moonslav59

He did hit .757 from the ASB to August 26th. Not great, but not really a "tank," either. He ended 2023 by going 15 for 96 with just 6 XBhs. That was an awful .462 OPS. After the 17-1 win over HOU on August 24th, here were the Sox OPS: Over 70 PAs, unless noted 1.034 Casas .931 EValdez (48 PAs) .793 Devers .743 Abreu .735 Duvall .675 Yoshida .666 Rafaela .640 Turner .617 Refsnyder (34) .608 McGuire (54) .608 Dalbec (39) .606 Urias (59) .569 Story .554 Verdugo .514 Wong .403 Reyes (39)

I haven't been this excited about the future of our catching position in a long time. I'd be more than happy to have Wong or McGuire as the #2 catcher. I'm okay with our 1-2 catchers, now. I'm not sure why both of our ctachers seemed to hit the wall, along with all our other players, at some point in August or September. Wong peaked at .779 on June 1st, but I'm not sure we can really view that as his ceiling. He dipped to .677 in mid July before bringing it back up to .729 on September 9th. I hope this can be his norm. He went 3 for 40 to end the season (a horrific .198 OPS) and ended at .673. I'm hoping he can hit .700-.750 in 2024. McGuire battled injuries. He started out hitting well, but he dipped to .665 mid June, before going on the IL. He creeped up to .736 by August 27th, before slumping and finishing at .668. (He went 7 for 43 to end 2023. That was a .443 OPS. I'm hopeful he can end up between .690 and .740 in 2024. Teel would be a great add. I like Scott and think we may protect him Rule 5, this winter, as our 3rd string catcher, who starts in AAA. I think Hickey gets moved to another position. Brannon is hard to project. Joh. Garcia could be a nice surprise.

He's not our weakest link, by far, but with one year left and some attitude issues, I think he's a goner. Maybe Breslow will see him differently. I do not think it is wise to turn over CF and RF to a mix of Duran (LF/CF), Rafaela (CF/SS/2B) and Abreu (OF.) Refsnyder should only be an emergency RF'er, unless it is NY or a park with a short RF. I'd add Duvall, who might cost about as much as Dugo's $9M arb estimate. No added cost. A gain of a RHB. A better attitude.

I realize it is a crude and flawed way to look at slot rankings, but these guys have all pitched well enough to outperform most others. I did not mean to imply these guys are better than Bello or will be. Bello's 2022-2023 numbers are brought down by 2022, but also the end of 2023. I'm fine saying Bello is the #2 and Singer, Keller or Sandoval would be the #3. I think it would very hard to say any of these guys have 90 SP'ers better than them. I see Cease as a solid #2. The one year of Burnes is a big turn off. If we are looking at 2025, I think Alcantara is in play. .

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/10/looking-for-a-match-in-an-alex-verdugo-trade.html

I'd be in heaven! Maybe add Duvall. Trade Dugo for a LH'd RP'er and call it a day.

Nice post. I do think Pedro had times like this, too. When you look at the era he was pitching in, he was the most dominant pitcher- compared to his peers, than Clemens and Sale. Years with BOS, only... Best fWAR seasons: 11.6 Pedro '99 9.4 Pedro '00 9.2 Clemens '88 8.5 Clemens '91 8.4 Clemens '87 8.2 Clemens '90 7.6 Sale '17 7.6 Clemens '92 7.4 Pedro '02 7.4 Pedro'03 7.1 Clemens '86 6.8 Clemens '96 6.2 Sale '18 6.1 Pedro '05 ERA- (which speaks more to the era) 31 Pedro '99 38 Pedro '01 47 Sale '18 47 Clemens '90 48 Pedro '00 51 Pedro '03 54 Pedro '02 57 Clemens '86 57 Clemens '94 58 Clemens '92 To me, pedro's 5 year stretch was the best of alltime in MLB! (If you count his last year with MTL and 1998 with BOs, he mght have the best 7 game stretch, ever, too. ERA+ 219 MTL '97 163 BOS '98 243 '99 291 '00 188 '01 202 '02 211 '03 Red= led league 1999-2003 82-21 2.10 in a hitter's era. (228 ERA+ over 5 straight seasons!) 0.905 WHIP 1.95 FIP 1997-2003 118-36 2.20 (213 ERA+) 0.940 WHIP and a 2.26 FIP From 199-2003, the league ERAs were: 4.28 to 4.71. TOP ERA- from 1999-2003 45 Pedro (41.3 fWAR) 59 Randy J (39.3) 67 K Brown (23.9)

These guys blow away all of our current Sp'ers, except Bello and a healthy Sale (I know- oxymoron.) TOP SP'ers by fWAR from 2021-2023 (300+ IP) 3. Burnes 15.5 7. Alcantara 12.9 (Yes he is hurt. The guy has 5 years of control as pre-arb and arb. I'll take 4 of them.) 8. Cease 12.6 41. Sandoval 7.6 47. Singer 6.9 51. Keller 6.5 Last 2 years (250+ IP) 9. Alcanatara 8.6 11. Cease 8.1 12. Burnes 8.0 29. Sandoval 6.1 35. Keller 5.3 40. Singer 4.8 43. Detmers 4.7 These guys have #2 slot numbers, if not #1's. If I lower the IP to 140 (a very low bar for 2 full seasons as a SP'er), so I come up with 150 pitchers (5 x 30 teams,) here is where they rank: 9. Alcantara (if we are looking at 2025 as "the year," this makes more sense.) 11. Cease 12. Burnes (The one year is the downfall.) 29. Sandoval (a top 30 pitcher in a 30 team league) 39. Keller (a solid #2, if you slot 31-60's as #2's.) 45. Singer (an average #2) 47. Detmers (already a #2) 80. Bello 2.8 fWAR ERA- 7. Snell 11. Gray 12. Alcantara 18. Burnes 33. Cease 40. Montgomery 42. Sandoval 43. Garrett (another trade target) 59. Stroman 71. Keller (a solid #3) 82. Detmers 83. Bello 86 Singer xFIP 9. Nola 15. Burnes 22. Garrett 26. Snell 35. Alcantara 39. Gray 42. Montgomery 48. Cease 49. Singer 51. keller I'm thinking we sign an ace (Yamamoto, Gray, Snell, Nola or Montgomery) and trade for a solid #2. That leaves money to sign a big RHB or a bigger LHB.

Indeed, and that is a flaw in looking at just season GS'd and ERAs to determine if a team had 2-3 solid SP'ers. If a team makes the playoffs and at that time has 2-3 solid SP'ers, their odds go way up, IMO. The 2018 Sox team was a fine example. Looking at the season stats, Nate did not look great. He only started 21 games, all year (10 for TBR.) His 11 starts with the Sox were good enough for that status, and his playoff record spoke for itself.

My bad. I thought they jumped him up to #10 on their July 6th rankings list, but they did not. He played 25 or so more games, afterwards, and I was thinking he could have jumped more due to those games. You are right. He won't jump more than 1-2 slots.

This doesn't mean we can never win without two solid SP'ers, but it seems to help- maybe for the Sox more than other teams. It does seem like other teams can win with just one mega ace who just dominates... like Bumgarner, Beckett (w MIA), but when you look closely at most WS winners, they had 2-3 solid SP'er with 25+ GS and were strong through the playoffs. Good point about Nate becoming the #2 in 2018 (over Sale.) Sale was a big part of getting us to 108 wins.

I actually did this one with you in mind, particularly the Jansen trade component.

BTV accepted these two trades, which would clear up a lot of roster slots for Rule 5 plus 3-4 FA signings: Duran, Rafaela, Yorke, Drohan & Mata for Mitch Keller Jansen, Verdugo & Kavadas for Christian Javier Sign one from Yamamoto, Gray, Snell, Montgomery, Nola Sign Bellinger & Duvall SP: Gray, Keller, Bello, Javier, Sale/Pivetta RP: Bednar, Martin, Winckowski, Houck, Whitlock, Crawford, Schreiber C: Wong & McGuire 1B: Casas (Devers) 2B: Urias & Reyes SS: Story (Mayer) 3B: Devers (Urias) LF: Abreu & Refsnyder (Yoshida/Rosier) CF: Bellinger (Abreu) RF: Duvall/Abreu DH: Yoshida (EValdez)

BTV has these value and possible matches.... Yorke + Rafaela at a value of 34.5. Keller PIT 36.0 Sandoval LAA 33.8 Kelly AZ 30.9 Burnes MIL 30.3 Ashcroft CIN 29.5 Yorke + Duran would be 47.4. Cease 50.5 CWS (would need to give someone like Perales, too.) Detmers 48.7 LAA Dugo + Yorke would be 22.4. Alcantara MIA 23.8 Singer KCR 24.7 Note: These are just BTV numbers. I'm not sure any of these teams would make these trades, even if we added players like Romero, Perales, Mata, Hickey, Drohan, Walter or Murphy types. It may show "ballpark" offers needed, and who we might be able to get.

Probably not, but he did jump from #48 to #10 after just 21-22 games. He did very well after those first games, too. Maybe #10 to #7 or 8 is more realistic.

They are updating all the time, but seem to take a long time on some players. They finally dropped Yoshida to 0.4, but even that seems too high. Looking at their numbers, now, half the Sox top 10 value players may start 2024 in the minors: 60 Mayer 42 Anthony 39 Casas 36 Bello 30 Duran (jump back up in value) 29 Bleis 29 Crawford 22 Houck 17 Yorke 17 Rafaela 17 Whitlock 14 Schreiber (seems high) 12 Winckowski 10 Devers 10 Pivetta 6 Drohan (seems high and has not been adjusted in a long time) 5 Verdugo 5 Perales 4 EValdez 4 Romero 4 Wikelman & Bernardino 3 Meidroth, Abreu, Martin, Urias, E R-C, Jansen, Alcantara, Cespedes 2 Wong, Paulino, Monegro, Mata, McGuire, Jordan, Castro, Bastardo, DHam, Murphy 1-2 Walter, Brannon, Jimenez, Lugo, Hickey, Bonaci, Guerrero, Rogers, Robertson, Refsnyder Others between 0-1 3.0 Turner -8.6 Sale -80.4 Story

He better be a really good RP'er.

Nobody is disputing he has not given us what we expected. His 2.6 fWAR in 137 games is pretty close to what he did in his last 2 years in COL, per game, but we need a 3.5 + fWAR from him. I'm not giving up hope on that, but so far... Yuck!

Notin worded it wrongly. He meant to say, "Why doesn't MLB make the Mariners draft for the Sox."

Yes. I know. I think that would improve, if he showed he could hit for a stretch.

Speaking of the 2024 MLB Draft, here is the odds simulator for pick order. Top Pick 16.5% OAK, KCR, COL 13.3% CWS 10.0% STL 7.5% LAA 5.5% NYM 3.9% PIT 2.7% CLE 1.4% DET 1.1% BOS Here are some mock drafts: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10082215-2024-mlb-mock-draft-early-predictions-for-top-1st-round-baseball-prospects 1. Oakland Athletics: Vance Honeycutt, OF, North Carolina 2. Kansas City Royals: Jac Caglianone, 1B/LHP, Florida 3. Colorado Rockies: Chase Burns, RHP, Tennessee 4. Washington Nationals: Konnor Griffin, SS/OF, Jackson Prep (Miss.) 5. Chicago White Sox: Brody Brecht, RHP, Iowa 6. St. Louis Cardinals: Derek Curiel, OF, Orange Lutheran (Calif.) 7. Detroit Tigers: Tommy White, 1B/3B/, LSU 8. Pittsburgh Pirates: Braden Montgomery, RHP/OF, Stanford 9. New York Mets: Bryce Rainer, SS, Harvard-Westlake (Calif.) 10. Chicago Cubs: Carter Holton, LHP, Vanderbilt 11. San Diego Padres: Cam Caminiti, LHP, Saguaro (Ariz.) 12. Los Angeles Angels: Travis Bazzana, 2B, Oregon State 13. Minnesota Twins: Pierce Coppola, LHP, Florida 14. Seattle Mariners: Thatcher Hurd, RHP, LSU 15. Boston Red Sox: Paxton Kling, OF, LSU http://www.mymlbdraft.com/MLB-Mock-Draft (AUG 29th, draft order has changed.) 1. OAK Chase Burns RHP 2. KCR Travis Bazzana 2B/SS 3. COL Vance Honeycutt OF 4. CWS JJ Wetherholt 3B/3B 5. STL Konnor Griffin SS/OF 6. PIT Jac Caglianone LHP/1B 7. DET Brody Brecht RHP 8. NYM Nick Kutz 1B/OF 9. Cam Caminiti LHP 10. SDP Charlie Condon 1B/OF 11. CLE Tommy White 1B 12. LAA Derek Curiel OF 13. NYY PJ Morlando OF 14. MIA Braden Montgomery OF/RHP 15. CIN Bryce Rainer SS 16. Pierce Coppola LHP 17. BOS Hagen Smith LHP

Very true, but he is a plus defender, already, but he has to prove he can hit well enough at the AA/AAA level to be viewed as a can't miss or near can't miss prospect.

Maybe Story has to produce for a stretch to get his trade value up, but I do think some teams might want him at his current salary without us paying anything. At worst, we may have to pay a few Million. The return would likely be next to nothing or some decent, but faraway prospect. A swap of big salaries could also be an option, but we would also have to add a SS, somehow.

Are you trolling, again?

All but the part about amounts of wins in certain years are opinions, and not a very good ones either. Yet, he almost always ends with ... Those are the facts and the facts are undisputed.