-running and decent hitting. It can happen. We all know many teams have won with okay to bad and even horrific defense. It can be done. Nobody disputes that fact. When the Sox win, it's almost always because our batting was great, we had a decent closer and or pen, and a healthy and productive rotation, usually with 2 TOTR type SP'ers. Our home park will always improve our league rankings on batting, so that has to be factored in. It also hurts our pitching rankings. Ring Rankings (Batting wRC+, Pitching- fWAR, Defense, Running) Year B-P-D-R 2004: 1-4-24-30 2007: 2-6-14-19 (If you notice, we fell in B & P, but D & R picked up the slack.) 2013: T1-14-11-5 (one could argue the D & R covered for the average P.) 2018: 4-6-15-20 (A pretty well rounded team.) Max, one could bring up several examples where the Sox were better in batting and pitching than the 2013 team, yet did not even make the playoffs. It would prove nothing, but it does raise questions about your methodology on determining why the Sox win rings and how little defense matters. BTW, that 2015 KCR team: 10-14-2-17 (20th in SP fWAR) Middle of the road batting Bottom 11 rotation Middle running 2nd in defense.

Nobody has claimed it's all about the defense or that defense is equal or close to the value of pitching or batting. Nobody. Just because we talk about it does not mean we think it matters most. The vast majority of statements are about our need to improve our rotation and then getting a RH'd bat. Nobody is talking about benching Devers or Casas over their D, or even Yoshida. Nobody. We will likely have an opening at DH, so either we spend on one, or we move someone there. It's a worthy point of discussion.

I also wonder, if all the later reports were just relaying the Merloni report, or if a separate source(s) were found.

He falls to the middle of the pack in Away OBP and SLG (78th and 79th out of 153 with 150+ PAs Away.) He's 26th and 40th at Home. Home + Away He is 69th in xwOBA and 61st in wRC+ He has a 110 OPS+ I'm not saying he's been great, but in some areas, he seems to be better than I thought, in terms of comps to the rest of the league. He had a lot of adjusting to do. I think he deserves another season to determine more about him, but I do agree that this year was a disappointment.

All game long, teams don't know when a blitz is coming or what sort of coverage might be switched to, then, poof: they know everything about the D for the last few seconds or minutes.

Out of 96 players in the AL with 400+ PAs, Yoshi placed... 36th in OBP, before tonight 43rd in SLG 151 players have 300+ PAs Yoshi is 44th in OBP and 60th in SLG Maybe since the Sox have 5 in the top 44, we don't realize how his ranking isn't as bad as it seems. He's 5th best on the Sox, but averages about 3rd best on AL teams. (44 divided by 15 teams)

Granted, these are just players that qualify, so many have higher OBPs but not quite enough PAs, but still, yes, I was shocked, too. It's also just the AL not MLB. Still, top 25 in OBP and SLG surprised me.

No INTs and 14 TDs on the season is impressive.

Young Player Current OPS .862 Abreu 24 .857 Casas 23 .851 Devers 26 .828 Duran 26 .762 EValdez 24 .746 Dugo 27 .698 Urias 26 .682 Rafaela 22 .680 Wong 27 Young Pitcher ERAs 2.98 Winckowski 25 3.86 Kelly 28 4.04 Crawford 27 4.24 Bello 24 4.91 Murphy 25 5.15 Whitlock 27 5.31 Houck 27 6.26 Walter 26 6.55 Robertson 24

In the olden days, we'd be celebrating Yoshida finishing 5h in the AL in BA, although .288 is not usually a 5th best BA. Turner is currently 9th at .277. Devers is 17th at .271. 24. Casas .263 25. Dugo .263 OBP Leaders: .412 Ohtani .410 Diaz 7. Casas .367 13. Devers .350 16. Turner .347 20. Yoshida .338 (I didn't realize .338 was so highly ranked.) SLG .654 Ohtani .628 Seager 7. Devers .501 10. Casas .490 21. Turner .458 24. Yoshida .446 (I would have never guessed he was top 25 in the AL in SLG.) OPS 5. Casas .857 7. Devers .851 18. Turner .805 26. Yoshida .784 33. Dugo .746 (Note: Beni is 8th worst at .682)

ND beat Duke 21-14 at Duke. Good win.

How would you compare Abreu's defense to these guys: Dugo in RF Duvall in RF Duvall in CF Duran in CF Duran in LF Duvall in LF Refsnyder in LF Yoshida in LF I'd say he's worse than Dugo in RF, maybe equal to Duvall in RF. Better than anyone else in CF, except Rafaela. Better than anyone in LF I listed.

We've beaten this horse. I doubt any GM would give a PTBNL for Dalbec or claim him off waivers, but all it takes is one, and Dalbec has shown he can hit in the bigs for pretty long stretches- just not recently. He raked in AAA, this year, but has not shown any improvement on defense or in limiting his K's. Again, he will likely not have any GM calling us, but it's not impossible, IMO. Obviously, it is to you. I get it. You are likely right.

I know every team ends up using scrub pitchers during the long season, and some end up doing okay. Some like Brasier suck for one team, then do well for another. I just wish we could limit how many and how often we end up using these guys. We used 30 pitchers, this year (plus Reyes.) I wouldn't call these 14 scrubs: Bello, Pivetta, Crawford, Sale, Houck, Paxton, Wink, Whitlock, Kluber, Martin, Schreiber, Jansen, Kelly and Joely. They were expected to pitch. Bleier 5.28 in 31 IP and Brasier 7.29 in 21 IP were both thought of as scrubs by most of us before the season started. That leaves 16.. Scrubs that did okay: 1 Bernardino 3.26 in 50 IP Scrubs that showed a little promise (at times): 1 Murphy 4.91 in 48 IP Scrubs who might deserve another look: 3 Robertson 6.55 in 11 IP Walter 6.26 in 23 Weiss 2.08 in 9 Scrubs I don't want to see pitch for us, again: 11 Llovera 5.46 in 30 Jacques 5.06 in 27 K Ort 6.26 in 23 Garza 7.36 in 18 Barraclough 12.91 in 8 Sherriff 2.70 in 7 Dermody 6.75 in 4 T Scott 4.91 in 4 Littell 9.00 in 3 Faria 22.50 in 2 Lamet 13.5 in 2 That's almost 130 IP from the scrubs of the scrubs- these last 11.

Llovera trae lluvia.

Bello has been over 5.20 for his last 14 starts.