moonslav59

No, he used RBIs for Renfroe and only Renfroe, because it fit is narrative, better. Career BA: .241 Renfroe- RBIs matter more .239 Kike- BA matters more

At the time of the trade, they said just min wage, but now the numbers vary from site to site. Basically, whatever we are paying him plus Groome got us Ferguson & Rosier.

OPS is a simple stat and clearly tells a better story than BA, alone.

How much are we paying Hosmer?

Personally, I think the league is just more balanced, but that means fewer great teams and not really 26 sucky teams.

Turner has a weird player plus team option that could give him a big raise. If Yoshida goes to DH, we will have to hope Turner says no, or we trade him.

Just about a run differential.

Our pitching has improved. Last 28 days OPS Against, listed in order of most PAs: (30+ PAs) .593 Bello .719 Houck .728 Paxton .696 Pivetta .680 Whitlock .701 Sale (IL) .654 Wink 1.164 Kluber (mop up duty, now) .670 Crawford .481 Garza .532 Jansen .453 Martin .658 Bernardino All I can say is WOW! These numbers are very encouraging!

We need to start a hot streak, like right now! As always, one game at a time! GO SOX!

Wow, it's COL or bust for you!

Hopefully, Whitlock will be added to the list of "must see" games. It's too bad we couldn't be using Houck and Whitlock in the pen, this year, but it is what it is. Even Houck's nice start vs the Yanks highlighted how great he is first time through, worse the second time, and usually awful the third time through, although he was not "awful" this time. Houck 2023 .486 1st PA in G as SP (.498 career) .837 2nd (.722 career) .901 3rd (.944 career) .516 first 25 pitches (.468 career) .610 26-50 (.656 career) .941 51-75 (.836 career) He does not seem to be improving on his career numbers, tis year. Whitlock 2023: .849 1st PA (.691 career) .512 2nd (.736 career) .900 3rd (1.100 career) .900 1-25 PAs (.643 career) .535 26-50 (.581) .673 51-75 (.800) 1.172 76-100 (1.059) These numbers clearly show both should be RP'ers, perhaps worthy of going up to 18 batters. Having a strong pen can help us by allowing us to yanke them, early, if needed, but that may take a heavy toll over the long term. With Crawford only going 3 IP, yikes! Bello & Paxton, now have to go 7+, basically every start. Maybe Pivetta earns another chance and can give us 7 IP per start, but I'm not holding my breath. (I've all but totally given up on Kluber, but baseball is full of miracle stories.)

Every team but maybe 3-4 suck.

I totally agree. Our catchers have not helped our staff much, either, as most pitchers have higher ERA, this year than last, with the exception of Crawink. Some of that is poor D all around, but our catchers have not done well, either. Hopefully, Story and Mondesi help improve the D at SS, 2B, CF (as Kike/Duran play more CF) and LF (as Duvall plays more LF) and maybe Turner at 1B more often and an improvement by Casas over the second half of 2023 will improve 1B, too. I hope the learning curve at catcher ends, soon. Devers is hard to predict. Dugo has done fine in RF.

Yes, I have agreed we blundered on not focusing more resources (not necessarily money via free agency) on the rotation, instead of offense. I was speaking directly to the idea that no $10M/1 contract can seriously be viewed as a major blunder. (Okay, maybe I moved the goalpost by saying "major," but personally, I can't view any $10M signing as a simple "blunder.") Yes, it was a major blunder not to acquire an ace or solid $2 type, somehow, last winter. I agree. Had we added an solid SPer plus Kluber, we would not be seeing the Kluber signing as a blunder, just a mistake. Maybe we are nit-picking with semantics, but I think you get my point. You get what you pay for on $10M/1 signings. Most are usually dice rolls with players having injury history or some beliefs there is some upside chances. Bloom has failed, miserably on his $10M signings: Kluber, Richards & Kike '23. He failed on the Barnes extension, which was almost $10M/1, when you factor in what we paid MIA to take him. We did so-so on the Ottavino acquisition which was almost $10M. The Martin signing was almost $10M x 2 and looks okay, so far. Turner is close to $10M x 1 or $10M x 2 and looks okay. The bigger signings are TBD: Devers (looks less good, now, than when we signed him), Story (looks bad), Jansen (looks good) and Yoshida (looks good.) His signings between $3M and $7M look better, for some reason, especially Wacha (l7), Hill (5), Duvall (7), Strahm (3), Kike (7 x 2), Renfroe (3), Paxton (10/2) The Diemnan $8M/2 turned out okay, thanks to the trade for McGuire that also saved us $5M. There were some bad and so-so signings between $3-7M, too, but not as many as good ones.

More hope there than a return of Chris Freakin' Sale.

Baseball is not a Democracy.

No doubt. Our pitching improved as our O declined. When our SP'ing started to improve, our pen had a meltdown stretch. Yes, that is the mark of mediocrity. My post was meant to offer hope, as our rotation has been the downfall of this team, so far and overall. I never thought it was going to be as bad as it looked at the end of April. Maybe The O was overperforming expectations, but I do think our O is top 10. The hope is, our pitching stays top 10, as it has been in the last 3-5 weeks and our O scores runs in the top 10 the rest of the way. The D might be our downfall, but even that should improve, when injured middle IF'ers return, and maybe Casas and our young catchers improve with time. Yoshida at DH more often can help the OF D improve, but Duvall in CF, instead of Kike or Duran looks like a down tick. Duvall in LF with Kike/Duran in CF makes our OF a plus on D, overall. Story at SS (or 2B) and Chang/Mondesi at SS or Kike/Arroyo at 2B makes the middle If way better than it has been. I realize, I may be overly optimistic, but it seems many here have lost all hope, or are thinking it will take nothing short of a miracle to make the playoffs or even finish 4th in the division. These other temas have weaknesses, too. Big one and multiple ones.

They thought Mayer would be gone. Why? Because they thought he was better than Lieter.

Excellent stuff, and one reason why taking SSs is usually the safer bet, and not just by a team like the Sox, who have a poorer track record at drafting good pitchers.

Whatever fits the narrative.

I'm not saying a $10M signing can't make a big difference, but my point was about what can be expected from a $10M/1 signing, and in that context, how can any signing at that money ever be viewed as a major blunder. Signing deGrom was a blunder. The Story signing is headed towards blunder. The Sale extensión was a blunder. The Kluber signing was a stab in the dark that missed its mark. So was Richards. The Wacha and Hill signings- both for less money- worked out better. Go figure!

Teams would likely take marginal talent, if we paid the full boat of the contract, but the returns would be low for marginal talent, too. Still, something is better than nothing, and maybe we fetch the next Wink, this way. Jansen & Martin would have trade value. Paxton might, if he is still pitching and doing well by the deadline. Arroyo and Kike might have marginal trade value. I doubt Duran will be traded, but this could be the last "sell high" moment, or it could be a mistake to trade him. Dugo has real value. Duvall might, depending on how he looks by August. I doubt we trade McGuire or Wong. Casas might fetch the best return, but he will not be traded, unless as part of a package for an ace, but that would mean we are buyers not sellers. We could determine that Wink or Crawford are at peak value and trade one, but IMO, we need to keep all our pitchers with even a sliver of promise, and both have more than a sliver.

As a rookie, he has not earned the respect of the umps, who seem to be calling more close pitches strikes than balls. He could easily have .025 added to his OBP with calls made fairly or in his favor. His D was supposed to be plus, so I'm not sure what happened there, but maybe it will improve, over time.

Good summary. I will add, the team is 7th in team OPS and tied for 8th in runs scored, despite being 11th in wRC+, so I would say that is better than "a little above average," but of late, they have been just that. The pitching has been about 10th in many key categories of measurement since the start of May or mid May, so maybe that can change by year's end. SP since May 13th: 4th xFIP at 3.91 8th in ERA at 3.84 8th in ERA- at 87 7th in K-BB% at 17% Yes, these are just SP'er numbers, and they include the 10 run game vs CLE a few days ago. 11th in fWAR at 2.1

The thing is, just about 25-27 teams in MLB share the same amount of roster problems as us, or more. Some teams have had more injuries than us, notably HOU and NYY, and yet they are still ahead of us, but can they sustain this over the next 90+ games? Our roster has several good things others don't have, but of course most teams have a better rotation, and that is huge. I've been encouraged by the improvement of our rotation over the last 5 weeks and even more in the recent small sample sizes. Some selected sample sizes: 5.14 Opening Day to April 29th. 5.09 Opening Day to May 15th. 4.22 April 30 to today. 3.96 May 26th to today 3.75 May 16 to today, including the 10 run game vs CLE on June 8th. (3.52, if you take away that one game.) 2.00 last 3 games Team Pitching Rankings: Since April 30th T8th xFIP- (96) 11th in fWAR 13th in ERA- (95) 15th in ERA (85) Since May 1th T7th xFIP- 6th in fWAR 8th in ERA- 10th in ERA It seems we have reached the top tier, if divided by 3. Now, the hitting has to improve and maybe the D can improve, when Story and or Mondesi return, or we stop playing Kike at SS.