moonslav59

Great SS defense is one of my favorite things to watch. Too bad, it has often been our opponent's SS doing the spectacular. The difference about this year, is that the surrounding cast sucks, too.

Fangraphs has these team farm rankings: Red= Playoff Bound 1. BAL 2. CIN 3. LAD 4. BOS 5. NYM 6. TBR 7. PIT 8. AZ 9. CLE 10. MN (These teams had good farms a few years ago, but many prospects graduated and are leading their team to wins, now: 13. NYY, 17. HOU, 21. TOR, 28. ATL) It is very hard to win and maintain a top 10 farm, every season. ATL, HOU, TBR and LAD have probably come the closest. I'm sure someone can add other teams or show I am wrong about one of those 4, I listed. 2021 top farms 1. BAL 3. TBR 8. NYY 9. BOS 13. LAD 22. ATL 25. HOU 2019: 1. TBR 3. LAD 6. ATL 10. BAL 24. HOU 30. BOS

It doesn't really bother me. It's more fun watching playoff games than regular season games, and it makes a ton of money, which helps pay for the drop in MLB attendance over the years.

SIX, which is more than double the amount a crapshoot would predict. Lost WS in 2003 (NYY) Lost WS 2004 (STL) 3rd best team (BOS) won Lost NLCS 2005 (STL) 2nd best team (CWS) won Lost in NLDS (NYM tied w NYY) and ALDS (NYY) 2006 Won WS (BOS tied w CLE for best record) 2007 Lost in ALDS (LAA) 2nd best lost in WS (TBR) 2008 Won WS (NYY) 2009 Lost in NLCS (PHI) 2010 Lost in NLDS (PHI) 2011 Lost in NLDS (WSH) 2012 Won WS (BOS) 2013 (STL tied & lost WS) Lost ALDS (LAA) 2014 Lost NLDS (STL) 2015 Won WS (CHC) 2016 Lost WS (LAD) 2017 to 3rd best team (HOU 101 wins) Won WS (BOS) 2018 Lost WS (HOU) 2019 Won WS (LAD) vs 2nd bestam (TBR) short season 2020 Lost NLCS (LAD) 2021 Lost NLDS (LAD) 2nd best team (HOU) won 2022 For a 5 year stretch the best team won 3 times and lost in the WS the 2 other times. That blows away any idea that the playoffs are random (or a true crapshoot.) To me, it's farther away from being a crapshoot than it is being one. Just my opinion.

A playoff contender!

The Yanks took away a near homer from Devers, a couple games earlier. It's not just our poor D that is hurting, it is other teams' plus D. The chasm is enormous. One big and valid criticism of Bloom is that his strategies seem to be all over the map. He trades Renfroe to improve the D and (Cora) refuses to play Dugo in RF, despite the disaster it became. Then, he trades for Pham, moves Dugo to RF and suddenly, Dugo is fine in RF. I'm waiting for him (and Cora) to wake up on no Kike at SS, this year. This year, I do think the plan was to improve SS defense, but it backfired. The idea was Casas would be much better than the Dalbec/Franchy calamity of 2022. It hasn't been much of an improvement. The OF was a punt on 3rd down, for defense. Had Duvall played LF, maybe it would not be horrific, and the miracle advance by Duran on D, made it not as bad as we might have expected. 2B was a know drop off, as Story moved to SS, but Kike/Arroyo are not bad at 2B. The catcher tandem has not met defensive expectations, although it was hard to know what to expect, there.

LOL, they were all breathing, too!

Max, it's all subjective. Some might call just last night's game "disastrous." It kinda was, even if a bit hyperbolic.

4 in 20 years may be significant, but it's also pretty close to a crapshoot, too. The rule changes that make it harder for winning and rich teams to build strong farms has given weaker teams a better shot. I think, before 2003, it was more of a crapshoot. More playoff games and wins needed counters this idea, though.

I’m not a playoffs are a crapshoot guy, but surprises do happen.

Exactly. We likely are not a 5.5 or 3.0 runs per game team. We might finish between 4.4 and 5.0.

I like Whitlock, Houck, Crawford and Wink in the pen, and what a unique and powerful thing it would be. Maybe revolutionary, even, but I doubt we can ever have that luxury, even with a 30 start season from Sale. We’d have to add 4 SPers or hope Pivetta can return to plus 5th starter status. Then it would still be 3! That would be expensive, either by money or prospects traded away- or both.

I don’t think that was the goal, despite the playoffs are a crapshoot beliefs.

Let the season play out, but as of now, I can’t disagree. I’ll make one point: if the JH plan was to just compete for a playoff slot, this year, regardless of what we wanted or expected, Bloom has missed the mark by 2-4 wins. Wait a week and we might be 1-2 GB a WC slot. (Not a prediction.)

We better hope Chang stays off the IL!

Indeed!

C Wong/ McGuire OF Refsnyder Maybe 4thSP Crawford or Wink.

That would be Chang then Story, but we shoulda got Iggy, faults and all.

Story might help, but not enough.

Scoring 2 less runs a game while allowing about a half run less.

Players with 1.3 years are not traded as often but could be. We could end up being buyers, or both.

Ellsbury, too, and then Kopech for losing Jake!

Hopefully until August 1st, at the latest. It is looking more and more like 2022, but I still have hope. (I know I am in a tiny minority.)

The Rays once had something like 11 picks in the top 80 by manipulating the comp pick system. The Sox were pretty good at that, too.

Drafting "unsignable players," late in the early rounds was also a huge advantage to big spending teams. The situation is much different, now. It is much harder to build a strong farm, especially if you are winning and/or spending over the line. That's not to say it is impossible, but only a handful of teams have done it on a consistent basis, since the rule changes.