moonslav59

Some mocks... Colt Enerson SS (HS) Emerson’s one of the younger players in the draft class and there are at least some scouts who think he’s one of the better pure hitters. I’m only hearing them with hitters, including college guys Shaw, Brock Wilken and Chase Davis; and high schoolers with Bryce Eldridge – who supposedly wants to go to a team that will also let him pitch – Houck and Mitchell as other possibilities. MLB.com has the same pick and adds, "Houck, Emerson, third baseman Aidan Miller or Peete would give the Red Sox a prep infielder in the Draft for the fourth straight year. Mitchell could be appealing as well. " Aidan Miller 3B (HS) mymlbdraft.com Tommy Troy 3B (Stanford) It's been a number of bats mentioned in connection with the Red Sox, and one of the best on the table at this point is Stanford's Tommy Troy. He's bounced around a bit defensively, but he should be able to stick at third base, where he has more than enough bat to profile. If Boston doesn't go with him, it's possible it looks at some prep hitters still around. -Sporting News. Justbaseball.com has the same pick...It is easy to fall in love with Taylor’s sweet swing from the left side, and there’s a decent chance a team ahead of the White Sox could. Should the draft shake out this way, it would be hard to imagine Taylor falling beyond 15. Taylor’s feel to hit is impressive, driving the ball to all fields with a smooth ease along with a great feel for the strike zone. The power presently looks average, but he has decently long levers with some more room for strength within his frame. He should have no issue sticking at third, but could play a solid second base as well.

Cora has led a team that has... used 27 pitchers and saw at least 30 games started lost by injuries to our top 5 SP'ers no fWAR leader in the top 45, and the one at 46 is named Jarren Duran. no fWAR pitching leader in the top 56, and the one at 57 is named Brayan Bello. the 68th best fWAR pitcher (Sale) on the 60 day IL I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. One more thing, many here, including myself, felt our roster needed more quality and not quantity, but this more balanced approach seems to be doing pretty well, especially in light of the fact that our recent rotation has... Sale on the 60 Houck on the IL Whitlock on the IL Paxton was on PAT leave Kluber on the IL (after pen demotion) Pivetta demoted to the pen Crawford seeing sometime on the IL I can't help but chuckle at those hyper critical of Cora. Most who are seem to have also hated the job Bloom did building this roster, yet somehow think Cora should be getting more out of this "crappy team." It literally cracks me up.

It would not surprise me. It would add some extra Bloom-bashing fodder, for sure.

Cora is a clear net plus, IMO. If anyone thinks he's a problem, I'll just say, we have much larger problems than him.

Am I reading this wrongly, or did you misplace a word or two?

I'm happy JD is doing well in LA. I'm glad he did not go to the Yanks, Jays or O's.

True. Maybe the Rays know what tweak is needed, and we don’t.

Well, they were in on Diekman and Littell.

My bad. .790 from opening day to May 19. 1.184 May 20 to June 10 .594 June 11 to July 6. 2.238 last 2 games. .872 for season is damn good. It was .837 on June 6th.

I agree on Duran being deserving of a gamble of playing FT (namely vs all lefties.) My point is more about Duvall and maybe Kike being deserving of playing vs all LHPs, too- and Yoshida, Dugo and Duvall, too. Someone once pointed out, to me, that Yaz was a career .693 batter vs LHPs and was never platooned. Great point, but when you look at those rosters, .693 was better than the other options, and Yaz played plus D. Duvall is a professional hitman. He's slumping, now, but he is way more proven than Duran. I'm not trying to slight Duran. I wish we could find a way to play them all- maybe not so much Kike v LHPs, but he does have an .800+ OPS vs them, career. To me, the odd man out is Duvall. We still have depth issues at middle infield, even with Chang's return and the pending Story return. Story may need to DH, at first. I think we keep Kike for all around depth, and he won't bring back what Duvall might bring back. Also, Refsnyder makes it 5 capable OF'ers and has been one of MLB's best hitters vs LHPs from 2022 to 2023- a way bigger sample size than Duran's. That's one of MLB's best hitters- not just the Sox. What's the "fair" or "right thing" to do with him?

JD's "monster season" was more like a monster April.

...and providing context does not equate to full-fledged support.

Yes, I agreed with that after someone pointed that out, the first time I said we may have failed to have a firesale due to the fear of the massive amounts of crybaby fans in Sox Nation. I cry about crybaby fans, a lot.

Not so fast. We may be buyers at the deadline, and that added $4M could land us a $12M player (who is owed $4M for the last 2 months.) It could be added to what we have to spend, now and land an even bigger fish or two.

I agree that trading Paxton is giving up on 2023, no matter who we trade for in other deals. I do wish we had traded everyone not nailed down, last season, so I can see the reasoning, if someone thinks we have no shot, this year, and maybe we all might feel that way by August 1st. As far as the fans go, I look back at 2022 and how totally happy everyone was when we did not trade away any big stars. I'm not sure any GM can ever make the majority of Sox fans happy, so maybe just doing what you think most helps the team, by balancing the here and now with teh future and extended future is what is best for the team. Imagine, if we had traded Duran and Bello for a good pitcher, last year. Maybe we throw in Casas and get Castillo. Many fans would have been happy. Is that all that should matter? Sox Nation has too many crybaby fans to ever make them happy.

Too many Cora apologists who think he can do now wrong. (Don't ask me to name names.)

Managers make thousands of decisions every season. If I disagree with a few, it doesn't mean I think Cora was wrong. The world is not black and white, to me. there is a lot of gray. In fact, it's mostly gray. If one disagrees with Cora on 5 or 10 things out of thousands, it's entirely possible to think he's still very good or even great. Here is my biggest disagreement: too much resting of players and not synching the days off ve wrong-handed pitchers. It bugs me, but I never think "I am right, and Cora is wrong." I know Cora knows a ton more than me, and may have information that would lead me to agree with the choice he made. I'm not sure I have ever criticized a singular game move by Cora. (I even defended the choice of leaving Pedro in the game, so long ago as having some merit.) If I were manager, we'd have a losing record, and I would not rest players as much. I'm not claiming I'm "right" or anyone is wrong. Having differing opinions need not be reduced to insisting the other guy is wrong for disagreeing with my opinion.

He has yet to prove he's an overall plus catcher, for sure, but it's hard to find even adequate catchers. He apparently had already proven he was a good defensive catcher, and I get the CERA concerns. I'm concerned, too, but I do think there should be a learning curve in that area. We have seen Wong improve greatly with our staff after the first 3-5 weeks. McGuire has not played nearly as much as Wong (for good reason and due to injury,) but he should improve there, too, if he ever plays with us, again. If he never does, I still like the $5M salary dump.

Well, I disliked the signing from day one, and although saving $5M is no big deal, I really like McGuire as one of our catchers. I like the Vaz trade better, but Abreu and EValdez have yet to prove anything.

Indeed. I'm not for benching Duran vs all LHPs, but I'm also not for benching Kike (in CF or 2B) or Duvall (in LF or CF) vs LHPs either. Cora has a tough call to make. To play them all, he'd have to bench Yoshida, Dugo or Turner. I don't think anyone likes that idea, either. One easy way to fix the "problem" is to trade Duvall (or Kike.) There would still be a squeeze, but not nearly as bad. If Kike keeps sucking at the plate, the choice will be easier. BTW, the wonder of small sample sizes, that HR by Duran brought his 2023 OPS v LHPs to .708, which is now higher than Kike's in '23 (.668) but not as high as Kike's career mark or Duvall's 2023 or career mark. A couple more HRs would change that! Nice "problem" to have.

I'm a huge Cora fan, too. It seems some people think just because a choice failed, it was a mistake. It's just not true. That's not to say he's never made mistakes, but I see a guy who can lead a group of vets to the best season in Sox history (2018), as well as a highly flawed team to within 2 games of the WS (2021). He's done a lot with what he was given. Many blamed him for poor pen management, lst year, when we had very few good choices. Has he suddenly learned how to manage a pen, this year? LOL. Some blame him for using Whitlock and Houck as SP'ers. What other options were there? As it was, even the other starters were mostly worse (Richards, Kluber, Perez and a hodgepodge of wannabes. I've had my differences of opinion on some things he does, but I'll never say he was wrong in those choices. He knows way more than I do.

Lefty righty spilt are not “metrics,” and they were around for decades. I’d love to see Duran play everyday and prove he can hit lefties better than he has. I’d also love to see Duvall hit lefties, and maybe Kike, too. Duran does bring more to the game than meets the eyes, and by the way, WAR has captured that very well, but he has sucked vs lefties and has to earn a FT role. Kike is a very good defensive CFer, too, and Duvall is not bad. They both have earned the right to play vs lefties- just not Kike at SS. It’s not an easy call. I’d be fine with any of the 3 vs LHPs. I can see why Cora wants to keep his whole team sharp. I can see why Duran should get a chance, too. Im just not sure now is the time to run the experiment.

The highest ranked prospects that were not rated in April: 32. Monegro 36. Dobbins 37. Blalock 46. Arias 47. Jacques 49. Lira 50. Yuten 52. Liu 55. Gambrell 56. I Coffey 57. J Ramirez 59. Sogard 60. Fitzy

Had someone said we'd be 4 games up on the Mets and 5 up on the Padres on July 8th, most of us would have thought we'd be having a very good year We are on pace to go 85-77 (very close to 84-78, too.)

Who would have thought BAL and AZ would be top 4 MLB teams. MIA and CIN top 8 teams. The Sox have the 15th best record. 14 better/15 worse. We are -1 from #14 MIL -1.5 from #13 SFG -2.0 from #10 TOR, NYY & PHI -3.0 from #8 HOU & CIN -4.0 from #7 LAD -4.5 from #6 MIA -5.0 from #4 AZ & TEX That being said, we are 5 games ahead of the 9th worst teams in MLB (SDP & CHC at 41-47.)