moonslav59

We are just about 1/3 into the 2023 season, and here are some of my observations: The offense has been as balanced as it has in a while. Our depth has been amazing. A look at the top OPS+ guys highlights that point, and we have 8 guys over 107 and 9 over 95. 303 Duvall (37 PAs is a tiny sample size) 131 Duran (coming back down to earth a bit) 130 Yoshida (not much talk of bonehead overpaying, lately.) 118 Verdugo (has slipped from his amazing start to '23.) 112 Devers (poised for an eruption?) 111 Valdez (the boost we needed at middle IF) 111 Refsnyder (perhaps silencing those who claimed '22 was a mfluke) 107 Turner (a traditional second half basher, so...) 95 Reyes (not sure he can stay here) 86 Wong (a nice OPS+ for a catcher, as Vaz was 98 last year and 86 '22-'23) 86 Tapia (has given some spark) 83 McGuire (injured?) 80 Casas (has been doing better but needs to continue improving) 77 Arroyo/ 73 Kike/ 34 Chang (needing the return of Story) OPS+ Against SP'ers 75 Paxton (small sample size but encouraging) 84 Houck (finding his groove) 100 Sale (started out very badly) 123 Bello (coming around) 135 Pivetta (what happened to the consistent 4.50 guy?) 140 Kluber (close to pen demotion) 155 Whitlock (needs to regain and quickly) RP (30+ PAs Against) 56 Martin (big help) 57 Wink (the year's surprise, so far) 79 Crawford (ditto with Wink) 89 Schreiber (perhaps showing 2022 was no fluke) 106 Jansen (was doing great until recently) 112 Bernardino (hasn't done badly) 128 Bleier (may not be around much longer) 131 Kelly (out for a while)

After the 10-1 beat down by the Mariners, the pen has not been all that bad: IP-ER 5/16: 3.2-0 (2 H+BB) 5/17: 4.0-1 (5 H+BB) 5/19: 3.0-0 (1) 5/20: 2.0-0 (2) 5/21: 6.2-2 (3) 5/22: 2.0-1 (3) 5/23: 1.0-2 (4) 22.1 IP 3 ER 1.21 ERA 20 BB+H 0.896 WHIP I think the pen is coming back around after a bad 6 game stretch with ATL, STL and that first game v SEA. Now, it's the bats.

All aboard on this. I understood why he held off on getting a top line starter from 2020-2022, because I don't think anyone felt we were an ace away from a ring before any of those seasons, but this was the turn-around winter. This was the big budget winter. This was the legacy building winter. I will say, his faith in Sale, Paxton and Bello have paid off, but we needed more- much more. I applauded the building up of the 40 an and farm, first philosophy, but he seemed to continue with the philosophy beyond its usefulness, at least on the rotation. His plan may still pay off. It seems Houck has made a serious move at securing the 4th slot in the rotation. That leaves one slot left, and many a team gets by with a weak #5. I no longer have 2023 hopes that Mata, Walter or Murphy getting a shot at the #5, but there is hope one of these three step up into the slot and succeeds: Crawford, Pivetta or Kluber. We are almost to the one-third mark. If the bats come back around, and we keep avoiding major blunders on D and the basepaths, we can probably get by with 4 good starters and a solid pen.

Some were against the idea, but I don't recall chastising, either. I was briefly for offering a QO on Wacha, too, until I realized he would not be getting any offers near a QO, last winter, but I did want to try and bring him back. Bringing Strahm back would have been better than Kluber, too.

Maybe the risks were too great on Nate, and although many here wanted Nate all along, this is kind of hindsighting.

Wacha year by year: better of ERA or FIP: 2.78 3.17 3.38 3.91 3.63 3.20 4.76 5.25 (short 2020 season) 4.47 3.32 3.48 (so far in 2023)

I agree. This is on Bloom. No budget "what ifs," on the Kluber choice. He could have spent more on pitching. He could have traded for one of the pretty good pitchers trades, this past winter. He chose to spend on the pen (good) and maybe too much on the offense. He may "absolve" himself, if we can find a solid 5 with or without Kluber doing well, or by making a deal at the deadline, but Bloom is being held over the fire on this.

There is so much "advanced metrics" out there, they can find something. Wacha seems to defy metrics. When his ERA is good, his FIP is worse or bad. When his ERA is bad, his FIP is better or good. If he's lucky, he's on one hell of a long roll.

It does seem to go hand in hand more often than randomness would suggest it might.

They did offer him a QO. Let's see how that second year plays out (and the rest of this one, too.) It's easy to find "what ifs" all day long. I've wanted to add at the top of the rotation for years, but I just did not see anyone on the market with real good odd at coming even close to earning his pay. Kinda knew some would, but how to pick that very few "some" is the hard part, and the part we get wrong more often than right, when it comes to starters.

Say goodnight.

Big night for the Sox farm teams... WOO won 13-3 Dermody w 11 Ks and 1BB (7IP, 7H, 3 ER) Hamilton homered twice. (OPS back up to .897) Sogard, Goodrum & Palka all homered Abreu 1-3 w 3B & 2BB Alfaro 2-5 w 2B POR won 6-4 Liu 5.1 IP 1H, 1ER, 4BB, 8K Scott w 2 HRs & 4 rbi Yorke 0-2 w 3BB Meidroth 1-3 w 2BB GRE won 9-0 Bastardo 4 IP, 3H, 0ER, 4BB, 6K Mayer w 2HRs (OPS to .963) 2-5 Paulino & Jordan SAL completed the minors sweep, but nobody homered twice. E R-C K'd 10 in 5 IP (1BB) but 3 ERs 3-3 Chacon w 3B Liendo homered 2-5 Anthony

Maybe he pretended Wong was catching.

He was drafted by the Sox in 2010, but did not sign. 3 years later he was drafted by the Padres. In 2019, he was traded for Jake Cronenworth & Tommy Pham 2020, the Rays non tendered him and he was signed by the Sox. 2021, the Renfroe for JBJ, Hamilton and Binelas trade. 2022, traded to LAA for literally junk. (Jason Junk, Elvis Pequero & Adam Seminaris)

Good thing McGuire has not allowed a BB, so far. If Wong was catching, the Angels would have 5 BBs by now. Sarcasm alert.

I looked at the schedule, the other day, trying to find a weak stretch, and I couldn't really find many. Kinda spread out in 3s and 6s. 3 v CIN next series 3 COL mid June 3@CWS & 3 v MIA for 6 straight end of June OAK for 3 B4 Allstar break then @CHC for 3 after, followed by @OAK for 3 more. That's 9 in a row- sort of. Starting AUG 8: 4 v KCR and 3 v DET then @WSH for 3 (another 9) Early SEP 3 @ KCR CWS for 6 starting SEP 22nd. Two 9 game stretches between July 7 and Aug 17 with all star break in between.

In the long run, Casas seems to be improving on O.

Maybe he settles into a key RP'er role.

Cole got lit up, too, but they are still in the game with the O's. BAL 5-4 after 6. It's good to know 2 of our division foes will lose, tonight. We need to use that as an advantage.

And, their massive run differential, up to today.

Stunningly bad. To think how well we have done, despite those numbers. Of the 100 pitchers over 40 IP, Sale is 22nd worst, so we have 3 SP'ers in the bottom 22!

https://www.fantasypros.com/mlb/park-factors.php#:~:text=Park%20Factor%20(PF)%20compares%20the,than%201.000%20favors%20the%20pitcher. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors

We seem to do better against good pitchers.

In February, I was hopeful one from Mata, Walter or Murphy could give us a mid season boost- not anymore. I'm not sure any will ever step foot on a MLB field. I have more hope in the farther away pitchers. I'm impressed by our young class in the bigs, right now- more so than I have since the Lester days.

It looks to be one of the better foundations in a while. SP has the ETAs of these kids: 2023: Mata 2024: Drohan, Walter, L Guerrero, R Fernandez 2025: Wikelman 2026: Perales, E R-C ??? Denlinger, Rogers, Dean, Paez, Encarnacion, Liu...