moonslav59

They didn't want to wait for Wacha's demands to fall.

The other factor is that we may not even offer him a contract. We have 5 guys on our 26 man roster who are negatives on D.

I know Duvall is a FA, but I included him in the comps because I'm wondering if Abreu would be an improvement on D, and there is chance Duvall is brought back. We will not trade both Dugo and Duran.

Some people liked to criticize the knuckleball, despite the fact that it was hard enough to catch the pitch, let alone hit it. He was a true battler. Not many pitchers gave 130+ innings for 17 straight seasons and all with one team (ages 28 to 44.) He gave over 140 IP in 16 of those 17 seasons. 150+ in 13 of 17. 180+ in 9. He ended up with a 105 ERA+ for us. 3 seasons: 1995-1997 (608 IP) 118 ERA+ 2001-2003 126 ERA+ Incredibly, he had a 106 ERA+ in a 4 season stretch from 2005-2008 at ages 38-41.

The one guy we rush to sign: Kluber.

Exactly, and nobody is suggesting we bench or trade our corner IF'ers.

RIP. I loved Tim!

I don’t see it that way. He seems to be a straight shooter who has been critical of Sox management enough times to convince me, he’s not lying. I’ve presented a view where nobody lied. That’s my position.

The evidence is he did not accept the offer to stay

Wacha did not get $30M/2.

Sounds about right, but he doesn't want to piss of Sox fans. I do wonder, if we offered the same or $1M more than whatever LAD's top offer might have been, would he have signed with us.

Yes. Go to baseball reference. Click on BOS Click on Pitching, then Detailed Stats Scroll down to Team Relief Pitching and it gives IR, IRS (IS) and IS%. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2023-pitching.shtml It also gives the league average (32%) 7% Martin 13% Bernardino 17% Jansen 20% Murphy Below average: 33% Brasier 36% Jacques 40% Pivetta 44% Wink 50% Schreiber & Llovera 57% Bleier Not enough PAs Against to qualify: 0% Crawford, Joely, Sherriff, Weiss 18% Garza 33% Barraclough, Walter 67% Kelly 100% Robertson

The thing is, nobody is saying defense matters more than batting and pitching. Hell, I doubt anyone thinks it matters more than just the rotation or the pen or even half a line-up. It's a point of discussion that Max just doesn't want to happen, for some reason. Our D sucked. We allowed way too many opponents on base, when they should have been out. We forced our pitchers to get 4 or 5 outs in way too many innings. We lost games because of our defense, and we certainly lost more than we won from our opps defense. Yes, every loss cannot be blamed on just one play (hit, out or Reach on Error,) but our defense contributed to way too many losses. That is indisputable. According to Outs Above Average we are -52! The next teams are: -52 BOS -38 CIN -28 MIA -21 OAK -18 LAA We are worse than the 3rd and 4th worst teams combined. To think that hardly matters is not sensible. Those 52 outs are just below AVERAGE! Imagine, if we were top 5 (+23 to +40!) We'd be talking a 75 to 90 swing in hits/errors turned into outs. For context, if our offense made 75 to 90 more outs, instead of hits, our team BA would drop from .259 (4th in MLB): .245 with 75 (T18th) .244 with 90 (20th) We'd all be screaming how terrible our offense is.

Coaches Poll 1. GA 2. MI 3. Ohio St (Beat ND earlier) 4. TX 5. FSU 6. PSU 7. USC (Plays at ND Oct 14) 8. WSH 9. ORE 10. ALA (first 1 loss team) 11. ND (second 1 loss team) 12. OKL 13. NC 14. WSH St 15 MS (1 loss) 16 ORE St (1 loss) 17 MIA 18 TN (1 loss) 19 UT (1 loss) 20 KY 21 Duke (1 loss to ND) 22 MO 23 LSU (2 losses) 24. Fresno St 25. Louisville (Plays ND Oct 7 at home)

Do you even know what "patting yourself on the back" means? It's not "patting" when you are wrong. Being a fact that you got a few things right, does not mean it's not "patting."

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.