moonslav59

If Houck moves to the pen (and or Whitlock), we might have one of MLB's strongest mid-level (long men) pen in MLB: Houck and or Whitlock Winckowski Crawford (Even Schreiber can go 1+ or at times 2 IP)

So many posters seemed to blame most of the 2022 woes on the pen, and Bloom finally took it seriously. Adding Jansen, Martin, Joely and long shot Mills to replace Strahm, Diekman, Robles, Sawamura and Davis should have been viewed as a major improvement. Now, the rotation was a different matter. We lost or 3 best SP'ers: Wacha, nate and HIll, but again, look more closely. The 3 combined for 69 GS'd which is really just 2 full season starters + a couple starts. Expecting Kluber to fill one of those two slots was a stretch, but the $10M spent was more than he spent on Wacha ($7M) or Hill (($5M.) It was almost as much as those two combined, and not many had high hopes for Wacha/Hill, last winter. The other slot was left ro Sale & Paxton- two guys none of us wanted to count on. No doubt, the top of the rotation was a major dice roll that does not look all that good, right now, except for maybe Sale and Paxton going forward. It was okay, to me, to expect the same from Pivetta- not great/ not bad. Here is where I think some major improvement should have been expected: 14 Wink 5.89 12 Craw 5.47 11 Bello 4.71> expected more GS and a better ERA in '23 based on how he ended '22 9 Whitlock 3.45> expected more GS and a major improvement over Crawink's '22 ERAs. 4 Houck 3.15> expected more starts or a major pen help 5 Seabold 11.29/ 3 Davis 5.47> Filled by Whitlock/Houck/Crawink 2022 GS (ERA)

I found it weird that so many felt like losing Bogey and JD was going to be a big hit to the offense, when both did not produce all that much in 2022. When you consider Story and Duvall being out for almost the whole first quarter of 2023 and Kike, Casas and Arroyo starting off so slowly, it does seem a little surprising our offense has been this good, but the guys we have, now are not chumps. I do not disagree with your term "no-names," but guys like Turner, Yoshida, Verdugo and Devers have some history of very good offense, including very recently. EValdez and Duran might have surprised many, but they both have hit very well in the minors, and although many who do well in the minors fall flat on their faces, some do turn out okay. We've had some good extended depth show up, this year, and that is part of what I have pointed out about Bloom building up the 40 man roster depth and beyond from, perhaps a decades low point in 2020. Chang, Tapia, Valdez, Wong, McGuire, Refsnyder and even late additions like Reyes have all done some helpful things, this year. What might happen when Story & Duvall return? Even Mondesi could give us a big boost. What if Casas explodes? I'm still thinking, as Devers enters prime, he could have an out of this world season, too. We are seeing Dugo looking like he's on pace for a career year, maybe others will, too.

If he only goes 2 innings, sure, but if he goes 3-4, maybe not.

Yes. It might take time to learn the wall and all the quirks, but the ultimate saving grace of LF in Fenway, is that a misplayed ball is not going to get too far away from you, unless it takes some weird bounce off a corner. My ex brother-in-law called it the "pick the ball up when it stops rolling defense."

Indeed, and Schwarber might be worse on D and would not have made a big enough difference in 2022 to change the outcome. Would anyone trade Turner for JD? Wong/McGuire for Vaz/Plawecki? Duvall/Duran for JBJ? Kike/Chang/Reyes for Bogey? (Okay, okay) Jansen/Martin/Joely for Diekman/Strahm/Robles/Davis? Wacha/Nate/Hill for Kluber? (Okay, okay....)

Beni did have some good ratings in other years (+11 and +12 in '17 and '18). All-in-all: +23 in about 3600 innings w BOS +9 in about 2500 innings w KCR/CWS Small sample alert: 2022 Tommy Pham: -3 DRS w BOS (-9.9 UZR/150) +3 DRS 2 CIN (-4.1)

Certainly a questionable distribution of budget allotments, especially when you consider we have a lot of young and cheap everyday players on the roster and coming up, sooner than pitchers.

How about Hickey's start in AA? A great sign, or what? Yes, small sample size, but still... 22 ABs .318 2 7 (2 BBs and 3 Ks) .375 OBP .636 SLG 1.011 OPS Kavadas is waking up, after a slow start and a down ending to last year in AA. 91 ABs .231 5 17 (30 BB and 42 Ks) .427 OBP .418 SLG (surprisingly low but on the rise) .845 OPS Yorke is at .850, while Rafaela is at .657, so far. At WOO, the two eye-openers have been... Abreu (Vaz trade): 294 5 18 in 102 ABs (.393/.480/.874) 9 XBHs Hamilton (Renfroe trade): .269 8 20 in 134 ABs (.361/.507/.869) 15 XBHs and 21 SBs in 25 attempts I wonder what we end up doing with Alfaro (.864 OPS.) Does he have another opt-out date? Fitzy is off to another hot start (.972 w 7 HRs,) but one has to wonder, if he will fizzle, like last year. Greg Allen is at .814 with 21/21 in SB/Att.

He did cost a lot more, but yes.

He certainly has not looked plus. It's nice he has thrown out sa couple runners- I believe both in very key situations. BTW, on UZR/150 and the 29 LF'ers with 140+ innings in LF, he ranks 21st at -9.6. (Shows how bad many MLB LF'ers are on D.) His -3 DRS places him 25th, but he has less innings than Profar, also at -3, so he is really 26th. Perhaps Pillar is the same or worse at -2 in 146 innings as Yoshida is -3 in 210. Anyway you look at it, he has not been good. Maybe Duran can give him some pointers on how to improve his D in just months.

Yes, and I know the Sox were caught, at least twice and got very little punishment compared to the Astros.

Yes, but these are piddly-ass "catches," while the big suspected wrong-doings seem to slip by, mysteriously. (Of course, I could be wrong, and maybe every team is guilty to some extent, too.)

To me, this is a huge game for Bello. He needs to show he can put together some good stretches and not be so up and down. Wink should not be available, tonight, but the rest of the big names should be. With tomorrow off, it should be all hands on deck.

I'm I the only one who sees the German ejection as a possible bone thrown at the crowd who believe the league lets the Yanks get away with cheating?

Hard to know. I'm pretty sure we'd have signed someone else had we missed out on Dice-K, but yes, he was a big part of winning that year.

It seems like Fenway sometimes hurts LF'er's defensive metrics, but then again, maybe they all have not been all that good.

If he has one more bad stretch like his first 3 weeks, which is entirely possible, the doubts will be highlighted. I'm certainly liking what I see and think he is the real deal, but it is still early, even for an old foggie, IMO.

LOL! Your slippage is noticeable.

Indeed. Way too early to know much. The sample size is larger than the one some used to jump against the signing after the first 2-3 weeks, though.

Very true. I do think the cases you mentioned differ in significant ways. Rusney: I did not get the sense, this was their guy. It was more reactive to missing out on Abreu the previous year. Still, a big swing and miss. Dice-K: was a tough nut to crack. He was a very good pitcher, even with us, but I think the routine switch messed him up. That as hard to foresee. He wasn't a total bust, but when you factor in the posting fee... YIKES! Apparently, Sox scouts have been over-the-top high on Yoshida for years.`This was clearly the guy they wanted. It does not lessen the past mistakes, in any way, but it is a good sign, so far. (The season is still early.) I liked the signing, when made, and was glad we missed out on Abreu.

Last night, we kept pace with our two closest WC competitors (NYY & HOU, who also won,) and here are the updated WC standings after 43 games: +3.0 BAL (not sure they can stay here all season, unless they buy at the deadline, which hasn't happened in forever.) 0.0 TOR (has lost 2 straight but is 6-4 in last 10) 0.0 NYY (playing better, now at 7-3 in last 10) -1.0 HOU (keep promoting good, young pitchers to replace injured ones) -1.5 BOS (4-6 in last 10) -2.5 LAA (3-7) -3.0 SEA (6-4) One at a time, guys!

Maybe the Sox scouts actually knew what they were doing (on this one, anyway.) Maybe.

I was very high on Wacha, and suggested a possible QO offer, until I found out he was not going to get anywhere near that amount, due mainly to injury and durability concerns. I was surprised he signed for so low. $6.5M x 4 is just $6M over a QO for 1 year!

He's been tweaking his swing for years, so it's not a huge surprise that he finally found an approach that works. I was highly skeptical from day one on him. What shocks me the most is his defense. It is very rare to see a player at a premium position reinvent himself, virtually overnight. He went from sucky suck to pretty good in just a few months of winter focus and workouts. Good for him! Great for us! I'm sure pitchers will adjust to his new approach, and he may need to further tweak something to compensate, but I'm liking what I see, so far. I'm hopeful he can keep it up.