moonslav59

They also did not give much up for Schwarber.

He has a lot of value for us. IMO, he has more for other teams that would play him everyday and never PH for him. Our step down from him is a top ten batter vs LHPs since 2022. Other teams have 1-2 OFers worse than him on O and D, vs L & R.

I’m still thinking Duvall has more value to other teams than ours, and that is often the reason some trades are made. We won’t hand him away. We would not hand JD away, last year when the situation looked much worse. I think we will buy more than sell, and Paxton goes nowhere.

I’m not close to anointing him at anything. I’ve said his totality of moves grades to about a B- to C. Considering the budgets he has been handed and all the holes needed to be filled, he hasn’t done as badly as many seem to think he did, before last winter. People remember trading away Renfroe but not the brilliant Renfroe signing for $3M. They remember the s***** Beni trade but forget to look closely at what Beni production post trade and give time for the returns to be graded- like Winckowski. They forget moves like getting Pivetta for 2 washed up RP’ers, finding decent but cheap players like Arroyo, Schreiber, Refsnyder, Whitlock, Bernardino and many more. Sure, he swung and missed on a lot of other low cost additions, but you get what you pay for and he did okay on this. The Story signing looks worse with every day he misses. The Barnes extension was awful. The Richards and Kluber signings hurt badly, but he also signed Wacha, Hill, Strahm and a few others that more than earned their pay checks. It’s too early to grade out Bloom. For all we know, Yoshida could crash and Burn. The Devers extension could explode before it even kicks in. To me, based on speculation and conjecture, along with some results already in the books, I’d give Bloom this… B+ or A- on farm building in 3.5 yrs, counting one list year of prospect development. B for getting the budget under control, despite the fears that Story might be deadwood. C+ on roster additions and subtractions beyond the draft and IFAs.

Not even one top 6 or 8. I’m thinking Paulino, Mata and Walter. BTV supports this view on almost all the reported rentals that may be available. Most fall in the 5-9 value area. We could offer them 9-12 without any top prospect. At worst maybe Drohan or Perales.

The weird thing is that for a long time many were suggesting Wong would have to be moved off the catching position. I guess it takes a while for some to develop into good ones. I remember VTek took a while. The other thing is that when we got McGuire, his defense was supposed to be his strong area. Catching skills have always been hard to quantify, and who knows why some pitchers do much better with one over the other. It’s likely the reasons differ, making the quantification near impossible to pinpoint. I’m not going to go back and present all the data, from CERA to OPS against, but I’ve always been 100% convinced a catcher can and does make a significant difference in the results of the pitchers he catches, beyond what he does framing, blocking and throwing. Looking at the Sox pitchers with the most IP and somewhat larger sample sizes with 2 or more catchers, Vaz got worse results time and time again- some by a huge gap, like over one or 1.50 runs per game. No catcher’s bat can make up for that.

Sure look like a keeper. Someday, we might be arguing that 5 years of Wong was worth losing a60 game season from Betts plus a broken down half Price.

It would take an injury to Casas or Turner for Dalbec to be chosen as a SEP call up. I’m not even sure he’d get the call unless both went down.

Unsweetened Lou .

Giolito as a 2 month rental will not cost as much as some seem to think.

I’m not convinced JH will keep us near the middle in spending. He will “pounce,” as I like to call it, at some point. We can’t know the 5th ranked system will produce a mix of players that all can gel at the same time and win us another ring, but I applaud the attempt and strategy. I plan on living beyond 2023 and well beyond 2033.

We’ve now won 6 of 7 series, many against good or very good teams. Don’t listen to those who will tell you the league is watered down. Don’t listen to those who continue to harp on the series loss to OAK. Beating damn good teams at least hints at the idea we are, too.

Indeed, not just CS%, framing and blocking skills and hitting.

Good ole Mike “pick the ball up when it stops” Greenwell.

One of the few who did. Others aren’t even posting anymore.

The team sucked after the Vaz trade, so fans would have been pissed no matter how well or poorly Vaz and McGuire did. Didn’t hear much about it after we dropped out of contention and Vaz sucked with HOU, and RM did well for a few weeks. Let’s move on.

I’m fine with keeping Pivetta, Crawford, Whitlock and Houck in the pen. We can use that “not broken…” on all of them. Someone has to start, unless we trade for two SPers. That’s what I would do, but we may not even get one decent SPer at the deadline.

We are on separate pages.

No utility guy leads the league in rbis.

Yes, the way it was done, his "team leadership," plus the fact that we added almost nobody or any fame. It was more than just Vaz. My point was fans stay upset, even if the guy they got upset about trading sucked afterwards. It doesn't matter if Paxton does well, sucks or gets hurt after a hypothetical trade. The fans will still be upset. Last deadline, we tried to walk a thin line and keep the fans as happy as we felt they needed to be. It didn't work. We sucked, anyway. We went over the tax line, as a result of walking that line. We hurt our longer term outlook. Fans stayed angry and IMO got even more angry. It didn't matter than McGuire did better than Vaz or that Pham did okay. All that mattered is, we still sucked. (Totally understandable and predictable.).

Here is a better breakdown of two 25 game stretches by Pivetta: May 7-Sept 17, 2022 10-7 3.85 ERA in 25 GS. Sept 21, 2020 to Aug 14, 2021 11-5 4.02 ERA in 25 GS

Pivetta has had two very nice and rather lengthy stretches as a SP'er with us. I won't count his short 2020 time with us: 2-0 1.80 (2GS/10 IP) The two... 6-1 3.78 first 12 GS in '21/ 64 IP (7-3 4.10 after 17 GS/92 IP) 12-8 3.62 middle 20 GS/122 IP (12-8 4.13 final 28 GS/159 IP) The guy has shown he can start and do well for long stretches. I'm fine keeping him in the pen, but I'm not afraid of him starting, either.

That was a very good team we just beat, somewhat convincingly, I might add.

We just got Reyes back. Story to follow.

Who will lead the team in OPS at the end of the season? A. Devers .858 B. Yoshida .888 C. Turner .836 D. Duran .878 E. Duvall .840 F. Dugo .780