moonslav59

Sound the bugles.

We haven't had extra starters. Paxton started the year on the IL. Whitlock missed a bunch of time. Bello didn't start until April 17. Crawford missed some time and has done much better from the pen. Some of the pitchers we have to start, instead of Kluber have records just as bad. 6.26 Kluber 6.19 Whitlock 6.17 Whitlock Houck has not been much better at 5.48.

WOO won game 1 Whitlock looked good. 4.2 IP, 4H, 0 ER, 1BB, 4K Goodrum went 4-4 WOO lost game 2 big Murphy is toast (3.1 7H, 6ER, 1BB, 5K) Dalbec, Alfaro and CHamilton homered POR swept Hickey homered in game 1 and Rosier 2-3 w 22nd SB Kavadas and Meidroth homered in game 2 GRE won despite Wikelman getting shelled Bonaci 2-5 w HR and many others had 2 hits SAL won, making the minors end up 5-1 on the day. 4 players had 2 hits

It looks like the Wong-McGuire catching tandem has come down to earth on offense, as both are under .700, but Vaz is under .600, right now. The tandem's D seems to be good and improving. The CERA aspect is still up for debate, but the rotation seems to be turning the corner. (Learning curve? Regressing to their norms?) Gotta give kudos to the 40 man roster depth: .951 Duran .866 EValdez .853 Reyes .767 Ref 0.00 Sheriff/Garza (4 IP combined) 2.12 Schreiber (I counted him as depth as many felt 2022 was a fluke.) 2.15 Wink (5th in IP) 2.45 Paxton (seen and SP'er depth) 3.51 Crawford (7th in IP) 3.65 Bernardino 3.68 Kelly These are 8 or our top 9 ERA leaders! (Only Martin is in the top 9 and was not seen as "depth" on opening day. Some viewed Bello as SP'er depth, too. (Not me.)

As they did with Cora, Reese and others.

I don't worry about LF defense in Fenway. I do a little more on the road, but when the SS position makes twice the plays as most other positions, it helps to have a capable defender there. That was one reason I was not for paying top SS dollars to Bogey, who was likely better at 2B or LF. That's not to say he wasn't or won't be a net plus, but his "plus" on D comes more from quantity over quality. Other SSs use the quantity of play and their superior quality to rightfully pad their WAR numbers.

I think most of us expected a rotation ERA of between 4.25 and 4.75 not 5.55. ERAs as SP ONLY: 2.45 Paxton 2GS 4.45 Bello 6 5.01 Sale 9 5.48 Houck 8 6.19 Whit 3 6.30 Pivetta 8 6.41 Kluber 8 8.00 Craw 1 Our 4 SP'ers with 8-9 GS are all between 5.01 and 6.41.

I don't think the pen should have been a surprise. We added Jansen, Martin, Joely and Houck was supposed to be in the pen. Yes, Wink and Crawford have been surprises out of the pen, but overall, I'm not surprised. What I'm most surprised about is just how badly our rotation has done. I knew it was a problem area, but I don't even think the 9 posters who predicted losing records thought we'd have a SP'er ERA of 5.55. Virtually every SP'er has underperformed projections by every projection service. Doesn't that more than the offset the "surprise" 30 games from Duran & 8 games from Duvall? To me, Casas has done worse than I expected. We have certainly gotten production from players I never expected, but I don't think posters fully appreciated the depth our roster had. They only looked at the losses at the top of the roster and who we replaced them with and underestimated that replacing the big 3 (Bogey, JD & Nate) with 6+ lesser but still very good players (Yoshida, Turner, Duvall, Jansen, Martin and Kluber- not so good, so far.) We've had a lot of our better players out with injury, too- more than I expected beyond Story. I expected Mondesi back, alreay. Paxton took longer. Whitlock, Crawford, Martin, Schreiber and others missed some time. Arroyo & Chang put a strain on middle IF depth. Duvall was off to a great start, then... All-in-all, I think the surprises have evened out: good vs bad.

Making a lot of routine plays does add value, and that's why DH's can never have a very high WAR. Here are the O numbers for fWAR: 9.8 Verdugo 5.6 Bogey 5.1 Yoshida 4.5 Devers Here are the D numbers: 6.8 Bogey (despite just a +0.5 UXR/150 and a rare +2 DRS) 0.1 Verdugo (despite blowing Bogey away on UZR/150 at 7.9 & 5 DRS) 0.1 Devers (has a much higher UZR/150 than Bogey +4.7, but plays 3B not SS) 0 DRS -5.3 Yoshida (-3 DRS and -9.6 UZR/150 w the "Fenway Affect.) As you can see, Verdugo has been a much better defender than Bogey, this year, but because Bogey makes more plays, he is given a lot more value for his D. I mentioned Dugo not Yoshida just to make the point clearer. Yoshida's D has hurt his WAR more than had he just DH'd all year. 2023 League Numbers: PO/Assists 1766/3370 SS (5,100+) 903/2535 3B (3,400+ 2860/98 RF (2,900+) 2400/56 LF (2,400+) LF has had less than half the total plays as SS. It's like saying a guy with 40 HRs in 600 PAs has more power than one with 30 in 300 PAs.

We are 8 games from reaching the third of the season mark. It's starting to get to the point where team identities can be better known. I'm liking what I see from this team, and way more than I did about the 2022 team, at this point in May, that was in the midsts of a 6 game winning streak that still would not get them to .500. This team fights back. This team shows energy and team unity after nice plays. Underdogs often pick up the stars that are struggling. They've overcome several injuries (not more than some clubs, but still our share, if not more.) The rotation is starting to take form, as 3 guys have seemingly grabbed their slots and Kluber has shown he can do a little better than how he started the season. The recent return of Whitlock and others might be offset by the loss of Schreiber and others, but we still have some major returns not too far away: Duvall, Mondesi & Story. I'm sensing some reluctant optimism creeping into some posters who were highly skeptical at the start of the season, and I know that can turn on a dime, as we saw a week ago, but I think this team deserves the optimism. Maybe it is actually realism.

Cora did start Kike over Chang, at the start, and my guess is because nobody thought he'd play that badly, the first 10 days. KIke is not as bad as his start indicated. Arroyo's injury also played a role in who played. People grab onto certain beliefs and won't let go. I think it is true Cora likes Kike as a player, and for a while, there wasn't much to dislike. Cora has shown he sticks with several players who struggle. Many felt Renfroe should have been benched after April 2021, and Dalbec by May and June of 2021. Many wondered why Duran was given another chance. Nobody is claiming they are best buds with Cora.

Some selected 2023 OPS .950 Duran (1.544 Duvall) .912 Gallo .892 DeJong .883 Kiermaier .872 Moncada .868 Betts .867 Verdugo .866 EValdez .863 Yoshida .859 Susuki .853 P Reyes .847 Devers .810 Renfroe .805 JD .796 Pillar .794 Turner .770 Bogey .767 Refsnyder .723 Schwarber .722 Dubon .721 Mateo .717 Drury .716 Conforto .695 Benintendi .694 Wong .692 Trea Turner .690 Chris Taylor .688 T Pham .684 Correa .677 Casas .677 Laureano .668 Berti .667 McGuire .662 Margot .660 Arroyo .657 Tapia .654 Kike .654 Machado .647 Springer .618 J Baez .610 Hosmer .572 Vazquez .558 Chavis .556 Myers .552 B Crawford .534 Andrus .532 Abreu .515 Chang .490 Dalbec .489 Donaldson .469 M Rojas .467 K Wong .431 JBJ .426 Wendle .424 Biggio

Despite losing 4 in a row and 6 of 7 in early May, the Sox have still managed to win 13 out of the last 19, since the end of April. It will be hard to keep up this pace, but we can hope... Hey, right now, we have the 7th best record in MLB and are very close to 3rd through 6th, but we are not too far from 13th to 15th, either.

He has really been okay since those first 6 or 8 games- whatever it was.

Scary ending, but ... NICE!

He's almost got his ERA below 5.00. Gotta love the groove he's found. We needed this.

His D drags down the WAR, and we knew about that, but your point still stands.

He looks good at the plate. I still need some convincing in the field.

EValdez> Reyes> Hornsby

Overall, and healthy- nobody. Reyes and Hamilton are closest. If Chang were healthy, I'm not sure I'd start him. He may be a little better than Kike on D but he's not even half as good as a slumping Kike. Arroyo or Dalbec at SS, Nope. E Valdez? LOL! Only Story and Mondesi are better, when healthy.

I'm not going to try to convince you Kike is a better defender than Chang at SS. He hasn't been cloe, this year. I will say this... I don't think Kike is as bad at SS D as he has shown, so far, this year. As bad as Kike has been on O, I'm not sure that will continue, but even as is, his OPS+ is more than double Chang's (74 to 35.) We also have to think about Story or Mondesi returning to SS, and Kike at 2B. Chang will be out of the picture.

That's what you said about Pedro Ciriaco!

Hell, Turner has those two beat.

Good point. An obvious shift in direction as 4 of those 5 guys were picked not drafted or signed as IFAs.

I think a lot of Sox fans are coming around to the same position.