moonslav59

Good to see the 23 year old get a chance. He was part of the Hosmer and Ferguson for Groom trade. AA .805 OPS 26 SB

Good to see him get a chance. He 23 and was a part of the Hosmer and Ferguson for Groome trade. He is hitting .805 OPS with 26 SBs.

Here is a look at our worst, best and in between defensive teams since 2003: BY DRS -57 '06 -56 '09 -35 '05 -26 '04 -22 '03 The "in between" -4 '22 -2 '15 0 '10 1 '20 2 '07 4 '21 5 '19 10 '18 In between or best? 17 '08 18 '11 22 '13 51 '14 64 '12 69 '16 79 '17 Hard to find a pattern between rings and good or bad D with the Sox. The worst teams on D were under Theo. Bad -8.8 '04 -6.6 '03 -2.5 '10 -2.5 '22 -2.3 '06 -1.8 '15 -1.3 '05 OK 0.6 '09 0.9 '20 1.4 '21 2.4 '07 2.6 '13 3.1 '17 3.3 '19 3.6 '12 Good 5.2 '16 5.3 '11 6.7 '18 7.2 '08 7.2 '14 Again, I see no pattern linked to rings and good or bad D- for the Sox.

Exactly, and when people look at the high ERA of our pitchers, they should factor in all the extra outs they needed to make, above and beyond charged errors.

Actually, my theory is that the Sox have almost always had plus hitting, but the rings came only after we acquired a second solid SP. 2004: Had Pedro- traded for Schilling 2007: Had Schilling- traded for Beckett 2013: Had Lester- signed Lackey 2018: Had Price- traded for Sale Right now, maybe Bello can be an ace- maybe, but we are far from a #2, unless we think Paxton can keep going like this. Also, most of those 4 ring years had more than just 2 solid starting pitchers.

I don't think we have many choices for our 5th starter. Pivetta Walter Murphy

That was painful. You don't see many complete game shutouts, anymore.

McDonough is not hitting much better, but he is older and might gain more by being tested at the AAA level. Lugo was called up to AA before McD, and both did pretty well in '22.

I think we knew some pitchers would be out to start the year and others would likely go on the IL during the year, so Bloom went for quantity, thinking 7 is enough, and maybe one or more from our extended depth could rise to fill any needs beyond these 7: Sale Paxton Kluber Whitlock Pivetta Bello Houck Extended depth when looking from the perspective in March: Crawford Winckowski Mata Walter Murphy All in all, this group has done okay, except for the bad start to the season. As well as we have done, over the last 4-5 weeks, I'm not sure we can keep this up with Sale, Houck, Kluber and Pivetta out of the rotation.

We do have a better record than them, so there is that. It looks like the Twins are keeping up with us.

Probably too early for Yorke. Maybe Lugo?

In house options might be: Pivetta Murphy Walter Continued pen games

I agree. Had either Kluber or Pivetta given us what we hoped they would, it wouldn't be so bad, but we've basically lost 4 SP'ers: Sale, Houck, Kluber & Pivetta. Whitlock and Paxton have missed 15 starts between them, which amounts to a full SP'er over the first half of 2023. Both need to stay healthy. Whitlock needs to start improving, very soon, if we are to have any chance. We are counting on 3 SP'ers: Bello, Paxton and Whitlock and then Crawford holding the fort down at #4, until Houck can return. Who is our 5th starter? We can't keep going with guys like Dermody and pen games started by guys like Ort and Garza, followed by Murphy and Walter. The problem is, what team is going to trade a decent SP'er in June?

Other teams have had major injuries, and some had had more than us. The Yanks and Astros come to mind. Here is a look at what we have lost due to injury: Rotation (15 GS would be what our top 5 SP'ers could have) GS'd missed, 8 Paxton 7 Whitlock 4 Sale (many more to come) 2 Houck (more to come) Pen Schreiber (on 60 day) Martin (missed about 18 days) Crawford (missed about 18 days) Joely, Kelly & Mills (missed just about the whole season, so far) Bleier has been out a while but that may not be a big loss. Everyday: Story (out until July/August) Mondesi (may never play a game with us) Chang (on 60 day) (All 3 SSs out really tests a team's depth chart.) Arroyo (missed a lot of time) Duvall (missed 2 months) McGuire (on 15 day) Our 2 highest paid players will miss over half the season of more: Sale & Story.

I was wondering why we haven't heard anything on Schreiber. I guess no news was bad news.

Indeed. The OF is nearly .200 higher than 2022, and that's 3 positions! 1B +.080 DH +.060 C +.045 2B -.0.50 3B -.085 SS -.185 I don't think many saw the offense improving this much, especially since none of it has been driven by Devers.

I'm not sure how many more injuries we can handle.

I'm not so sure we know if Dalbec is not a quality hitter or not. His sample size seems large enough to get a strong feeling, but I'm not so sure the answer is known. The guy is a super streaky hitter- both good and bad. Had been given a longer look, during any season, he'd have been one hot streak away from having decent career numbers for a player's first 1000-1200 PAs. Many good hitters do not have good numbers after 1000 PAs. As it stands, if I told you a rookie had these numbers after his first 911 PAs, does he deserve a longer look, I think most would say, yes. (Pro-rated to 650 PAs) .232 32 92 .751 OPS The problem wit Dalbec is the recency effect. He sucked in his last stretch in the bigs, and it was a long stretch. Here's a look at his streaks: .959 in 92 PAs in 2020 .595 in first 173 PAs of 2021 .722 middle 137 PAs of '21 1.110 last 143 PAs of '21 (.916 last 84 gms/280 PAs) .488 first 126 PAs of '22 .741 last 227 PAs of '22, including .786 stretch of 146 PAs I'm not arguing giving him a chance, this year. We don't have a slot for him, but I would not be surprised if he does well on his next team.

It would take JH twisting his arm.

The OF has really been a big strength for us. Yes, last year our OF sucked! OF OPS .676>>.843 (What a massive increase x 3!) SS OPS .815>>.629 2B OPS .724>>.685 Remember, the OF is 3 positions while 2B/SS are two. Then, these improvements: C: .694>>.739 1B: .683>>.763 DH: .761>>.822 One unexpected decline: 3B: .856 >>.772 3 declines 6 improvements

Indeed. I still think the moves he made before 2022 should have produced better results than the ones before 2021. The moves before this year, when taken one by one, look even better, except for the lack of attention to the rotation and getting the one signing there horribly wrong. The reliance on older vets, most with injury histories and younger unproven talent, as well as converted relievers to cobble together a rotation looked, on paper, like a bold gamble not likely to pay off, and yet for over a month now, we've used a revolving door of SP's due to injuries and the demotions of Kluver and Pivetta and seen quite stunning success. The big question is, can they keep this up? Earlier this year, I spoke to the need to start focusing on quality over quantity, but that maybe, just maybe, this group of SP'ers did have enough "quality" to make the quantity an asset. The jury is still out on that one, but somehow, the rotation has produced for over a month and is nearing the point where it has been good for longer than bad or mediocre. If every SP'er was healthy, big if, I know, can we even be sure what the starting 5 would have been to start the season? Sale Paxton Whitlock Kluber Pivetta No Bello? Houck, Crawford and Wink in the pen is pretty certain. Cora did not really have to choose who to start, much, since Paxton, Whitlock and Bello started the season injured or recovering. We started with... Kluber, Sale, Houck, Crawford, Pivetta (2 rotations before Whitlock replace Crawford) Kluber, Sale, Houck, Whitlock, Pivetta (one rotation before Bello was added Kluber, Sale, Houck, Whitlock, Pivetta, Bello (two rotations with 6 men before Whitlock went on the IL) Kluber, Sale, Houck, Pivetta, Bello (3 rotations before Paxton/Whitlock replaced the demoted Kluber/Pivetta) Sale, Houck, Paxton, Whitlock Bello (one rotation before Sale went on IL) Crawford, Houck, Paxton, Whitlock, Bello (Dermody got a start & Ort started a DH'er) This rotation has gone through 3 times. Total GS: (Red: not intended to be in the starting rotation) 13 Houck 11 Bello 11 Sale 9 Kluber 8 Whitlock 8 Pivetta 7 Paxton 6 Crawford 1 Ort & Dermody 32 starts in RED with more to come.

Not a good night for the Sox. NYY, TOR, HOU and TBR won. BAL & Sox lost.

Newly acquired Barraclough pitched 1 hit shutout ball for 6 innings (4BB/ 2K) as WOO won 5-0. 2 hits by RHern & Sogard. POR lost 5-4 as I Coffey got shelled. Mayer homered. Meidroth 2-4 w BB GRE got shelled 17-2. Rogers got drilled. DSL lost 16-15 as Arias went 4-6.

Crappy loss. We were so close.

10 hits and 4 BBs is not bad. We just missed the timely hits and ran into too many outs.