moonslav59

Till now.

Do we pinch hit Dalbec or Refsnyder for Hamilton or Wong in the 9th?

You guys had an old and injury prone team going into the season. Many of your players had already shown strong indications of decline, although some had upticks in 2022, that could/should have been viewed as blips. I don't blame you for being very optimistic about your team's chances back in March, but you did seem very sure about how much better the Yanks were going to be vs the Sox. On the idea that "all fell off a cliff at the same time," I want to say several should have been expected declines, and not all have gone over a cliff: Judge has about the same OPS but has been hurt. Carpenter's 1.138 OPS in '22 was a fluke. Rizzo has declined slightly, as an age curve would have projected (.817>.794) LeMahieu has been declining beyond this year's .734 to .669. Stanton fell off a cliff and has been hurt. (.759>.635) Was Cabrera ever for real? (.741 in 171 2022 PAs to .532) is a cliff dive. To me, Donaldson's dive was expected. Bader is doing better, this year, but has been hurt. Higgy and I K-F about the same.

I doubt we give up on McGuire, so quickly. He has several years of team control, and Hickey is a couple years away. I think McGuire has been playing hurt, some. He missed some starts, I think would have been his, earlier this year. On the numbers with pitchers, one has to realize who each has caught way more than the other and adjust, accordingly. Also, the head to head match-ups are pretty close to even: (Note: McGuire has caught about 60% of all PAs Against- a 3:2 ratio) OPS Against with each catcher: ** Note the unbalanced PAs against Houck .692 Wong (263 PAs) ** .727 McGuire (22) Sale .633 Wong (185) ** 1.061 McGuire (64 mostly early in the season) Bello (I'm counting this even) .695 Wong (142) .696 McGuire (142) Paxton .631 Wong (130) ** .683 McGuire (26) Whitlock .810 Wong (110) .714 McGuire (62) Crawford .815 Wong (109) .472 McGuire (78) Winckowski .656 Wong (110) .595 McGuire (62) Pivetta .646 Wong (126) .904 McGuire (124) Kluber .918 Wong (51) .982 McGuire (206)** _________________ Jansen .722 Wong (79) .328 McGuire (31) Martin .581 Wong (66) .401 McGuire (26) When not counting massive unbalanced sample size, McGuire actually has done better or the same with more pitchers than Wong, especially the younger ones (Bello, Crawford and Wink). McGuire 5-1 If you count the unbalanced samples: Wong 5- McGuire 5 (If Sale and Kulber don't pitch the rest of the season, it's 5-3 McGuire.) This is not meant to disparage Wong. He's done a great job behind the plate. There was an expected learning curve, early in the season, as we added so many new pitchers, and Wong and McGuire had very little history with any pitchers on the staff.

JD only DH's and has hit better, so far, but Turner being able to play 3B and 1B has been a big plus for us, and is basically the difference in bWAR.. In 2022, we used these guys as subs at 3B and 1B: 3B GS 14 Dalbec 8 Arroyo 3 Downs 1B (Dalbec started 89 and was horrible on D and O.) 53 Cordero 22 Casas 14 Hosmer 6 Arroyo 5 Vazquez 3 Shaw 1 Chang 2023: 3B: Devers has started 71 games 5 Turner 1 Dalbec 1B: Casas has started 58 games 18 Turner 3 Dalbec

DSL Games, today. Red won 12-1 on just 7 hits, all singles, except 1 2B! They took advantage of 13 BBs! (They are 9-6) Leadoff hitter, Eusebio went 1-2 w 4 runs scored (3BB) Arias 2-3 w 2BB (.960 OPS) Henriquez: 5 IP, 3H, 0ER, 2BB, 5K Blue won 2-1 in 10(They are 11-4, this year) Rodriguez: 4IP, 2H, 0ER, 1BB, 4K The team walked 8 times! (5 hits- all singles) Nobody had 2 hits

Since Kike just barely got the guy out at 1B, going to 3rd would have been just one out, at best. No way, Devers gets the guy out at 1B. It was a great play by Wong and a pretty good one by Kike.

We are almost at the halfway point of the season. (We have played 77 games.) We are on pace for 84 wins and 78 losses- an exact flip for 2022's 78-84 line.) I'm going to project the final fWAR numbers for Sox players, assuming those healthy, now, remain so: fWAR now> projected final fWAR 2.5>4.9 Verdugo 1.2>3.0 Devers 1.2>2.7 Turner 0.7>2.4 Duvall 1.2>2.0 Duran 0.8>1.5 Refsnyder 0.5>1.5 Wong N/A>1.0 Story 0.2>0.3 McGuire 0.1>0.2 Arroyo -0.8>-0.4 Kike N/A>N/A Mondesi 1.1>3.1 Paxton 1.1>3.0 Bello 0.9>2.0 Houck 0.7>2.0 Whitlock 0.9>2.0 Jansen 0.7>1.9 Martin 0.8>1.9 Crawford 0.6>1.8 Winckowski 1.2>1.6 Sale (assuming he comes back in late August) 0.6>0.9 Scheiber (assuming he comes back in mid July) 0.0>0.4 Pivetta (as a RP'er) 0.2>0.3 Bernardino 0.0>0.1 Reyes (assuming he returns before Story 0.2>0.1 Murphy -0.1>-0.1 Walter -0.2>-0.1 Joely -0.2>-0.2 Blier -0.2>-0.3 Ort -0.9>-0.9 Kluber ??? Garza, Sheriff and others. Oh, and I project 88-90 wins and a possible 2nd or 3rd WC slot entry.

Speaking of JD: they JD vs Turner watch continues: .864 JD .813 Turner Sox DH position: .763 2022 (JD was at .790 in '22) .820 2023 (Again, this is not meant as any slight against the well-respected- and admired JD.)

I'm not trying to say Lynn is going to throw a gem. His chances at that may be as high as Kluber pitching one. He's been horrible, this year. I hope we bring his ERA to over 7.00, today. I just think the word "hack" implies a longer term sucktitudeness.

It was worth pointing out, but may I ask who you are defending Wong against? I think we all greatly appreciate his amazing growth as a catcher. The kid was apparently meant to move off catching early in his career in the minors. He has top speed for a catcher and even vs most ML'ers. His bat has emerged as a plus for a catcher. His 20 XBHs in 39 hits and 168 ABs has been a blessing. Somebody complained about the 4 Ks, last night. For a game thread, it was pretty tame. I think your hard work has paid off: we all like Wong! If loving Wong is Wrong: I don't wanna to be right!

With the Astros loss, late last night, the last 2 wild card slots are wide open. 5 teams are within 1.5 games of being in or out. Hou & NYY would be in, if the season ended, now. -0.5 LAA & TOR -1.5 BOS 7 teams are within 4.5 games: -3.0 SEA -4.5 CLE The NL has 3 WC teams all are 3 or 3.5 games up on the next contenders: +0.5 SFG 0.0 LAD & MIA -3.0 PHI & MIL (-1.5 from CIN in NLC) -5.5 SDP & CHC Whodathunk on June 24th, Arizona and Cincinnati would be leading their divisions? Weirder still... The LAD and SDP are not in 1st or 2nd place in the NL West! We all knew BAL was getting better and had so many top prospects getting close to ML ready for several years, but I doubt many felt they'd be 5 games up on the Yanks and Astros, in late June, either.

Is Crawford starting tomorrow? My guess is they match Hamilton with him, but with Monday off, maybe they go with 8 games in 8 days. They might sub in Hamilton during a game, if it gets out of hand, but with no 3rd catcher, that has its risks.

Lynn just turned 36. His numbers look like Kluber, this year, but I'm not sure he deserves the name "hack." He's been a fine pitcher for just about his whole career. Going into this year, his career ERA was 3.52 (3.61 FIP)! That's with 285 career GS'd He was the model of consistency, as he only had one season over a 3.99 ERA (2018 at 4.77) Until this year, he appeared to be aging well. (Age 32-35 seasons '19-'22) 41-27 3.42 ERA (3.48 FIP) which was better than his age 24-31 seasons, combined. Let's hope he doesn't decide to regain his magic, today!

Maybe he can start vs the A's before the break- meaning one less start by someone else. That would be nice, but they may be cautious and think skipping one start gives him another 7 days+ rest and recovery time- both physical and mental.

Good comps. Another at 24: 2009 Buchholz (3rd season) 16 GS, 4.21 ERA in 92 IP By the end of their age 24 seasons: 4.91 Buch (4.51 FIP) 34 GS/191 IP 4.23 ERod (4.09 FIP) 65 GS/366 IP 3.81 Lester (4.13 FIP) 59 GS/355 IP Bello has more to add to his totals, but here are his career numbers, now: 3.94 ERA (3.43 FIP) 23 GS/123 IP (Note: Houck and Wink barely pitched in the bigs at age 24. Whitlock's and Crawford's rookie years were at age 25.)

Since the Sox are notorious for having caddy-catchers, I'm not sure we have seen 7 straight starts in 7 days by a catcher in a long time.

Sox bWAR Leaders 2.9 Verdugo 2.1 Bello 1.6 Wong 1.5 Turner 1.2 Wink 1.2 Martin 1.2 Yoshida 1.1 Devers 1.0 Paxton 1.0 Duran 0.9 Sale 0.8 Crawford, Jansen, Bernardino 0.7 Whitlock, Refsnyder 0.6 Scheiber 0.5 Reyes 0.4 Duvall, Tapia 0.3 Murphy, Chang 0.2 Pivetta, Sheriff 0.1 Walter, Kelly, Arroyo fWAR 2.5 Verdugo 1.2 Sale 1.2 Turner 1.2 Duran 1.2 Yoshida 1.2 Devers 1.1 Paxton 1.1 Bello 0.9 Jansen, Houck 0.8 Refsnyder, Crawford 0.7 Duvall, Whitlock, Martin 0.6 Winckowski 0.5 Wong 0.4 Tapia 0.3 Scheiber 0.2 Chang, McGuire, Reyes, Bernardino, Murphy 0.1 Arroyo, Sheriff, Jacques

That's why I forgot to complain, this time.

If Murphy starts or follows an opener, it would make sense to have Caleb Hamilton catch him, since he has already, this year. BTW, C Hamilton does have MLB experience. He played in 22 games with the Twins, last year.

It takes longer than that to draft/sign IFA and develop an starter like Bello. DD signed Bello as an IFA in 2017. That's 6 years ago, and I'd like to think Bloom & Co. had something to do with developing Bloom, Houck and Whitlock into what they are, today, as well as unsung pitchers like Crawford and Winckowski. Maybe not.

We have 6 games in a row, three times before the deadline. We should only need a 5th starter 3 times before August 1st. I do not want us letting any of our starters go on one day less of rest, and it wouldn't help anyway, unless we used two on short rest in any of those 6 game stretches. If Houck can be ready after the all star break, we only need 2 starts (Walter/Murphy?) We have no stretches longer than 6 games until after the deadline.

The Sox now have 7 guys on the 60 Day IL: Sale Story Schreiber Kelly Chang Mills Mondesi The 7 guys currently taking their place on the 40 --all added after opening day: Bernardino (waivers) Garza (waivers) Reyes (trade for cash) Sherriff (Woo) Jacques (Woo) C Hamilton (Woo) T Scott (trade for cash) 15 Day IL Houck Joely Kluber Bleier 10 Day IL McGuire Reyes Ber. List Verdugo Minor IL Mata

The night went pretty good for Sox fans. We get a win, despite being outhit 8-4. The A's beat the Jays. The Rangers beat the Yanks. Seattle is up 13-1 on the O's in the 9th. HOU is losing 3-2 to LAD in the 6th. (The Rays killed the Royals.) We are now... 1.5 GB NYY 0.5 GB TOR & LAA

Yes, I forgot our last one. Interesting win. Our 5, 6 and 7 hitters went 0-12 w 11 Ks! Hamilton with a ket SB. Devers with another big bomb. The pitching has been buttah!