moonslav59

...and in no way does this fact slight anything he did for us. The guy was a freakin' hero for us, for many year. Age decline happens, and it's great to see JD off to a fantastic start to 2023. Not expecting him to continue this is not hating on anyone. My original point about Turner passing JD, this year was supposed to be about pumping up a current Sox player and not hating on a past one.

Turner has declined with age, too, but seems to have leveled off his decline, recently. '17>'19: .945>.924>.881 '20>'22: .860>.832>.799 JD: .985 (.593) .829 (.484) note: most of the decline was in SLG) Another view: Turner: '17-'19: .916 (.519 SLG) in 1518 PAs '20-'23: .814 (.454 SLG) A .102 decline in OPS and .065 in SLG JD 1.007 (.619 SLG) in 1795 PAs .816 (.484 SLG) in 1706 PAs A .191 decline in OPS and .135 in SLG These two are not aging the same way. That's not fiction.

No, JD usually does not fall off a cliff, late seasons, but here are the numbers since 2018: Overall: .889 JD .846 Turner 1st Half>2nd Half JD 1.037>1.021 '18 .918>.965 '19 Whole Season: .680 (.389 SLG) .926>.787 '21 (SLG .556>.468) .849>.701 '22 (SLG .481>.400) No, 2 years in a row is not really a trend, but it does look concerning when you look at 2020 with it. And, 3 of the last 4 yrs, saw decline.) Career: .892>.864 is pretty close. Turner: Career: .809>.857 Both hitters are very good in 1st and 2nd halves, generally, but there is a significant difference between their career 1st and second half numbers: JD +.081 1st Half JD +.007 2nd half Now, here are the WOW numbers for Turner: .747>1.066 '18 .822>.971 '19 Whole season .800 (.460 SLG) 1.066 in WS .889>.755 '21 (.434 SLG) .734>.889 '22 (.503 SLG) 2021 was the outlier, but 3 out of 4 for Turner, too. I'm not hoping JD sucks.

I love JD. It's not bashing to say I think Turner will pass him by the end of the year. I hope JD does well. I hope it ends up Turner .925 and JD .924. JD usually is hot to start the year. Turner usually ends the year hot. It's no slight on either one.

TOR & HOU got blasted, last night. That puts NYY in the 3rd WC slot, alone. -0.5 HOU -1.0 TOR -1.5 BOS -3.0 SEA -5.5 CLE Just keep winning!

Just how much is a short end of a platoon DH worth, though? If he could just be decent on D at 1B and close to decent at 3B, he'd have more value. As part of a package, he might be the added piece that gets a deal done. I doubt we get anything of great promise 1 for 1.

No guarantees when expecting past trends to continue. With Justin, it's more than a one year trend. JD has not always dropped off, late in the season.

I doubt many fans are thinking sell, now, but if we do, perhaps as a seller and a buyer. People look at BTV to get a ruff value of players, but one thing they may not look at- what is the player's value, if we pay half or all their salaries. Here are some BTV numbers: Negative value players: -35 Story. If we paid half his deal ($53M), he'd have a +$18M. (Not going to happen.) -18 Sale (pay half is $18M) he'd be worth zero. May all and he's apparently worth +$18M. -6 Jansen Pay half- $12M) he'd be worth about zero. Pay all and he's worth $12M. -4 Kluber will be owed about $4M at the deadline. -2 Kike will be owed about $4M, too. May it and he's a plus 2. Turner is worth +1 but will be owed about $3M for '23 and has an option. Pay a bunch on his contract, and he'd have pretty high value. Verdugo is worth 23, but pay the $18M he may get after next year's arb, and he's got about $40M value. (Again, I am not for selling.)

BTV Values have changed a bit since my last visit- most notably Duran up to 30.4, Yoshida to 22.2 and Crawford to 20.3. (Bello is at 34.4.) Top Prospects: 65 Mayer 30 Bleis 25 Rafaela 19 Yorke 11 Anthony 8.7 Romero 6.5 Alcantara 5.1 Bonaci 5.0 Meidroth 5.0 Paulino 4.6 Walter 4.4 Bastardo 4.2 Jordan 4.0 Hickey 3.8 Drohan & Mata 3.6 Valdez

I'm with you, Max. I've had a few beefs with a few things Cora does, but out of the thousands of things he does, a handful of beefs is minor. I'm a huge fan of Cora. There was a Time I felt he was the best Sox manager I have ever seen, no slight on Tito intended, and I was not a Sox fan during the Dick Williams years. I'm not so sure, anymore, but he's right up there with Tito and Dick.

That hot streak was enough to support his first 2 year line of... .244 33 94 (.819 OPS) Pro-rate to 650 PAs: .244 40 110 Also, the hot streak of 2021 was more like 2/3 a season not 1/3. June 10-Oct 3: 916 OPS May 13th to Oct 3: .867 OPS He did okay for about a half season in '22, as well May 10 to Aug 10th: .737 OPS Prorated to 650: .235 30 85

I'd have to vote for Bobby V. Darrell Johnson bugged the s*** out of me with his petty favoritism crap. Joe Morgan just threw stuff at the wall to see if it would stick. I think he had his kid make out the line-up one day. Kerrigan barely was here long enough to judge much.

There is no reason we'd demote Casas. His splits are pretty even, so far this year, but he's been know to struggle vs LHPs, so there might be times he sits vs a lefty, but I doubt we look to straight platoon him with Turner (who DHs vs RHPs.) The Pedey example is famous, but there may be more examples like Dalbec, who was given a long look and came through, at the end of 2021, but then... poof! (BTW, I've not given up on Dalbec, just yet, either, but it looks like he may get a chance with another team, not us.

I think I was hoping Bloom would find 7 or 8 Refsnyders and Schreibers over 3.5 years.

With Duran and Ref heating up as a platoon, maybe we'll see Kike at 2B more than Arroyo.

One could say, "He's Come Undone," but that can have negative connotations.

We all agree, but when id doesn't happen, what is left? Also, if a team almost always drafts non pitchers high, every year, shouldn't the expectation be some should and will be used to trade for pitching- hopefully surer bets than pitching draftees? That has kinda been our MO a year or two before every ring we've won in my lifetime. (Not that that has to be the only way.) I will say, I think we are headed in the right direction, although I'm not thrilled by many pitchers in the minors beyond maybe Drohan, E R-C and Perales. We've built up a pretty nice foundation of pitchers 29 and under 2ith 2+ years of team control. Other teams have better, but this is the best we've had in a while: Bello Pre arb Whitlock 3+ Houck Pre arb Crawford Pre arb Winckowski Pre arb Schreiber 3 arbs after '23 Farm: (SP's ranking and ETA) 5. Drohan mid '24 8. Perales mid '26 9. Mata late '23 12. Wikelman mid '25 15. E R-C mid '26 20. Murphy mid '24 is NOW 25. Guerrero late '26 27. Fernandez mid '24 30. Rogers 2026 I'm not sure we've seen this moderate promise since the Lester years.

Simultaneous slumps seems to happen more than chance seems to predict, but the flip side is, since most are where they should be on the season, they were all playing above expectations at the same time before the slump, and your O still sucked.

He's Hungry Like a Wolf!

I've been trying to avoid the game threads, until the game is over, but this 2-out rally really got me jacked! Duran seems to have made the adjustment to the adjustments made to him. Comeback player of the year candidate, right?

Look at the names of pitchers doing the best in the past 4 weeks: Hold onto your seats... Starters/Long Men .479 Pivetta .563 Bello .659 Whitlock .676 Paxton .685 Houck .745 Crawford, .754 Wink and .769 Sale(carried us through the start of the season) 1.141 Kluber The Short Men .356 Murphy (Long Man?) .407 Bernardino .485 Martin .493 Jansen .563 Ort .717 Garza (.833 Sheriff, .882 Jacques) 1.020 Dermody (Long Man?) 1.792 Joely (Schreiber on IL) It looks nearly upside-down.

I'm torn on this. I want an ace, like SEA got with Castillo, last summer, but trading away Mayer and Rafaela of Mayer and Drohan might be over the top, for me. (emphasis on "might.") I mentioned possibly trading Casas and Rafaela, last summer/winter and nearly got my head taken off. You gotta give talent to get talent, and buying it is a long shot dice roll.

One would and should expect better than that, and unexpected declines happen, often. The Sox saw almost all their returning vets decline, all at once, and some were in or approaching their prime years. Stanton turns 34, later this year. One would expect a dropping OPS, and that's what we see, His OPS dropped more, last year than it has this year: .887 2020 .870 2021 (-17) .759 2022 (-111) .708 2023 (-51) DJ turns 35 in a couple weeks. He dropped 300 points from 2020 to 2021, and he's just 32 below his '21 numbers, now- 2 years later. One might have expected more of a drop. Donaldson started his decline before going to NY. He turns 38 in December. .950 '16-'17 .875 '18-'19 .829 '20-'21 .686 '22-'23 He's actually improved on his '22 .682 OPS by hitting .724, so far. One could argue he's doing better than expected. Rizzo turns 34 in August. His decline started long ago, but he was still hitting well. ,914 '16-'17 .883 '18-'19 .775 '20-'21 His .817 in '22 could be viewed as a blip. .768 in 2023 is maybe higher than one might expect from the '20-'21 numbers and the age curve factors. I'm thinking much of this should have been expected, but people tend to look at teams and players as they used to be, and forget about injury proneness and age decline projections.

Houck will be out a while. Pivetta should start, until he returns. I never said give Pivetta a chance to stay in the rotation, all year, but with all our pitching injuries, he may end up there for a while. No Sale. No Houck. Pen is missing Schreiber, Joely, Bleier, Kelly and Mills

I was convinced Ben was going to make a blockbuster trade or two, before he left, but we'll never know. I doubt he'd have made all the DD moves. He might have traded for Jose Quintana not Sale. I doubt he makes the Pomeranz trade. Kimbrell? Who knows. It's hard to know what Bloom would do, if given a totally free hand. Many seem to think he would hoard prospects forever, but it's hard to know. For all we know, he may have asked JH for approval of going after top talent by trading prospects, and JH said no- or "not yet." The former seems more like it, but it's probably somewhere in between. Bloom will never wheel and deal like DD or Theo, IMO, but I do think he might surprise us with a big prospect deal every 3-5 years. He's gone 3.5 years and his biggest prospects traded have been Aldo Ramirez (Schwarber), Alex Scherff (Robles), Groome (Hosmer, Ferguson & Rosier) and maybe Chavis (A Davis) and Northcut (T Pham). That list is almost laughable. Not only has he rarely traded even midling prospects, the Groome trade also brought back prospects! Many trade he made were for just prospects or a vet and a prospect(s). JBJ w Hamilton & Binelas (Renfroe) Ottavino w F German (cash relief) Pivetta w Seabold (Workman/Hembree) Wink, Gambrell and 2 others with Cordero (Beni) Wong and Downs w Verdugo (Betts) Vets for prospects only: EValdez & Abreu (Vaz) Jacob Wallace (W Mills) Others, like Moreland, Pillar, Osich and others Plus a bunch of prospects for prospects like German for Denlinger and Aybar for Koss. A rare vet for vet trade only: McGuire for Diekman